Duval allowed a lawsuit against The Allstate Corp., The St. Paul Travelers Companies Inc. and other insurers to proceed, but said the issue of "flood exclusion" could be appealed by the companies.

A hearing on the appeal was held Wednesday at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel heard arguments from lawyers for policyholders and several insurance companies. Rulings from the appeals court often take months but Judge Carolyn King, one of the three judges, said a decision would come as quickly as possible.

"This case is not just going to take in the queue. It's going to the head of the list," she said.

Insurers say their homeowner policies do not cover damage from any type of flooding, including water from the levees that broke in the aftermath of the Aug. 29, 2005, storm.

"The generally prevailing meaning of the word flood includes what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina in this city," Richard Doren, lawyer for Lexington Insurance Co. argued Wednesday.

The insurance industry stands to lose an estimated $1 billion ($740 million) in Louisiana if policyholders successfully challenge companies' refusal to cover damage from levee breaches, said Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute in New York.

In court papers, a lawyer for policyholders with consolidated cases against insurers said Duval properly concluded that the definition of "flood" in policies is limited to "naturally occurring events."

But plaintiffs' attorney John Ellison accuses insurers of purposely not defining the term 'flood' and deliberately drafting vague policy language "to frustrate the reasonable expectations of Louisiana homeowner policyholders from whom they collected premiums for years."

"It's difficult to think of a more important or significant issue that needs to be resolved with respect to Louisiana law," Ellison said Wednesday.

Lexington Insurance Co. attorneys argue that punishing insurers for failing to define common words like "flood" could force them to engage in "defensive over-specification, which would inevitably lead to longer policies that are less comprehensible to most policyholders."

Duval agreed last year to dismiss State Farm Insurance Cos. from the litigation. He ruled that State Farm's policies included language that clearly excluded all flood damage, regardless of the cause.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers wrote the new guidelines after the Supreme Court split a year ago in a case about which waters fall under the Clean Water Act.

Because of the split decision, lower courts must decide on a case-by-case basis if the law applies to smaller water areas.

Four justices said the law was restricted to protecting navigable waters such as lakes and rivers, and bodies connected to them, while four argued the law had a broader reach.

The new guidelines were intended to help workers in the field determine if a waterway fell under the act, using the argument of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who did not join either side in the decision.

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, told reporters during a conference the new guidelines would provide greater consistency and predictability for the public.

Now his agency will regulate waters large enough to be used by boats that transport commerce, along with wetlands adjacent to them. It will decide on a case-by-case basis to regulate other tributaries that may affect main waterways.

'In effect, the EPA and the Corps are taking their field staff and the public out to the woods, blindfolding them, spinning them in circles, telling them to 'go west,' and calling that guidance,' complained Jon Devine, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The EPA's new policy does not offer clear instructions to scientists in the field on how to protect surface waters, Devine said, and would eliminate protections for many streams. He also said the case-by-case decisions would inspire an onslaught of lawsuits and public confusion.

John Woodley, Assistant Secretary of the Army, said there would be no way to measure changes from the guidance.

But, he said, the waterways in the Supreme Court case would have been considered wetlands according to EPA's new guidance.

Angered by the Supreme Court's split, Democratic lawmakers last month introduced the 'Clean Water Restoration Act' that would drop the word 'navigable' from the original law.

Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat sponsoring the legislation, said the single edit would make clear that the EPA must also protect watersheds, which are often creeks or estuaries where water has collected.

Senior Circuit Judge Donald Walter presented the hypothetical situation about Hitler to American Civil Liberties Union attorney JoNel Newman, asking her if a school board would be allowed to remove that book from library shelves.

Newman answered by saying that the book about Cuba was a geography book about daily life on the island, not about Castro.

"The political reality in Cuba is not what the book is about, " Newman said. "The School Board can't remove it because it wishes to inject a political message into it."

Board members voted last year to remove the book after a parent who spent time as a political prisoner in Cuba complained. Cuban-Americans, most of them anti-Castro, have significant political sway as the largest ethnic group in Miami.

In seeking to remove the book, the board overruled the decision of two academic advisory committees, as well as the county school superintendent.

But another parent and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida challenged the removal. A federal judge ruled last summer that the board's opposition to the book was political and that it should add books of different perspectives to its collections instead of removing the offending titles. The ACLU contends that diverse opinions should be represented in school libraries.

Circuit Judge Ed Carnes presented his own hypothetical, asking Newman if a book about North Korea could be pulled from shelves because it failed to mention problems in that Communist government.

Newman countered by saying such political discussions shouldn't be required for books for elementary students, arguing whether a book about the Great Wall of China must mention Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung.

On another issue, the third member of the appeals panel, Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, asked if a book had to be part of the curriculum or required reading in order to be removed from school libraries, where it was available for checkout on a voluntary basis.

"If a book is educationally unsuitable, it can be removed, " said Richard Ovelmen, the School Board's attorney.

Also at issue is whether the ACLU has standing to file its legal challenge.

The court hasn't indicated when it would rule.

"Today's decision is an important victory not only for Atlantic Yards but for Brooklyn as well. This decision means we are one step closer to creating over 2,200 units of affordable housing, thousands of construction and office jobs and bringing the Nets to Brooklyn," said Bruce Ratner, president and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies.

Their suit’s chances, say project opponents, are best if the case remains in federal court. That is why they say they will appeal the ruling issued today by Judge Nicholas Garaufis to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

“Part of the reason we have a better chance to win [there] is because the federal courts are much more familiar with constitutional issues and are less susceptible to political pressures,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Matthew Brinckerhoff days before the ruling.

A federal magistrate judge had recommended in February that the case belonged in state court. Judge Garaufis disagreed, but dismissed the case on its merits.

Another suit by opponents, challenging the process by which the state reviewed and approved the development, remains pending. But the eminent domain lawsuit was considered the greater threat to the project.

The crux of Mr. Brinckerhoff’s argument was that the condemnations do not have a primarily public purpose, as required by New York’s eminent domain law.

The panel created by Governor Tim Kaine to study the Virginia Tech shootings has hired an outside law firm for advice.

The international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom will work with the panel on a pro bono basis. The states' attorney general's office has been advising the panel, state police and Virginia Tech.

According to the panel's chairman Gerald Massengill, because of the independent nature of the panel, outside counsel was necessary to provide legal advice.

Governor Kaine created the panel in order to study the circumstances and responses surrounding the April 16 tragedy.

McCarter & English has spent the past five years aggressively expanding its reach along the eastern seaboard, following a growth plan spearheaded by firm Chairman Andrew T. Berry and managing partner Lois M. Van Deusen from its central office in Newark, N.J.

Now the firm is expanding in a different manner. With Van Deusen retiring after 29 years at the firm, management reins for the first time are being handed to a non-Newark attorney. Partner Eric Watt Wiechmann, in the firm's Hartford, Conn., office, recently was named deputy managing partner. He is scheduled to replace Van Deusen on Oct. 1.

Wiechmann's rise to the top of the 416-lawyer firm began when he joined McCarter's executive committee immediately after he and Berry orchestrated the firm's 2003 acquisition of 30 lawyers from Stamford, Conn.-based Cummings & Lockwood, the firm for which Wiechmann served as managing partner in its Hartford office. Wiechmann was appointed to McCarter's compensation committee approximately six months later.

Last month, McCarter's executive committee voted Wiechmann to be Van Deusen's successor. Berry will remain as chairman, a position he's held since 1997. In that role, Berry is still able to devote roughly 80 percent of his time to his insurance litigation practice for well-known clients such as Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Wiechmann, who turns 59 this year, said he will temporarily suspend his products liability practice in order to manage the firm full time. He noted that he might return to active practice after his stint as managing partner, a term that lasts three years with the opportunity to serve longer, he said.

Though excited about guiding a firm in the midst of a growth spurt, Wiechmann said his desire to continue trying cases makes the move somewhat bittersweet. "You don't do something this long [33 years] for the money," Wiechmann said. "I've done it because I love being a trial lawyer."

Though Wiechmann will spend more time traveling to and from Newark and McCarter's seven other offices, Hartford will be his home base "for the time being," he said.

NEW MIND-SET

Van Deusen, who has worked for no other firm since her admission to the bar in 1978, became McCarter's first full-time managing partner in 2002 when she transitioned away from her active high-end real estate investment practice and her primary client, Prudential.

At that time, Van Deusen was "one of a small handful of women in the country who was managing partner of a law firm with more than 250 people," Berry said.

"She always conceived it would be her last job with the law firm. It was her choice [to retire], not ours," he noted. "[Managing partner] is a tough job, and she's done it well for five years."

Van Deusen, who spent five years as a grade school teacher before entering law school in the early 1970s, said she decided two years ago to retire at the end of the 2007 fiscal year. Though she has no definitive plans for retirement, outside of traveling, she said she will remain active as a board member for organizations such as the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and Habitat for Humanity in Newark.

"I'm sure after this high-powered, stressful existence it will be a challenge to slow down," Van Deusen said.

Easing into retirement was no stroll into the sunset for Van Deusen. She took over as managing partner at a time when McCarter was on the verge of its growth spurt. As the firm redefined itself, attorneys were required to streamline their practice into a single discipline, or two complementing ones, rather than multiple practice areas, Van Deusen said. At the same time, McCarter's compensation structure became merit-based, and attorneys were broken of the mind-set that the firm's offices operated independently; instead, Van Deusen noted, practice groups began to cross over state lines as the firm expanded its reach.

McCarter acquired Boston-based Gadsby Hannah last June and now operates offices in Boston, Hartford, Stamford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Wilmington, Del. The changes "made us more modern and nimble," Van Deusen said. Washington, D.C., is the next likely market destination, Van Deusen indicated, before the firm sets its eyes westward.

The firm's expansion under Berry and Van Deusen created the right opportunity for McCarter to consider a managing partner who was located outside of New Jersey, Berry said.

"Our first managing partner had to be home-grown, so to speak, just for the emotional part of things," he noted.

Wiechmann said that under his management the firm will remain focused on expanding practice areas and markets. "We're always looking to grow," he noted, "but nothing has developed to the point that I can discuss it."

After 14 years in politics, former state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, is moving on from the Legislature -- but he's not moving very far from politics.

Morrow announced recently that he has partnered with a San Diego attorney to form a new law firm. It will specialize in political and government affairs, and will take on a wide range of legal cases, Morrow said.

"Wouldn't you know that wherever I landed, it would be in the middle of law and politics?" Morrow wrote in a recent e-mail to the North County Times. "That's just where I want to be."

Morrow, who practiced law before politics, joined with Peter Lepiscopo last month to form the new firm, with offices in San Diego and Sacramento.

The two became acquainted when Lepiscopo represented Morrow in a widely reported 2005 lawsuit to force the Carlsbad Unified School District to rescind its cancellation of a town-hall meeting on immigration on school property.

Morrow has a bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA and a law degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu. After law school, he joined the Marines, where he spent much of his time as the chief trial counsel at Camp Pendleton. He later practiced law in San Diego before running for the Assembly.

The former lawmaker, who left the Senate because of term limits, suffered a broken leg in a horseback riding accident in October, he said. He has recovered from his injury but still carries a cane with him, he said.

Speaking recently from his San Diego office, Morrow also said he was getting used to working without the help of a staff after 14 years in Sacramento. He is learning to use a computer and answer e-mails on his own, the 53-year-old former senator said.

"That has been an adjustment," he said. But the recovery after the injury "gave me time to learn how to use the computer and the Internet. I'm still learning, but I've come a long way."

The new law firm, called Lepiscopo and Morrow, LLP, will capitalize on Morrow's government experience, he said. Though state law prohibits the former senator from lobbying directly for one year after leaving office, Morrow said the firm may hire others to work as lobbyists.

Morrow said he doesn't plan to become a lobbyist himself, but said he may supervise others instead.

"It's not my desire to be a registered lobbyist," Morrow said. "There are certain requirements, and I'll be consistent with the law, but I don't want to be a lobbyist myself."

A self-described conservative lawmaker, Morrow worked to curtail "frivolous" lawsuits, counter illegal immigration, reduce state spending and fight new taxes. Morrow stirred controversy two years ago by aligning himself with anti-illegal immigrant groups, such as the Minutemen.

In 2005, Morrow attended a border-watch vigil held along the San Diego County portion of the U.S.-Mexico border by a Minuteman group based in Oceanside.

State Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Carlsbad, who won Morrow's seat, praised the former senator.

"He left a great conservative record as someone who believes in the free market, limited government, people taking personal responsibility and of being tough on crime," Wyland said.

Morrow said he has not ruled out running for public office again, although he said his options are limited.

"I've done my time. I've expressed my ambition of running for Congress," he said. But "I can read the tea leaves and I know that the people who are there are going to be there for a long time."

The conservative Republican lost a special election last year for the 50th Congressional District seat formerly held by the now-imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham -- an election in which Morrow captured only 5.37 percent of the vote.

Fellow Republican Brian Bilbray won the election in a field of 14 Republican candidates. Bilbray then went on to beat Democratic opponent Francine Busby in a June runoff to replace Cunningham through the end of the year and won an election in November to fill the seat for a full term.

Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, said Morrow's career path after the Legislature is not unusual. The law firm will allow him to wait while an seat opens or he can stay and influence policy through his work, he said.

"It can work either way, there are former legislators that go into lobbying and then come back to office -- Brian Bilbray comes to mind," Pitney said. "Or they can stay in lobbying and make a lot of money."

Morrow said part of what attracted him to legal work was his interest in constitutional law and conservative advocacy. One of his firm's clients is the Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit legal group that often advocates for religion to play a greater role in public life.

The institute is one of the leading proponents of keeping the Mount Soledad cross as part of the veterans war memorial in San Diego. In 1989, a City Heights resident sued the city, claiming that the 29-foot cross on city property violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

In August, President Bush signed federal legislation expropriating the cross and placing it in the hands of the Department of Defense as a national memorial. But the legal fight over the cross continues.

"As a state senator, I was involved in the political battle to save the cross," Morrow wrote in his e-mail. "As an attorney, I will be directly involved in the legal battle as well."

Jim McElroy, the attorney representing those opposing the cross, disagreed. He said Morrow's law firm represents an advocacy group that is not directly involved in the lawsuit and therefore has little influence on it. The lawsuit involves the federal government, the city of San Diego and his client, McElroy said.

"He's had no involvement to date, and I don't expect that he will have any involvement in the future," McElroy said.

-- Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.