Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery earlier this year, was kept at a hospital overnight after she became drowsy and fell from her seat aboard an airplane. Court officials blamed a reaction to medicine.

Ginsburg was taken to Washington Hospital Center around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday by paramedics and released Thursday morning, court officials said.

Ginsburg, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia, was heading to London to take part in ceremonies marking the opening of Britain's new Supreme Court.

"Prior to the plane taking off, the justice experienced extreme drowsiness causing her to fall from her seat," a court statement said. "Paramedics were called and the justice was taken to the Washington Hospital Center as a precaution."

The statement said doctors attributed her symptoms to a reaction caused by the combination of a prescription sleeping aid and an over-the-counter cold medicine.

Ginsburg was still in Washington Thursday morning, court officials said. It was not clear whether she would still attempt to make the London trip.

Craig Johnson, the visionary Silicon Valley lawyer who founded Venture Law Group and more recently Virtual Law Partners, died Saturday after suffering a stroke. He was 62 and had just returned from a European honeymoon with his wife and law partner Roseann Rotandaro. The two had married on Aug. 15.

Johnson was perhaps the quintessential Silicon Valley startup lawyer. He had an unbridled enthusiasm for new ideas. Just like his entrepreneurial clients, he pushed the boundaries of traditional business models in law practice. And he was always onto the next big thing.

"He was constantly innovating, constantly thinking of new ideas and new systems dealing with startup law," said Larry Sonsini, chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. "Every time I saw him he was working on something new -- it was very much an 'on the back of the napkin' type of thing."

Johnson inspired a loyal following of lawyers and clients at Wilson Sonsini, where he started his career in 1975. But when he set out to found Venture Law Group in 1993, there was great skepticism that a law firm focused only on corporate startup work would succeed. The firm exploded with the tech boom, growing rapidly to more than 100 lawyers, and raking in millions with its investments in clients like Yahoo and Hotmail.

"Craig was a pioneer in Silicon Valley, and his vision helped drive the growth of the technology industry," said Jerry Yang, co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo, in an e-mail.

Venture Law Group stumbled when the bubble burst and was acquired by Heller Ehrman in 2003. After a few years outside the practice of law as a venture capitalist, Johnson again had a new idea: a virtual law firm on a grand scale. Last year, he launched Virtual Law Partners. His idea again met with skepticism, but in just a year, the firm has grown to 40 lawyers. And it has been hailed as the law firm of the future.

"He may have been a lawyer, but he was an entrepreneur at heart," said John Dean, a close friend and venture capitalist at Startup Capital Ventures.

Dean was one of the first people to find Johnson after he suffered a stroke last Tuesday morning at the office they share in Palo Alto, Calif. He was rushed to Stanford University Hospital, and was surrounded by his family until his death on Saturday.

As news spread Monday, Johnson's former colleagues reached out to each other over e-mail and in the hallways of law firms, like Cooley Godward Kronish and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe where many Venture Law Group lawyers now work.

"He was kind to everyone and he knew everybody's name and knew their families and their history and he really went out of his way," said Don Keller, a former VLG lawyer now at Orrick. "Everyone that knew him felt they had a special friend in Craig."

Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Edward McCabe, the former chief administrative judge in the county, is retiring Tuesday.

The 76-year-old judge is joining the Uniondale law firm of Sahn Ward & Baker as of counsel starting Wednesday. A breakfast is being held at the Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola Tuesday morning to honor the outgoing justice.

New York state law requires judges to retire at the age of 70, but they are allowed to apply for three two-year extensions. McCabe’s final extension is due to expire at the end of the year, but he said he preferred to leave earlier.

“There is life after this,” McCabe said in his near-empty office on Monday afternoon. “I am a very, very lucky person.”

McCabe has been a judge in Nassau for the past 23 years. Prior to that, McCabe served as town attorney for North Hempstead, Nassau County Attorney and an assistant District Attorney in Nassau County.

Former Sen. Mel Martinez did not stay out of work long. Following his resignation from the Senate, Martinez’s next job has him working as a consultant for a law firm with offices in Tampa and Washington, D.C.

According to the publication Legal Times, the former Republican senator will likely become a partner with DLA Piper beginning Oct. 1.

DLA Piper’s law firm said the company has 3,500 lawyers in 29 countries throughout the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

The company specializes in legal advice and business consulting.

The former senator would not be allowed to lobby for two years, but can still provide insight.

Martinez announced his resignation in August, though he had more than a year left on his first term. He said he was leaving to spend more time with his family.

Dave Frohnmayer, retired president of the University of Oregon, has become "of counsel" to the law firm of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, which has offices in Salem, Eugene and Portland.

In his role "of counsel," the 69-year-old Frohnmayer will take on special assignments but will not be a partner.

A former legislator, Frohnmayer retired June 30 after 15 years as university president, and had also been a professor and dean of the law school.

Frohnmayer is on a sabbatical from the university, but will continue to teach a freshman honors course in leadership.

A prominent lawyer trained at Harvard and Yale universities who admitted defrauding hedge funds of more than $400 million should be sentenced to 145 years in prison, prosecutors told a judge Wednesday.

Prosecutors cited the privileged education and his comfortable upbringing as they urged the maximum sentence for 59-year-old Marc Dreier. His lawyer, Gerald Shargel, said a sentence of between 10 and 12 1/2 years in prison was appropriate.

"Dreier could have pursued a rewarding and productive life as a lawyer, serving clients and the law, with compensation in the top few percent of the general population," prosecutors said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

"Instead, Dreier decided to seek vast personal riches and prestige through a life of fraud and through dishonor to his profession," they wrote.

In a letter to the judge dated Tuesday and filed with the court Wednesday, Dreier said he suffers "every day from the shame and self-loathing and regret with which I will always have to live."

He said his crimes were inexcusable.

"I expect and deserve a significant prison sentence," he wrote. He said he asked his lawyers to file his letter in the public record "in the hope that it may do some good as a warning to others not to follow in my path."

He said he has lost all his friends, his law firm, his law license and all he ever owned, along with causing unimaginable suffering to his family, including his 19-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter.

"I will always be remembered as a thief," Dreier wrote. "I have lost my past and my future. I have lost everything a man can lose. And now I will lose my freedom as well, and rightly so."

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs admitted he was involved in a scheme to entice a judge to rule in his favor in an asbestos case by promising he'd be appointed to the federal bench with help from Scruggs' brother-in-law, former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.

Scruggs, who already is serving five years in jail, was sentenced Tuesday to a seven-year term that will run at the same time, basically adding two years to his sentence. He was also fined $100,000.

Scruggs' name was also removed from a sealed indictment that has not been made public. U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee declined to give details about it.

Scruggs, who was in leg-irons and wore a dark suit during the hearing, told the court that the first time he pleaded guilty he had vowed to come out of the ordeal a better man, a pledge he renewed Tuesday.

"I acknowledge and own up fully to my role and responsibility," Scruggs told the court. "I'm going to do everything I can to make it as right as I can. I'm going to cooperate fully with federal authorities."

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson told Scruggs he had recently read a saying he thought was fitting: "The Romans had a proverb that money was like sea water. The more you drink, the thirstier you become."

Scruggs, who was led out of the courthouse in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, did not acknowledge reporters as he was loaded into a white van with dark-tinted windows.

Lott, who talked to Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter but ultimately recommended someone else, has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Scruggs, 62, gained national prominence and earned hundreds of millions of dollars in the 1990s with a case that led to a multibillion-dollar settlement from tobacco companies. His efforts were portrayed in the 1999 film "The Insider" starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

But his star fell last year when he admitted conspiring to bribe another Mississippi judge in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from Hurricane Katrina insurance cases. He was disbarred and is serving a five-year sentence in a federal prison in Kentucky.

The judge recommended he be moved to a prison closer to his Oxford home to be near family and the federal authorities investigating the bribery case. Scruggs asked to be sent to the same Arkansas prison where his son is jailed for knowing about the Katrina bribery scheme and not reporting it.