The court next month will hear arguments in a challenge to the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, the most important gun rights case at the Supreme Court in 70 years.

Fifty-five senators and 250 representatives have signed onto a brief that urges the justices to strike down the ban and assert that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns for their protection.

"The Supreme Court has the perfect case to affirm ... a Second Amendment right to own a gun for self-defense," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said at a Washington news conference Thursday.

Nine Democrats in the Senate and 68 in the House joined much larger Republican contingents in signing the brief, which is expected to be filed Friday.

The main issue before the justices is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or instead merely sets forth the collective right of states to maintain militias.

The Bush administration also supports individual gun rights. But the administration said governments still may impose reasonable restrictions on gun ownership and asked the justices to send the case back to lower courts without deciding whether the handgun ban fails that test.

Hutchison and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who also signed the brief, agreed that some restrictions are valid but said the court should declare the handgun ban unconstitutional and set a clear limit beyond which governments may not go to restrict gun ownership.

The California Supreme Court has set arguments in the legal fight over gay marriage for March 4, assuring that a ruling will be issued by June.

The state's high court will hear the legal challenge in San Francisco, where the battle over same-sex marriage first unfolded four years ago when Mayor Gavin Newsom temporarily issued marriage licenses to gay couples.

San Francisco city officials and civil rights groups have challenged California's ban on gay marriage, arguing that it deprives same-sex couples of the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

A divided state appeals court in 2006 upheld the state ban on same-sex marriage, overturning a San Francisco judge who previously declared it unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court will be reviewing that appeals court ruling.

The justices must rule within 90 days of the arguments.

"There is a sense of complacency in the meat industry that believes, `Hey, we solved that problem and we don't have to watch it so much,'" says Marler, whose career has proved otherwise.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that food poisoning each year afflicts some 76 million Americans; 300,000 require hospitalization and 5,000 die.

Many victims end up hiring Marler, who took his first food poisoning case in 1993, during the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak in the Pacific Northwest that sickened hundreds and killed four children.

"Bill was certainly at the right place at the right time entering the field of food safety litigation," says Caroline Smith DeWaal, who is in charge of food safety at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "I see him in kind of a private attorney general role."

Marler, 50, operates three dozen Web sites dedicated to food-borne illnesses. He is a tireless blogger on all things food safety and appears in front of federal and state lawmakers and regulatory boards. The license plate on his wife's Volkswagen reads ECOLI.

In all these cases, Marler has gone to trial just once, winning a $4.6 million verdict against a Washington state school district where 11 children got E. coli poisoning in the cafeteria.

Instead, he adroitly uses his sympathetic clients — and the media — to shame food producers into settling.

"I don't apologize for that," he says. "The publicity helps generate change."

The past year has been a busy one for Marler's six-lawyer firm, which has about 1,000 active cases in all 50 states. The clients typically pay their lawyers 25 to 35 percent of their settlements.

The targets of Marler's lawsuits include the Topps Meat Co., which recalled 21.7 million pounds of its hamburger patties in September — the second-biggest U.S. beef recall ever — then went out of business. When Cargill Inc. recalled 840,000 pounds of beef patties the following month, it brought more lawsuits by Marler.

He is also suing ConaAgra Foods Inc., which recalled its Banquet chicken pot pies and Peter Pan peanut butter last year after they were found to be contaminated with salmonella.

"He's a good lawyer and he does a fine job for his clients," says Leo Knowles, ConAgra's top lawyer. "He's passionate about food safety. At times he's a little bit overly dramatic, but I think he's genuine."

Marler continually implores the food industry to "put me out of business" by adopting more stringent safety procedures. He sent the lettuce industry a letter in 2006 in which he called on growers to stop using irrigation water contaminated with cattle and human feces, to wash fruits and vegetables more thoroughly, and to provide field hands with bathrooms.

"These steps will help make our food supply safer and will enable us to keep our most vulnerable citizens — kids and seniors — out of harm's way," he wrote. "And, with a little luck, it will force one damn trial lawyer to find another line of work."

Marler holds degrees from Washington State University and the Seattle University School of Law. He has no formal scientific training but has immersed himself in microbiology and DNA tracing, and his firm has a scientist on staff on whom he relies.

Marler handled about 150 cases from the deadly 2006 E. coli outbreak involving California spinach, settling roughly half those cases so far with companies such as Dole Foods. Among the clients whose cases are still unresolved is 3-year-old Ashley Armstrong of Indianapolis, whose kidneys were so damaged she will have to take medication for the rest of her life and will probably need a transplant, according to her mother.

He also has been settling dozens of cases against Taco Bell stemming from a 2006 E. coli outbreak that sickened 71 people in five states.

Marler fell into food safety litigation almost by accident.

Brianne Kiner, 9, of Seattle was the first among hundreds who fell ill in the Jack in the Box outbreak. Six lawyers trekked to her bedside during the six months she spent in the hospital, hoping to represent the family. The Kiners hired Marler, a young associate at a mid-size law firm who had never worked on a food case.

"I wanted a young, hungry lion," recalls Suzanne Kiner, Brianne's mother. "He was also the only one who looked at her and teared up."

Against all odds, Brianne survived and lives in a house bought with some of the $15.6 million Marler extracted from the restaurant chain for the Kiners. But Brianne, now 25, still suffers from high blood pressure and immune system damage that makes her prone to colds and flu.

"I call him Uncle Bill," the young woman says. "I think it's incredible what he did, and I'm very thankful that he helped me."

Marler says: "When I started doing the Jack in the Box case in 1993, I never dreamed that I would be doing this in 2008. Unfortunately, it never seems to slow down."

Class Actions for Non-Class Action Lawyers is the title of a CLE seminar being offered by the Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA).

The program will take place on Thursday, February 21 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the LACBA Conference Center, 281 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

This program is designed for attorneys interested in helping individual and business clients understand when they have been victimized in a manner creating class-action claims, whether involving consumer-fraud schemes, price fixing or market allocations conspiracies, mass-tort injuries, or wage-and-hour schemes.

Speakers will include Alexander Barnett, The Mason Law Firm, LLP; Vincent J. Esades, Heins Mills & Olson, P.L.C.; Valerie G. Esch, Wells Fargo Bank; Gregg A. Farley, The Farley Firm, and Daniel R. Karon, Goldman Scarlato & Karon P.C.

For details on registration fees and available CLE credits, see the Bulletin Board on The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel website at www.metrocorpcounsel.com.

But that strategy may also falter when the Senate votes next week on the $193 billion economic stimulus bill that has been expanded over what already was approved by the House. Both President Bush and Senate GOP leaders have warned against adding to the House-passed bill.

But as it emerged this week from the Senate Finance Committee, among the items added was a string of energy tax credits aimed at helping people lower their heating and cooling costs and give a boost to wind and solar energy industries.

The efficiency measures — including tax credits for retrofitting homes with more energy efficient windows, insulation and furnaces — expired in December. The other tax breaks are set to die out at the end of this year. The economic package would extend all of the credits to the end of 2009.

Wind and solar industry lobbyists and energy efficiency advocates have pushed for the tax extensions, which have bipartisan support, but efforts to get them into the energy bill enacted just before Christmas failed because of an unrelated dispute over taxing large oil companies.

With lawmakers facing political pressure to respond to the threats of an economic recession, the stimulus package was seen as a way to prolong the energy tax breaks.

"The stimulus package should underscore the nation's commitment to energy efficiency and alternative energy," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, arguing for including the tax incentives, despite GOP leaders' opposition to adding to the $161 billion House bill.

Although the energy tax provisions would be extended only to the end of 2009, if they were to continue over 10 years the cost to the government would be $5.75 billion, according to the Finance Committee.

"Investors need certainty. They won't put their money out for a wind energy facility unless there's a reasonable expectation that tax incentives will continue into the future," said Grassley.

The bill includes incentives to spur production of wind farms, biomass energy plants and investments in solar energy plants. It also includes a tax break for making the most efficient appliances and for ultra-energy efficient residential and commercial buildings.

It also would provide tax credits up to $500 to reduce the cost of installing insulation, more efficient furnaces and windows in homes. Approved by Congress in 2005, these credits expired at the end of December just as consumers faced huge increases in fuel costs for winter heating.

The efficiency tax breaks, which would be reinstated for two years, can help to "combat spiraling home energy costs that are expected to average roughly $2,200 this year," said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group.

Separate provisions aimed at manufacturers and builders would extend tax credits intended to develop the next generation of energy efficient appliances including clothes washers and refrigerators, and for constructing ultra-energy efficient commercial and residential buildings.

Renewable energy industries — wind, biomass and solar — have argued that longer term tax credits are essential to provide assurance to investors in wind turbines or biomass. The bill would extend tax credits for such electricity sources through 2009.

Wind energy grew by 45 percent last year, but continued growth has been jeopardized by the uncertainties over the production tax credit, said Greg Wetstone of the American Wind Energy Association.

"Investors are reluctant to make commitments until they know what the tax policy will be next year," said Wetstone, adding that enactment of the tax extension is "pivotal for one of the fastest growing sectors of the American economy."

The solar energy industry also has argued that certainty on tax policy is key to attracting investors.

"While the solar industry will continue to press for longer extensions (of tax breaks) for commercial and residential projects, this is a win for solar energy and for our economy," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

In court documents filed Wednesday, State Farm said Scruggs and Hood were conspirators in an "extortion conspiracy."

Hood issued a statement denying the allegations.

"In an attempt to goad the media into writing another article about their suit, State Farm continues to add more irrelevant, inflammatory and frivolous allegations," Hood said. "I hope the learned members of the media recognize this fact and refuse to fall for their game."

An attorney for Scruggs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, a copy of an e-mail from his attorney, John Keker, was entered into court records. The e-mail from Keker to a State Farm attorney says Scruggs does not plan to participate in Friday's deposition because Keker will be out of the country and unable to represent him.

Scruggs will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if forced to submit to questioning in the State Farm lawsuit, Keker's e-mail said.

State Farm sued Hood in September, accusing him of using the criminal investigation to coerce the company to settle lawsuits with private attorneys.

The insurer also claims Hood violated his part of a January 2007 settlement in which the Mississippi attorney general's office agreed to end the criminal investigation of the Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm.

A judge last year ordered Hood to temporarily halt his criminal investigation. Scruggs' deposition is just the latest in the legal wrangling that has followed.

State Farm said in a motion filed Wednesday that the fact that Hood wants to stop the deposition "is very telling indeed."

"General Hood is clearly concerned that his co-conspirator will either tell the truth or invoke the Fifth Amendment on specific questions related to their extortion conspiracy," the motion said.

Hood spokeswoman Jan Schaefer told The Associated Press that "we have not filed any motions to stop testimony in this case."

But one of Hood's attorneys, J. Lawson Hester, wrote in a letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Parker: "I am in no way attempting to be obstructionist as regards the taking of Mr. Scruggs' deposition, but the realistic eventuality that this deposition will not yield a benefit to either party is now known clearly to both sides and I would like to avoid as much unnecessary expense and burden to my client as is possible, consistent with the rights of the respective parties."

In the last two decades, as working schedules became flexible, and even accounting firms, of all places, embraced the mantra of work-life balance (at least on paper), there was one unbending, tradition-bound profession: The law.

That is why it is so remarkable to watch the legal world racing - metaphorical black robes flapping - to catch up.

Over the last few years and, most strikingly, the last few months, law firms have been forced to rethink long-standing ways of doing business, if they are to remain fully competitive.

As chronicled by my colleague Alex Williams in the Sunday Styles section earlier this month, lawyers are overworked, depressed and leaving.

Less obvious, but potentially more dramatic, are the signs that their firms are finally becoming serious about slowing the stampede for the door. So far the change - which includes taking fresh looks at the billable hour, schedules and partnership tracks - is mostly at the smaller firms. But even some of the larger, more hidebound employers are taking notice.

"There are things happening everywhere, enough to call it a movement," said Deborah Epstein Henry, who founded Flex-Time Lawyers, a consulting firm that creates initiatives encouraging work-life balance for law firms, with an emphasis on the retention and promotion of women. "The firms don't think of it as a movement, because it is happening in isolation, one firm at a time. But if you step back and see the whole puzzle, there is definitely real change."

Last month, Henry's ambitious proposal was published in the magazine Diversity and the Bar. Her plan, called FACTS, takes on law-firm bedrock - billable hours, which are how lawyers have calculated their fees for more than 50 years.

At nearly every large American firm, lawyers must meet a quota of hours. During the 1960s and 1970s, the requirement was between 1,600 and 1,800 hours a year or about 34 hours a week, not counting time for the restroom or lunch or water cooler breaks. Today that has risen to 2,000 to 2,200 hours, or roughly 42 hours a week. (Billing 40 hours a week means putting in upward of 60 at the office.)

FACTS is an acronym. Under Henry's proposal, work time can be: Fixed (allowing lawyers to choose less high-profile work for more predictable schedules), or Annualized (intense bursts of high-adrenaline work followed by relative lulls); Core (with blocks mapped out for work and for commitments like meeting children at the bus); Targeted (an agreed-upon goal of hours, set annually, customized for each worker, with compensation adjusted accordingly); and Shared (exactly as it sounds).

Henry's proposal came at the end of last year, when firms had already started backing away from the billable hour.

Some firms have gone so far as to eliminate the billable hour. The Rosen law firm in Raleigh, N.C., one of the largest divorce firms on the East Coast, did so this year, instead charging clients a flat fee.

Similarly, Dreier, a firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles, pays its lawyers salaries and bonuses based on revenue generated, not hours billed.

At Quarles & Brady, a firm with headquarters in Chicago, not only have billable hour requirements been eliminated, but parental leave has been expanded. Women can take 12 weeks with pay, men six weeks. And that time can be divided, meaning a father can take a few weeks off when his baby is born and a few more after his wife returns to work. Other firms are making smaller changes.

REDUCED PAY, REDUCED SCHEDULE

Howrey, a global firm in Washington, is tinkering not only with how much associates bill, but also with their pay.

That is the message behind changes at Chapman & Cutler, a midsize firm in Chicago, which rolled out a two-tier pay scale in September.

Associates can choose to bill 2,000 hours a year and be paid accordingly. Those who would like to see their families a little more can opt for 1,850 billable hours. Both groups will have a chance to become partner, albeit at different paces. Given the choice, more than half took the reduced schedule.

"What is happening now is not just about the needs and demands of women," said Lauren Stiller Rikleen, who directs the Bowditch Institute for Women's Success.

Law is responding to a confluence of factors, said Rikleen, the author of "Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law" (Thomson Legalworks, 2006).

First, clients, reacting to spiraling legal costs, have begun insisting on flat-fee deals.

In addition, "you can't ignore the generational piece," Rikleen said. On one end of the spectrum are baby boomers, nearing retirement and mindful of the flexible schedules that did not exist at the start of their careers. At the other end are Gen Y workers, some nearing 30 and in want of a life.

FIGHTING FOR A LIFE

A group of students at Stanford Law School, for instance, shook up the legal world in 2006 when they formed Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession. The Stanford group has more than 130 members, and other elite schools like Yale and New York University have formed chapters. The Stanford organization has published a ranking of firms based on how they treat employees; members vow not to work for those who don't rate well.

Andrew Bruck, a president of the Stanford group, told the Legal Times: "Just because something always has been doesn't mean that it always must be."

A harbinger of changing times might well be the brief filed by the hard-driving white-shoe firm of Weil Gotshal & Manges of New York, asking a judge to reschedule hearings set for Dec. 18, 19, 20 and 27 of last year.

"Those dates are smack in the middle of our children's winter breaks, which are sometimes the only times to be with our children," the lawyers wrote. The judge moved the hearings.