Mr. Fahringer told the circuit panel hearing United States v. Stewart, 10-3185-cr., that it was wrong to punish Ms. Stewart for comments made "on the steps of the courthouse," where there has always been "much wider latitude" for speech.

He urged the panel not to go "down that road" because "no one will be able to comment after a sentence for fear that the same thing could happen to them."

Read Ms. Stewart's brief.

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And when asked about Mr. Fahringer's argument that the benefit of the doubt goes to the speaker when the speech is ambiguous, Mr. Dember answered that "Judge Koeltl didn't find any of the statements ambiguous at all."

Read the brief of the United States.

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Parts of a New York rule requiring that attorneys who claim to be certified specialists make prescribed disclosure statements violates the First Amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled yesterday.

Buffalo personal injury lawyer J. Michael Hayes convinced the Second Circuit that there was a lack of clear standards for enforcing Rule 7.4 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct on attorney specializations.

Mr. Hayes had drawn the attention of the Attorney Grievance Committee in the Eighth Judicial District for inadequate disclosures on his letterhead and on one of two billboards advertising his services in 1999.

Although he was never formally disciplined for running afoul of Rule 7.4, "Identification of Practice and Specialty," Mr. Hayes was facing potential discipline for his letterhead when he filed an action in the Western District seeking a declaration that the rule was unconstitutional both on its face and as applied.

On March 5, the Second Circuit agreed in Hayes v. State of New York Attorney Grievance Committee of the Eighth Judicial District, 10-1587-cv, reversing Western District Judge John T. Elfvin's grant of summary judgment to the grievance committee and the decision of Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder, who rejected Mr. Hayes' void-for-vagueness claim following a bench trial in 2010.

A challenge by Jacoby & Meyers to New York state's ban on law firms accepting equity investments from non-lawyers has been dismissed by a federal judge.

Southern District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan (See Profile) on March 8 said the personal injury firm's lawsuit challenging Rule 5.4 of New York's Rules of Professional Conductmust fail because the rule is not the only one in New York that "forecloses plaintiffs from receiving non-lawyer equity investment," but it was the only one challenged by the firm.

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Steven J. Baum, who led what was once New York's largest foreclosure firm before it closed its doors last year, has agreed not to handle foreclosure cases for lenders and servicers for two years under a settlement agreement with the New York Attorney General's Office.

Mr. Baum, his managing partner Brian Kumiega, the Baum firm and Pillar Processing will also pay $4 million under the deal.

According to the attorney general's office, between 2007 and 2010, the Baum Firm filed over 100,000 foreclosure proceedings and represented many of the largest servicers of residential mortgage loans. Pillar was formed by the firm to handle the bulk of the foreclosure processing.

The attorney general's office claimed that the Baum firm "repeatedly" filed legal papers in foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings "without taking appropriate steps to verify the accuracy of" allegations, the lender's right to foreclose or to file a bankruptcy proof of claim.

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SSA's March 7th webinar on the requirement and filing appeals online is available "on demand" at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/webinars/FilingaDisabilityAppealOnline.html.  These rules are effective for appeals filed on or after March 16, 2012.

Mr. Galasso argues in court papers that the Second Department wrongly used a strict liability standard that required attorneys "to be insurers of all escrow deposits" and "unfairly results in a lawyer's law license being posted as additional collateral for his costly designation on an attorney escrow account."

"[A]side from imposing an unattainable level of managerial and investigative skills upon lawyers, the Appellate Division has declared that attorneys in operating escrow accounts, beyond any financial exposure they may face, must now post their licenses as some sort of additional collateral to their exposure in damages," Mr. Galasso argued. He later added, "With this holding, the prospects of finding attorneys willing to hold client escrow will be bleak. In the end, the public will suffer as well."

The New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the Nassau County Bar Association, Matrimonial and Family Law Bar Association of Suffolk County and the Bronx County Bar Association all plan to file amicus briefs urging the Court of Appeals to grant Mr. Galasso's motion for leave to appeal.