Bob Van Voris

April 17, 2000 | Law.com

As a 2-year-old tobacco class action grinds toward a conclusion in Miami, a New York federal judge is quietly pushing to trial a series of potentially multibillion-dollar tobacco cases. Tobacco defense lawyers are scrambling to derail or slow down these cases, arguing that they are legally indistinguishable from suits that have been thrown out of federal courts across the country.

By Bob Van Voris

7 minute read

February 15, 2000 | Law.com

By Bob Van Voris

7 minute read

May 19, 2000 | Law.com

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes whiplash patients heal more quickly under a no-fault insurance system -- which is mostly lawyer-free -- than under one permitting crash victims to sue. Medical experts have addressed rallies to denounce the study, which examined whiplash recovery in Saskatchewan. And trial lawyers, concerned about tort reform, are picking the study apart.

By Bob Van Voris

5 minute read

April 13, 2000 | Law.com

A federal judge in New York sanctioned Wal-Mart Stores, finding the retailer misled plaintiffs about its computer system in a trademark infringement case. Judge Robert P. Patterson ordered Wal-Mart to pay costs and attorney fees to lawyers who, in December 1998, requested computer records they believe will prove that Wal-Mart sold counterfeit Polo, Nautica and FUBU clothes in dozens of its stores.

By Bob Van Voris

3 minute read

March 11, 2002 | The Legal Intelligencer

Litigation Will Follow

By Bob Van Voris

6 minute read

December 08, 1999 | Law.com

A Massachusetts state court judge certified a statewide class action in a case accusing drugstore chain CVS of violating the confidentiality of customers' pharmacy records for financial gain. The lawyer for the class promised more lawsuits across the country in the coming weeks. Superior Court Judge Raymond J. Brassard denied the plaintiffs' motion to certify a nationwide class, limiting the class to CVS customers in Massachusetts who received targeted mail based on information in the CVS pharmacy database.

By Bob Van Voris

3 minute read

November 10, 1999 | Law.com

The Wizard of Oz needed a machine to inspire confidence in his abilities. Bob Hirschfeld has the Internet. Hirschfeld is a disbarred Phoenix lawyer who cruises World Wide Web chat rooms, styling himself the Wizard of Laws and advertising Lexstrat, his new Web site that answers legal questions for $24.95 and up, payable by credit card. Whether or not Hirschfeld's site constitutes the unauthorized practice of law, bar officials say that they have difficulty tracking such practices on the Internet.

By Bob Van Voris

6 minute read

March 15, 2000 | Law.com

By Bob Van Voris

3 minute read

October 19, 1999 | Law.com

A group of importers and distributors of gray-market cigarettes are suing to overturn the $206 billion settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 states, plus a separate settlement with Texas, claiming that the agreements are effectively driving them out of business. The plaintiffs are five companies that buy wholesale cigarettes made by U.S. companies intended for export. They then sell the cigarettes in the United States, profiting from markedly lower wholesale prices outside the country.

By Bob Van Voris

3 minute read

January 07, 2002 | The Legal Intelligencer

The regulations covering the compensation of those who lost family members in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are getting a thumbs-down review from many lawyers and victims` families.

By Bob Van Voris

6 minute read