Charles Toutant

June 20, 2005 | New Jersey Law Journal

New Jersey seems destined to follow the path of least resistance to recognition of alternative relationships as legal bonds. Last week, the Appellate Division found that there is no fundamental right of people of the same sex to marry each other and thus that any legalization of such unions must come from the Legislature, not the courts.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

February 18, 2002 | New Jersey Law Journal

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

July 14, 2006 | Law.com

A winning plaintiffs lawyer in a whistleblower suit -- who then had the whistle blown on him for creatively augmenting his fee -- is fighting a court order to give some of the money back. A New Jersey judge called "presumptively unreasonable" an agreement that gave John Donnelly not only statutory fees under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act but also a 50 percent share of damages recovered. Donnelly said he crafted the arrangement to finance a long-shot case.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

April 04, 2003 | Law.com

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that convicts may seek DNA testing before exhausting their appeals, thereby potentially cutting years from the time the procedure might otherwise take. Forcing an inmate to wait until after his appeal is dismissed "offends basic notions of fairness" and wastes judicial resources, the court said. The state argued that testing requests could only be raised in petitions for post-conviction relief.

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

February 01, 2006 | Law.com

A new federal warning on the Ortho Evra contraceptive patch has fanned the flames of litigation against Johnson & Johnson.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

November 03, 2005 | Legaltech News

Lawyers have joined the flood of professionals helping to make "sponsored links" on Google, Yahoo and other Web search engines the fastest-growing segment of Internet advertising. The links are popular marketing tools for small law firms, particularly in practice areas where lawyers live or die on a steady stream of new business. But be warned, it's an auction-like system, where the most aggressive advertisers can claw their way to the top, and where clicks can bring clients, but at a cost.

By Charles Toutant

8 minute read

January 12, 2010 | New Jersey Law Journal

A pair of drug-company mega-deals in 2009 masked an otherwise dismal year for New Jersey mergers and acquisitions. Aside from Pfizer's pickup of Wyeth and Merck's buy of Schering-Plough, big transactions with N.J. components dropped 65 percent in value from the prior year. And no New Jersey law firm worked on a top 30 deal, a Law Journal survey shows.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

October 16, 2009 | New Jersey Law Journal

Short takes on lawyers, firms and judges.

By Charles Toutant, Henry Gottlieb, Mary Pat Gallagher and Michael Booth

5 minute read

May 18, 2007 | New Jersey Law Journal

At a public hearing on a proposal for mandatory CLE in New Jersey, feedback came not so much from lawyers who would have to take the training as from organizations that would likely provide it.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

September 07, 2006 | Law.com

There's not much lucre in asking consumer credit reporting agencies to fix errors on reports, but Greenberg Minasian will do it for free to get work in its chosen niche -- consumer-credit litigation. About 40 percent of its cases move from letter-writing to litigation -- enough to make time investment worthwhile. The New Jersey firm is one of a number of firms making a practice of suing overzealous bill collectors and inaccurate keepers of consumer data.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read