The US Supreme Court took up a question that has plagued trial courts across the country. If a person is sane enough to stand trial, does that mean he is mentally competent to represent himself?

After five years and three findings of mental incompetency, Ahmad Edwards was finally judged to be competent to stand trial on attempted murder charges, but he wanted to represent himself. The Indiana trial judge ruled that Edwards was too disturbed and incoherent to act as his own lawyer. The state supreme court said Edwards had been denied his constitutional right to represent himself and the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case Wednesday.

Lawyer Mark Stancil, representing Edwards, says the Constitution protects the defendant's rights at trial, not the states' rights.

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, says the state has an interest in the public perception of a fair process.

European law firm, Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, has announced the successful recovery of £550,000 in compensation for a labourer injured at work.

In December 2005, the labourer was instructed by his foreman to collect waste materials from a large open shed. On entering the shed, a large mechanical digger with a sharp bladed shovel drove into him. The shovel hit both legs causing a severe injury at work. As a result, he had a below knee amputation of his left leg. This has meant that while he can now walk using a prosthetic limb, he is unable to return to his former employment or any other manual labour.

Paul McNeil, partner in the Personal Injury Group at Field Fisher Waterhouse, was given legal instruction by the client at the end of 2005.

Although the labourer’s former employer quickly accepted that they were primarily responsible for the accident, they argued that he was also partially responsible for the negligence. They alleged that he had actually gone into the shed against instructions by the foreman.

Field Fisher Waterhouse succeeded in obtaining substantial interim payments to fund medical treatment and rehabilitation. The initial case to decide the issue of fault was fixed for trial in March 2007, however a few days before this date the employers accepted that they were fully liable for the accident.

In the meantime, there was a dispute between the employer and their insurer, which resulted in the insurer cancelling the policy. The meant that Field Fisher Waterhouse then had to bring proceedings against the employer directly.

Due to a significant difference in opinion between the employer and Field Fisher Waterhouse’s valuation of the injury compensation claim, another trial needed to be fixed for December 2007 to settle the matter. Eventually after extensive negotiation, the claim was settled out of court in the sum of £550,000 plus costs.

The labourer received his damages in full as the case was conducted on a no win, no fee basis.

Paul McNeil said: “I am happy that we were able to recover this compensation for our client, who was injured through no fault of his own whilst at work.”

The parents of a Michigan teenager who killed herself while on the antidepressant Paxil cannot sue the drug's manufacturer because a state law grants immunity to the maker of any drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Maloney of the Western District of Michigan said FDA approval of Paxil use by adults was enough to shield manufacturer SmithKline Beecham Corp., even though the agency never approved the drug's use by teens.

He therefore dismissed Nadine White and David B. McCullough's lawsuit against SKB over their 16-year-old daughter Moriah's 2001 suicide after taking Paxil for three months.

Michigan is the only state with a law providing drugmakers immunity from state tort suits if the FDA has certified their products as safe and effective. The only exceptions to the statute are for fraud on the FDA or bribery of an agency official.

In this case, White and McCullough filed a negligence and strict-liability suit against SKB in a Pennsylvania federal court because the company is located in that state.

The drugmaker won a change of venue to the Western District of Michigan because the plaintiffs are residents of that state. It then filed a motion to dismiss.

In their opposition to the motion the plaintiffs argued that their suit is a failure-to-warn case because SKB never warned doctors not to prescribe Paxil to teens or children and, in fact, conducted a secret campaign to promote such "off-label" use.

Moreover, since the company never applied to the FDA for marketing approval to prescribe the drug to teens and children, it cannot argue that it has immunity under the Michigan statute, they said.

Judge Maloney rejected that argument, saying the Michigan Legislature provided immunity to drug manufacturers for FDA-approved products and that it is uncontested that Paxil was approved by the agency for use in adults.

"The statute does not limit the protection to situations when the drug is used for approved purposes," he said. "Should the Legislature wish to limit the protection available to "off-label" uses of the drug, it may do so."

A former partner at Latham & Watkins pleaded guilty Friday to defrauding both clients and his own firm by charging them more than $300,000 in personal or false expenses.

Samuel A. Fishman, a mergers and acquisition specialist in Latham's New York office from 1993 to 2005, was designated billing partner for a number of firm clients. According to prosecutors at the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office, Fishman, 51, used his position to carry out a fraudulent scheme over the course of several years.

Responsible for supervising and approving invoices sent to clients, Fishman added to the bills a number of inappropriate items, mischaracterizing them as charges for photocopying or express mail. He also fraudulently sought reimbursement from his firm for a number of personal expenses he claimed were for business.

The U.S. Attorney's Office did not identify Latham as Fishman's firm in a criminal information filed with the guilty plea, nor was the firm's name mentioned in court Friday afternoon when Fishman entered his plea to one count of mail fraud. But in a statement Friday, the firm acknowledged Fishman as a former partner and said his misconduct had come to light in 2005.

Latham "immediately acted to protect our clients fully, and disclosed the matter to appropriate law enforcement authorities," said David Gordon, Latham's New York managing partner. "Mr. Fishman resigned from the firm at the time the issues were discovered. Since that time, we have cooperated fully with the investigation."

In announcing Fishman's guilty plea, prosecutors noted that the firm had reimbursed its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars that had been fraudulently charged. A firm spokesman Friday declined to identify the clients defrauded by Fishman.

The criminal information said Fishman's clients were in the banking, utilities, telecommunications and entertainment industries. He has previously acted as lead counsel for companies including movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Inc. and JPMorgan Partners, the private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Accompanied at Friday's hearing by defense lawyer Jack Litman of Litman, Asche & Goiella, Fishman expressed remorse to Southern District Judge Victor Marrero.

"I am very sorry for what I did," he told the judge.

Fishman's sentencing is scheduled for June 27. The mail fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Fishman also has agreed to forfeit $350,000 in ill-gotten wealth. He also faces likely disbarment.

A number of major firms have had to deal in recent years with fraud by partners, though most instances have resulted in disbarment or other disciplinary sanction as opposed to criminal prosecution.

In 2006, former WilmerHale intellectual property partner William P. DiSalvatore resigned from the bar after admitting to a litany of misconduct, including falsifying expense reports and assigning associates to perform "pro bono" work for friends and family. He claimed more than $109,000 in false personal expense.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher and the former Kronish Lieb Weiner & Hellman are two other firms that have also terminated partners for fraudulently seeking reimbursement for personal expenses.

In most such cases, including that of Fishman, the defrauded amounts have been small compared to what the perpetrators earn as partners. Last month, Latham said it had profits per partner of $2.3 million in 2007.

Steven Lubet, a legal ethics professor at Northwestern University School of Law, said he always found it "incredible" that highly paid partners would resort to fraud. He said he could only imagine that such people were overspending trying to emulate the lifestyles of those they represented.

"The clients have that kind of money, the lawyers don't," said Lubet. "Sometimes, lawyers decide they want to live like their clients and that extra money has to come from somewhere."

Perhaps the most well-known case of a lawyer bilking his clients and firm was Webster Hubbell, the former associate attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

Hubbell was forced to resign his position in 1994 after his former partners at Arkansas' Rose Law Firm discovered billing irregularities. He later pleaded guilty to fraudulently charging almost $500,000 for personal expenses and legal work never actually performed. He served 16 months in prison.