Report: New York law schools inflating job figures

According to the New York Post, Columbia, NYU and Fordham overpromise the economic benefit of a law degree, inflating the number of students who find employment after graduation by creating short-term school-funded jobs to temporarily boost the percentage of students employed for the ABA survey, which counts the employment figure nine months after graduation.

Town Court Goes Paperless

Gannett News:

Five work stations, including the judge's bench, are equipped with a Fujitsu Scansnap scanner — about the size of an old-fashion breadbox — and two Dell monitors.

At [the clerk's] desk, there's an additional monitor as well as an Iomega StorCenter digital file cabinet, small enough that it could be hidden behind a medium-size picture. All of them are hooked up to a trademarked docketing system called the CourtRoom Program, by Service Education Inc., and each has been loaded with an off-the-shelf Adobe software program that sorts, routes and shares, according to the standards [the judge] and [court clerk] developed.

Eventually, everything is channeled to offsite storage and backup through Red Barn Technology Group, based in the Town of Chenango.

Total cost: $4,339.97, which was paid for by a state grant

New rules proposed to prevent colleges from exploiting veterans

Fox News:

For-profit schools would be required to meet new standards covering everything from drop-out rates to transparency, under a proposal by senators who claim the colleges are exploiting members of the U.S. military for their government education benefits....

The bill would require many schools to offer support services to military students, and require the federal government to provide those students one-on-one education counseling. It also would require schools to disclose graduation rates, loan default rates and other information to prospective students.

National Consumer Protection Week: March 4 - 10, 2012

National Consumer Protection Week focuses attention on the importance of consumer information and provides people with free resources explaining their rights in the marketplace.

Among the topics covered this week are understanding loans and mortgages, money management and avoiding identity theft.

More information about National Consumer Protection Week can be found here.

Seneca Falls Town Hall Lawsuit Dismissed

Seneca Daily News:

SENECA FALLS— A lawsuit filed by the former Town Supervisor against a group of citizens asking to hold a referendum on renovating the town hall has been dismissed....

Acting Supreme Court Justice W. Patrick Falvey granted a motion to dismiss the case, agreeing with defense attorney Steven Getman that [Peter Same, the former supervisor] had waited too long to bring his case and had failed to properly serve all the necessary parties to the lawsuit.

New move to avoid ID errors in criminal cases

Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle:

A spate of exonerations in recent years has revealed the weaknesses of memory and witness identification. Of the 289 people exonerated nationally by DNA evidence over the past quarter-century, about 75 percent were wrongly identified by witnesses....

Local police agencies say they have embraced change. They've revised policies within the past two years to match improved identification guidelines from the state District Attorneys Association and the Division of Criminal Justice Services, or DCJS. They've also trained officers to ensure that communications with witnesses are not leading, and encouraged police to actually position themselves out of sight of a witness viewing a photo array so there are no unintended signals....

Still, some say more can be done to eliminate human error or intentional or unintentional directions from police to eyewitnesses....

A New York task force, created by Court of Appeals Chief Justice Jonathan Lippman, has studied the core causes of wrongful convictions and plans to push legislation to tackle the common issues, such as misidentification and false confessions....

New York Attorney General sues banks, MERS registry, for "fraud"

The New York Attorney General has announced a major lawsuit against several of the nation’s largest banks for deceptive & fraudulent use of the MERS electronic mortgage registry.

According to the Attorney General, the banks, Virginia-based MERSCORP, Inc. and its servicers engaged in “deceptive and fraudulent practices that harmed homeowners and undermined the judicial foreclosure process.” The lawsuit names JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Bank of America, N.A., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. as the involved banks.

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, money damages for harmed homeowners, and civil penalties.

The complete complaint against the banks and MERS can be found here.

New York's expanded "move over" law takes effect January 1

Starting on January 1, New York's "Move Over" will expand to include tow trucks.

The current law fines drivers in New York if they don't move into another lane for police and ambulance vehicles on the road.

The new law will mean that anytime drivers see an emergency vehicle or tow truck with lights flashing, they must move to the other lane.

State officials say the expanded law will make it safer for people who respond and assist on accident scenes or for disabled vehicles.

Violators can receive two points on their license and up to a 150-dollar fine if they don't follow the new law.

Appeal: Mother Loses Support, Custody for Interfering With Father's Rights

From the New York Law Journal:

A mother who "deliberately and unjustifiably frustrated" a father's attempts to visit his child was appropriately stripped of child support and primary custody, an appellate panel in Albany has held.

The Appellate Division, Third Department, unanimously affirmed a Schuyler County Family Court judge in a case where the custodial mother had repeatedly hindered her estranged husband's efforts to establish relations with his daughter, even though the father made no attempt to enforce his visitation rights for six years....

The court said that while the father "lost contact with his daughter for several years and did not adequately explain why he took so long to re-establish a connection," by the time of the hearing he had been working for more than a year to connect with his daughter.

"The record supports the finding that the mother deliberately and unjustifiably frustrated the father's visitation, moving without notifying the father and attempting to informally transfer custody to another person…without informing the father," Justice McCarthy wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Karen K. Peters , John A. Lahtinen, Leslie E. Stein and Elizabeth A. Garry.

Appearing were Martha N. Hertzberg of Ithaca for Mr. Luke; Lisa K. Miller of McGraw for Ms. Luke; and Steven J. Getman of Ovid for the child.

New law bans dumping rechargeable batteries in the trash

Beginning Monday (December 5) it is illegal in New York to dispose of rechargeable batteries in the trash.

The New York State Rechargeable Battery Law prohibits the disposal of rechargeable batteries, including cell phone batteries, laptop batteries or camera batteries, in
non-recyclable containers.

Instead, the batteries must be returned to recycling bins at retail stores.

Almost every retailer that sells rechargeable batteries is now required to
provide recycling receptacles to consumers in their stores. Small-food stores that sell

Failure to provide or use the receptacles can lead to fines ranging from $50.00 for consumers and $5000.00 for the retailers.

More on the new law can be found here.