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Jeannette Martello, M.D., J.D. is a very intelligent woman. After all, she possessed both an M.D. and a J.D. (from Boalt Hall, no less). Nonetheless, she was unable to clear the hurdle that was the bar exam, despite four tries in Kentucky and New York. She did, however, pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam before moving on to practice as a medical malpractice consultant.

As a consultant, she worked with Joshua Santana, Esq. on medical malpractice cases. After she referred a patient from her medical practice to Santana, the two came to an agreement, reduced to writing, that paid her a contingent percentage of the fee if the case was settled favorably.

You know you botched an arbitration when, after five years of proceedings, the Sixth Circuit refers to your work as “a model of how not to conduct one.” Or you could read the court’s opinion, which is a 10-page retelling of every imaginable way in which one could fail at presiding over a neutral, fair arbitration process.

The questionable conduct in Kinkade v. White began with the attorneys. The Whites’ first attorney was caught transmitting a live feed of the transcripts to a hotel room, where a disgruntled former Kinkade employee was responding with cross-examination questions. The replacement attorney was also replaced after he was convicted of federal tax fraud.

Encore Capital Group, a major debt-collection company, will head back to the settlement table after the Sixth Circuit scuttled the prior arrangement. Calling the relief given to the unnamed plaintiffs ($17.38 per claimant) and the one year injunction prohibiting illegal practices “perfunctory at best,” the Sixth Circuit found that the lower court abused its discretion in approving the $5.2 million settlement.

The case stemmed from Encore’s Midland Funding LLC subdivision’s shady debt-collection practices, which included using robo-signed affidavits to collect debt from more than a million individuals. According to the plaintiffs, the workers would process 300 to 400 affidavits per day, produced by the computer, all with no personal knowledge of the case.

Let's say you get a call from a client, a company that makes approximately a bazillion dollars annually. The company wants to sue its excess insurer for not ponying up the liability limits of an excess policy.

This is the time to remind your client of any relative condition precedent: "Your contract states that coverage won't kick in until X happens. X has not happened. They don't have to pay you a dime."

Your Bazillion Dollar Client may not want to hear it, but it's better that the bad news comes from you instead of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, which gives "horsemen's groups" veto power over horse-racing simulcasts, trumps an Ohio state law that vests final simulcast approval authority with a state racing commission.

Why does an Ohio horse racing case matter?

Aside from a feel-good, philosophical no-man-is-an-island perspective, this case matters because the Sixth Circuit also has authority over federal cases arising out of Kentucky, home of Churchill Downs and the Derby. That detail was not lost on the Sixth Circuit panel.

First-year law students struggle through civil procedure because it's a necessary evil. No one actually cares about general jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, Pennoyer v. Neff, or International Shoe. Civ Pro, in essence, is the broccoli on the aspiring lawyer's educational plate.

Things change, however, when we graduate from the halls of academia to the real world. Suddenly, jurisdiction is interesting because it can make or break a case -- and the amount a lawyer ultimately bills -- as it did in today's Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion.

The most important lesson from today's case: If you're afraid of the Russian legal system (as perhaps you should be), don't do business in Russia.

Tobacco companies don't like Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, the Mississippi plaintiff's attorney famous for leading 46 states toward a $246 billion tobacco settlement in 1998. Scruggs cost Big Tobacco a lot of money, and the companies, no doubt, were secretly pleased when Scruggs pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges 10 years later.

Scruggs' downfall, however, was not sufficient vindication for tobacco companies driven out of business by the epic '90s settlement. A challenge to the tobacco settlement is back in the courts.

Government's suit against maker of fighter jet engines for reimbursement under the False Claims Act

US v. United Tech. Corp., 08-4256, concerned a suit filed by the United States against United Technologies under the False Claims Act and common  law, seeking reimbursement for manipulating cost estimates to convince the Air Force to award the company a large share of the work to make fighter jet engines.

Union's suit against Anheuser-Busch to compel arbitration over pension rights and benefits

Teamsters Local Union No. 783 v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 09-6065, concerned a union's suit against Anheuser-Busch seeking to compel arbitration over Section 11 of the collective bargaining agreement and its effect on pension rights and benefits.