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Author: Paul Luvera

Plaintiff trial lawyer for 50 years. Past President of the Inner Circle of Advocates & Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. Member American Board of Trial Advocates, American College of Trial Lawyers, International Academy, International Society of Barristers, the American Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame & speaker at Spence Trial College
Global Warming & ExxonMobil

Global Warming & ExxonMobil

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Earlier this year, Senator Jay Rockefeller and others sent a letter to ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson, urging Exxon to stop funding efforts to deny and distort the facts about global warming. The National Association of Manufacturers immediately characterized the letter as a "senators attempt to muzzle global warming debate." As reported previously here, (10/25/06, 11/5/06 & 12/9/06) the oil industry is generally opposed to efforts to control consumption of oil and fossil fuel use as against their financial interests….

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Corporate Accounting Scandals and Greedy Corporate Executives

Corporate Accounting Scandals and Greedy Corporate Executives

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Scandal has involved the U.S. home mortgage market which in turn has contributed to the loss of value of the U.S. dollar. Our government doesn’t directly fund or guarantee house mortgages, but it created programs to obtain mortgage loans. To do this the government charted two corporations. They are The Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") and The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"). Fannie Mae was created by the United States Government in 1938 to help provide a…

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS. Lita and I are leaving for San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where we will spend Christmas. Here are a few photos from past Christmas days at my family home in Anacortes, Washington. Left to right: me, mother and my sister Phyllis about 1943 My Italian grandfather Nicola Luvera with me. I got a tool set for Christmas that year and he is showing me how to use some of the tools. Circa 1941 The ultimate…

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Congressional Oath & the Bible

Congressional Oath & the Bible

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Keith Ellison was elected from Minnesota to Congress as the first Muslim to serve in the House. When he announced he would take his oath of office on the Quaran, not the Bible, there was an nationwide outcry, especially conservative Christians. The American Family Association urged it’s 3.4 million members to write their congressman to pass a law requiring a Bible to be used for all oaths of office. But Religion News Service reports that he wouldn’t be the first…

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Opera Singers & Trial Lawyers

Opera Singers & Trial Lawyers

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Newspapers in Milan, Italy, reported this last week, that tenor Roberto Alagna was singing an aria in Zeffirelli’s "Aida" at the world famous opera house, La Scala. There were many prominent people in the full house. However, he abruptly stopped singing, glared at the audience and left the stage when boos and whistles from the top gallery area began as he sang. His second had to rush on stage, wearing jeans, to finish the performance in his place. Afterwords Alagna…

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Trial Tactics at the Microsoft Trial

Trial Tactics at the Microsoft Trial

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The Seattle PI reports that plaintiff’s attorney Roxanne Conlin started presenting the class action case against Microsoft by showing the jury a 1998 deposition video of CEO Bill Gates taken by a Department of Justice lawyer in an earlier lawsuit against Microsoft. The article reports she plans to show all ten hours of the video to the jury because Gates made a poor impression during his deposition. Usually, showing video testimony to a jury for any length of time bores…

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Greedy CEO

Greedy CEO

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Michael Brush has recently published "4 ways you can fight greedy CEO’s" in MSN Company Focus. His report about the amounts paid CEO’s is shocking. Here are five of his examples: 1. IAC/InterActiveCorp’s CEO Barry Diller was paid $295 million 2. Capital One Financial CEO Richard Fairbank received $249 million through stock options 3. Nabors Industries CEO Eugene Isenberg was paid $203 million in pay, bonus, options and stock 4. Yahoo CEO Terry Semel collected $183 million 5. KB Homes…

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Religion and Rwanda Genocide

Religion and Rwanda Genocide

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The German and Belgian colonists to Rwanda brought with them the Catholic religion. It is Africa’s most Catholic country. Both ethnic groups – Hutu and Tutsi were converted and it became the dominant religion in the country with a membership of some sixty five percent of the population. Throughout the decades the church buildings were considered places of safe refuge during times of political and social unrest. However, in 1994 during the genocide against the Tutis, these churches became places…

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Framing and the Iowa Microsoft Trial

Framing and the Iowa Microsoft Trial

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Roxanne Conlin is an outstanding trial lawyer in Des Moines, Iowa who has had multiple million dollar verdicts. She entered Drake University at 16 years of age and graduated from law school with honors five years later. She had the distinction of being the first woman President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now known as the America Association for Justice). She was invited to membership in the Inner Circle of Advocates consisting of the finest plaintiff’s trial…

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Catholics and Political Freedom of Conscience

Catholics and Political Freedom of Conscience

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Roman Catholic Archbishop Brunett is the bishop of the diocese which includes my local parish church that my wife and I attend. Just before the last election he wrote in our diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Northwest Progress, his views about Catholic voting. He says Bishops and clergy have the right to advocate moral and social teachings in the political process. He claims it is the duty of every Catholic "to form their conscience in accord with Church teaching." That would…

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