If appellate briefs are wars of words, it would seem the lawyers for an imprisoned former state senator are asking for some arms control. Prosecutors recently filed a 281-page opening brief in an appeal challenging a 55-month sentence — but defense lawyers are urging the 3rd Circuit to reject the brief, arguing it is simply too long, and saying “if briefing were to continue at this pace ..

The Pennsylvania Bar Foundation and the Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyers Trust Account Board have launched a new statewide school loan repayment program designed to ease the financial burden on recent law school graduates to make public service a more attractive and viable career option.

Anthony Nuzzo has spent much of his 42 years of practice helping other lawyers get out of ethics and malpractice jams. The managing partner of Nuzzo & Roberts practices before Connecticut’s Statewide Grievance Committee and defends professional liability claims in court and in mediation.

A New York appeals court has reinstated aiding and abetting charges against a New Jersey law firm in a suit by investors over its alleged role in a $22 million Ponzi scheme. A lower court in 2008 granted Lum, Drasco & Positan’s motion to dismiss the charges by investors who claimed the lawyers knew about the undisclosed criminal histories of the scheme’s perpetrators prior to its unraveling. But the appeals court judge reversed, saying the investors had adequately alleged the lawyers had actual knowledge of the fraud.

Responding to a lawsuit over a Justice Department report on the lawyers who wrote the so-called torture memos, the government said last week that blacked-out passages in the report should remain confidential in the interest of national security and the privacy of government lawyers. In January, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the DOJ to obtain a copy of the report, which cleared Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee of any ethical wrongdoing.