The New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered a new damages trial after deciding that a plaintiffs attorney crossed the line by telling jurors they would be “ignoring the law” and should be reported to the judge if they objected to a $1 million-plus award.

More than just the future ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers is at stake in the extraordinarily nasty divorce of Frank and Jamie McCourt: The reputation of a respected partner at an Am Law 100 firm is on the line, too. The couple’s former lawyer, Bingham McCutchen partner Lawrence Silverstein, has come under heavy fire over allegations that he “fraudulently altered” the 2004 marital property agreement at the center of the dispute. Meanwhile, Frank McCourt’s lawyers call the change a “drafting error.”

A Kansas man convicted of child molestation will get a new trial because of misconduct by the judge and the prosecutor. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last week that they each crossed the line during the trial of Luther Kemble, who was sentenced in 2008 to 25 years to life for fondling an 8-year-old girl

As defense lawyers for MS-13 gang members accused of capital crimes try to convince a California federal judge their clients don’t deserve to die, the Justice Department is set to consider the relative culpability of the six defendants.

Two New Jersey trial judges have been reprimanded for making derogatory comments touching on the alienage, ethnicity, race and honesty of physical ailments of litigants and lawyers appearing before them. Among a litany of incidents laid out in court papers, James Citta compared a criminal defendant to O.J. Simpson and ridiculed another for being an immigrant, and James Convery asked a Hispanic lawyer if she was an illegal alien.