The Alabama State Bar and Legal Services Alabama have joined to form a unique partnership with a plan to help Alabama homeowners remain in their homes. Both groups announced a public awareness and education campaign today.

Plaintiffs get close to $5B, but Merck could have done a lot worse.

Attorneys who spent nearly one year negotiating a $4.85 billion Vioxx settlement were left pondering a paradox. Since each side now is certain that the other is prepared for, if not relishing, a litigation Verdun, wouldn't it make better sense to settle after a minimum number of skirmishes?

WETUMPKA -- The criminal case against a Montgomery man charged in a fatal accident on Lake Martin has been bound over to a grand jury. Patrick Leigh Cumbie faces boat­ing under the influence and homicide by vessel charges. Cumbie was allegedly under the influence of alcohol when the boat he was piloting ran into a pontoon boat Aug. 9 near Ko­waliga Marina. Donald Tatum, 62, of Prattville died as a result of the collision. Sue Tatum, his sister-in-law, was critically in­jured. Cumbie also is facing a civil lawsuit, which was filed in Montgomery County three days after the accident. Jere Beasley represents the Tatums in that lawsuit.

Navan Ward, an attorney with Montgomery, Ala.-based firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., recently accepted a national First Place Award of Achievement from the American Bar Association on behalf of the Alabama State Bar Young Lawyers Section (YLS). The award was presented in recognition of an outstanding program developed by the bar's YLS to address the shortage of minorities in the legal profession and increase diversity in the bar.

A civil complaint has been filed this week on behalf of a Prattville woman who was criti­cally injured last weekend in a boating mishap on Lake Martin, and her husband, who witness­ed the accident but was not in­jured.

Montgomery attorney Jere Beasley filed the complaint, asking that monetary damages be assessed against 22-year-old Patrick Cumbie of Montgomery. Cumbie is accused of powering an open motorboat into a crowd of swimmers, which included Sue Tatum and her husband, Kenny, then ramming into the pontoon boat aboard which sev­eral other members of the Ta­tum family and several friends were enjoying the lake.

Students were rewarded for their creative writing skills at Brantwood Childrens Home this summer. The main goal of the contest was for the children to learn about themselves and to get them geared up for the up and coming school year.

Winners of the Brantwood Childrens Home summer writing contest along with board member Tom Methivin

On Friday, June 27th, the United States Supreme Court issued an order rejecting all further appeals of the $20,709,000 pollution verdict entered against the Continental Carbon plant in Phenix City, Alabama, and against its parent company, China Synthetic Rubber Corporation of Taiwan.

Pharmaceutical company Merck says it will start cutting checks next month for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx. Merck announced plans today to fund the $4.8 billion settlement involving about 50,000 lawsuits.

Merck & Co. will start cutting checks for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx next month after announcing Thursday that it will fund a $4.85 billion settlement expected to resolve roughly 50,000 lawsuits alleging harm from Vioxx.