Top 10 most popular stories of 2015

From an insightful analysis of new data on medical malpractice cases and a bombshell lawsuit accusing a system of for-profit law schools of bribery to significant and varied developments in the law and some juicy legal dramas, the stories of 2015 kept Lawyers Weekly’s writers busy and, we hope, informed and engaged our readers.

Before beginning another chapter that will further define what it means to be a lawyer in North Carolina, we would like to take a moment to look back on the topics that garnered the most attention on nclawyersweekly.com during the past year, listed in order of the highest number of online views.

1. “Latest data show state’s tort reform act delivered a knock-down blow”

An analysis of data from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts revealed that the 2011 tort reform law has permanently depressed the number of lawsuits being filed against allegedly slipshod doctors and hospitals. Malpractice claims spiked dramatically ahead of the tort reform law taking effect, swelling from an average of about 40 cases a month to more than 300, but then the numbers flatlined.

However, John Madden, a malpractice defense attorney with Smith Anderson in Raleigh, suggested in a colorful quote that the medical-malpractice case numbers could rebound as the flurry of suits filed ahead of tort reform are resolved.

“If you think of the snake eating the bowling ball,” he said, “that bowling ball has made its way through the snake now.”

2. “Jury awards $175K to passenger of impaired driver”

When Garrett Aldridge, high on heroin, rolled his 1990 Honda down an embankment and into a tree, his 17-year-old passenger, Samantha Moore, sustained life-threatening injuries.

But according to Moore’s attorney, Mark Jetton of Jetton & Meredith in Charlotte, rather than call for help, Aldridge tried to convince the battered and bloodied girl that she was OK.

Later, during his trial, he tried to convince a Union County jury that while he may have been negligent, he shouldn’t have to pay a dime of Moore’s medical bills because she knew he was impaired and never should have gotten in the car with him.

Jurors disagreed. They hit Aldridge with a $175,000 verdict – an award 17 ½ times higher than Aldridge’s settlement offer of $10,000.

3. “February bar exam pass-rate falls to just over 40 percent”

After a slight increase in 2014 from 2013, February bar exam passage rates dipped again to just above 40 percent for in-state test-takers. Duke had the highest pass rate – 77.8 percent – though only nine of its grads took the test. Wake Forest had the second-best pass rate, 64.29 percent, as 18 of its 28 applicants found success, seven of those on their first attempt.

North Carolina’s seven law schools—including Elon University (40.74 percent), Charlotte School of Law (32.72 percent) and North Carolina Central (31.91)—combined for an overall 40.87 percent pass rate.

Exactly half of the state’s first-timers passed the exam while just over 36 percent of repeat test-takers did.

4. “Passing the buck”

The Charlotte-based law firm of Foodman Hunter & Karres scored a victory this year when it shooed away a loan servicing company’s federal malpractice suit alleging that the firm’s mistakes at a 1999 real estate closing prevented Ocwen from foreclosing on a property in North Myrtle Beach. A judge found that the bank that transferred the original mortgage on the property was to blame.

5. “Woman reaches $5.3M settlement in hospital negligence claim”

A woman injured while undergoing surgery entered into a confidential, pre-trial settlement for $5.3 million two days before her trial was scheduled to begin, according to her attorneys. They withheld many details in the case due to a confidentiality agreement. But one reported that the woman suffered vaginal and rectal tearing and a back injury, and subsequent depression and diarrhea, because the defendants failed to read, understand and follow warning labels on a surgical table.

6. “Legal Aid to lay off 48”

State budget cuts forced Legal Aid of North Carolina to lay off 15 percent of its workforce in November, cuts that Legal Aid’s director, George Hausen, said would significantly reduce the number of low-income clients that the organization is able to serve.

“We see around 25,000 clients a year currently, and I’m predicting we’ll serve 1,000 fewer or 1,500 fewer families as a result of this,” Hausen said. “We’ll have to come earlier and stay later to serve our clients.”

7. “Charlotte School of Law under fire: Suit accuses school of bribing ill-prepared grads to postpone bar exam”

The Charlotte School of Law called it a scholarship or a living stipend. But an Arizona woman who is suing the school’s owner, InfiLaw, says it’s a bribe.

Paula Lorona, a graduate and former employee of the Infilaw-owned Arizona Summit Law School in Phoenix, alleged in a federal lawsuit that InfiLaw schools pay certain graduates $5,000 to postpone taking the bar exam for fear that they will fail. She said the practice has been going on since May 2014 and allows the schools to skew bar passage rates.

The lawsuit is filed in Arizona and is ongoing.

8. “NC law schools leery of annual US News list after several fall in the rankings”

North Carolina’s universities may have had a good March on the basketball court, but its law schools had a less-than-stellar showing in an arguably more important competition — the 2016 U.S. News & World Report’s Best Law School Rankings.

Of the state’s seven law schools, three saw their rankings drop and three others continue to remain unranked. Those showings are likely at least in part an effect of the precipitous drop in passage rates on the state’s 2013 bar exam.

Nonetheless, leaders of several North Carolina schools agreed that the annual rankings are more vexing than informative when it comes to shedding light on a school’s educational value.

“It’s a little exasperating as a new dean, because I think we’ve had as successful of a year as the law school has ever had,” said Rich Leonard, dean of Campbell Law School.

Campbell had climbed in the rankings the last two years up to a tie for 121st, but fell back among the unranked schools.

9. “I heart Ola”

A domestic violence defendant named Pollo Collazo was so thankful that Brunswick County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Ola Lewis placed him in a therapy program that he got “Ola” tattooed on his neck.

“According to this young man, he got the tattoo because I was instrumental in changing his life for the better,” Lewis said. “Since he’s gotten the tattoo he looks in the mirror every morning and does no wrong for the entire day.”

She added, “How true that is, I don’t know. But it makes for a good story.”

10. “Bar withdraws contempt motion against Raleigh lawyer”

The North Carolina State Bar withdrew its motion to hold Raleigh lawyer A.P. Carlton in civil contempt for allegedly violating an injunction against several debt settlement companies accused of swindling state residents.

In its contempt motion, the bar argued that Carlton helped create World Law South in an attempt to circumvent an injunction against WLS’s parent company, which the bar and state Attorney General’s Office have accused of engaging in the unauthorized practice of law while committing a massive debt settlement scheme.

WLS dissolved a few months after the bar filed the contempt motion and Carlton resigned as the company’s secretary and general counsel. He also withdrew from the case.

He agreed in an affidavit that served as the basis of the July 24 contempt motion withdrawal that he would obey the terms of the injunction.

Carlton, who did not admit wrongdoing, also stated that he would make himself available to be deposed by the bar and attorney general on any non-privileged information concerning WLS and the other defendants in the case.