A New Hampshire judge set aside state guidelines to allow lawyers who represented two girls who suffered horrific sex abuse while under the care of the state's social-services agency to get 40 percent of the settlement instead of the recommended 25 percent.
The judge found that the lawyers took on a high-risk case and earned essentially no money from it for four years and did an outstanding job with it, meriting a 40 percent contingency-fee payout worth $2.7 million, according to The Union Leader.
A western Massachusetts judge who admitted having an affair with a drug-court-affiliated social worker that included sexual encounters in the courthouse has resigned.
Thomas Estes was suspended indefinitely by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday, and there were calls in the Massachusetts Legislature to remove him from the bench.
