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SHORTER SUMMER PROGRAMS PUT PRESSURE ON FIRMS AND HIRES
"At many of New Jersey's largest law firms, summer is starting later and ending earlier, reflecting efforts to control spending in recessionary times. Summer associate programs at 10 of the 20 bellwether firms tracked in the New Jersey Law Journal's annnual survey were cut by an average of two weeks this year, gibing with a national trend. But while saving money, the shorter stints afford firms less time to evaluate summer associates with a view towards who should receive permanent job offers ? and they put more pressure on 2L interns to prove themselves quickly."

LEDBETTER LAW DOESN'T EXTEND TO NON-PAY BIAS CLAIMS
"A federal judge in Newark has narrowly construed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as extending workers' time to sue only for claims based on pay bias ? not other acts of bias, such as failure to hire. Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Katharine Sweeney Hayden came in Richards v. Johnson & Johnson, DDS No. 25-7-4036, the case of a 48-year-old man of Asian descent, employed as a financial analyst at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Companies, who alleged that he received unjustified low ratings on his potential to advance and that the company kept giving low ratings in retaliation for his complaints about unfair treatment, all on account of his race and age. "

GUN DEALER MAY BE LIABLE FOR SHOOTING BY STOLEN WEAPON
"In a case of first impression, a New Jersey judge has refused to grant statutory immunity to a gun dealer sued when an ex-employee stole one of its handguns and shot a police officer. In denying the dealer's summary judgment motion in Schramm v. Sarco Firearms, Morris County Superior Court Judge David Rand said the four-year-old federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was intended to immunize sellers from strict liability for simply selling gun, not to suits like this one, in which a handgun was used by the seller's own employee, possibly due to lack of security measures at the business premises."

SECURITIES AREN'T MERCHANDISE, COURT SAYS, CANNING FRAUD SUIT
"A bank can't be held liable under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act for its employee's failure to deliver on a promise to purchase securities for a customer, the state Supreme Court said Wednesday in a unanimous ruling. The Legislature purposefully left out securities as one of the items of 'merchandise' to fall under the umbrella of the CFA when it was enacted in 1960 and subsequently amended on two different occasions, the Court said in Lee v. First Union National Bank, DDS No. 09-1-4017. And the failure of the bank to perform the "service" of purchasing the securities cannot be used to shoehorn the bank into liable under the CFA, which carries the potential for treble damages and counsel fees."

OBITUARY: HARRY RIMM, JUDGE ON STATE TAX COURT SINCE INCEPTION, 79
"Marvin Rimm, one of the original appointees to the New Jersey Tax Court and a member for 18 years, died May 31 at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 79. Rimm, who took the bench a year after the court was created in 1979, was part of a group that later became known as the 'eight originals,' which was credited with creating many of the procedures and precedents that have become commonplace on the Tax Court. He sat in Atlantic City and many of his cases dealt with property issues affecting the municipality, particularly taxes on casinos, which began sprouting the year before he went on the bench."

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