DEADBEAT LAWYERS
Several hundred lawyers are getting the boot in the first roundup of delinquent attorneys in nearly a decade as a result of action by the Appellate Division, First Department, the New York Law Journal reports. The First Department suspended 815 lawyers for failing to re-register and to pay their fees. Based on earlier rulings,  the court found that failure to pay and register constitutes professional misconduct and warrants discipline. It costs $315 to petition to be reinstated if the process isn’t done by Nov. 13. To help resolve suspensions, call the Office of Court Administration at 212-428-2800 or the Appellate Division, First Department, clerk's office at 212-340-0400.

SUPERCLERK
A feel-good story about Bronx Supreme Court Judge Bertram Katz in the Daily News today chronicles his reunion last week with the man who saved his life in August. Court Clerk John McConnell used CPR and a defibrillator to save the 76-year-old after he had a heart attack while chatting with a friend in the halls of the courthouse. McConnell works nights as a medic with the FDNY. “I don't remember what happened that day, but I am grateful for John McConnell,” the judge said. “If I didn't have that man, I would be dead.” McConnell is now back to work part time, hearing guardianship cases two days a week — and while at home, driving his wife crazy. “I told her I would stay home with her forever if she didn't stop yelling at me for leaving drawers and cabinet doors open.”


BURNT FIREBRAND
A story with a sense of defeat (and grief) about Lynne Stewart in The New York Times. The “firebrand” defense lawyer will be sentenced today in Manhattan federal court, and faces the possibility that she will spend the rest of her life in maximum-security prison. Stewart was convicted on charges of materially aiding a terrorist, who happened to be her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and prosecutors have asked Judge John Koeltl to sentence her to 30 years in prison. Stewart, who turned 67 last week, uncharacteristically lacked defiance, reporter Julia Preston writes, and instead mourned her failings as a lawyer. “Her dread of prison deepened unexpectedly, Ms. Stewart said during the long period after a jury found her guilty on Feb. 10, 2005, of providing material aid to terrorism. She has recently recovered from breast cancer, but fears it will return in prison.” Depending on Koeltl’s sentencing, Stewart could be placed in solitary confinement. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft brought the indictment against Stewart and devoted a full chapter to the case in his new memoir.

CARDINAL RULE?
Rev. Robert Hoatson wants Manhattan federal judge Paul Crotty to recuse himself in the Catholic priest’s discrimination suit against the New York Archdiocese and Cardinal Edward Egan, the Daily News reports. Hoatson, who says he was fired for speaking out against the church in its handling of sex abuse by priests, says the judge should recuse since his wife was involved in a real estate deal with the archdiocese and his brother is president to the Guild of Catholic Lawyers of the Archdiocese of New York. Attorneys for the archdiocese object: “It simply cannot be a rule that where a judge is an active Roman Catholic and where, not surprisingly, he and his family might have interacted with church institutions in their lives, that judge cannot sit on cases that affect the church. If such a rule were applied it would not be long before any case involving religious institutions required a litmus test of trial judges, jurors and appellate judges.”