Cali: successive habeas petition win on BWS

• Check it out.  Some firm called “Latham and Watkins” (sounds like something you find in your grandfather’s woodshop) wins a state habeas petition in Cali, on the theory that it was not only ineffective assistance not to introduce evidence of “intimate partner battering” (that is now what they call “battered wives syndrome”).  What is particularly remarkable about this is that this was a successive habeas petition, and there was an intervening change in the law. Anyway, congrats to Beth Collins-Burgard and Daniel Seltzer for doing some good work.  Tnx Cali App. Rpt. See the news reports here.
• And speaking of law firms... just in case you thought we heard the last about Cully Stimson, Andrew C. McCarthy, a lawyer and former prosecutor jumps to his defense, saying that Mr. Stimson    not only violated no ethical rules but large corporations should decide which firms to hire on the basis of their pro bono clients and not on the basis of the services they provide.  It seems like the pro-pre-retraction-Stimpson crowd now wants to abandon capitalism.