Feb. 28 was definitely a bad day for JOHN ARBOGAST, a State Department lawyer who specializes in U.N. affairs. Running late, he stuffed a bunch of papers into one of his three bags and hurried to his car. Then he drove off, leaving the bags on the car roof, with predictable results. RONALD T. NELSON, a passing motorist, found Arbogast's briefcase, which held personal items. But Nelson tells TIME that when he returned it, Arbogast said that papers in the ...

Should morbidly obese children be taken from their parents? That's the question an increasing number of countries are grappling with amid the Western world's obesity epidemic. The latest case to make headlines concerns a Scottish couple who lost custody of two of their six children on the basis of what was, their lawyer claims, a failure to reduce the kids' weight following warnings from Scottish social services. The couple lost their Oct. 14 appeal in a case ...

A few weeks ago, Lawyer Percy Foreman wearily confided to a friend that James Earl Ray would be his last client in a criminal case. From now on, said Foreman, he would confine his activities to only a few civil suits. "I am 66 years old," he explained, "and I don't need money. So why should I expose myself to the agony of criminal cases?" Last week, however, after successfully copping a controversial plea for Ray, Foreman was obviously feeling ...

MORE THAN 60 YEARS ago, a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin fled Nazi-occupied Europe, arrived in the U.S. and invented a word that he thought would change the world. Lemkin believed that genocide-- from the Greek geno and the Latin cide --would carry such stigma that states would be loath to commit the crime--or to allow it. Lemkin, a haunted refugee and relentless lobbyist, managed to construct a lasting norm, as Webster's and the Oxford English Dictionary granted ...

Down Mobile way, darkies croon to the night on soft spring evenings, grin, tip hats, as they shuffle past white "gemmen," still their noble lords if not their masters. Fortnight ago, Clarence Darrow, keen-witted, sharp-tongued Northern lawyer, stopped in Mobile, Ala., made speeches to wide-mouthed black men attacking Negro lynchings. On street corners hot-blooded white men gathered, muttered curses on Mr. Darrow, "damned Yankee" agitator. At Negro schools, able Lawyer Darrow repeated his speeches to the "new Negro." Klan circulars ...

Those starting on careers in the law will not be discouraged by information revealed by the appraisal of the estate of Levy Mayer of Chicago, who died in August, 1922. Taxes will be paid on a total of $8,499,097, and that sum was accumulated by the corporation lawyer from fees and investments of savings. Mr. Mayer was counsel for the " Big Four" packers, for most of the leading distillers and liquor dealers, for some theatrical managers. Although a lawyer ...

A runaway teen who said her father threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity has been returned from Florida to Ohio, but not yet to her family, her mother's lawyer said Tuesday.

A former Alabama judge accused of checking male inmates out of jail and forcing them to engage in sexual activity was found not guilty Monday on charges of sexual abuse, attempted sodomy and assault, his lawyer said.

For days, Kate Gosselin, at war with her estranged husband, has been excited about the peaceful prospect of making a chocolate birthday cake from scratch for her twins Mady and Cara, who celebrate their ninth birthday Thursday. Now it looks like even Kate's chocolate cake may be caught up in the bitterness. On Wednesday, Jon, 32, was spotted with bags of gifts for his oldest daughters -- and a big box from a high-end New York City bakery. ...

A Spanish judge Tuesday ordered an Argentine pilot to be kept in prison in Madrid, Spain, until a decision is made about whether he should be extradited to his home country on charges that he participated in "death flights." Former Argentine Navy Lt. Julio Alberto Poch is one of two pilots arrested recently for allegedly piloting "death flights" in which more than 1,000 prisoners were thrown alive out of planes during Argentina's "dirty war" in the 1970s and '80s, officials ...