The high cost of lawyers' fees has resulted to a rise of Americans handling their own court cases, with assistance from legal self-help sites and groups. The kind of self-handled cases has gone beyond civil cases involving small amounts of money to domestic problems, divorces and child custody matters, according to the National Center for State Courts.

For Ronald Luri, getting fired for not firing employees was worth it after a jury in Cuyahoga County, Ohio awarded him nearly $47 million in compensation for lost income and punitive damage. The 55-year-old former general manager for trash hauler Republic Services Inc. said he was vindicated upon learning of the award, the largest ever in Ohio's history, issued by a Common Pleas Court jury on Thursday.

An Alabama death row inmate has died in prison without getting the retrial he sought 18 years ago for his case. Shep Wilson Jr. , 50, of Talladega County, succumbed to liver failure due to hepatitis C on June 12 at the infirmary of the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer. He was buried by his family on Tuesday.

It all began 30 years ago today. The mother lode of all spam - the bane of everyone's online existence - was first sent out via the U. S. Defense Department's Arpanet by a salesman named Gary Thuerk. The first junk mail or "Spam" as we know it today, was an invitation for a demo of the new system-20 mini computers being marketed by the Digital Equipment Corp.

A 92-year old man's recent marriage was quickly annulled after a judge deemed him unable to manage his responsibilities as a husband. The annulment was on the first ever marriage of Alfred Kreisler, a South Florida lawyer who married 43-year old divorcee Yvette Penichet October of last year.