Posts

In the few weeks since Swiss police arrested seven FIFA executives on fraud, money laundering and racketeering charges, the once-untouchable organization has seen its standing decline drastically. FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, faces allegations that there was “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption throughout the organization. As the public watches, high-ranking members are turning on each other to place blame. Even for in-house counsel who can’t tell soccer from synchronized swimming, the FIFA scandal is something worth watching....

We just surveyed the most disruptive legal technologies of 2015 and automation didn’t make the list. It didn’t even get close. But the idea of automating practices routinely performed by lawyers has been floating around for awhile now. Depending on your perspective, automation is a tantalizing or terrifying prospect. And it’s starting to creep into law firms and legal practice. Will the new year see even more automation take hold in the legal industry?...

It’s that time of the year – the “Hey, look at all the cool stuff that happened in the past year” time of the year. But let’s be honest: Most good advice, and many titillating tales, stand the test of time. And most of 2014’s posts were of the advice-column variety – from becoming a general counsel to becoming a better general counsel. Here are the 10 most popular In House blog posts of 2014:...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held this week that a “lewd assault act” qualifies as a crime of violence to support a sentencing enhancement. William Cortes-Salazar, a citizen of Colombia, appealed his 57-month sentence for illegal reentry of a deported alien based on a 13-level sentencing enhancement. Prior to his illegal reentry offense, Cortes-Salazar was convicted in Florida for marijuana possession in 1990 and for commission of a “lewd assault act” in 1993, and removed from the United States in December 1995....

More and more Internet users are accessing websites on their mobile devices. Will they find your law firm on their iPhone or Android phone? It’s very likely that potential clients will be searching for your firm on their phones these days as mobile Internet users increase. So should lawyers keep up with technology and get a mobile website? Mobile Internet users have grown 30% in one year to about 1.5 billion users worldwide, according to a 2013 Internet trends study reported by TechCrunch....

Now that you’ve got a “handle” on Twitter and other social media platforms, take your social media prowess to the next level: Make 2014 the year of engagement. It’s all about beefing up posting where it will reach your audience and dialing back where it’s failed to resonate. Here’s a breakdown of five platforms to help jumpstart your Social Media Plan 2.0: Here’s hoping 2014 is your firm’s social media #goldenera....

Just like you wouldn’t let paper files pile up on your desk (you wouldn’t, would you?), you shouldn’t let your digital files lay around unorganized and untended either. If you’re running a paperless office (and most lawyers should have a largely paperless practice by this point), you’ll need to put some thought into organizing your digital files. Here’s the trick. The key to managing your digital files is to have a clear organizational system – and to stick to it....

Outlooks appears to be the de-facto email and scheduling suite used by offices around the United States, for better or worse. Unfortunately, the program is enormous and it’s impractical to learn all that there is to learn. Then again, you’re selling Outlook short if you use it for nothing but the basics. Here are a few quick and dirty tricks that you should find useful to increase your efficiency in Outlook....

A recent study has shown that about 25% of lawyer moms end up leaving the legal workplace. Law firms are left wondering why, and what can be done to retain talented attorneys. To Herr, the results are perplexing. “You would think that, given the rise in education of women, their experience, their presence in high-investment, high-income, high-value fields, the proportion of those who leave the labor force would have gone down,” Herr told the Post....

Relax, a robot will not be taking your law job – yet. According to researchers – aided by computers, of course – only 23 percent of a lawyer’s tasks can be automated with current technology. After analyzing 2,000 work activities for 800 occupations, McKinsey Global Institute reported that it will be a decade before artificial intelligence will take over any lawyer jobs. That’s right, C3PO, get away from the lawyer’s desk and get back to the translation business....

Are your company’s contracts getting a little too old and tired? If you are thinking about tightening some of the language in your company’s contract, or completely reworking an agreement, you’re probably going to need some tools to help you along the way. Drafting company contracts and transactional agreements is a general counsel’s bread and butter. And, updating your company’s standard boilerplate agreements can be mentally exhausting. You want your contracts to be able to stand up in a court of law and look out for your company’s interest....

Last week’s Senate judiciary hearing is raising some interesting questions about cameras in the Supreme Court. Just a day before the hearing, Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley introduced the Cameras in the Courtroom Act of 2011. That bill instructs the Court to televise oral arguments. The Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts brought in a high-profile panel to discuss the issue, including former Senator Arlen Specter and SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein....

When it comes to guns, few states are as gung-ho as Texas. After all, Yosemite Sam was almost named “Texas Tiny” for a reason. In keeping with the gung-ho mentality, the recent decision in Glass v. Paxton explains that a 2015 Texas law allows handgun owners with concealed carry permits to carry their concealed handguns on college campuses and even inside college classrooms. The case focused on a challenge to that law due to the fact that teachers that wanted to ban guns in their own classrooms would face discipline from their institutions, and were prohibited from doing so....

For lawyers across the country reading about all the successes that legal chatbot makers have found, the question seems only natural: Would your law practice benefit from a chatbot? While the legal tech industry has only just scratched the surface of what a legal chatbot can do, they’ve already proven to be incredibly useful in more than a few different areas of law. If you’re considering getting, downloading, or creating, a chatbot for your law firm, Lawyerist’s guide is a great place to start, as it can help walk you through the various different kinds of chatbot implementations....

Over-confidence was one of Todd Rasberry’s problems; another was drug-dealing. When police patted him down during a search for drugs, Rasberry said the softball-sized object they felt in his groin area was “part of his anatomy.” It turned out to be a big ball of drugs in United States of America v. Rasberry. Bad “Champagne” Drug enforcement agents had been on the trail of a major drug dealer known only as “Champagne....

General counsel are not really trained in “rumor law,” but it’s time they learned something about it. In Parker v. Reema Consulting Services, Inc., an employee sued for sex discrimination based on a hostile work environment. The source of her suffering? Rumors that she slept her way to the top. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said she has a case. That was news to lawyers across the country....

Last week the FTC knocked on the doors of eight mobile device makers and asked them to provide hard answers regarding their efforts to address or patch the latest security vulnerabilities afflicting your mobile device. Simultaneously, it has also opened the doors to citizens inviting comment to the following general question: “How secure is your device?” “Stagefright” The announcement comes soon after the discovery of the Android operating system bug known as “Stagefright” that left a gaping hole through which billions of devices could be left to attack....

My invite is here! I’m now a member of the special persons club who are privileged enough to get to pay Google Domains to register a new domain name! Despite that sarcastic tone, I was actually pretty excited to get in the door. The problem is, once I got there, the experience was completely anti-climactic. Speaking of domain names, perhaps you’ve seen our excited posts about the wave of new top-level domains (TLDs) coming in the near future....

Today’s edition of Bizarre Lawsuits is straight outta Texas – Dallas, to be exact. It involves the failure of a small law firm; a dead ex-wife; a 92-year-old grandma; and allegations of wrongful death. Enter Scott Marshall, an attorney who recently pleaded guilty to the murder of Staci Montgomery – his former law partner’s ex-wife. Marshall, quarreling with ex-partner Bady Sassin, is believed to have killed Montgomery out of revenge....

The video game business is no game; it is all business. That’s the bottom line when it comes to Nintendo’s Switch, a controller-console that slides onto a tablet computer to allow portable gaming. The company has sold almost 5 million units since March, boosting revenue to $1.41 billion during the first quarter this year. The problem is, another company says Nintendo stole its invention. Patent game on. Game On Gamevice, which makes video game controllers that attach to tablets and smart phones, has sued to stop Nintendo from making and selling the Switch....