Angry Birds Trademark Suit Settled And Policing Trademarks

If you have eyes and ears, then you’ve probably seen, heard about, or wasted many hours of your life playing Angry Birds. Well, you’re not alone. Rovio Entertainment Ltd., the owners of the Angry Birds trademark, said that its games have been downloaded over 1 billion times, with 3.33 million hours per day wasted on mindless Angry Bird gaming. Angry All Around So, with such a valuable trademark to protect, when it found out about Angry Clubs, a golf equipment company, with a logo curiously evocative of the Angry Birds trademark, Rovio sued to protect its assets....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 335 words · Marian Maxwell

Bathroom Bias Battle Heats Up As North Carolina Sues Doj

North Carolina has faced a significant backlash since it adopted House Bill 2, a law meant to force transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their birth gender, rather than the gender they identify with. PayPal cancelled plans to expand to Charlotte, Lionsgate and A+E have refused to film in the state, and last week, the Department of Justice warned that the law violated the civil rights of transgender people, which could cost North Carolina millions in federal funds....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 579 words · Mary Bilsborough

Court Hotel Had Duty To Man Injured In Lobby Fight

Late one night, Henry Mu was waiting for his girlfriend outside a hotel when a fight broke out. A rowdy group of men, who had been kicked out of their room for disrupting guests, were chasing down a man. Mu told the hotel valet to call the police. “That’s not my problem,” the valet said. In Mu v. Omni Hotels Management Corporation, turns out it was. Mu tried to get away from the fracas, but some of the young men stormed into the lobby after him....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 372 words · Eric Johnston

Drones At Your Next Company Meeting Tips For In House Counsel

A lot of attention has been paid recently to the topic of emerging electronic consumables. Between hover-boards and drones, the latter are clearly cooler. Drones are not only cooler, they also have greater potential for commercial application. But lawyers should know better than to let company employees fly these things across board rooms. We’ve tried to put together a quick list of things in-house counsel should keep in mind when advising about the latest in drone concerns....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 606 words · Richard Hansel

Female Exec At Boa Sues Alleges Bro S Club Lies Butt Kissing

A high ranking female executive at one of the nation’s biggest banks brought a wallop of a suit against her employer recently, alleging, among other things, a “subordinate ‘bro’s club’ of all-male sycophants.” It’s a damning set of allegations against a professional industry that has already lost a lot of its balance amidst frequent allegations of sex-related pay imbalances. Megan Messina, a high ranking and skilled managing director at Bank of America filed a lawsuit earlier this week accusing her employer of condoning sexism by her boss, bias and “egregious pay disparity....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 404 words · Jessica Christensen

First Circuit Blocks Release Of Bc Interviews Of Ira Member To Uk

The First Circuit Court of Appeals blocked an order from a lower court judge requiring Boston College to turn over documents pertaining to a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to the United Kingdom. Based on a treaty with the United States that requires both countries to furnish materials that would aid in criminal inquiries, the United Kingdom had originally subpoenaed the college for the recordings of interviews that former IRA member Dolours Price gave to a Boston College oral history project....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 393 words · Kimberly Pryor

Gadgets You Missed On Labor Day But You Can Still Try To Buy

If you missed the Labor Day sales, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of summer. The good news is that this is the season of sales. Retailers are already pricing their goods for holiday discounts. With tech gadgets, time is especially on the lawyer’s side. That’s because new tech drives prices down, even as old hourly rates go up. Year-End Deals Mashable already did everybody’s gadget-buying homework....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 273 words · Jeff Jones

I M Drowning Here What To Do When You Have Too Much Business

In terms of First World Problems, complaining about having too much work is almost as bad as worrying that you have too much money. But, as any lawyer knows, work is work and having too much of it can detrimentally impact your cases and practice, not to mention your personal life. Whether you were overzealous in taking on new clients or had a supposedly straightforward matter snowball out of control, here’s some ideas on how to cope with too much work....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 495 words · Rosetta Ploof

Justice O Connor Keeps Hearing Cases Despite Her Political Causes

When former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired, court-watchers expected her to fade into the background. After all, she had left to take care of her ailing husband. It’s nearly six years later and Justice O’Connor is more active than ever. She’s served on a commission that studied the Iraq war, and launched a website on civics education. She’s also heard about 140 appellate cases. But to some, O’Connor’s full calendar is cause for concern....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 350 words · Miguel Johnson

Prosecutors Do This Not That

Eat This, Not That is a popular book about eating healthy, and it has nothing to do with being a prosecutor. Except this: there are things that prosecutors should do and not do. It’s all about good practices that lead to healthy living. When it comes to ethical choices, it’s especially important to make wise choices. It takes discipline, like like deciding whether to eat donuts; they may look good but they are really bad for you....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 361 words · Cleo Brown

Senate Confirms Judge Adalberto Jord N For Eleventh Circuit

After Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) held up the confirmation vote earlier in the week, the Senate confirmed Judge Adalberto José Jordán for a seat on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday by a vote of 94-5, reports The Washington Post. President Obama nominated Jordán in August to succeed Senior Judge Susan Black. Judge Jordán has served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami since 1999....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 303 words · Loree Morrison

Should Law Firms Upgrade To Office 365

For many law firms out there, upgrading software is about as important as ergonomic assessments for summer interns. Sure, your old copy of Microsoft Office has served you well in the past, and it could probably continue to work for longer than you. But with all that Microsoft Office 365 has to offer, you might want to actually consider upgrading. If you’re blissfully unaware of some of the perks of Office 365, you may not want to know what you’re missing....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 381 words · Steven Reagan

Summary Judgment For Excess Insurer In Coverage Dispute Partially Reversed And Criminal Employment And Insurance Matters

Amerisure Ins. Co. v. Navigators Ins. Co., No. 09-20060, concerned an action by a primary insurer seeking reimbursement from an excess insurer through equitable and contractual subrogation. The court of appeals vacated summary judgment for defendant, on the grounds that 1) contractual subrogation placed plaintiff in the shoes of its insureds involved in the accident at issue; 2) the employer-indemnification exception barred coverage for one of the insureds; and 3) the district court needed to determine whether an individual insured was an independent contractor or an employee....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 455 words · Earl Castro

The Greatest Threat To Your Data Security May Be Yourself

According to a new study by Baker Hostetler, one of the nation’s largest intellectual property focused law firms, most data breaches are caused by human error, not hackers or malware. In a review of over 200 data breach incidents, the firm found employee negligence to be the leading cause of breaches. That’s right – those Russian hackers are less a threat to your company’s security than its own employees, whose negligence or theft was responsible for more than half of all breaches examined....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 468 words · Nina Plante

The Uspto West Will Soon Be My Neighbor Yay Silicon Valley

Downtown San Jose is a funny place. On one block, you have a law school with homeless people (presumably, not all of them are recent graduates) sleeping on the doorstep. Two blocks over, you have a place serving $9 beers. And, of course, there’s that shiny new San Jose City Hall, which seems to be largely vacant, and which has an art installation on the bottom floor, filled with art that no one wants to actually see....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 507 words · Jean Chrisman

Want To Compete Against Robot Lawyers Focus On Being Human

Artificial intelligence and automated legal services aren’t anywhere near advanced enough to replace lawyers in serious legal matters. But they’re getting closer by the day. And even simple technologies like online legal forms are undermining some attorney business. How’s an attorney supposed to compete when the competition is clad in chrome and capable of processing thousands of documents in the blink of an eye? By being human. “Polish up your human skills....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 433 words · Tanya Maxwell

What To Do If Your Judge Is Overly Festive During The Holidays

Judges are people. It might not always feel like it, but they are human beings that can get drunk on holiday spirit (or just spirits), act stupid, and embarrass themselves like everybody else. Not only is there an annual judge holiday DUI or two, from time to time, there’s a really ridiculous judicial holiday drunk driving debacle. Fortunately for lawyers and litigants, judges rarely let that holiday spirit crash into the courtroom....

February 4, 2023 · 3 min · 553 words · Felica Benson

Will Attorneys Or Anyone Ditch Their Iphones For A Windows Phone

Which of these three would you want: an iPhone, an Android, or a Windows Phone? For some attorneys, the phrase “Windows Phone” might make them take pause. After all, in this iPhone and Android-filled world, is there even enough room for Microsoft to compete? Once derided, the Windows Phone is trying to make a comeback. Some of the newer phones even received positive reviews. Tech-savvy attorneys might soon see these smartphones gracing the shelves of their wireless carrier’s store....

February 4, 2023 · 2 min · 376 words · Bryan Garrison

The Defendant Doesn T Normally Wear Eyeglasses Jury Instruction

If you advise clients to dress professionally for court you may want to draw the line at suggesting they wear glasses since that might become the subject of a jury instruction. Criminal defendant Donnell Harris wore glasses to his second-degree murder trial and the prosecution noticed that it wasn’t his typical style. Something about the glasses was so different that they suspected he’d made the change just to trip up witnesses trying to identify him at trial....

February 3, 2023 · 2 min · 349 words · Megan Lundy

20 Years Later Which O J Lawyer Is The Biggest Success

How do you define success? Is it making a ton of money, win or lose? How about fame, without an astronomical fortune? Or do we look to the greater purpose of one’s career, such as decades of public service or becoming the champion of hopeless causes? For young lawyers especially, we’ll all face that choice at some point: are we chasing bigger figures, or do we want to make a difference?...

February 3, 2023 · 4 min · 696 words · Wanita Jellerson