Last Friday, the FCC voted along party lines to approve Title II regulation for Internet Service Providers. This means – absent lawsuits from Verizon and Comcast – that the FCC would be able to enforce net neutrality regulations preventing ISPs from selectively throttling whatever traffic it wants and extorting content providers into expensive side-deals (“Nice streaming video service you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if it slowed down …”)...
Not everyone has an iPhone. And if you are one of the growing users of Android smartphones, you may be looking for a virtual assistant that rivals Apple’s Siri. Fortunately, there are several Siri alternatives out there. Unfortunately, not all of them are conducive for an attorney. Think about it, if you’re an attorney, you probably have specific needs for your smartphone and virtual assistant that a hipster in her 20s would not have....
Little Jimmy is about to venture onward and conquer the world. You watched him cross that stage after three years in hell, three years of Socratic interrogation, three years of working towards an uncertain future in a profession suffering from unprecedented contraction. There’s been a lot of talk about tablets and the impending “post-PC” age, but it ain’t here yet. Have you ever tried typing on an iPad or an Android tablet?...
We’re surrounded by unorganized, unstructured data: old case files, public records, mountains upon metaphorical mountains of electronically stored information, and even the emoticons in your emails. This data can be mined for valuable information. That, at least, is the promise of “big data,” that data with low information density, but huge volume can be organized and analyzed for important legal insights. And it’s already happening. Here are five of FindLaw’s top posts on how big data is affecting the legal industry today....
Justice Don Willett, the Texas Tweeter Laureate, may be a favorite of appellate lawyer Twitter (which, yes, appellate Twitter is a thing), but if the numbers are any indication, his popularity among Senators fell along strict party lines. The 50 to 47 vote went his way, but just barely. Both Justice Willett, and James Ho, were nominated to seats on the Fifth Circuit, and this week, both had their nominations confirmed....
Conviction of defendant for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and related crimes is affirmed where: 1) because the police department’s policy authorizes the opening of closed containers encountered during an inventory search and the deputy adhered to that policy, the search falls within the inventory search exception, and thus, does not violate the Fourth Amendment; and 2) because the department’s policy properly curtails the discretion of searching officers and the deputy adhered to that policy, the search falls within the inventory exception....
It’s Wednesday. Has anyone ever written a song about this drag of a day? The songs don’t say “easy as [Wednesday] morning,” and no one “gets down on [Wednesday].” Wednesday is the most hated day of the week for a reason, as there are still two more days of work left before you are free. Getting amped mid-week can be hard. But you need to. There are emails to return and a mountain of research and/or paperwork sitting right there, looking at you....
So you want to get your law firm’s name out in the community, but you also want to help the community. Why can’t you do both at the same time? 1. Sponsor a Team. Little league, soccer, whatever – your firm can make a donation, either in money or in kind, to a local kids’ sports team. If you choose the in-kind donation route, consider a donation of uniforms with your logo displayed on there somewhere (assuming your state’s advertising rules permit it)....
Small firm attorneys – are you treating your employees right? Being a lawyer is hard, but being a part of the staff at a law firm, no matter what the size, is just as difficult. The law is a niche industry – think about what those who are working for you have to pick up on if it took years of experience, going to law school, and taking the bar exam (once, if not more) for you to get to where you are....
If you’re not already aware, a browser extension application was created recently to give a web user an estimation of an individual’s age based on their LinkedIn information. In this age of “there’s an app for that,” this is hardly a shocker. But did you ever stop to think about the possible legal implications? Elizabeth Windham wrote a piece for North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology that makes a valid point: Age-Insight and technology like it (e....
In Steve Martin’s comedy Bowfinger, a no-budget filmmaker follows a famous actor around Hollywood and secretly films him to piece together a movie. The big problem is, the movie star is paranoid. When his adviser discovers the surreptitious recording, he observes: “Well, I guess it’s true; it’s not paranoia when someone’s really after you.” That’s a long intro for this point: you are not paranoid if you think someone is tracking your phone, text messages, and other communications....
If you’ve never been in a dentist’s chair and watched the smoke float away from the drill grinding your tooth, you don’t know what it means to have a root canal. It’s one of the reasons people avoid going to the dentist; they’re afraid of the dreaded diagnosis that a tooth is rotten to the core. It has to come out or worse. It’s also a lot like the reason people don’t get counseling for mental issues; they’re afraid of the consequences....
Your client is innocent until proven guilty. And those arrests that never resulted in charges? Irrelevant at trial. But the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that uncharged arrests can be relevant to a sentencing judge’s upward departure determination. Joseph Lozada-Aponte pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, after shipping an assault rifle from Florida to Puerto Rico. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison....
A three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the issue of mixed-motive retaliation claims by government employees earlier this month. Interestingly, the court found that such claims would fail when the purported discrimination was only one of the motivating factors behind the adverse employment action. Mixed-motive claims can complicate an otherwise simple retaliation claim, and the three judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals grappled with the disability claim of a Department of Veterans Affairs medical support assistant....
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed a forgery ruling against the plaintiff’s daughter when she transferred certain stock to herself and her step-mother by forging her father’s signature. Evidentiary issues arose as to whether or not the father could introduce testimony that supported the eventual ruling against her. For those attorneys who enjoy evidence, we think you’ll appreciate this case. Forged Signatures Afoot In the case of Berkowitz v Berkowitz, Samuel Berkowitz sued his daughter for her alleged breach of her fiduciary duties as trustee in a trust he’d set up for her and his then wife and son....
A 21st Century Fox shareholder filed suit to stop Disney’s purchase of the company’s studio assets, alleging false financial projections about the proposed acquisition. In a putative class-action filed in Delaware, Robert Weiss claims a proxy statement omits or misrepresents financials and valuations in the deal. His complaint focuses on projections for Hulu and earnings for European broadcaster Sky. In the meantime, Fox shareholders are set to meet on whether to accept Disney’s offer....
As a lawyer, it is your job to help clients navigate the confusing, and unforgiving, legal system. We lawyers can often forget that we provide a service, rather than a product, to our clients. If clients don’t understand, or even know, what you’re doing for them, then they are less likely to be pleased with what you are doing. Typically, while clients appreciate and value good results, one of the most important aspects of pleasing (and keeping) clients is clear, simple communication....
“Employees abuse office computer privileges by shopping online during work hours,” blares a headline from Inside Counsel. “Abuse”? That seems a little bit harsh. Employees also abuse their computer privileges by checking personal email during the work day and doing any number of other things that are technically violations, but are so minor that no one should care. But they’re going to do it anyway. A recent FindLaw survey shows that 35 percent of Americans shop online while at work....
Petition for review of BIA’s denial for asylum and related relief is granted, and the ruling is vacated and remanded where the court finds lacking an itemization of the substantial evidence necessary for an adverse credibility determination, and because the Board limited its reasoning to the adverse credibility finding and did not discuss petitioner’s eligibility for relief, the case is remanded to the agency to make a well-reasoned and well-explained determination of petitioner’s eligibility....
Lawyer marketing ain’t what it once was. You can’t get away with just a listing in the Yellow Pages, an ad in the local paper, and word of mouth anymore. High speed Internet, mobile devices, and those dang Millennials have radically changed how people consume information today. Here’s how the media consumption landscape has changed – and how you can adapt your marketing to it. Television Is Starting to Disappear Most Americans get their television through a subscription cable service....
