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In a case that circles around the question of whether making terrorist threats is a crime of moral turpitude, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals moved against the majority convention and remanded the BIA case to be reviewed under a correct application of law. This is a good opportunity for immigration lawyers to understand the applicable law for their next IJ hearing. An immigrant appealed his cancellation of removal from the United States pursuant to federal law after Texas determined that he was convicted under that state’s laws for crimes of moral turpitude: indecent exposure and making terrorist-like threats....

Get a hair cut, get a criminal defense lawyer. Get a latte, get a will drafted. It all began with the coffee shop law firm, Legal Grind of Santa Monica, California. Jeffrey J. Hughes, the attorney-owner, was a recent graduate who, like many recent graduates, had few lucrative options. After dabbling in contract work and substitute teaching, he took the plunge into coffee shop ownership, reports the ABA Journal. Initially, customers would pay for the coffee and get the advice for free....

There have been so many rumors swirling about the MacBook Air, from high definition “Retina” displays to a 12-inch redesign, that it’d be hard not to be disappointed by an update to Apple’s cheapest ultraportable laptops. Even still, meh. Earlier this week, the Cupertino-based company, with no fanfare whatsoever, quietly updated its MacBook Air lineup with this change: a 0.1GHz speed increase. This is like someone giving you $1.58 instead of $1....

If someone were to tell you that the term “JIZZ underwear” would be used to argue for the very core of copyright and trademark, you’d think you’d stumbled onto a dirty website, right? That term, including many other equally racy or offensive trademarks were cited as examples by the Redskin’s legal team in their appellate brief filed with the Fourth Circuit. The argument: the 2014 PTO’s canceling of six trademarks for the “Washington Redskins” amounts to unequal treatment under the law....

The shutdown is no more. Funding will be restored, federal workers will return to work, and courts won’t have to try to balance their constitutional duties with the Anti-Deficiency Act’s minimal staffing standards. This is all good news, yet the brilliant judge who suggested a showdown with Congress that would make them go “bats**t” is apparently depressed. Why? Though he only posted a copy of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” as a means of expressing himself, our best guess is that it has something to do with sequestration funding, which was crippling the courts even before the government-wide shutdown....

Forget Alphabet or Moore’s Law or artificial intelligence: when it comes to big news in tech, families are taking center stage. Less than a week ago, Netflix announced a new, generous parental leave policy, giving new parents as much paid time off as they need. Then Microsoft followed suit, announcing that employees could take five months of leave. Yesterday, Adobe caught up, offering over six months of paid leave. Apparently, parental leave has become the new hot commodity when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent and proving one’s commitment to employees and family....

One problem with being a leader is that people expect more out of you. Just ask the guys at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. They have 12 new partners, and 11 of them are men. In a law firm announcement, a photo shows the group of men and the one woman. Others are asking: “Where did you put the rest of the women?” We Can “Do Better” Traditionally, the big law firm has rated among the top 25 most diverse in the country....

Cyberattacks, like many crimes, don’t get real until they affect you. Even then, people often roll along after a hacked email account is recovered because it’s just easier. But lawyers can’t do that with client communications. That’s a real problem, so what are you going to do about it? Check Your Toolbox It’s not easy to fess up to being hacked. In fact, it’s so difficult, you’ll probably regret not having taken more precautions....

Guest post by Jennifer K. Halford, Esq. There are many reasons hiring a legal secretary or paralegal can be beneficial for your solo practice. The key is to hire the right person for your practice. You are busy billing, dealing with clients, and trying to stay on top of your practice. But don’t just run an advertisement and conduct a few interviews. Your practice is your business. It is your reputation....

In 2004, Madelin Semidey-Morales was dating Edison Burgos-Montes while Semidey’s husband was in prison. She agreed to work with the DEA to inform on Burgos, who was a drug dealer. She recorded conversations and arranged purchases for cocaine with DEA agents. A year or so later, one of Burgos’ employees told him that Semidey was a government informant. After that, Semidey mysteriously disappeared. Her body was never found. The government believed it had enough evidence to prosecute, which it did, for conspiracy to traffic drugs, and for Semidey’s murder – which included a charge of murdering her to prevent her from communicating to law enforcement....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. One presidential candidate with the initials DT has claimed generally that “the system is rigged” and he has speculated in advance as to whether the election also might be rigged against him. At the first presidential debate, he did say that he would abide by the election result if the candidate with the initials HRC won the election....

The year 2012 was a long, long time ago in data breach cases. Go back to that supposedly apocalyptic year, and the biggest data breaches barely cracked 100 million. Since then, we’re talking billions. So when a lawsuit over old data breaches at 63 bookstores comes around, it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s about the size of the fight in the dog. In other words, how long will the plaintiffs keep fighting?...

Texting may not be the most efficient way to pick up new clients, but it’s not explicitly barred under Ohio’s legal ethics rules, the ABA Journal reports. Earlier this month, the Ohio Supreme Court’s ethics board announced in a ruling that lawyers may solicit clients by text message as long as they follow the applicable federal and state telemarketing laws, according to the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct. Ohio rules bar lawyers from soliciting clients through “in-person, live telephone, or real-time electronic contact,” but lawyers are permitted to “advertise services through written, recorded, or electronic communication, including public media....

There’s your headline: Major League Teams in Tampa Employed Indentured Servants in Concession Stands. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it? It’s also only one-tenth of the story. An investigation by the Tampa Bay Times unearthed a labor scandal that did indeed involve unpaid concession stand workers for the Tampa Bay Rays, Lightning, Buccaneers, and the Daytona 500. Except the labor was contracted through third-party companies and a non-profit called New Beginnings – a ministry and rehabilitation institution that claims to help homeless drug addicts, but instead was allegedly pocketing their paychecks....

December is not known for ground-breaking legal decisions, especially in light of the very few precedential decisions issued lately. So, in honor of end-of-the-year clean up, and general “keeping yourself busy,” we’re giving you the run down on some changes to rules and fees. On December 1, 2013, some amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate procedure took effect in three main areas: Tax Courts; brief structure; and Form 4....

Note to self: federal prosecutors are really good at turning local crimes into federal ones. Take the case of a former Chicago police officer who was busted for having sex with a minor. Prosecutors nailed him for federal sex trafficking because he used condoms that were made out of state. Of course, he got what he deserved when he pled guilty. But it goes to show you – especially if you are a criminal defense attorney – that people have to be really careful when they cross the line....

A “legal hacker” is probably not what you think it is. Legal Hackers is the name of a grassroots movement of lawyers, technologists and others who share information to solve legal problems through technology. Since starting in 2012, it has grown to more than 100 cities across the United States and other countries. If you knew that already, did you know that you can hack your way to a law job?...

Since it gained notoriety as a teen sexting app in 2012, Snapchat has evolved to become a major social media force, with more than 150 million users sending temporary photos and texts over the app every day. That’s a higher daily user rate than Twitter. Which is to say, when it comes to social media, Snapchat is becoming increasingly important. Snapchat is no longer something lawyers can ignore, so here’s what you should know about the app....

If you’re a personal injury attorney, you know that liens can play a significant role in obtaining a favorable resolution for your client. But where should you start when dealing with personal injury liens? What’s the best strategy for negotiating and reducing liens? Should you handle hospital, insurance and med pay liens differently? Don’t worry, FindLaw has the answers. FindLaw’s attorney writers have just released new and updated personal injury lien resources to help guide attorneys through the process....

Most of the EU member state-countries have already signed on to ratify the Unified Patent Court agreement and only a few more states are left before this thing becomes reality. Rumor has it that Germany and the UK are already inking up and the UPC will be up and running by 2017. A Unified Patent System for Europe The project is an ambitious one which aims to inject some uniformity into the G8 countries....