If you’ve ever had a personal email or social media account hacked, you know, basically, what to expect and do. You’re not going to be able to log into your account, and you’re going to get a handful of text messages, calls, or even emails from family, friends, colleagues, and potentially clients, asking if you’ve been hacked. You’re going to get on the phone, or online chat, with tech support and prove you are the owner of the account....
President Trump’s on-again, off-again travel ban is off again, at least in principle. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said the ban – the third one – is unconstitutional. The appeals court said in International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump that the ban wrongfully discriminates against people of Islamic faith. However, the decision does not supersede the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in December that allowed the ban to stand pending litigation....
Apple and Samsung are engaged in a global war over intellectual property and patent infringement associated with smartphones and tablets. In the European campaign, Apple looks to have lost its battle, and has now been forced to make a public apology to Samsung. Britain’s Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s ruling that despite some similarities, Samsung did not infringe upon Apple’s designs with its Galaxy tablet. In a backhanded victory, the court basically said Samsung could not have copied Apple because the Samsung product was simply “not as cool,” reports Reuters....
Bank of America cannot claim attorney-client privilege for legal documents shared between it and Countrywide during their 2008 merger, New York’s highest court ruled yesterday. The documents were passed between each company’s lawyers during merger discussions, but before the union had been completed. The bank may now be compelled to release those legal communications, made at the height of the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing Great Recession. The ruling is a blow to Bank of America, which had sought to protect the documents, which may reveal to what extent Countrywide considered its liability for fraud connected to its mortgage-backed loans....
In an action based on injuries sustained by plaintiff on an oil rig owned by one defendant and operated by another defendant, the district court’s judgment holding the operator 55% liable for plaintiff’s injuries and the owner 45% liable is affirmed in part where: 1) the reciprocal indemnity agreement between defendants obligated the operator to indemnify the owner for plaintiff’s injuries; and 2) the district court did not clearly err in determining that the owner was not the superseding cause of the incident....
Last Friday, British chanteuse and pop-music phenomenon Adele released the first video from her full album, “Hello.” It was filmed entirely in sepia tones, featured the expected heart-felt crooning, and one very prominent flip phone. That flip phone made headlines by Billboard, ABC, and CNet. But if there’s a vintage cell phone revival on the horizon, it’s not going to be for the old flip phones. It’ll be for BlackBerry, who is attempting to top the smartphone charts once again with its new Android Priv....
You may have heard of these newfangled Google laptops. Some are as cheap as $250. The newest Chromebook, the Chromebook Pixel, costs a whopping $1,300 for the base model. But what in the heck are they? Though Chrome OS is Linux-based, you could say that about a lot of operating systems. Android, which runs on more than sixty percent of smartphones, is Linux-based. Ubuntu Linux, which is the most popular flavor of the open-source alternative operating system, is based on Linux....
In Gao v. Holder, No. 07-2070, the court faced a challenge to the BIA’s denial of Chinese petitioner’s applications for withholding of removal and asylum. In approving the Attorney General’s finding that a conviction for unlawful export is an aggravated felony under section 1231(b)(3)(B), the court stated: “The statute does not declare that some categories of crimes may not be considered particularly serious. Instead, it creates a per se rule that some aggravated felonies must be considered particularly serious and then leaves it up to the Attorney General to ‘decide[ ]’ whether other crimes are as well....
Solvay, since acquired by Abbott Laboratories (and renamed AbbVie), makes a topical testosterone cream, which is protected by a patent until 2020 and has brought in $1.8 billion in revenue. Like many pharmaceutical companies, it sought to protect its product from an invasion of generic clones. It did so by filing a lawsuit. That lawsuit settled after Solvay agreed to kick back proceeds from their sales to the now-abstaining generic producers....
Judge Richard Posner handed down a victory for search engines and indexers when he found that MyVidster did not violate any copyright laws by embedding videos on its site. Issuing the decision for the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Posner found that MyVidster, a social video bookmarking site, did not infringe the copyright of Flava Works, a porn company. MyVidster had embedded copyright-infringing versions of Flava Works videos from third-party websites, reports Gizmodo....
Most lawyers are aware of one of the biggest risks inherent in practicing full time: It can be lonely at the top. If you work too hard and neglect life, your family and friends may end up hating you, and in some cases, may all leave. If the stress of lawyering, or the associated long hours, aren’t making you an intolerable mess for your family to be around, consider yourself blessed....
The FTC may have lost the legislative battle to the big corporate interests, but the Ninth Circuit recently handed the agency a big win in its second appeal against AT&T. The case started back in 2014 with the FTC filing a lawsuit related to AT&T’s throttling of mobile data for certain customers. Interestingly, in 2015, the FCC ruled that providers of mobile data/internet service were in fact common carriers. Notably, the common carrier distinction removed AT&T from the regulatory purview of the FTC....
So there I am. It was dark, cold, and rainy (outside). It was me, my keyboard, and writer’s block. Then I stumbled upon an NLRB rule change announcement and decided to do my job and dig up the actual text of the rule change in the Federal Register. Holy hell, have you actually used the Federal Register’s website? We give our dear government a lot of crap for funding websites that don’t actually work, but at least in this one instance, there is actually a government website that (a) works (b) looks good and (c) is absolutely freaking fantastic....
If you have teenagers with cell phones, do not let them see this story. A federal appeals court said it is a Fourth Amendment violation to take away a person’s cell phone without a “reasonable basis.” Of course, that applies when it’s the government taking the phone. But still, you may want to think twice about explaining the constitutional nuances to a kid who has a death grip on a cell phone....
In plaintiff-former deputy’s suit against a sheriff in his official capacity under Title VII for sexual harassment and in his individual capacity under Virginia law for battery, district court’s substitution of new sheriff as the defendant in her official capacity in the Title VII claim and jury verdict in favor of plaintiff is affirmed as to accept defendant’s argument that because each sheriff in Virginia is by state law a singular entity with an independent tenure, she could not be substituted in her official capacity as the successor to the former sheriff in the Title VII claim, would be to allow a state law to override Title VII in violation of the Supremacy Clause....
Lawrence Hogan, Jr. is not a lawyer, but he knows a bad law when he sees one. Hogan, the rare Republican governor of Maryland, told state legislators that he would not sign their bill because it was unconstitutional. It became law without his signature, but that was not the end of it. The end came two years later when the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law against price-gouging sales of prescription drugs....
The new Apple Watch has an auto-dial feature to call 911 if it senses you fall down. That would be good for elderly people or others who have fallen and can’t get up. But if the cops show up and see you have a meth lab, you’ll be doing some real time. Fourth Amendment Elizabeth Joh, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, pointed out the Fourth Amendment problem....
Newsflash: The National Security Agency lied. Okay, actual newsflash: they didn’t just lie to We The People. They lied to the Solicitor General and the Department of Justice, and by extension, to the Supreme Court. Nine months ago, the court decided Clapper v. Amnesty International, denying standing to the plaintiffs because it was totally speculative (and paranoid) that they were being spied on by the government. Except they were. We all were....
Unless you live in a very small town, you’re going to need to find your niche to develop a successful law practice. So why not become a marijuana lawyer? As you may know, more and more states are legalizing marijuana for certain medicinal purposes. However, the laws are very new and potential users and growers need legal guidance. Sure, if you practice in this area you’d have to tell people you specialize in marijuana law....
For some folks, a quiet environment is absolutely necessary in order to get anything done. But for most people, a new study confirms what we already know: a little bit of background noise helps with creativity. While this finding is not groundbreaking, another insight explains one of the bigger mysteries: Why the background noise is more distracting in your office compared to a cafe, or other public place. And no, the answer does not have anything to do with the highly caffeinated coffee dust suspended in the air....
