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Net neutrality is one of those things that you don’t even realize is necessary … until it’s gone. Unfortunately, Americans may be forced to experience the non-neutral World Wide Web in the very near future, unless we can all collectively #SaveTheInternet. On April 23, less than 60 days from now, the final nails in the net neutrality coffin will be getting hammered down. But before that date comes, there are several challenges to the law’s repeal that still must be overcome, though it may require a movement and more than a hashtag....

Let’s get paid! Getting paid, however, requires billing. And billing requires effort. And postage stamps. Boy, do I hate postage stamps. There has to be a better way than drafting invoice-by-invoice, then printing, then mailing them with those stupid, easy-to-lose sticky stamps. And no, the better way doesn’t require you to spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated accounting software suite. Back in my post-bar, pre-full time employment days, I handled occasional appearance gigs and contract work....

We’ve seen studios and publishers go up against armies of unpaid interns, with mixed results. So what happens when an agency that represents the talent that is the lifeblood of those industries runs into its own little unpaid intern issue? It does what many before it have done: settled. That is the rumored status of the case between ICM Partners and the talent agency’s former interns. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two sides have reached a proposed settlement, avoiding a novel issue of arbitration agreements for unpaid interns....

Are you ready to do away with billable hours? Some are calling for attorneys to stop billing altogether and opt for “value billing.” Value billing is being looked at very carefully, as the economy drives law firms to consider changing the way they charge clients, according to an ABA discussion Atlanta, reports ABANow.com. Value billing can be structured as fixed fees, flat fees or success fees. It can even be a flat rate charged for work over a whole year....

Nascar has Dick Trickle; FindLaw has Willie Peacock (see above); 1960s pop music had Chubby Checker. But a half-billion dollar lawsuit against HP? That’s a bit twisted. (Boom.) For those unfamiliar with WebOS, it was Palm and HP’s failed answer to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It was a spectacular operating system tied to inferior hardware and a desert of an app store. According to WebOS Nation, the app sold an astounding 84 copies at $0....

The president-elect’s social media platform of choice may be Twitter, but one of the biggest social media stories of this campaign has nothing to do with 140-character policy proposals or late-night tweet storms. It’s about Facebook. Facebook has quickly replaced traditional print journalism as one of the main sources of news for most Americans, with almost half of the country turning to Facebook for their news fix. But some of that news is not of the highest quality....

In Forsyth v. Spencer, No. 09-1011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit faced a challenge to a denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief arguing, among other things, that his plea was based upon inaccurate and incomplete information and therefore involuntary. As stated in the decision: “From these affidavits and the later proceedings, it is clear the parties at the conference could not agree upon a recommended sentence; but they agreed that defendant would aim to plead guilty to the three less serious charges in exchange for the dismissal of the assault with intent to murder charge....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. The United Nations was born in the aftermath of the atrocities committed leading up to World War II. The United Nations Charter is plain in its support for the development of international human rights protection. The most fundamental human right is the right not to be killed by another human being. At times, the concept of the right to life has been at the heart of debates on the issues of abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, self defense, and war....

There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is doing more now than it has ever done before, and many businesses and individuals now rely on some form of A.I. In the wide world of litigation, we’ve already seen an Alexa and other devices get harvested for data, and the number of times a smartphone’s data has been used to hoist an unsuspecting petard-maker continues to grow. But what happens when a discovery request gets made to inspect an A....

No double entendre intended, but remote work is not going anywhere. Trends come and go; remote work is here to stay – as in “stay at home and work.” It’s a new reality in many professions, including the law. So if remote work is more than a trend, what is it? The survey says: an industry. Remote Industry Laurel Farrera, who once coordinated 500 freelancers across the United States, said “work-from-home” has gone from a curiosity to practically a household word in three years....

Want to avoid being found in contempt? Don’t advise your clients to reclaim their property after it has been foreclosed on. But that’s just what Michael T. Pines of Ventura County did, and then some. Pines has now been ordered to pay $2,000 in fines and over $34,000 in legal fees. He was fortunate enough to avoid incarceration. The matter began after an investment company bought the home at auction and had to fight Pines clients who retook possession of the foreclosed home in Simi Valley....

Robert Mann was convicted of crack and powder cocaine possession in 1998. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in large part because of the amount of crack involved. We all know what happened next: The great crack reform brought forth by the Fair Sentencing Act. Mann moved for a sentence reconsideration; the court eventually reconsidered and reduced the sentence. The Fourth Circuit nixed the reduction, the Supreme Court granted certiorari and vacated the Fourth’s opinion....

Blame it on a fascination with leaning in before Lean In became a thing, but we find female executives pretty fascinating. In a male-dominated corporate world that doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a work-life balance, we (sometimes falsely) believe that the women in charge will create more family-friendly workplaces. Then, a prominent exec like Marissa Mayer takes reins at Yahoo! and rescinds work from home privileges. Earlier this year, we described that move as the “WORST....

Microsoft has recently announced that it’s making its new law office management platform to the public. If you use Office programs such as Word, Outlook, and Excel – and everyone uses Office – MS’s new Matter Center will allow you to share access to and collaborate on legal documents and other matters across devices. Matter Center has an unusual origin story. According to Microsoft, Matter Center was developed by its in-house legal department, which has been using the product for the past two years....

This is an early contender for a Supreme Court case – assuming, of course, one of the parallel cases in a burgeoning circuit split doesn’t make it onto the High Court’s docket first. The facts are relatively unremarkable: Aaron Graham and Eric Jordan were convicted of robbery after prosecutors used a court order – not a warrant – to obtain historical cell phone tower location data tied to their phones. This same scenario has played out twice before in appeals cases – in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits – with mixed results....

Jurisdiction may not be the most interesting topic an attorney encounters, but it’s at the heart of most of our work. The appellate court noted in the opinion that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Why, you ask? In this case, Supreme Fuels sued four defendants, including the appellant, International Oil Trading Company, LLC (IOTC). The district court granted Supreme Fuel’s motion to enforce a settlement agreement and imposed a $5 million judgment solely on IOTC....

In the spring, a young man’s fancy might turn to thoughts of love, if you believe Tennyson, but for the rest of us, well, we’ll content ourselves with a little extra sunshine and a healthy bout of cleaning. For lawyers and legal professionals, the season, which officially started last Monday, is a good time to take stock of your practice, straighten things up, and maybe finish up some housekeeping items you’ve put off over the past months....

No, that is not a euphemism. We have many choices for electronic devices, from iPhones to full-sized iPads, and even desktop computers, but did you know that the choice of device may actually affect how assertive you are? That’s right, according to research by Harvard Business School professors Maarten Bos and Amy Cuddy, those of you with a 3.5 inch iPhone screen are apparently more timid than someone sporting a 23 inch iMac....

The Department of Justice yesterday urged the Ninth Circuit to reinstate President Trump’s executive order banning refugee resettlement in the United States and halting immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations. The move comes just days after a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order, stopping enforcement of the EO nationwide. That TRO, the Justice Department argued in its reply filed yesterday afternoon, is unjustified and “vastly overbroad.” Here is a quick look at their arguments....

Redaction is important. And if you don’t know how to properly redact a document, you could end up telling the entire world what you never intended to tell anyone. With all the software out there that promises to help you redact, when it comes right down to it, if you use it wrong, your redaction could be about as useful as toilet paper to a scuba diver in a hot tub....