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We’ve subscribed to the “fake it ‘til you make it” philosophy for many years. For most neophyte attorneys, it’s necessary to get a job. When one of our law school classmates interviewed with his top-choice firm and learned that the firm was looking to hire a bankruptcy attorney, he faked it. “My focus is bankruptcy,” he told them before the start of third year, and he received an offer. (We took bankruptcy law and secured transactions together during the second semester of our third year....

If you’ve ever known a public defender personally, or worked the job yourself, you probably know it’s a thankless, stressful job with a heavy workload. But for the two federal public defenders representing convicted murderer Dylann Roof in his Fourth Circuit Appeal, it’s that last part that’s really proving to be more challenging than ever anticipated. The pair of defenders recently filed a motion requesting an extension to the briefing schedule due to the sheer volume of the record and some other, more significant issues....

It’s Friday! You’ve worked all day and most of the nights for the past few weeks. You’ve come into the office on Saturday and worked through to Sunday morning. It’s time for a break. Your sanity, or your marriage, may depend on it. So what do you do when your much needed respite is interrupted by clients? Model Professional Conduct Rule 1.4 requires that attorneys provide prompt and reasonable communication with clients, but there’s plenty of room for interpretation what constitutes a prompt or reasonable response....

By now you’ve heard these terms: encryption, passcode, cybersecurity. Unless you have a technical background in software engineering, it’s all Greek to you. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of world we live in. We’re now moving headlong into a future where increasingly more and more people rely on technology that only a very few truly understand. Cybersecurity is no different. The fact of the matter is that you probably need encryption in your office, but you don’t know the first place to begin....

Sara Blackwell is a lawyer who truly knows the value of a case. She has offered to settle her case against the National Football League for $1 on behalf of former NFL cheerleaders. But that’s not where the money is in her case. Blackwell’s offer requires the NFL to have a “good faith” meeting to address gender discrimination. It has the potential to solve a long-time issue between cheerleaders and players....

Few firms have physical libraries anymore, but that doesn’t mean there’s no work for law librarians. While much of their time is spent on helping research through electronic databases and keeping practitioners on top of recent developments, law librarians also see plenty of opportunity to expand their role in the firm. That’s the message found by a new survey of law firm librarians conducted by Bloomberg Law. Those librarians feel underused and underpaid and they’re ready to take a more active role in bringing in business....

The greatest faux-news site on the Internet has just gone where many real news sites have gone before: Syria. Still, this begs the question: how does this continue to happen? Spear-Phishing You’re probably familiar with the concept of phishing. A site sends you a fake email, usually in the form of a security warning, and asks you to enter your username and password. As awareness of phishing email scams spread, hackers had to take it one step further....

General counsel come and go, but sometimes it’s awkward. It was about that time for Brynly Llyr, general counsel for a leading cryptocurrency company. Ripple said her departure was a mutual decision. But industry observers said it was “an awkward time” because the company is embroiled in major class-action cases. It also may have something to do with a settlement in another case against Ripple. R3 v. Ripple R3, a blockchain enterprise, sued Ripple over a partnership agreement....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. As you post communications, photos and videos on Facebook and MySpace, do you ever wonder if social networks are subject to discovery in litigation? Well, you should, as one recent court decision indicates. In the case of Romano v. Steelcase, a New York judge ruled that defendant Steelcase was entitled in discovery to access the plaintiff’s current and historical Facebook and MySpace pages and accounts, including previously deleted information, on the basis that information to be found there could prove to be inconsistent with her claims of injuries and loss of enjoyment of life....

Paralegals are the unsung heroes of the law office. They handle the logistical aspects of a case, like scheduling and docketing, as well as research and drafting. If you’re a solo practitioner, there’s a fair chance it’s just you, toiling away in quiet desperation, without a paralegal or a secretary. Do you need one? Here are some considerations. Paralegals aren’t cheap. Good paralegals are even less cheap. A paralegal isn’t just any old secretary....

Just when you though you couldn’t feel any more obsolete as a practicing attorney, a new startup begins offering a free service that threatens to take away more legal jobs. These days, even getting work as a “doc reviewer” is the best that many licensed attorneys can hope for. But Silicon Valley’s latest legal startup looks poised to strike the final nail in the coffin of the tedious practice of paper contract management....

Welcome to the calm before the second storm, a sort-of prequel to the next tech bubble burst. Though I’m not the only person calling this before it happens, I did predict that the Kansas City Chiefs, currently sitting at 9-0, would be vastly improved this year (and in my wildest fantasies, a Super Bowl contender). Nostradamus, out. In all seriousness though, some big social media company just IPO’d yesterday at $26 per share, setting its market value at about $25 billion....

The increase in digital devices, cloud-based services and virtual offices have made it less and less necessary to be physically present when conducting business. The emails, reports and business presentations that can be written from a cubical can just as easily be produced from a local coffee shop, often with greater productivity and work satisfaction. It’s a great time to be a telecommuter. Or is it? Telecommuting is common among tech workers and expanding even to entire law firms....

Running late for court? You’re not alone – and as lawyers well know, chronic or unexcused tardiness can result in costly court sanctions. In one recent case, a New York defense attorney was fined $500 for his “premeditated, blatant and willful” tardiness, after the judge repeatedly warned him to be on time, Reuters reports. The attorney’s excuse, which the judge did not accept, is among our top five lame, overused excuses for attorneys running late for court....

From the “if you wrote it down, it’s probably discoverable” department comes a ruling from Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In September, Chen allowed part of a lawsuit to move forward claiming that Uber’s “gratuity” charges are misleading because all of the gratuity doesn’t go the driver. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick fought against disclosing some damning emails, but an order by Chen affirmed the ruling of a magistrate judge ordering their disclosure....

Forget unlimited vacation days, free car services, firm-sponsored memberships at the local Equinox. If you want your associates to stay around longer, you’ll want to give them a raise. That’s the lesson from BigLaw, at least. Many of the nation’s top law firms bumped first-year associate salaries up $20K last year, from $160K to $180K. That’s kept young lawyers from leaving firms for comfier, but not as lucrative, in-house gigs, according to Law360....

Imagine walking into an interview and being asked a riddle. That doesn’t sound like fun, does it? Or how about instead of a riddle, you’re asked, by a mysterious black box, to solve a complex mathematical equation that the company spent months on figuring out … sounds like something right out of science fiction, right? Well, like cloned goats and wall-sized interactive television (advertisements at least), the riddle-me-this-impossible-equation-black-box-interviewer science-fiction scenario is no longer a fiction....

You remember Edward Snowden, right? The NSA leaker who fled to Hong Kong and then Russia as the rest of America freaked out about data surveillance and privacy? Of course you do. What you may not know is that he’s “already won,” as he recently told The Washington Post. Won what? Exactly. There will be naysayers, but check out these five reasons why Edward Snowden “won” in 2013: While we’re certain (and hoping) that the National Security Agency (NSA) still has some secrets kept to itself, Snowden’s leaks did make Americans and the world privy to some pretty interesting spy programs....

Juan Salazar was guilty. He was charged with a long list of crimes, including drug-related conspiracies. Prosecutors presented “overwhelming evidence of guilt.” He even got on the stand (against his counsel’s advice) and, on cross-examination, confessed to everything. Though his attorney was planning on arguing that Salazar withdrew from the conspiracy in a timely manner, by the time Salazar finished crucifying himself testifying, his stumped attorney noted, “Well, what am I going to argue?...

When you think natural disaster response, you don’t necessarily think of lawyers. Clean water, medical aid, and even evacuations might seem like more pressing concerns following a major hurricane, wildfire, or earthquake. But in the aftermath of many natural disasters, lawyers can be an essential resource, helping victims access housing, insurance relief and disaster assistance quickly. Taking disaster preparedness to heart, San Francisco Bay Area bar associations and pro bono organizations have joined together to create a corps of attorneys ready to provide assistance should disaster strike....