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Class action lawsuits may the bane of existence for all in-house attorneys. That’s why knowing how to challenge class certifications is so critical. These lawsuits typically seek millions of dollars, involve hundreds of plaintiffs, and have the potential to disrupt your business for years. But while class actions can bring together many plaintiffs, defendants also have several tools available to challenge the class both in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and its state equivalents) as well as the U....

When it comes to life science companies, compliance is starting to play a greater role. Where attorneys in medical, health care, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies were once focused almost exclusively on government rules, their responsibilities now extend far beyond regulatory compliance. And the shift isn’t isolated to major medical companies with robust legal and compliance departments. Even companies with as few as 25 employees are building up their compliance teams, according to the Wall Street Journal....

A recent case out of the First Circuit Court of Appeals may inspire a new rule of thumb: Attorneys that blame voluntary commitments to their church as a reason for missing a deadline are, per se, acting in bad faith. All kidding aside, an experienced bankruptcy practitioner actually tried to claim that their duties with the church as a music director during the week of Easter were so onerous that they blew a deadline for filing an appeal....

Beyond Two Souls is more than an ordinary video game. Most video games prioritize game play and graphics over storyline. Most have terrible voice actors and even worse plot lines. And while Beyond Two Souls has debuted to mixed reviews about its plot and game play, it stars two top-tier Hollywood stars: Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, and part of the game was screened at the 2013 Tribeca Film festival....

Free Press, a media reform advocacy group, filed a petition for review in the First Circuit Court of Appeals this week, challenging new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality rules. Washington insiders were expecting Verizon, which opposes net neutrality, to challenge the rules, reports AdWeek. The Free Press challenge is somewhat ironic, because Free Press actually supports net neutrality. The new regulations bar wireline broadband providers from “unreasonable discrimination” against Web traffic, but don’t restrict mobile broadband providers in the same way....

If you want to increase your law firm’s revenue, think twice before raising your rates. That’s the take away from a new report by Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor, which surveyed data among firms and found that those who raised their rates the slowest tended to have higher demand and revenue. The report’s results go against conventional practice, which typically sees firms raising billing rates in order to grow revenue – a practice that could need some rethinking, in light of the study’s findings....

Technology is a beautiful thing. It helps you do more, and do it faster, better, cheaper, and while sitting poolside halfway across the globe. With a few grand and the right combination of hardware and software, a lawyer can be as well oiled of a machine as the six million dollar man. However, since we lawyers aren’t Lee Majors, when we consider buying new tech for our practices, getting a good deal actually matters....

It may come as no surprise that most Americans are ignorant about the law. According to the University of Pennsylvania, most Americans don’t have a clue about the Constitution. Barley one-third can remember the First Amendment right; only one in three can name a branch of government; and even fewer know all three branches. So how do you deal with clients who are ignorant about the law? Or worse, how do you tell them they are being stupid?...

Many firms have websites, and chances are if you’re reading this blog post you’re probably technically savvy enough to have one for your firm. If you don’t, welcome to the 21st century (where the hell have you been?), and get thee to a web designer. In the first of a two-part post on law firm websites 101, here is a synopsis of our best posts on the subject. The FindLaw team has done some great work on describing why your firm needs a website, and what needs to go into a law firm website....

Since 2010, the month of January has been designated as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and in 2007, January 11 was declared as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Day. If you have any doubts that human trafficking and slavery are still problems, there’s plenty of information out there to show you the error of your ways. Getting informed and getting involved doesn’t require personally chasing down bad guys, though depending on your area of practice, being informed means you might actually be able to help victims....

In elections, there are winners and losers, and there are lawsuit filers, who are usually also the losers. In the 2018 District 2 election in Maine, this is precisely the case, and the case of Representative Bruce Poliquin just doesn’t look good. After the ranked-choice voting, that Maine voters approved a couple years ago, helped Poliquin’s opponent Jared Golden win the race, Poliquin filed a lawsuit challenging ranked-choice voting as unconstitutional....

It’s like the script of a bad movie. One man, a Touro Law Center graduate (Google it – it exists), worked as a career managing law clerk at BigLaw mergers and acquisitions powerhouse Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. You can probably guess where this is going. He’d allegedly pass along tips to a friend, who passed them to a broker, and eventually, someone noticed and the friend turned state’s witness. The only surprising part of the story is the lengths that they went to to avoid getting caught....

Wait, so you’re not allowed to send cute, overly familiar emails to the regulatory board that is going to decide how much your company gets dinged for blowing up a bunch of houses and killing some peeps a few years back, demanding that you get a more lenient administrative law judge? Now you tell me. And now Pacific Gas & Electric knows, after a series of back-and-forth emails detailing a way too close relationship between the utility company and California’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) came to light....

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is an odd legal beast. It is a court, a federal court, staffed by eleven federal district court judges, but it is not subject to review by any open federal courts. It is, however, reviewed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which does such a thorough job, that it didn’t meet for the first time until 2002, despite being authorized in 1978. The FISC and FISC Review forums are closed, with only the government and the recipients of surveillance orders allowed access....

US v. Verdugo, 08-2175, concerned a challenge to the convictions of defendants for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. In affirming the convictions, the court held that the district court did not err in denying defendants’ motions to suppress. The court found that defendant waived his right to object to witness’s interpretative testimony, and that the district court properly excluded defendant’s videotaped statement. Lastly, the court held that the district court’s mere presence instruction was a suitable substitute for co-defendant’s proposed instruction on the subject....

Tesla’s general counsel quit after just two months, but nobody was really surprised. Dane Butswinkas, who started at Tesla in December, was on his way out in February. He was the fifth GC at the company in 10 years. Jonathan Chang, who has been vice president of legal, will be the sixth. If we’re playing averages, he should make it to the end of next year. “No Picnic” As Forbes reported, “working for billionaire Elon Musk is no picnic....

Just in time for Cyber Monday comes the news that identity theft is on the rise this holiday season. Yep, while you’re ordering presents for your family, staff, and colleagues, some hacking Grinch is potentially swiping your information. But, like all risks, holiday identity theft can be mitigated. Here are some tips to help lawyers and law firms avoid identity theft and other cybersecurity risks this holiday season. 1. Avoid Checks and Debit Cards Cash is king and plastic is a prince, but stay away from checks and debit cards when you can....

For instance, anyone can currently go onto Twitter as start an account that claims to be a local police department. The Texas attorney general’s office has already shut down one such account that purported to be the Twitter account for the Austin police department.The service is also prone to outages, and was recently hit by a series of worm attacks. With so much about the service out of their control, public agencies might want to think twice before using the service as a public outreach tool....

Legal tech is complicated enough without a diversity problem, but there it is. According to a new report, women and minorities are underrepresented in legal technology. Women fare the worst, making up 13.6 precent of legal tech founders. It’s a puzzle, especially when women and minorities are making gains in the law. Here are some pieces, and maybe some solutions, to the puzzle. The Profession Piece Diversity has been a problem in the law forever, but times are changing....

So, we may have just mocked the use of the term “disruptor” as a played-out descriptor of companies that are attempting to revolutionize an industry, but a new legal billing startup really could be an industry disruptor - just not in the way that they’d hoped. Viewabill is the startup world’s solution to bill-churning (or overbilling) in the legal industry. It allows honest lawyers and firms (cue jokes) to transparently bill everything they do using an always-on platform that a client can access and audit 24/7, reports the New York Times....