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In an action by a prisoner alleging various constitutional deprivations during his confinement, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff’s claims against two state entities and state employees in their official capacities were barred by the Eleventh Amendment; 2) under the Fair Labor Standards Act, plaintiff was not an “employee” of one defendant, and he was not “engaged in commerce” while working for another, in the context of the hard labor to which he was sentenced; and 3) plaintiff’s being forced to work on private property did not render his labor involuntary servitude....

The distant past can come back to haunt a naturalization applicant. To qualify for naturalization, an applicant must demonstrate that he is “a person of good moral character.” In a matter of first impression, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a district court can consider events that precede a naturalization application by more than one year in determining that an applicant could not demonstrate good moral character as a matter of law....

The higher you get on the corporate ladder, the more of your time is spent in a conference room. Some days, you’ll look at your calendar and see nothing but back-to-back meetings. Where are you going to find the time to get anything done? The first place to find the time is by making sure that the meetings you are in are efficient and productive. Want the key to running a good meeting?...

‘Unbundling’ means ’limited scope’ means ‘a la carte.’ Somebody get a dictionary, please. A la carte, from the French for “according to the menu,” used to mean “separately priced items.” As applied to legal services, it became “limited scope representation.” Now the word for a la carte, or limited scope, is “unbundling.” It is not entirely new, having been offered by the American Bar Association years ago, but it is becoming more popular....

Soon, a business card with just your name and phone number on it might just be a dinosaur. For one Virginia firm, it has taken its business card digital. Beginning this month, the 50-plus attorneys at Odin Feldman Pittleman have the option of adding a Quick Response barcode that can transmit information via bar code scanners and camera phones. You’ve probably started to see these barcode “QR codes” in magazines, ready to be scanned and used....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. You have heard about computer hacking, and you know about carjacking, but what about car hacking? The study, titled Caution Malware Ahead by McAfee, details that embedded systems, for systems such as airbags, engine management and cruise control, co-exist with vehicle connections to wireless communication devices that remotely can unlock doors or start or turn off automobiles....

The marijuana business is booming. But alongside the boom, the market, governments, and society in general are reacting to the rise of legal and medicinal marijuana. One seemingly nefarious response to the pot industry has been the rise of RICO lawsuits against various legal marijuana businesses brought by neighboring land and business owners related to an alleged nuisance caused by pot farming and business, generally. Fortunately for the industry, the first legal pot RICO jury verdict is in, and the jury didn’t agree with the aggrieved plaintiffs....

Forbes reported about a new study indicating that all that smiling those pesky optimists are so fond of may not actually be good for business. Aha! Why is that? Well, according to Forbes writer Jan Bruce, optimists are less likely to take care of themselves, and less likely to have a plan B in case things go wrong … because, you know, everything will be all right. So, if pessimism is bad, and optimism is bad – what’s good?...

If you’re a partner at a firm, you should take time to draw in a deep breath: you’re in a position that thousands of other lawyer might even kill for. Still, you’ve probably wondered what your future at your current firm holds, and maybe you’ve even considered moving laterally into another firm. But does the cost outweigh the benefit? Here are a few economic considerations for partners: Will You Be Forced to Retire Under the Terms of Your Contract?...

“Principles of fairness” won’t come between an employer health insurance plan and its chance to recover damages from a third party. In a 5-4 decision this week, the Supreme Court ruled that equitable rules cannot override the clear terms of an ERISA plan, Thomson Reuters reports. If a contract gives a health plan administrator the right to full reimbursement from funds recovered from third parties, federal courts cannot use principles of fairness to rewrite the contract terms to reserve the reimbursement for the plan participant....

Ever wonder what it cost to take a company public? Well, if it’s of the same size and notoriety as Facebook, roughly $2.6 million. Fenwick & West’s Silicon Valley office was tapped to head Facebook’s initial public offering back in February, and according to new regulatory figures, the social network expects to pay the firm approximately $2.6 million. Partners Gordon Davidson and Jeffrey Vetter and associate James Evans must be very happy....

In a case brought by a police commissioner and his deputies following a highly public dispute with the mayor of Baltimore resulting in the termination of their employment, dismissal of the action is affirmed as, based on the facts alleged in the complaint, the complaint fails to articulate any claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Furthermore, the mayor, against whom the allegations of due process violations were directed, is entitled to qualified immunity....

Gilead’s Truvada has won historic FDA approval as the first drug ever to prevent sexually acquired HIV infection in healthy adults, Reuters reports. It’s a big victory for lawyers who worked to get Gilead’s Truvada approved – though their work is likely far from over. Monday’s FDA approval comes two years after groundbreaking reports that Truvada reduced the risk of HIV infection in the high-risk group of men who have sex with men....

Summer is fast approaching, and that means summer associate interviews are well underway. Are you planning to hire an intern? Here are three mistakes to avoid so that you and the associate can both have a productive experience: Mistake No. 1: Not Being Ethical. Don’t hire a summer associate unless you know that you’ll be extending an offer later if she meets expectations. This isn’t necessarily a matter of professional ethics, but rather personal ethics....

Quartavious Davis and five others were found guilty of robbery and racketeering, among other things, in 2011. The government used historical cell-site information to place Davis and the others close to the scenes of the robberies around the time they occurred. Davis appealed his conviction to a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit. In June, they found that Davis did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location data transmitted by his phone, meaning obtaining the data was a Fourth Amendment search that required a warrant....

Figuring out what to charge your clients is likely a daunting and nerve-wracking step toward setting up a solo practice. How much should a solo lawyer’s fees be? The answer to that question is, of course, partially dependent on what practice areas your firm’s practice will be in, as some practice areas charge a higher rate than others. And, it’s also dependent on where your practice is geographically located. Some legal markets generally have higher fees than others....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. It seems like we constantly are hearing about Internet hacks and the stealing of personally identifiable information online. At this point, we use the Internet for so many positive aspects of our lives. Given that we inevitably are online, what are some steps that we can employ to keep our private information safe?...

No company likes to lose valuable employees – given how much it costs to hire, train, and develop employees, pretty much all of them are valuable. What’s worse is when a skilled employee leaves to work for the competition. As Chris Brown so eloquently put it, highly skilled professionals ain’t loyal. What’s a GC to do? Slip in non-compete clauses and other post-employment restrictions into all employment agreements, of course. However, given recent updates in the law, it might be time to update your standard boilerplate – or consider revising them all together....

There’s a lot of hoopla surrounding Google’s new privacy policy, but for the most part, it just simplifies the status quo. It consolidates 60 product-specific privacy policies into one company-wide document. That document doesn’t change the way Google shares personal data with third parties, according to PC Mag. Nor does it change the type of data the company collects. It only changes the way Google shares your personal data with you....

When Jay-Z said “the Internet is like the wild west,” he was on to something. One of the Internet outlaws du jour is Bitcoin, the ambiguous, invisible, electronic form of payment. Slowly, the government is starting to notice. California issued a cease-and-desist letter to the Bitcoin Foundation, essentially accusing it of money laundering. After it was alleged drug dealers are using Bitcoin for illegal transactions Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) called for a crack down on Bitcoin denouncing it as “online form of money laundering used to disguise the source of money,” NBC reports....