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Lawyers who choose to use social media as a marketing strategy should consider it a job just like any other on their list. Facebook is so popular it is ranked number two of the most used app for local searches, just behind Google Maps. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, there is still time to take advantage of this huge captive audience. Facebook is great to keep up with friends within your personal life, but having a page for your law firm is a great online legal marketing tool....

You know how frustrating it is when you get locked out of your phone? Now imagine getting locked out of your house – by a so-called smart lock. Don’t you just want to smash the thing? Take a number because faulty software locked out hundreds of homeowners. It’s another example of a possible plague for the Internet of Things. This hits close to home for the legal field, as many attorneys are beginning to use IoT devices in the course of their workday....

Puerto Rico began accepting applications for marriage licenses from same-sex couples yesterday, less than three weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that gay and lesbian couples have a fundamental right to marriage. Puerto Rico was the only part of the First Circuit that had not legalized same-sex marriage prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell. The District Court of Puerto Rico was also one of the few federal courts to uphold a same-sex marriage ban in recent years....

Would you say this to a disciplinary panel? Probably not. But Zenas Zelotes reportedly did while being investigated by the Connecticut Statewide Grievance Committee. He believes that attorneys who are romantically involved with clients provide better representation. The more an attorney cares about the client, the more aggressive he’ll be. Zelotes also believes that ethics rules prohibiting such personal relationships are unconstitutional, reports the Norwich Bulletin. He says they infringe upon an attorney’s freedom of association and represent an unnecessarily “aggressive judicial paternalism....

Lawyers for a Thailand native will try an eBay copyright case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court has agreed to hear the case of Supap Kirtsaeng, a University of Southern California PhD mathematics candidate, Reuters reports. Kirtsaeng has been accused by publisher John Wiley & Sons of reselling its textbooks on eBay in violation of U.S. copyright law. Depending on where the Supreme Court falls in this case, the things users can sell on eBay could change forever....

Are you new to the world of virtual discovery? First off all, welcome. E-discovery involves all of the aspects of civil-litigation discovery, and applies it to electronic information. If you are foraying into this tech version of discovery, be ready to hear words like metadata, spoliation, ESI, and raw data. If your eyes aren’t already glazed over, relax. There is lots of help, and luckily most of it is available in just a few convenient clicks....

The United States judiciary adopted new ethics rules, forbidding sexual harassment, unlawful discrimination, and “egregious and hostile” treatment of workers in the federal courts. The rules evolved from complaints about Judge Alex Kozinski, who resigned from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 after many complaints of sexual misconduct. Chief Justice John Roberts responded then to the embarrassment, promising to evaluate the judiciary’s sexual misconduct policies. The new rules, however, do not apply to the U....

The First Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments last week in the bribery and extortion case of attorney Robert S. Ciresi. Ciresi, a former North Providence town attorney, was sentenced to five years and three months in prison last year for his role in facilitating bribes for three former North Providence councilmen, who eventually pleaded guilty to their crimes. Ciresi was the only one to proceed to trial, where he was convicted of conspiracy, bribery and Hobbs Act extortion last April....

A decade ago, the Georgia Department of Education won a federal grant for $10.7 million to help students at high-poverty, low-performing schools. It was all good except for one thing: Georgia cheated when it distributed the grant. It held a competition to award the money to local organizations, but rigged the results. Georgia agreed to pay back the federal government, but then asked a federal court for mercy in Georgia Department of Education v....

In the technological world we live in, email has become the gold standard of communication, particularly for client communications. But when you need to inform a client about something critical, or get some time-sensitive answers to questions or access to documents, can you just send an email? How can you be sure that your client will see it in time? Or most importantly, how do you confirm that a new potential client received their retainer agreement via email?...

More in-house counsel are landing positions on corporate boards these days. So how does one land such an important position? In a recent article, Inside Counsel described an invitation-only panel discussion about general counsel on corporate boards. Such governing bodies are increasingly looking to add lawyers to their ranks, especially when they face regulatory compliance issues, IC reports. Of course, lawyers aren’t limited to joining corporate boards, which typically compensate their members....

If you are in the market for an upgrade to your law office computers, HP has a new line that is worth taking a look at. They recently released a new model called the HP Pro 3130 Mini-tower Business PC. The computer is designed for professionals in small to midsize companies. The HP Pro 3130 is well equipped for most uses, but can also be upgraded for more demanding users. The computers run less than $600 per unit, so for professionals who have delayed upgrading their systems, it is an appealing option....

There is a good reason why I’ve never used in flight Wi-Fi services: I’m cheap. Besides, I can live without the Internet for an hour or three. But, if you needed another reason, how about this: Gogo and Panasonic Avionics’ eXConnect may have added surveillance back doors for federal law enforcement agencies to monitor your Internet traffic. Together, the two companies manage Wi-Fi for Delta, American Airlines, United, Alaska Airlines, Virgin America, US Airways and others....

A new high-tech feature may convince attorneys to take a bite of Apple’s new, improved iPad: Voice dictation is now built-in. The new iPad – which some are dubbing “iPad 3” – will be preinstalled with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated personal assistant that debuted with the iPhone 4S last fall, the company announced Wednesday, according to the website TechCrunch. Though the new iPad’s version of Siri “won’t be the full-featured personal assistant iPhone users have become familiar with,” TechCrunch reports it will include support for a new language – Japanese....

Self-driving cars have been bumping along Silicon Valley roads for some time, but the first self-driving service will likely roll out in Phoenix. According to reports, Waymo is getting ready to launch a commercial service on the Arizona flatland. The company recently announced partnerships there as part of a campaign to sell driverless safety. “Imagine climbing into the backseat of a car and just pushing a button to go,” the campaign goes....

While the development of social media and electronic communications has brought some useful advancements to the courtroom, it’s difficult to deny that juror tweets and Facebook updates have become a distinct problem in criminal prosecutions. Responding to a series of high-profile cases leading to appeals and overturned convictions, California Governor Jerry Brown approved a new law last week, criminalizing the use of electronic and wireless devices by empanelled jurors. Under the amended statute, state judges must instruct jurors that they may not use any form of “electronic and wireless communication” to “conduct research, disseminate information, or converse with, or permit themselves to be addressed by, any other person on any subject of the trial....

In a petition for review of the BIA’s denial of an Iranian native’s application for asylum and withholding of removal, the petition is granted in part where the Board failed to give reasoned consideration to petitioner’s evidence of a well-founded fear of persecution based on petitioner’s religion, or more specifically, his conversion from Islam to Christianity while in the United States. However, the petition is denied in part, where substantial evidence supported the BIA’s determination that petitioner failed to prove a well-founded fear of persecution based on his political opinion....

When you buy a “designer” bag out of the back of a van, you probably realize it’s a knockoff. That might not be the case when you purchase a similar bag online, where counterfeit goods can proliferate without the buyer being able to check every monogram, button and zipper to see if the item is the real deal, or just a rip-off. For companies involved in online markets and e-commerce, and their legal departments, counterfeit goods can cause major headaches....

Twitter announced this week that it has clarified its Terms of Service regarding what users can expect from the microblogging service. Of importance to legal tech enthusiasts, is the delineation of ownership of the tweets–or 140-character posts–that users posts. It’s confirmed, they belong to the author. Could this enable users to copyright their tweets? It is a possibility; however, at just 140 characters, it will remain to be seen whether there is enough content to establish a protectable copyright claim....

Despite all the hype, the cryptocurrency game seems to be filled with risks beyond just the usual risk of financial loss that comes along with any investment activity. And beyond the security issues that come along with decentralized, non-fiat currencies, users also need to be careful about who they choose to handle their digital transactions. The cryptocurrency payment processor Payza was recently charged, criminally, with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, conspiracy to launder money, as well as conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business....