Posts

Sometimes, even when it’s not your fault, your name can be tarnished. During the recent Cyclospora outbreak, a few of the cases were tied to salad served in Iowa and Nebraska at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants, which are both owned by the Florida-based Darden Restaurants. The source of the lettuce in those restaurants’ salad was Taylor Farms de Mexico, reports Fox News. According to CBS News, as of August 7, there were 504 cases of Cyclospora infection reported to the Centers for Disease Control, most of which were in the Midwest region and which are believed to be connected to bagged salad mix....

A prostitute may post a classified ad online, but the online publisher is not responsible for the content. This isn’t news, but a judge had to spell it out for prosecutors in Sacramento. Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman said recently that Backpage.com, which is facing prostitution charges for publishing adult services advertisements, is protected under the Communications Decency Act. Enacted in 1996, the CDA provides civil and criminal immunity to internet service providers and others who republish information online....

Inevitably, most in-house attorneys at large outfits will get sent on business to New York. Now those in house counsels who are not licensed to practice law in New York will nevertheless be able to offer legal advice in the state under new rules adopted by the Court of Appeals. The rules approved by the state’s highest court, codified as 22 NYCRR Part 522, will allow out-of-state lawyers to provide counsel to private corporations, associations or other legal entities operating in New York, as well as to their employees, directors or officers....

No one likes to be backed into a corner, including mandatory arbitration. It’s one thing to agree to arbitrate, but quite another to be sent to that corner. With no place to flight, most of us want to fight. Usually, you will lose fighting against a statute that requires arbitration. But if the other party is trying to force you to arbitrate in the wrong case, there are more ways get out of it these days....

Should your law firm nix its Facebook account? “It’s a very good question,” which is what professors often say when they don’t have a ready answer. So since the teacher is not here, let’s look at what others have to say about it. Of course, as with any query, consider the source. To Ditch Long before the Facebook fiasco with Cambridge Analytica, Business Insider published “10 Reasons to Delete Your Facebook Account....

A cocaine trial and a botched murder culminated in the rejection of the defendant’s appeal this week, in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The underlying case involved a conspiracy to distribute cocaine. While the trial was pending, a federal witness was stabbed several times. The witness survived and his assailant received a 360-month sentence, which he appealed. On appeal, he claimed that the District Court shouldn’t have allowed certain documents and testimony at the trial....

Stop right now if you are reading this to learn how to steal cryptocurrency. This is not a “how-to” for crypto-thieves, but rather a “watch-out” for the ways they do it. Pardon the disclaimer, but people these days… Anyway, cryptocurrencies are tanking in the market right now. Part of the reason is that they are not quite as secure as everybody thought, thanks to the cyber-criminals. Crypto-Thieves Kaspersky Labs revealed that Lazarus, a program used for years in cyber-espionage and sabotage, has turned its attention to financial institutions....

In debt collection — as in love — there is no such thing as a harmless error. Even when a plaintiff doesn’t suffer an actual, measurable harm, statutes can provide her with a cause of action that results in damages. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently highlighted one such case under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Joni Shoup entered into a mortgage contract with America Wholesale Lender in 2003....

For lawyers, being interviewed on TV may seem like a piece of cake. After all, you’ve interviewed clients and grilled hostile witnesses, so you know how to handle yourself, right? But from a former TV news producer’s perspective (this blogger used to be one), there are many things a lawyer can do to make or break a recorded TV news interview. Put your best face forward. At the very least, check yourself out in a mirror (or take a selfie), get your hair right, and make sure there’s no food around your mouth or stuck in your teeth....

I just created something incredibly useful. I want to share that with the world, and to allow the world to develop that idea into its full potential. Then again, I also want credit. That’s why we have the Creative Commons Attribution [CC BY] license. It allows me to protect my IP in the least restrictive way imaginable: anyone, anywhere, can use my creation for pretty much any purpose, so long as they provide attribution....

Defendant’s conviction for failing to register as a sex offender is affirmed, where the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) does not link the requirement imposed on individual sex offenders to register to the requirement imposed on the states to implement the registration standards mandated by SORNA. Read US v. Gould, No. 08-4302. Appellate Information: Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. William D....

In 1982, Wendy Davis was a 19-year-old, recently-divorced, single mother, living in a trailer park and working as a waitress. Remarkably, today, there are rumors that the Harvard Law-educated Texas State Senator may consider a run at the Governor’s seat or another high-profile position. Let’s take a look at her run, from paralegal school to Ivy League law, the career that followed, and the future that awaits her. First Generation College It’s not a stretch to say that the odds were against her back in 1982....

On Thursday, Yahoo announced it would disclose more than 1,500 pages of documents relating to 2007-08 litigation surrounding government attempts to access Yahoo user accounts without a warrant. Here’s the Story Back in 2007, Yahoo refused to comply with government surveillance directives that we’ve subsequently learned were related to the NSA’s controversial PRISM program. The government sued to compel compliance with the order and threatened fines of $250,000 per day for noncompliance....

Everybody knows prosecutors have a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence, but reasonable minds may differ about how much. That is the sticking point in a debate that is heating up in Tennessee. In a new ethics opinion, the state Board of Professional Responsibility says prosecutors have a higher duty to disclose than required by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Brady v. Maryland, the High Court said they must disclose “material” evidence....

If you’re still new to lawyer tweeting, why not turn to the City by the Bay for some tips? The San Francisco Bar Association recently hosted a social media seminar – on Twitter, of course – to share tricks of the trade for maximizing your impact across social media platforms. And since Twitter calls San Francisco home, we suspect the City’s lawyers know thing or two about tweeting. Here are 10 (modified) tweets of advice from the SF Bar, with lots of expert social media/lawyer marketing advice from consultant Lydia Snider:...

What’s an international custody dispute doing at the Fourth Circuit? Quite a lot. Mark and Daniela Smedley got married in Germany in 2000. Mark was a member of the U.S. Army. They had two kids, in 2000 and 2005, and continued to live in Germany until Mark got transferred to North Carolina. Daniela and the kids came along. “At this point, the parties’ stories diverge,” said the court, putting it mildly....

It’s quickly approaching summertime, and there’s nothing more fun than to throw off the shackles of the office for a day and enjoy the outdoors at the company picnic. (Attendance is mandatory; fun is negotiable.) Of course, when you bring people into the great outdoors, things will happen. Poison ivy will happen. Injuries will happen. And if there’s going to be alcohol at the picnic, well … look out. Here are some tips for ensuring that your company outing has the least amount of drama possible....

Tips and complaints to the SEC’s whistleblower program continue to grow at record pace, even if the Commission has been slow to pay out whistleblower awards. With more tips, come more claims of retaliation. More than one out of every five whistleblower reports some form of retaliation. Those retaliation claims, the salt in the wound of an SEC investigation, can have stiff penalties, given the new protections afforded whistleblowers by the Dodd-Frank Act....

District court judgment ordering that plaintiff be conditionally released from federal custody and transferred to the custody of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for continued mental health care and treatment is affirmed where: 1) the court properly denied the government’s motion to retransfer this matter to another district court as it would be irresponsible to prolong plaintiff’s stay in legal limbo by re-transferring the matter to where it came from more than seven years ago; and 2) the court properly declined to proceed under 18 U....

The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the scope of expert witness testimony is not narrowly tailored to the content in a pre-trial expert report. Frank Gay is the executor of his sister’s estate. His sister, Anita, died after a slip and fall accident at a casino. Hospital records listed Anita’s death as an accident, and stated that she died as the result of a nonsurvivable closed head injury that caused extensive bleeding in her brain....