Though it may seem a bit heavy-handed to tech-savvy users, and though the email restriction has left Joe Patrice at Above the Law practically apoplectic, King & Spalding did the right thing last week by announcing that as of May 1, they will block access to personal email accounts on work computers. No Gmail, Hotmail/Outlook, or Yahoo! at work? Whatever will those poor lawyers do? They could start by using their work email accounts....
Ever feel like your clients wish you could magically appear to their aid within minutes of a call? LawyerUp attorneys do. The relatively new service promises, for its subscribers, that they’ll be able to get a lawyer to help them within 15 minutes - the same time frame that you can get a pizza delivered. Attorneys can sign up to be listed on the LawyerUp site for free. Users who want a lawyer delivered in 15 minutes or less, however, will need to pay up....
With how fast technology is advancing, don’t blink, or you might miss it. At least with iris scanning technology, opting out might be as simple as closing your eyes, but that might not be a great idea if you’re out in public, or behind the wheel of a car. It may not be being used by law enforcement on the general public quite yet, but the technology is here that would allow a cop to scan your iris through your car’s side-view mirror....
We recently came across an article on Bitter Lawyer, advocating the use of QR code tattoos (albeit sarcastically) in lieu of business cards. I gave it some thought, and in the first and only time I will ever quote Kim Kardashian, “Honey, would you put a bumper sticker on a Bentley?” Granted, QR codes are popping up as an increasingly popular method of conveying information – even for lawyers. As my colleague William Peacock noted last year, you can easily add a QR code to your business card....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. It is with regret that your blogger here must report that he was correct as far back as early-April 2015 in predicting that the private email scenario surrounding Hillary Clinton would be a real threat to her efforts to gain the White House. Indeed, in a podcast of April 9, 2015 this blogger described the problem as a “hornet’s nest” that would be the “Achilles’ Heel” of the Clinton presidential campaign....
E-discovery. The very word can mean salvation for lawyers who are tired of dredging through thousands of pages of hard copy documents during the lengthy, time-consuming discovery process. But, e-discovery is not as simple as it seems. In the first few phases of gathering and preparing your e-discovery, there are three easy steps that you can keep in mind to smooth over the process. Step One, Identify the Discovery: Of course, the first step to the discovery process will be to identify which files you need that are relevant to the litigation....
In a case that may affect tribal rights nationally, a federal appeals court ruled that an Indian tribe has rights to groundwater in California’s Coachella Valley. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said that federal laws granted the native tribe rights to the underground water more than 100 years ago, even though the tribe had not exercised the rights until recently. The decision, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v....
A federal judge recently tossed a lawsuit against Florida attorney David Gilmore. Gilmore’s elderly client, Thomas Kyros, died in a shootout after he fired several rounds at a woman and her daughter, with whom he was apparently obsessed. The family sued Gilmore, arguing that he had a duty to warn them about any possible danger. The suit brings up interesting questions about the conflicts between negligence law and an attorney’s duties to his clients....
In March, we told you about a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which the court ruled that New Orleans police did not violate a man’s Second Amendment rights by refusing to return his lawfully-seized gun after the district attorney declined to pursue charges against him. At the time, Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale wrote for the 2-1 panel that “the right protected by the Second Amendment is not a property-like right to a specific firearm, but rather a right to keep and bear arms for self-defense....
If you haven’t heard yet, Microsoft announced this morning that it was buying LinkedIn for more than $26 billion. The all-cash deal will see Microsoft paying $196 a share, a 50 percent premium on LinkedIn’s stock, in order to gobble up the internet’s premiere resume-sharing social network. But why would LinkedIn, a company that’s often touted its independence and agility, sell itself to the 90’s behemoth from Redmond? Here’s why....
Wikipedia’s parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation, has filed a lawsuit claiming wholesale Internet data collection violates its constitutional rights. Wikimedia joins Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others in the suit, which names the National Security Agency (NSA) and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as defendants. The lawsuit is partly based on information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealing the NSA’s use of what is known as “Upstream surveillance,” intercepting Internet communications, often without a warrant....
It’s hard to overestimate the effects social media has had on our lives. Once upon a time, if you wanted to stay in touch with old friends, you had to give them a call – or at least send them a holiday card. Now, you can simply like their Facebook status. Just a handful of years ago, if you wanted to show off your fancy lunch, you’d have to pull out your Polaroid camera and mail the photos to all your friends....
You’ve taken our advice and expanded your practice to niche areas, but what are the corners of these practice areas? You can take your niche practice the next level by becoming specialized in a highly esoteric type of action inside a highly esoteric field of law. Sounds like a Russian nesting doll, but it could be just the thing you need to set yourself apart from all the personal injury lawyers and DUI defense firms....
Location, location, location. If only it were so simple. You could ask Siri or Google to find your new law office space. Unfortunately, your virtual assistant might lead you to an office supply or office furniture store or some other non-starter. Until artificial intelligence can read minds, you likely will need to keep some practical and legal things in mind when searching for the right office space. Unlike the mantra for real estate agents and property location, lawyers must consider primarily the people they will invite to their new office space....
Much of a lawyer’s job is communicating, with clients, with courts, and with colleagues. But we’re not always as great at convey our message, establishing a rapport, or convincing others as we’d like to be. That’s where Larry King comes in. When it comes to communication, few can outshine King. He’s in the sixth decade of his journalism career, he hosted nightly interviews on CNN for 35 years, and he still keeps it up, with three regular talk shows....
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that public educational institutions identify and effectively educate disabled children, or pay for their education elsewhere if they require specialized services that the public institution cannot provide. Schools must identify children in need of special education services, and provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to disabled students. Parents can pursue administrative remedies, and eventually a lawsuit, to compel a school to comply....
This was a pretty clear case where the Fifth Circuit screwed up. A promising young baseball player is shot by police officers. He says that there was no reason for the excessive force and that he was on his knees at the time of the shooting. The officers testified that he was crouching, getting ready to attack, and that the three shots fired, one of which punctured a lung and ended his athletic endeavors, was far from excessive....
If you’re one of those people who regard lunch as one of the few moments of blessed solace in the day, this piece is not for you. A great man once said, “Food is an unavoidable evil.” And by “evil,” he meant distraction from work. But this isn’t supposed to be a message to start hating on lunch down-time. On the contrary, it’s possible to use lunch as a means of boosting productivity, networking, or both....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. California recently passed what some argue to be the most robust net neutrality state law in the United States. That law has not yet gone into effect. The very same day that California Governor Jerry Brown signed the net neutrality bill into law, the US Department of Justice was quick to filed a federal lawsuit, among other goals, to block implementation of the law....
In plaintiff’s suit against Verizon seeking more than $1 million for claimed violations of his rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) based on Verizon’s handling of the parties’ prior disputes resolved in state court, summary judgment in favor of defendant is affirmed where: 1) under section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA, there is a private cause of action, the investigation must be reasonable, this test is objective, and plaintiff bears the burden of proof; 2) a section 1681s-2(b) claim requires plaintiff to show actual inaccuracies that a furnisher’s objectively reasonable investigation would have been able to discover; 3) on the FCRA claims, plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact on two issues on which he bore the burden; and 4) on plaintiff’s FDCPA claim, there is no material dispute of fact that Verizon is not a debt collector....
