Posts

It’s no joke – hackers can cause pacemakers to deliver life-threatening shocks. It is not exactly news, either. For years, the federal government has told medical facilities to abandon devices vulnerable to hacking. The real shocker is that doctors have continued to implant such devices into patients’ chests. It’s about the failure to update. Medtronic Researchers said they alerted medical device maker Medtronic about hacking vulnerabilities in January 2017. At a conference this week, they demonstrated how to hack a device doctors use to control pacemakers after they are implanted....

In a dispute involving the disenfranchisement of incarcerated felons and the Voting Rights Act, district court judgment is reversed in part and affirmed in part where: 1) plaintiffs’ challenge to the statute should be dismissed as plaintiffs failed to state a claim under Voting Rights Act sec. 2, and it is clear from the language, history, and context of the Act that Congress never intended sec. 2 to prohibit the states from disenfranchising currently incarcerated felons; and 2) the court properly granted summary judgment on plaintiff’s Ex Post Facto claim as the disputed state statute is a civil regulatory scheme....

The streaming music giant Spotify is poised to have a big summer. The company not only successfully went public a few months ago, but then in late May it settled the $1.6 billion dollar lawsuit against it for just over $100 million. Though Bloomberg reported that the IPO was a bit of a non-starter, it was mostly due to the fact that those holding shares didn’t actually want to part with them....

A class action lawsuit involving strippers classified as “contractors” resulted in a $13 million settlement against 16 strip clubs across the country. The strippers’ suit alleged they were actually employees, not contractors, and should have been entitled to the benefits that employees typically receive, the Ventura County Star reports. While most strip clubs probably do not have in-house counsel, the strip club class action is still important to GCs, as it shows how damaging the improper classification of workers can be....

If you ever lose your law license, it would be reasonable to fight like hell to get it back. It is, after all, how you support yourself. But this week, we’re reminded that a lawsuit demanding damages for a lost license is probably not the best idea. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals disbarred David Smith in 1996. In reciprocal disciplinary proceedings, the federal district court and the Colorado Supreme Court also disbarred him....

Can’t afford a $650 iPhone? Sick of Google data-mining and monitoring every step you take, every Tweet you make? The smartphone market in the United States is a generally seen as a two-man race, with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android as the two big ecosystems with all of the apps. Go to any store that sells smartphones and you’ll see iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, and a boatload of other Android devices, with a few Blackberries and Windows Phone 8 devices collecting dust in the corner....

Gregory Bartko, a lawyer-turned-convict just had his convictions upheld by the Fourth Circuit, and he may be the least interesting thing discussed in his appellate case. Despite Brady and Giglio violations by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, the evidence against him was too convincing for even ethics to stand in the way of his 23-year prison sentence. For the U.S. Attorney’s Office, however, their repeated mistakes or misbehavior drew the attention of the Fourth Circuit....

Congratulations, it’s a merger, or very nearly. The Justice Department announced on August 27 that it has approved the Continental and United Airlines merger. Late last Friday, the DOJ completed its anti-trust review of the merger with the addition of some final details. One specific addition was the agreement to lease landing and take-off rights at Newark Liberty International to Southwest to increase competition at that airport. Currently, United and Continental together offer 442 daily flights at Newark....

So you’ve decided to make the leap into a virtual or online law practice. You’ve weighed the pros and cons and think you have a client base that is (a) tech-savvy, (b) in need of counsel, and (c) willing to hire you, rather than some online legal services provider. Wonderful. Now you need to consider the finer points, beginning with how you’ll manage to run conflict checks and handle intake for online-only clients....

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the federal government was correct in withholding Medicaid money from the State of West Virginia. In the simplest words – the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the State’s Attorney General had misapplied funds owed the government from a pharmaceutical lawsuit settlement. The ruling came out on Wednesday and held in favor of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reports Legal Newsline....

It seems to be a near constant lament of new lawyers and those that hire them, that law schools don’t teach lawyers any business skills or how to actually practice. But have you ever considered going back to school to learn to be better at business? Sure, legal business may be a bit different. But many of the skills you’ll learn are highly transferable. And thanks to the world we live in, you can do that without actually having to go anywhere or pay anything....

Sometimes justice is elusive. Statutes, regulations, and precedent, will not always line up exactly with an injury, harm, dispute, or with what just feels right. However, thanks to the way the justice system works, certain catchall-type causes of action can be applied in new ways. Unfortunately, most defense attorneys aren’t just going to roll over. Among the most commonly used catchall cause of action for novel claims is a wrongful termination in violation of public policy....

Raising concerns about a short supply of workers to fight cyberattacks, a new report says that women are a hugely untapped source of technical expertise in the field. The Women in Cybersecurity Report says that women hold only 11 percent of the cybersecurity jobs worldwide, while more than 200,000 cybersecurity spots are vacant in the United States alone. Moreover, the report says, women are generally more qualified than men in the field....

If you look hard enough, you can find a legal angle anywhere – even in the eternal reaches of space. Gerry W. Beyer, who writes for the Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, found cause to pay tribute to the voice of HAL. That would be the “13th Greatest Movie Villain of All Time.” Douglas Rain, the voice-actor for the computer protagonist in 2001 A Space Odyssey, has died. HAL, of course, went with him....

The Apple-Samsung animosity is far from over, and the latest development is over Apple’s court-ordered apology on its UK website. As part of an infringement ruling in a UK case, the court ordered Apple to publish notices saying that Samsung’s products did not infringe on Apple’s patents. So Apple published notices that said the UK court didn’t find infringement – but that other courts did. That wasn’t good enough for the UK judge....

Meet Mr. McCutchen. In order to obtain a $110,000 settlement, he agreed to a 40 percent contingency fee. His recovery was then $66,000. US Airways, however, had an ERISA lien of $66,866 in medical expenses. For the privilege of acting as US Airways’ collection agent, he would’ve ended up $866 in the hole, had it not been for a contract that was silent on attorneys fees – and you can bet that after U....

In an action by an advertising display company claiming that defendants conspired to ensure that a competing bidder on a municipal project would be awarded the contract, even though acceptance of plaintiff’s bid would have been in the best interest of the city, denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is reversed where the Supreme Court’s broad statement that the unequal application of facially neutral law with the intent to discriminate may violate the Equal Protection Clause, in and of itself, did not offer defendants fair warning that their treatment of plaintiff was unconstitutional....

There are some forms of entertainment that people are hardwired to watch. Police chases and standoffs rank pretty high on that list, despite the fact that neither should be considered entertainment at all. However, a not-so-new prank phenomenon and hoax, known as “swatting,” continues to plague law enforcement, the public, and even celebrities. Swatting is a seriously dangerous and illegal prank that involves a person calling in a fake threat to 9-1-1 or police, with the threat being such that the police are required to respond with a massive showing of force, such as by deploying a SWAT team....

If you work with municipal governments, listen up. The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Filarsky v. Delia, and its pending decision may affect the way you do your job. The justices were asked to decide whether a private lawyer hired to conduct a municipality’s internal affairs investigation is entitled to the same immunity as government employees. The Court’s reception to the premise was mixed. Justice Sotomayor and Chief Justice Roberts questioned whether private lawyers need special protection, reports the New York Times....

The hirsute co-founder and face of Burt’s Bees, Burt Shavitz, has a few lessons to teach corporate counsel about avoiding stings. Whether that’s the sting of regret or the pain felt when a sexual harassment complaint slides across your desk, not even Burt’s Bees makes a balm to soothe it. The best way to avoid this hurt is to be prepared. Check out these three lessons from this ousted co-founder for avoiding a legal sting and the accompanying bad buzz:...