If you live in the modern world, then there’s a pretty good chance that you have both a Gmail account and a Dropbox (as well as a Netflix, a YouTube, a Facebook, a Twitter, a Pintrest, a Soundcloud, and the list probably goes on and on and on). For those of you who live in Gmail and love using Dropbox, there’s good news. Close work between the two companies has finally led to a significant update to Gmail....
While the language of lawyering is often inaccessible, anachronistic, and borderline gobbledygook, some legal words stand out for being fun to say, and even easy to understand, like quash. And though we all know generally what the word means, and most of us lament the fact that we don’t get to file motions to quash on a daily basis, the word actually has an interesting history that is inextricably tied to the verb squash....
Set your clocks folks: An appeal of a denied injunction that would block all or most of North Carolina’s new voting laws, including voter ID provisions and restricted early voting times, is set for September 25, less than two weeks from now, reports NC Policy Watch. The appeal comes from a district court judge’s denial of the plaintiffs’ request to block House Bill 589 (the “monster voting bill”). Judge Thomas D....
The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to a Rhode Island ordinance requiring new hospitality employers to retain their predecessor’s employees for three months. The challenger, Rhode Island Hospitality Association’s, primary argument was that the National Labor Relations Act preempted the ordinance. The trade group also argued that the ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause and Contract Clause, but the First Circuit quickly dismissed both as non-serious and focused on its preemption clams....
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments today on the Coast Guard’s appeal of a District Court’s ruling to free a Maltese coal ship that has been detained since April 19, 2013. On April 14, 2013, the Maltese coal Ship loaded at Lamberts Point Terminal in Norfolk and when the Coast Guard ran a routine inspection a crewmember secretly informed the inspector of environmental violations. The Associated Press reports that the crewmember reported that the vessel’s water separator was bypassed and that oily bilge water had been dumped overboard....
There are certain parts of your job, as a small-firm owner, that you love. Helping desperate clients. Beating annoying opposing counsel. Taking vacations when they are convenient for you. What about firing a useless associate? If you’re the type that would enjoy shooting Bambi (not her full-grown mother, but Bambi, the actual baby deer), firing an uptight, under-productive twenty-something might be the highlight of your week. For the rest of us, however, it is less sport and more dreadful necessity....
A legal dispute over the motion detector technology that brought you the Benjamin Button and Harry Potter films could end up preventing the distribution of future animation-enhanced movies. The technology, called Mova, allows filmmakers to capture an actors’ performance, then digitally edit it “in post.” Now, a lawsuit over ownership of the technology has led a San Francisco-based tech incubator, Rearden, to seek an injunction against the distribution of films it claims are made by allegedly infringing its patents and trademarks, which include films like Deadpool, Terminator Genisys, and Guardians of the Galaxy....
Volume practices get a bad rap. People assume that just because you move a lot of clients’ cases through the system, that you are doing a lesser job on the cases. Bollocks. Moving a case quickly, or more accurately, efficiently from intake to completion is good for you (because it frees up time for more clients) and great for your client (fewer billable hours, obviously). Of course, efficiency and volume have to be balanced with diligence, ethics, and customer service....
Luis Perez has just graduated from UCLA Law (ranked No. 15 in the nation). He is hard-working, optimistic, articulate. Would you hire him? Would it make a difference if you found out he was the first undocumented immigrant to graduate from UCLA Law? He is, and he hopes that status will change so he can pursue the life in law he has worked so hard for. But, as with everything else in Perez’s life, there are no guarantees....
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a student with special needs who sued the Waco Independent School District for failing to her prevent sexual abuse at school should get another shot at making her case. The court’s ruling, however, highlights the importance of a well-pleaded claim. When remanding the matter, the Judge Haynes noted that the pleading was “not a model of detail” and suggested that the student replead....
Biotech is on the cusp of curing genetic disorders, curing aging, making disease-resistant crops, and giving us superhuman designer babies. If any of these miraculous promises come true, it will likely be thanks to CRISPR, the revolutionary gene editing technique. The billion dollar question is: who owns CRISPR? On the one hand, there’s UC Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who first filed a patent application describing the CRISPR-Cas9 method and its application to bacteria....
Legal software keeps getting better and better. While the fear of being replaced by an artificially intelligent robot looms more closely for some lawyers than others, for the rest of us, the technological advances just make practicing law even better, and easier. If you’ve been thinking about using smart contracts, or some other type of legal AI software or service, you probably have a few questions. Below you’ll find five of the top frequently asked questions on smart contracts and legal AI software....
We have a couple of updates on ongoing Fourth Circuit litigation for you today. In the Virginia same-sex marriage battle, oral arguments have been extended to an hour, rather than the typical 30 minutes, to account for the intervening parties. And last week, the Fourth Circuit denied relief to Lavabit, the private email service that was held in contempt for failing to comply with a court order. The secure email service chose to shut down rather than comply with an order that would have violated its users’ privacy....
If you are firmly committed to your QWERTY keyboard (beloved by so many lawyers), new BlackBerry options are coming to the market. Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal voiced concerns about Research in Motion’s ongoing financial health and viability, noting that BlackBerry had devolved from the “symbol of corporate mobility,” to a mere “curiosity.” But the BlackBerry death watch may have been premature. Research in Motion, now rebranded simply as “BlackBerry” has introduced two new BlackBerry models – BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 – and the new BB10 operating system, CBS News reports....
Is Twittersquatting the new cybersquatting? It might not be, but it’s certainly proven to be more than annoying for Coventry First. Coventry First is a leading company in the secondary life insurance market. Essentially, Coventry buys rights to life insurance policies and resells them to investors. Coventry was understandably not amused when a Twitter user opened up a new account with the username “coventryfirst.” The @coventryfirst Twitter account has been posting somewhat morbid tweets cheering for death....
The way things went down at Dentons, #MeToo may soon be a term in Black’s Law Dictionary. A business specialist has sued the law firm, alleging a supervisor sexually harassed her. The plaintiff says a managing director propositioned her with vulgar language, touched her legs and buttocks, and pursued her after hours. In the #MeToo era, it’s unfortunate that BigLaw is part of the sexual harassment problem. America has been calling out the legal system, and the rules should be clear by now....
With the upcoming holiday season just around the corner at your firm, there are some things you should keep in mind. Sure, Halloween hasn’t even really passed yet, but we all know that once it does, the holidays will come barreling through at an unapologetic pace. With that said, it’s best to be prepared. Keep in mind the following for things, in preparation for the upcoming holiday season: In the meantime, though – Happy Halloween!...
As the year comes to a close it’s time for small firms, and really any small business, to break out the to-do list of end-of-year tasks. Not only is it the end of the calendar cycle, it’s the end of the fiscal year for most of us, which means it’s time to gather together all of the year’s financial information. With that you can figure out how you’ve done this year from a business perspective....
This is a fun thought. With PRISM probing into the data held by nearly every major tech company (despite their resistance), are there private alternatives? After all, with the major tech players buying up significant startups, your entire digital existence may be owned by two or three companies. Personally, I’m carrying a Google Nexus Android phone and tablet, using Gmail (personal) and Google Apps (professional) for my email, contacts, and calendaring needs, and Google Chrome for my web-browsing....
In plaintiff’s action against a hospital and several physicians alleging violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), district court’s granting of defendants’ motion for summary judgment is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs failed to establish a violation of the EMTALA stabilization provision, as interpreting the provision to apply where transfer occurs is fully consistent with EMTALA’s statutory purpose; 2) district court was entitled to dismiss plaintiffs’ state law claims against defendants without prejudice which plainly includes state-law claims against the individual physicians; and 3) district court did not err in dismissing state-law claims brought by plaintiff Taveras, a citizen of Germany, on basis of diversity of jurisdiction as several of the plaintiffs and the defendants are citizens pf Puerto Rico....
