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Human behavior can be harder to understand than corporate behavior, and that can be a problem for companies trying to do good. Those are observations from a University of Chicago economist who is noted for his field experiments in economics. John List recently discussed on a podcast his experiments on corporate social responsibility. On the internet radio program, he said that workers who took jobs with a good company surprisingly did some bad things....

Here’s a question for any tech-savvy lawyer with a social media presence: Do you know your Klout score? And should you even care? What is Klout? It’s a website and third-party app that considers all of your social-networking efforts like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and somehow calculates a “score” for how influential you are online. A Klout score of 1 means you’re barely a blip on the social-media radar; 100 means your posts are being retweeted, liked, and shared at breakneck speed....

The beauty of running your own firm is running your own firm: nobody tells you what to do, what to wear, or when to turn out the lights and go home. The flexibility to set your own wardrobe is especially appealing – why wear a suit to the office if you’re going to spend the entire day mostly alone, catching up on paperwork? But with freedom comes risk: portraying an unprofessional image, alienating clients and coworkers, or worse....

The battle over voter ID laws found its way to the Fifth Circuit on Thursday, after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder filed suit in Texas federal court against Texas’ recently passed SB14. Although Holder threatened to bring the Department of Justice (DOJ) hammer down last month, the complaint filed in late August is no idle threat; the federal government means to fight this voter ID law and any “measures that suppress voting rights,” reports Reuters....

The United States may be described as the world’s police – both in earnest commentary and feature films starring puppets – but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that it doesn’t actually have authority to police the world. Tuesday, the Atlanta-based appellate court vacated the convictions of four suspected drug traffickers arrested near Panama, holding that U.S. had exceeded its authority by prosecuting the men, Reuters reports....

Attorneys these days have busy schedules. Sometimes you have depositions in one city, a court appearance in another, and a brief you need to finish writing that same day. Evernote could be a useful application for attorneys that want a digital organization tool. Granted, Evernote isn’t for everyone. Some lawyers may prefer using paper calendars and notebooks. And, reading on the iPad or iPhone certainly isn’t the best if your eyes are easily strained....

A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision was surprisingly reversed and remanded by the Supreme Court of the United States earlier this month. In a decision on the securities class action against Halliburton, SCOTUS struck down a requirement placed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Federal District Court regarding the securities class action standing of the plaintiff. The Supreme Court rejected the idea that the plaintiffs had to satisfy a “loss causation” prong in order to bring a securities class action against Halliburton for violation of Rule 10b-5....

Digital locker site Hotfile has sued Warner Brothers for alleged abuse and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Confusing? Typically, you’d think a company like Hotfile would be the one under the crosshairs of the DMCA. As a file-sharing site, Hotfile users are known to upload copyrighted works onto the site. Some of these files include Hollywood films - and Hollywood studios have taken notice. Hotfile argues that they comply with the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedures, and thus immunity from copyright suits, according to Ars Technica....

Aikens v. Ingram, No. 08-2278, concerned a challenge to the district court’s order dismissing the action without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction for failure to exhaust any available intramilitary remedies, in a former colonel’s suit against his former colleagues at the North Carolina Army National Guard, claiming that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by wrongfully intercepting, reading, and forwarding his e-mails while he was deployed in Iraq....

Like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill, we keep trying to preach the good word of relaxation to lawyers near and far. Clearly, that’s a fruitless endeavor. Lawyers are always going to be a high-stress bunch. Instead of telling you how to live your life – if you want to stress, that’s your right – today we’re going to discuss how different generations handle stress. A recent Stress in America survey from the American Psychological Association shows that younger Americans report experiencing the most stress and the least relief....

When it comes to going over a client’s budget, there really are two sides to the coin. On one side, you have a client who is not happy with the bill. On the other side, you have a lawyer with a potential client problem. Either way, we’re talking about money. The trick to saving the client relationship – and not losing money – is to add value. It means you have to invest in the relationship....

For many of us attorneys, the days of using the old ’not enough time’ excuse to rationalize not doing any pro bono work may soon be over. Thanks to virtual legal services becoming more and more common, it is only natural that the conveniences that make working more efficient would get used to deliver pro bono services in a better and more cost effective manner. In addition to the many ways modern tech has helped to streamline pro bono operations, there are now programs that allow attorneys to provide virtual legal consultations, as well as perform remote pro bono work....

In a recent Fourth Circuit appellate argument, Judge Roger Gregory explicitly stated his skepticism over a longstanding precedent allowing eminent domain property seizures prior to landowners being compensated. The case before the appellate panel was brought by landowners in Virginia and West Virginia who are challenging the taking to create the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-plus mile natural gas pipeline. Unfortunately for the landowners, the district court ruled that the construction could move forward and the companies involved could seize the land, before the landowners have been paid....

FindLaw columnistEric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Jurors routinely are admonished by judges only to consider the evidence presented to them at trial and not to consider outside information. How is that working in this electronic age? Not so well. There have been a number of reports of jurors going online to learn about and communicate regarding the cases on which they are serving....

Back in 2012, LinkedIn was hacked and 6.5 million passwords were reportedly leaked. Now it looks like a few more accounts were also compromised – almost 167 million. And the consequences of that hack are still playing out four years later. Last week, LinkedIn announced that more than 100 million passwords and matching emails may have been leaked online. If you have a LinkedIn account, here’s what you should know, and how you can protect yourself....

Another circuit case involving student bullying was affirmed in favor of the defending education board. Why is it that despite the circumstances of some of these plaintiffs, it so difficult for them to get relief? The answer is a complex one, and it generally hinges on a SCOTUS case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Ed. S.B. was a disabled student who attended Aberdeen High School in Harford County, Maryland. He endured repeated and consistent student-on-student bullying by other students....

In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C section 1983 claim against a group of correctional officers and others claiming that, while a prisoner at a Puerto Rico correctional facility, officers subjected him to an escalating series of searches of his abdominal cavity that culminated in a forced exploratory abdominal surgery, dismissal of the complaint is vacated and remanded as to plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claims against two correctional officers and the doctor who performed the surgery, as the allegations in the complaint are sufficient to allow a jury to draw the reasonable inference that each defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged....

Attorneys are often advised to learn and adopt the latest and greatest new tech has to offer. But, there is a certain appeal to just having a system that reliably works and doesn’t require continual updates. For lawyers who have that, convincing them to change their ways will be nearly impossible, unless you can point to a potential ethical violation. After all, if something isn’t broke, why fix it? Right? When it comes to finding the right tech, it can be rather challenging, but once you have it, you’ll be one of those lawyers who are technologically set for life....

The Silk Road case moved forward late last week, with three site administrators arrested and indicted on drug, money laundering, and hacking conspiracy charges. The arrests of Andrew Michael Jones of Charles City, Virginia; Gary Davis of Wicklow, Ireland; and Peter Phillip Nash of Brisbane, Australia, follow that of alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who himself may have struck a plea bargain on some of the charges against him....

Mooooove over, Florida oranges. All-natural skim milk is about to be a little more famous in the Sunshine State. A federal appeals court has ruled that a Florida dairy producer has a free speech right to advertise its natural “skim milk,” even though the state prohibited the description. The U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said the advertisement was truthful and entitled to First Amendment protection. “The State was unable to show that forbidding the OCheesee Creamery from using the term ‘skim milk’ was reasonable,” the court said....