Do you know what limn means? Neither did I – give me a break, it’s been a few years since I studied for the SATs. In the absence of a great legal lesson from the First Circuit in recent days, instead, I just learned my word of the day. In United States v. Floyd and United States v. Dion, two defendants, Catherine Floyd and William Scott Dion were tried together in a case involving tax fraud....
Can you imagine trying to run your life without your mobile device? Can you remember what it was like before you could have internet access on the train without having to be tied to a physical line? It’s undeniable that smartphones and mobile devices have changed our professional lives irrevocably. However, the convenience of being able to handle our personal lives and professional lives all in the same device comes with a possible price: your career....
Reversing its previous decision, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed California’s ban on advertising by alcohol manufacturers and wholesalers in liquor stores. The en banc court reversed an earlier three-judge panel in the case. Ruling 10-1 in Retail Digital Network v. Prieto, the majority said the ban did not violate the advertiser’s commercial speech rights to place ads in liquor stores under California Business and Professions Code Section 25503(h)....
A few years ago, Google began quite an experiment: It offered fiber optic Internet service to the good citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, for an astounding $70 per month. So, basically, for the same price you pay Comcast, AT&T, or Time Warner, you get Internet speeds that are 100 times faster. First, the ISPs balked. Then their trade groups tried to lobby state legislatures to make it illegal to offer fiber optic service....
Disneyland is famous for Mickey Mouse and really long lines. And that’s a problem – the long lines, not Mickey Mouse. According to plaintiffs in a class-action, the lines at Disney’s theme parks are even worse for them. They are autistic children, and they want to cut to the front. In A.L. v. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts US, a federal appeals court said the plaintiffs may proceed. It doesn’t mean they will get a pass, but at least they’ll get a trial....
How do you end your emails? Do you do it the same way for adversaries, clients, colleagues, and prospects? Additionally, while thanking a potential client for their consideration is an appropriate ending, it doesn’t really work for adversaries (unless you need to grease the wheels of adversarial justice). Basically, there’s no one sign-off that will work for every scenario, so it’s best to have a handy list, which you can find below....
In a landmark win for insurers, the California Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs in personal injury cases cannot recover billed medical expenses over actual medical expenses. The case started from a personal injury automobile lawsuit. Rebecca Howell was injured in a car crash. She sued Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc., for damages including the amount of her medical expenses. Howell’s bills totaled nearly $190,000. However, due to agreements between her insurance carrier and the treating medical facilities, the total amount paid for medical expenses was closer to $60,000, according to the complaint....
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed one firearm possession conviction, and one set of drug conspiracy convictions. The court also affirmed the denial of a capital habeas petition. In US v. Rozier, 08-17061, the court affirmed defendant’s firearm possession conviction and sentence, on the grounds that 1) 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(1) is constitutional, even if a felon possesses a firearm purely for self-defense; and 2) it was a sufficient basis for defendant’s sentence that the district judge, at sentencing, found that defendant had in fact been convicted of three or more prior serious drug offenses....
If you look at models of the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Apple iPad side-by-side, it’s not difficult to tell which tablet is which. That is, unless you’re looking at the photos of the two models submitted by Apple in the European Galaxy Tab lawsuit. The submitted photos make the two models look suspiciously similar. And, the photos have researchers crying foul over the evidence. After all, the iPad and the Galaxy Tab have different dimensions....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. The news reports lately have been grim in the wake of the Orlando massacre. And at the same time the Presidential candidates have been proclaiming that they each are best suited to combat terrorism going forward. But, rather than delve into that morass, how about something on the lighter side for a moment? Let’s talk about Pokemon characters, and how a newly introduced Pokemon character might bear a resemblance to one of the Presidential candidates whose initials are DT....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. While prior to advent of Social Sentry employers were capable of doing some social networking monitoring, the value of that monitoring could be outweighed by the sheer enormous volume of social networking data available on the Internet. Social Sentry supposedly will automate the process for employers and make it easier to pinpoint the type of activity for which they have an interest....
Fox News’ website isn’t just fair and balanced, it’s also among the most protective of web users’ personal information, according to a new rating system called PrivacyScore. PrivacyChoice LLC, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., developed PrivacyScore as a way to assess the privacy risk of using a website, according to the company. PrivacyScore considers nine factors, and assigns websites a numerical score from zero to 100. So what factors go into PrivacyScore?...
Mother’s Day is approaching, and we got to thinking about women’s issues in the workplace. With childcare costs soaring to ridiculous heights, it’s no wonder that women have been “opting out” of the workplace. Or so we thought. On Wednesday, the Pew Research Center released a study that showed that only 10% of moms with professional degrees were “opting out” to stay at home with the kids. Which lead to this thought: with 90% of mothers with professional degrees out in the job market, law firms should be hiring more moms....
Until recently, Holly Springs, Miss.’s claim to fame was Graceland Too, Paul MacLeod’s home-turned-Elvis-museum where you can view memorabilia and learn obscure Elvis facts 24/7. Now, Holly Springs has the unusual distinction of being an anti-church city in the Bible Belt. And soon, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals could consider whether a city zoning ordinance that applies a more-restrictive set of requirements to churches seeking zoning approval violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the U....
Social media isn’t just for the kids anymore since a new survey shows that judges are getting in on the action. The CCPIO New Media and Courts Survey has been around for three years now so the 2012 survey results reveal changes over time. More judges are responding to the survey and of those who do, more say they use social media both for personal and professional reasons. The survey looked at a lot of issues surrounding social media use, including whether these new technologies compromise ethical requirements....
If you have two hats, you usually can’t wear them both at the same time. Unless you are Michael Hollander, a programmer-turned-lawyer. Hollander is an employment attorney who is creating software to help disadvantaged clients. Why did he jump from computing to lawyering? It definitely was not for the money. Not the Money Hollander was a systems engineer, working for good money in the Silicon Valley nearly 13 years ago. He was living the life, but wanted to do something more meaningful....
As demonstrators rallied outside a Seattle courthouse broadcasting a live hearing inside, a panel of judges listened to arguments about whether they should consider President Trump’s anti-Muslim statements in ruling on his latest travel ban. Jeffery Wall, acting solicitor general for the United States, told the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals not to consider Trump’s campaign statements but only his comments once he took office. Wall said the president’s executive order does not ban Muslims, only people from certain countries....
No one is safe from hackers today, at least not in BigLaw. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that 48 top Chicago law firms – many of which are part of the Am Law 100 rankings – were targeted by a mysterious Russian cybercriminal who operates out of Ukraine. His goal? Top law firms’ mergers and acquisitions info. With that sort of inside information, a cybercriminal could do very well for himself....
The final decision from the Ninth Circuit case of United States v Nosal II has finally been filed and should make casual users of this thing we call the internet a little nervous. Nosal II involved accusations that a former employee who’d used other current employees’ password information to access company information had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Sounds harmless enough and even intuitive. That is, until you listen to the judge’s language....
Steve Jobs may have been a genius, but he was an idiot about discussing anti-competitive behaviors over email. His emails were one of the deciding factors in the Apple e-book lawsuit (Apple lost) and now, his words are haunting his friends in the tech industry in a different anticompetitive case: the non-poaching pact class action that first made headlines late last year. In October, the all-knowing, all-seeing Judge Lucy Koh allowed the lawsuit to proceed, and now, six months later, the parties are entering into intense settlement negotiations, with figures like $9 billion being floated around (and scoffed at by the tech companies)....
