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Women seeking to end their pregnancies in North Carolina won’t be forced to undergo a state-mandated ultra sound and scripted description of the fetus after the Supreme Court rejected the state’s petition for cert Monday. Under the North Carolina law, doctors were required to conduct an ultrasound, describe the characteristics of the fetus, and recite a script before performing an abortion. The Fourth Circuit invalidated that law in late December, 2014, finding it to be a violation of a woman’s right to an abortion and her physician’s free speech rights....

Many small law firms are run by multiple generations of the same family or at least have family members on the payroll as attorneys or support staff. On one hand, you already know those people and (hopefully) know you’ll work well together. On the other, working with family members can make both relationships more complicated. Hiring family members can be a great business move but you need to be prepared for how it will affect your firm....

Admit it, you too have dreamed about winning the lottery. It’s OK. Everybody who has purchased a lottery ticket has dreamt about it. Even if you didn’t dream about the lottery with a scratch ticket, as a lawyer you probably imagined winning that one big case or getting that golden client. Yeah, that lottery. Whatever your dreams, it is more realistic than you may think to spend some time thinking about the lottery....

Many Americans have called for the prosecution of the high-level bankers behind the 2008-and-onward economic collapse, and while that hasn’t happened, they can take solace that things may be headed in that direction. Reuters reported this week that two traders involved in last year’s “London Whale” fiasco, in which J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. lost $6.2 billion, would be charged, while the “whale” himself would serve as a cooperating witness....

Manual Cano entered the United States in 1990 as a nonimmigrant. Nine years later, his status was updated to that of a lawful resident. A few years after that, he violently resisted a lawful arrest. In 2011, due to that incident and a 2010 act that also involved moral turpitude, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notified him that he was set for deportation under § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii) as an alien convicted of two or more crimes involving moral turpitude....

When it comes to structuring contingency fee agreements, most state bars allow quite a bit of latitude, so long as fees are reasonable. There may be some required magic language about the fee being negotiable that’s mandated in your agreement, or some limits, but for the most part, lawyers are as free to undercut competitors and competitively price their services as they are to set prohibitively high fees. In contingency matters specifically, one of the hot button issues that often results in conflict between clients and attorneys is when costs get deducted, or charged after a loss....

Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Action Dismissed In Wooten v. Quicken Loans, Inc., No. 08-11245, an action for violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint where, in connection with a residential mortgage loan, charging a loan discount payment – otherwise known as “points” or “discount points” – to provide a specific, below-market interest rate did not constitute the “rendering of a real estate settlement service” within the meaning of 12 U....

Pilgrim’s Pride won’t have to shell out $25 million to Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana chicken growers after the Fifth Circuit overturned the lower court’s ruling that declared the corporation closed down some of its operations in an attempt to manipulate prices. The Texas-founded poultry corporation, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (PPC), closed some of its chicken processing plants in 2009 due to an unexpected overproduction of chicken which was driving prices down, but this shift caused chicken growers to lose tens of millions of dollars, reports The Dallas Morning News....

Are you thinking about making the switch to a smaller or even solo firm? Maybe your BigLaw gig didn’t turn out the way you expected it to, or you’ve just been thinking about a change. While it may not seem like it – attorneys working in small firms are actually the majority. In general, junior associates at smaller firms have far more client contact than junior associates at large firms do....

Keeping abreast of legal developments, picking up some management skills, learning about new legal tech or marketing strategies – these are just some of the benefits of making sure you have continuous professional development. After all, in an industry that evolves every time a new case is decided, lawyers can’t stay idle. Attorneys have an obligation to keep up their professional development. But what are you to do if you’re a solo practitioner or your firm doesn’t offer a formal (or just good) professional development program?...

You know the stereotype about how lawyers are happy all the time? Me neither. Lawyers suffer from high rates of alcoholism, depression and suicide. (Note: If you feel like harming yourself, it is a medical emergency – please call 911 right now. There are people who care. I care. The world needs you. So please get help.) But sometimes unhappiness is just unhappiness, nothing serious. If all you need is a little perking up, here are five ways to become happier right now:...

Apple is facing another lawsuit, except this time it’s coming from a consumer, not a competitor. The class action suit alleges that Apple is providing free games in order to dupe children into making expensive in-app purchases without their parents’ permission. Should Apple have to stand in for parental vigilance? For those without children (or Apple products), the AppStore contains a number of free games marketed towards kids. While not wholly necessary to play, the games sell virtual cash and other items that improve playability....

In case you missed it, the Fifth Circuit recently ruled that Texas has to honor the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ request to issue Confederate Flag license plates. The majority’s ruling was that the denial of the plate was a viewpoint-based restriction on free speech, and that Texas impermissibly dismissed the SCV’s argument that the flag “is a symbol of sacrifice, independence, and Southern heritage,” while crediting the view that “the Confederate flag is an inflammatory symbol of hate and oppression....

Technology and computers has shifted most legal work from paperwork to digital work. The computer age, however, provides some interesting entanglement with ethics, especially when you run into sticky situations with the law: like when attorney-client privilege and laptops end up mixed together. For example, what happens to attorney-client privilege if a search warrant is issued against you? Well, of course you’d alert the authorities and whoever is searching your stuff that some of the materials they are gathering are potentially privileged....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals made a great argument for homeschooling last week: Schools are not constitutionally required to protect students from rapists. We’re not talking about teachers and principals taking extraordinary measures to wrest kids away from bad guys. The school in this case released a nine-year-old girl to Tommy Keyes — who was not authorized to sign her out from school — at least six times. Keyes took the girl from the school, raped her, and returned her to school....

This is a question that has been bugging us since Perry and Windsor: if officials don’t agree with a law, do they have the right to refuse to defend it? It seems like a silly question. After all, state attorneys general and other officials typically swear to uphold and defend the laws and constitutions of their respective governments. But, we’ve seen state after state drop their defense of same sex marriage bans....

In this past month alone we’ve seen the initiation of two high-profile fashion cases – one involving Rachel Roy in a dispute with her investor, Jones Apparel Group, and the other between fast fashion giants Aeropostale and H&M. In the ever-evolving area of “fashion law” that encompasses everything from intellectual property to employment law (and many other practice areas in between), let’s take a look at these cases and see what you can learn from them – even if your company is not in the fashion industry....

The FCC just dismissed a petition a petition filed by Consumer Watchdog requesting the Federal Agency to force “edge providers” like Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc., to honor a consumer’s request not to be tracked. These are significant because you’ve probably even signed a couple of requests not to be tracked. Well, guess what: You’re likely being tracked anyway. Consumer Watch’s original petition back in June asked the FCC to enact rules that would force all the big data companies to honor your “do not track” (DNT) requests whenever you signed on to use their services....

This isn’t much of a surprise, yet it is truly unfortunate. For those of you who currently take on court-appointed work in the federal criminal justice system, or are considering doing so, Fourth Circuit Chief Judge William Traxler, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Judicial Conference, has announced a rate cut for the next two years, by $15 an hour, reports the Courthouse News Service. The letter, addressed to U....

When the curtain went up on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, everyone already knew the story behind the Hollywood casting couch. Powerful producer takes advantage of ingenue. It was shocking mostly because there were so many, including famous actresses who had kept it to themselves for years. That was Act One in the #MeToo movement. In Act Two, a powerful Hollywood lawyer takes advantage of an associate attorney. It is not for general audiences....