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Religious Discrimination Employment Action In Dixon v. The Hallmark Cos., No. 10-10047, an action alleging claims of religious discrimination, retaliation, and failure to accommodate religious beliefs in violation of Title VII, and retaliation and housing discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendants in part where plaintiffs called attention to no statutory or case law that could reasonably be believed to prohibit a private employer from keeping its own workplace free of religious references....

If you don’t believe your clients think you’re incompetent, think again. A recent study of employment discrimination cases by the American Bar Foundation suggests they probably do. Over half the plaintiffs interviewed reported that their lawyers were incompetent or worked against them. And at least one quarter of discrimination plaintiffs believed their attorneys were corrupt. The good news is that a closer look at the study suggests that the real problem is our failure as attorneys to effectively communicate and manage their expectations....

While corporate data breaches and hacks are becoming regular occurrences, rarely, if ever, do companies make errors in the aftermath as bad as Equifax did in the wake of the recent hack of their database. The major credit reporting company actually sent individuals concerned that their info was stolen in the hack to a fake scam website. Luckily for Equifax, and the public, the scam website was not really scamming anyone, and was not actually built by a hacker or scammer, but rather a rogue do-gooder and programmer who is fed up with poor corporate cybersecurity....

ArsTechnica just released a breakdown of Google’s Project Zero Teams’ discovery of a major security flaw in FireEye’s coding that potentially allows attackers to infiltrate a network and export everything of yours you have on the network – passwords, download histories, viewing history – all by just sending that network an innocuous-looking email. FireEye, to their credit, quickly acknowledged the weakness in their affected products and released a patch designed to address the issue....

Litigators in the Ninth Circuit’s district courts work on some of the most innovative and forward-thinking cases filed in the country. For years now, federal litigators in California have trusted The Rutter Group’s Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial, California and Ninth Circuit Edition. (Disclosure: The Rutter Group is part of Thomson Reuters, FindLaw’s parent company.) The bestselling guide has been updated for 2017 with new cases, statutes, and the information you need to help you litigate in California’s federal courts....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Thermos. Yo-Yo. Escalator. Zipper. Is Google there now? Well, fairly recently Google won a case that compels Mr. Elliott to transfer to Google hundreds of Web site domain names he had registered that included the trademarked term “Google” within them, such as “googledonaldtrump.com.” He wants to use such domain names to support a business model that he has developed....

Remember when you were a kid, and your dad taught you to stand up to bullies? What happened? You got punched in the nose, right? So that’s when you introduced the abuser to your big brother. Maybe that’s not your story, but you’re grown up now and it’s time to deal with the discovery bullies. It’s best to avoid the conflict, but sometimes you have to push back. Discovery Sanctions If you get knocked around by abusive litigators, introduce them to your big brother or sister on the court....

Business travel sounds really glamorous – until you actually have do it. Going abroad to negotiate a deal is less about seeing the sights, and more about sitting in a conference room all day. And here’s a little hint: Conference rooms all look the same no matter what country you’re in. This is not the time to explore your fashion personality. Check the weather for the locale and pack only what you need....

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled lawyers yearning to bill hourly.” If that’s not what it says on the Statue of Liberty, it very well should be. Whether you learned the law in Ireland, Syria, or Bangladesh, there’s always a place for you in America. You just have to be able to find it. If you’re a lawyer, America is your homeland, wherever you were born. Nowhere else in the world are people so litigious or the legal system so adversarial....

You can trust old things. That’s the logic of the ancient documents rule, which allows lawyers to introduce hearsay evidence so long as the document is old enough and appears authentic. How old is old enough? Just 20 years. Ironically, that thinking is probably out of date, given the amount of digital data that can be hoarded away for long periods. If the logic behind the rule was questionable when it was established, some argue that it’s even weaker now....

Are good lawyers expensive lawyers? Expensive lawyers - it sounds almost laughably redundant, but, there’s actually quite a misconception. Because not all lawyers are expensive. Some are even more expensive. In all seriousness, however, there is good reason for the number of expenses that lawyers charge for. The law is often a very daunting process for most people to pursue on their own efficiently (and, well, legally for that matter). Still, though, how can a potential client tell what makes a lawyer better than some others when doing their research?...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued another opinion examining the practical implications of the Supreme Court’s Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye decisions last week. If you do criminal appeals, this decision is bad news. As you’ll recall, the Supreme Court ruled in March that the right to effective counsel includes the right to representation during the plea bargaining process. In this appeal, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Lafler and Frye do not justify second or successive motions to vacate, set aside, or correct a federal sentence....

Up until this point, law firm apps have been distinctly underwhelming, with large firms producing smart phone applications that are little more than a transparent marketing ploy. What if this doesn’t have to be the case? What if there was a way to use smart phone technology to market your law firm and help clients at the same time? Luckily, there is, and it comes to you from the Scottish firm of MacRoberts....

Ever heard of the Nigerian money scam? Todd Denson certainly did. He took the idea and ran with it, ending up in jail on counts of mail fraud and wire fraud. The First Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t buy any of his arguments on appeal, however. Denson was initially emailed by the Nigerian money scammers, who told him that he had inherited $9 million overseas. If he sent over a few thousand to take care of taxes, then he’d be a rich man....

The legal world is changing fast and there is evidence to indicate that some of that change is beginning to wear away the old practice of exclusively hiring top-ranking grads from the nation’s most celebrated schools. For law students and new lawyers from non-T14 schools, that means you might be able to wow your next employer and land a job. For firms looking to hire, it means you might want to start relying more heavily on factors that relate to legal success – and those aren’t always related to law school pedigree....

The First Circuit Court of Appeals just opened a new chapter in the story about a Massachusetts attorney who was arrested for illegal wiretapping after he recorded a video of Boston police officers arresting a suspect. In case you haven’t read about this case, attorney Simon Glik used his cell phone to record Boston Police officers in 2007 while they were arresting a suspect, because he thought they were using excessive force against the suspect....

If New York attorney Harrison Williams was representing a typical client, his recent win should have netted him thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees. Some even estimate that he should have gotten around $75,000 for the successful civil rights case. Williams will only be seeing a minuscule fraction of that amount. An appeals court has ruled that he will be paid $1.50. The reason? Williams was handling a prisoner’s case. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, passed in 1997, attorney fees in these types of lawsuits are limited to 150% of a jury’s award....

Facebook experimented on its users by peppering their home pages with depressing status messages. Users were mad. The FTC is investigating. This is old news. Or at least it was. On Monday, OkCupid, a freemium online dating site, announced proudly on its blog that it runs experiments on users too. Some of these seem like no big deal (removing all pictures from the site for a few hours), while others seem like a very big deal (lying to users about compatibility ratings to test the effectiveness of their matching algorithm)....

PayPal, the online payment company owned by Ebay, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims stemming from its “Bill Me Later” program. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had accused PayPal of refusing to honor the advertised terms of its online credit product, signing customers up for credit without their permission, and failing to properly manage its credit and billing system. Thankfully, PayPal’s failure can be your inspiration, as there’s plenty to learn from the company’s credit debacle....

Smartphones: the new geek crack. What’s the latest and greatest news in smartphones? World Mobile Congress is happening right now, and the news has mostly been meh, with companies releasing low-end smartphones to target the entry-level and third-world markets. Those Nokia Android rumors we passed along? True, unexciting, and still confusing – Microsoft is undercutting itself and its Windows App Store with low-end Androids. But, in news more relevant to legal professionals, there has been some scintillating news for the security conscious and the QWERTY-obsessed....