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If a prisoner talks to his lawyer in person, at the prison, the prosecutor typically can’t eavesdrop. If he writes his lawyer a letter, the same protections apply. If they talk on the phone, again, the prosecutor is supposed to back off. But if the prisoner sends an email to his attorney, the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are going to read it, and possibly use it against him. Anything You Type Can and Will Be Held Against You The New York Times has the scoop, beginning with eavesdropping on the emails of reputed mob boss Thomas DiFiore:...

Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who developed self-driving car technology for Google, has been looking behind him ever since he left the company last year to found a start-up. Now the image in his rear view mirror has suddenly come into focus. Waymo, the self-driving car division at Google, has filed a lawsuit alleging that Levandowski took its technology and sold it to a competitor. Levandowski, who sold his company to Uber for $680 million seven months after he left Google, knew that it was coming....

bringing sweets into the office. Leave them in an area of the office where people congregate (lunch room, water cooler, etc.) with a nice note for everyone to have a nice day and enjoy the sweets. Safe, simple, and cheerful.Don’t: Don’t buy expensive, inappropriate gifts that can be seen in any way as “romantic.” No jewelry, perfume, dinners, shows, etc. If you would buy it for your significant other, then don’t buy it for someone in the office....

It’s easy to understand that a business isn’t exactly thrilled when one of their own employees steps forward to alert authorities of company violations. But as an in-house attorney, you have a duty to balance the short term interests of the company with potential long term fallout for retaliating when a whistleblower sues. A whistleblower is an employee reports company misconduct and legal violations, such as fraud or financial malfeasance. Whistleblowers are offered protections by a number of state and federal laws, therefore it is imperative that you ensure that your company does not violate the law when a whistleblower sues the business....

The Supreme Court isn’t the only federal court with a longstanding empty seat. There are currently 114 outstanding federal judicial vacancies, including 17 on federal appellate courts. Four of those open appellate seats are on the Ninth Circuit. Outstanding nominations expired when the new Congress convened on January 3rd, meaning that now-pending Obama nominees, like Judge Lucy H. Koh, won’t fill those vacancies. That means that President-elect Trump could have an outsized impact on the courts, moving nominees more quickly through a Republican-controlled Senate....

Weird Al is one of those celebrities who you never really expect to find in the news. And when he does pop up, it’s always something positive. Most recently for the lovable comedian, it was announced that he’ll be getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And while some lawyers might not think there’s anything they can learn from the silly, frequently over the top comedian, they’d be wrong....

Despite the name, Apple’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference isn’t just for developers and Apple staff, it’s one of Apple’s biggest events of the year for discussing the latest and greatest products and software. Alas, don’t get your hopes up for new iPhones or iPads – those typically get their own events in the fall. Today is all about the operating system software, with major changes in store for both the desktop/laptop OS X and the mobile iOS....

Just last June, the Supreme Court recognized the same-sex couples’ fundamental right to marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. It was a landmark decision and a triumph for gay rights advocates, but many corporations had embraced gay and lesbian equality long before the Supreme Court, offering spousal benefits to employees’ domestic partners. In 2014, more than a third of all workers had access to domestic partner benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics....

When it comes to useful robots, we’re still a few years away from getting a real-life version of Rosie, the robot maid from ‘The Jetsons.’ (A Roomba will have to do.) And indeed, we may never get the metal heaps promised by 60’s era futurism. But, with advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, virtual assistants are proliferating. Siri can pull up directions, Cortana can play your favorite music, and now X....

In plaintiffs’ action challenging the constitutionality of the actions of a police officer during a traffic stop, summary judgment in favor of defendant is affirmed where: 1) the officer is entitled to federal and state qualified immunity for any possible constitutional violations that he may have committed in asking the van’s passengers questions about their immigration status and in contacting ICE; 2) the officer is entitled to qualified immunity for alleged violations of state or federal laws surrounding the seizure of plaintiffs and their subsequent escort to ICE office; 3) officer is entitled to qualified immunity for both pat down searches under federal and state law; and 4) the officer is entitled to qualified immunity for all of the challenged actions with respect to the Rhode Island Racial Profiling Prevention Act....

If you hadn’t heard about Miracle Milly, the Chihuahua taking home the Guinness Book of World Records title for smallest dog, then get ready, as the pup is making a big debut in federal court. The dog’s owner is more than a bit gnarled over the fact that her tiny Miracle Milly now also holds the title for the world’s most cloned dog. That title was an accident as Milly was only supposed to be cloned 10 times....

Congress simplified derivative citizenship laws when the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 became effective. But if you represent a client who turned 18 before the CCA, you have to argue for citizenship under the old rules. It can be complicated, as Patrick Ayton learned this week when he lost his removal appeal in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. To understand why the Fifth Circuit found that Ayton didn’t meet the requirements for derivative citizenship, you need a little background information on Ayton....

Local news out of San Antonio, Texas, is reporting that the first lawsuit to allege cyberbullying under David’s Law, the state’s anti-cyberbullying law for school kids, has been filed. Fortunately, the case does not involve a teen suicide, as in the namesake’s case. Rather, the bullied student was voted “most likely to shoot up the school” on social media by other kids in the school, and from there, things went from bad to much worse, before his dad decided to pull him out and file this lawsuit....

Professionals everywhere are finding themselves tethered to their devices as more information is kept on smart phones and tablets; lawyers are no different. That also means we’re all desperate to charge those devices to keep from losing contact. There are options to keep your batteries full when you’re in and out of meetings and courtrooms. Find the one that works for you. Related Resources: Is Your Computer Battery An Energizer? (FindLaw’s Technologist) The Laptop Buying Guide for Lawyers (FindLaw’s Technologist) E-Reader or Tablet, Which is Best for Lawyers?...

The First Circuit Court of Appeals declared Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chaffee the victor in an over-three-month standoff with federal prosecutors on Thursday. Chafee refused to surrender accused murderer Jason Wayne Pleau for federal prosecution because a federal sentence could carry the death penalty, and Rhode Island rejects the death penalty. In a matter of first impression, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that the federal government is entitled to choose between the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD) and an ad prosequendum writ in seeking custody of a state prisoner for purposes of a federal prosecution, but that once the federal government has put the gears of the IAD into motion, it is bound by the IAD’s terms....

“A chorus of angels started singing in my head!” attorney Eric Cooperstein said. “Scales fell from my eyes! " It was not the second coming of the Messiah, but it was a close second for the paperless attorney. Cooperstein, like many lawyers, went paperless in his law practice a decade ago. Drafting and saving pleadings on his computer; scanning letters and other documents; e-filing, e-discovery, and cloud computing: these all became part of the paperless law office....

In habeas proceedings district court’s dismissal of the petition as time-barred is reversed and remanded as a state post-conviction motion to reduce an imposed sentence that seeks purely discretionary leniency and does not challenge the validity of the conviction or sentence acts as a tolling mechanism within the purview of 28 U.S.C section 2244(d)(2), and thus, defendant’s habeas petition was timely filed and improvidently dismissed. Read Kholi v. Wall, No. 08-1159...

You’re finally upgrading to a new P.C., or you’re getting rid of those old external hard drives you found in the storage closet. Maybe you have a ton of dated USB drives you no longer need, now that you’re cloud-based. Whatever you do, don’t just toss out, sell, or give away your old hard drives. First, make sure you wipe them of their data. Here’s how. Before we get in to how to wipe a hard drive, here’s why....

More and more people store files and purchase digital media using the mobile devices these days. Fewer and fewer people are buying physical media and instead opt to store their entertainment on remote servers. When was the last time you even saw a compact disc? State revenue has been noticeably lower because fewer people are buying media – in physical form, that is. CDs, DVDs and other optical discs are the latest victims of the relentless march of technology....

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals hears a number of civil commitment proceedings appeals, thanks largely to the fact that the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina (FCI-Butner) already had an established sex offender treatment program in 2006 when the civil commitment procedure was adopted as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Civil commitment proceedings are not simply a rubber-stamp process; the government must prove through clear and convincing evidence that an offender is a sexually dangerous person who would have serious difficulty refraining to sexually-violent conduct if released....