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After years of the small law life, you decide that you would rather fill your days with bocce ball than 12(b)(6). Don’t just turn off the lights and take down your shingle; consider whether you could actually make a tidy little profit by selling your practice. It’s like Rod Blagojevich with Obama’s vacated Senate seat, but without the indictment-worthy conflicts: You’ve got this thing (your practice) and it’s … golden. Don’t just give it up for nothing....

Defendant’s sentence is vacated, where Defendant’s prior state offense of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle was not a “crime of violence” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, because the generic crime of violence or aggravated felony must itself involve purposeful, violent and aggressive conduct. Read the full decision in US v. Armendariz-Moreno, No. 07-40225. Appellate Information: Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of TexasUSDC No....

Breaking records is usually a good thing. However, when a company breaks a record for paying out the largest settlement in a particular government agency’s history, it might not actually be something to be proud of, especially if that settlement is related to violations of consumer protection laws. However, for Wells Fargo, the recent record breaking billion-dollar settlement might not actually be that bad for the banking behemoth. Given the high settlement value, a judgment could have actually been more than the drop in the bucket that a single billion represents to the bank with total holdings at nearly $2 trillion....

Has your company been involved in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision in the last year? If so, that ruling may be in jeopardy thanks to last week’s recess appointment ruling. In the unlikely event that you haven’t heard, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that recess appointments are limited to intercession recesses. Because three members of the NLRB over the last year were improper recess appointments, the Board lacked the requisite quorum....

Will this be the basis of David Simon’s next big hit? James Owens was set free in 2008, after serving two decades in prison. This week, the Fourth Circuit reinstated his lawsuit over the false conviction, which he says was obtained via the police department and state’s attorneys’ withholding of exculpatory evidence. Now, the detectives on the case, who served as inspiration for characters in Simon’s first big hit (NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street”) as well as his most critically acclaimed masterpiece (HBO’s “The Wire”), will be defendants in his lawsuit, along with the Baltimore Police Department and the prosecutor....

Employees’ suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1963 against the Department of Veterans Affairs medical center Ahern v. Shinseki, 09-1985, concerned a challenge to the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of an employer, in a suit brought by radiology technologists in the diagnostic imaging service at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center, under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1963, claiming gender-based discrimination, retaliation, and constructive discharge....

The year didn’t start out on a high note for Borders executives and shareholders. At the beginning of January, the bookseller was in discussions with publishers about deferring payments, as well as talking to lenders about refinancing its debt. Not only that, Borders began bleeding executives–vice presidents, the chief information officer, and even the general counsel. It was thus expected when the company filed for bankruptcy last week in a Manhattan court....

In a time of strained resources and judicial shortages, Chief Judge William B. Traxler, Jr. of the Fourth Circuit has agreed to take on extra duties as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, effective today. He succeeds Judge David B. Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit, who took senior status yesterday. For all you young pups and law students out there, you might be wondering what the Judicial Conference of the United States actually is....

The Ocean Cleanup project – a multi-national effort to take out an island of trash floating in the Pacific – is failing. It turns out the cleanup machine, a giant barrier that scoops up debris, has a problem. The rubbish was slipping out, and now it’s broken. That happens when people and companies dump their trash into the ocean for generations. There’s just too much. Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old optimist, invented the U-shaped cleanup device....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will re-consider next week whether a public elementary school has a special relationship with its students that creates a constitutional duty to protect their personal security. During the 2007-2008 school year, Tommy Keyes, an unauthorized stranger, checked plaintiff Jane Doe out of her elementary school at least six times. Doe’s father and grandmother, who brought a lawsuit on her behalf, allege that Keyes “brutally and viciously raped, sodomized and molested” Doe each time before returning her to school....

In Baker v. St. Paul Travelers Ins. Co., No. 09-1239, the court rejected the defendant-insurance company’s contention that an employee cannot recover for work-related injuries under both workers’ compensation and her employer’s Underinsured Motorist (UIM) provision of the automobile insurance policy. The court quoted the decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge in National Union: “We would not extend the bar imposed by the exclusivity provision of the Workers’ Compensation Act to make ineffective [UIM] coverage (or any other coverage) that an employer explicitly purchased for the purpose of providing [UIM] coverage to employees injured in the course of their employment....

The White House announced this week that it had been hacked, presumably by Russian cyberspies. The operation must have been pretty sophisticated, right? Someone at the State Department – other than Hillary – fell for a classic phishing scheme, allegedly opening an unverified document from a scam email. That’s a pretty basic mistake. Has the Secretary of Defense started sending federal funds to that Nigerian prince yet? Let’s not lament how easily our government computers were breached though – the intruders may have had access to sensitive documents since last October....

As any corporate lawyer knows, compliance can be a major business expense – one so big that many businesses simply shoot first and pray for the best. The fact that federal employment and discrimination laws are so expansive means guaranteed job security for corporate lawyers. But last month, the EEOC released a single page fact sheet that helps small start-ups get compliant quickly without the help of lawyers. Corporate lawyers may commence grumbling....

Remember when then-Senator Barack Obama ran into trouble on the 2008 campaign trail because he told attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser that people in small town Pennsylvania “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion?” Fox News went crazy covering the story. Actually, every media outlet went crazy covering the story; it was an explosive sound bite. Now it’s the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ turn to determine if people in Georgia should simultaneously cling to God and guns....

It’s about time the legal job market heard some good news. Reports over the past few years have focused on the fact that the market is over-saturated, wages aren’t rising, et cetera, et cetera. Finally, there’s good news for legal professionals in 2015: hiring is picking up and salaries are expected to increase more quickly than last year. But what specific areas are growing? Here’s a quick overview of some of the hottest areas in the legal profession right now:...

A small hotel has brought a suit against travel company Expedia alleging that it used underhanded tactics in order to siphon booking business to its partner hotels instead. The case is currently in the courts being reviewed for class action certification. Causes of action include false advertising, unfair competition and – of course – “bait and switch” business tactics. How the “Bait and Switch” Works The way the alleged scheme works is like this....

‘You’re outta there!’ a judge declared, tossing out AT&T’s lawsuit to stop other internet service providers in Louisville, Kentucky. In a city famous for its “Louisville Slugger” baseball bat, Judge David Hale dismissed AT&T’s lawsuit against a local government ordinance that gives other ISP’s quicker access to utility poles. The “One Touch Make Ready” ordinance allows competitors to make adjustments to utility poles rather than wait for AT&T and others to move their wires....

Wonder if our AI future will look like Westworld or Blade Runner? If we’ll need to start creating social security programs for retired robots? If we’ll still have social safety nets after smart machines replace human workers? K&L Gates, the massive BigLaw firm, is wondering about the implications of AI, too. And it’s donating $10 million to create a research center focused on the ethics of artificial intelligence. The donation will launch the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, the New York Times Reports, supporting a new center at the university where researchers and academics will tackle questions about the ethical implications of emerging AI technologies....

Earlier this week, Owen Williams of The Next Web found his Apple iCloud account locked. Williams was smart and enabled two-factor authentication on his account after reading the sad story of Wired’s Mat Honan, whose Apple and Google accounts were hacked through a social engineering trick in which the attackers got his password reset over the phone. Williams, unfortunately, couldn’t access his iCloud account because he’d forgotten the recovery code. Does this mean we should all dismiss two-factor authentication?...

One minute, Dan Smith is enjoying a naked nap on a hot, summer morning. The next, officers are searching his computers for child pornography. He says that cops shouldn’t have been in his house. And those images they found? Fruit of the poisonous tree. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, and ruled that the evidence was admissible. So how did things go so wrong for Smith? In October 2009, Sebastian, Florida police officers received an anonymous tip that an individual identified as ‘Dan Smith," who worked at a particular pharmacy, had child pornography on a laptop computer....