Last week, I read yet another post about women, and yet another thing they aren’t doing as well as the boys in the corporate setting: speaking up at high level meetings. Researchers have confirmed that women “feel less effective” or that “their voices are ignored or drowned out,” reports the Harvard Business Review. I’ll admit it, I’m guilty of this. Yes, I’m still kicking myself for not speaking up at my freshman orientation seminar at U....
Everett city attorneys probably paid too much attention to detail in their clothing ordinance targeting bikini baristas, according to a lawsuit. The ordinance says the servers must cover “minimum body areas” at all times, including: “breast/pectorals, stomach, back below the shoulder blades, buttocks, top three inches of legs below the buttocks, pubic area and genitals.” Even more cringeworthy, it says the women may not expose “more than one-half of the part of the female breast located below the top of the areola” and the “bottom one-half of the anal cleft....
That’s right – our expanded holiday season means that Christmas starts at Thanksgiving and ends somewhere around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And with Thanksgiving less than three weeks away, you may want to start thinking about your law firm’s holiday cards. Holiday cards are a time-honored tradition – something you can send to clients, family members, and adversaries alike to help celebrate the holiday season. But before you get your office staff to don reindeer antlers and pose for a funny picture, here are a few things you may want to consider:...
Sometimes service of process can be tricky. But if you know where a defendant works, you can certainly improve your odds of serving an evader by trying to find them there. It worked for one guy who was having trouble serving his city councilman who had blocked him on social media. And surprisingly, while the councilman blasted the lawsuit as frivolous, he settled it rather quickly. Below, you can read a few tips when it comes to having your process server perfect service on a defendant at their workplace....
“Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!” Egad. Just the phrase brings to mind that woman’s face, and makes me want to react violently. I suspect I’m not alone, either. That doesn’t make her point less true, however. Mondays are a productivity nightmare. How can you pummel the sluggishness, reticence, and annoyance of the initial hours of the work week? Don’t set yourself up for disappointment. If you front-load your work week with the most difficult tasks, then you’re making it even more likely that you’ll succumb to the Mondays....
You’re a tech-savvy attorney, as fluent in gigs and RAM and blockchain as you are in personal injury, summary judgement, or motions in limine. You know how to tell a worthwhile tech product from an unnecessary one, and you know how tech can improve your practice of law. Or, hey, maybe you can’t tell a Mac from a PC – but you want the best new tech out there anyway....
It can be tough starting out as a trial lawyer. You may find yourself unsure of what comes next in a case. You might be confused by court procedures, or frustrated by clients. You could be up against seasoned litigators with decades of experience. But you’re not alone. With some prep – alright, with a lot of prep – and some good advice, you can become a skilled and successful trial attorney....
The Sixth Circuit case, Carpenter v. United States, which upheld law enforcement’s ability to obtain historical cell phone location data without a warrant, is heading for the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue is whether obtaining location data from service providers without obtaining a warrant first violates the Fourth Amendment. Currently, courts have been finding that a warrant is not needed on the theory that location data, and other metadata, are not private, but rather functional....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Once upon a time less than 20 years ago, there was concern that people would not trust providing their credit card information to make online purchases. Indeed, there was a question as to whether people would take the plunge and order holiday presents online. My, how times have changed! The press release points to a number of Alexa facts....
Payday loans tend to be exploitative. Tribal payday loans tend to be really exploitative, since those quick cash advances can be made outside the restrictions placed on non-tribal lenders. That means payday loans with annual percentage rates of over 500 percent in some of the worst cases. This case isn’t about the legality of the usurious loans themselves, however. It’s about the allegedly illegal practices used to collect on borrowers’ debts....
It’s an interesting question: Should you throw a Christmas party for your clients? Booze-filled egg nog, mistletoe, ugly Christmas sweaters, clients mingling with staff – what could go wrong? It’s a chance to build relationships, to celebrate the season, and to connect with your clients on a less formal level than you ordinarily would. It also means booze and the celebration of one religious holiday to the exclusion of others....
Hear the one about Best Buy? Someone drafted a Best Buy coupon offering $50 off of a purchase of $100 or more using a MasterCard. Exclusions included Sony stereos and a few other overly-specific items. By late afternoon, the company redrafted the coupon. It shortened the seven day sale to one day, added a load of restrictions, and quite possibly, ruined its relationship with customers who showed up, coupon in hand, ready to purchase items at the promised discount....
Fior Pichardo de Veloz was on her way to Miami for the birth of her grandchild when a not-so-funny thing happened. She was arrested on old drug charges, but that wasn’t it. What happened next made all the newspapers: police took her to the men’s jail. It got worse. That’s why she sued in Pichardo de Veloz v. Miami-Dade County. No Man A county nurse falsely told police that Pichardo was a transgender man, the lawsuit said....
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon sees a different world when it comes to marijuana laws. Soon after marijuana became legal for recreational use in California, Gascon announced that his office would apply Prop. 64 retroactively. That meant recalling thousands of marijuana convictions for potential resentencing. Now the district attorney is looking forward, saying his office will use new technology to expunge pot convictions. He says it will help all Californians in the end....
In a world where the First Amendment doesn’t apply, Facebook has more power than the government to crush terrorism’s ugly head. For example, the company can keep terrorist pictures and videos off the largest social media site on the planet. An algorithm can detect such content and prevent it from seeing Facebook daylight. So when ISIS tries to shock the world with a beheading video, they are not going to see it on Facebook....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. The Web site Faceporn.com previously proclaimed that it was the “number one socializing porn and sex network” on the Internet. Faceporn displayed adult orientated sexual content in a social networking format. However, after Facebook filed a recent lawsuit, Faceporn has gone offline, but promises to return. Facebook filed its complaint against Faceporn in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California....
Mark your calendars in-house counselors. October 18th 2009 kicks off a 3-day Annual Meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel called “Don’t Just Survive. Thrive!” in Boston. The conference features 13 different tracks, each with daily programming in line with the theme. The themes of the tracks include: Ethics - Includes sessions on basics of corporate ethics considerations, foreign discovery and e-discover, in-house counsel as witnesses, avoiding personal liability in securities fraud, lawful and ethical strategies...
Maybe not just in-house lawyers, but really, how many lawyers of all stripes out there are afraid of math? Or anything. If you declare that you “can’t do math,” the non-lawyers at your company might not openly mock you, but your statement will not inspire confidence in your abilities. Would you trust a professional who was otherwise great but couldn’t read? Why Are Lawyers “Bad” at Math? Maybe for the same reason most people are....
Back in February, the D.C. Circuit Court struck down the FCC’s net neutrality rules, necessitating new regulations. Why It’s Important Net neutrality is the concept that all traffic on the Internet should be treated the same by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner. The ISPs would much rather treat traffic differently, charging customers more for high-demand websites like Netflix. (Indeed, they’re already doing this – Comcast has made Netflix pay extra for the privilege of not having its traffic throttled, meaning that Comcast is getting paid twice to deliver the same data: once by you, their customer, and once again by Netflix....
A drone will soon be able to deliver a package in 30 minutes across town for $5 to $10. It gets better, says Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos as his company prepares to launch a drone delivery service. “When you increase the density of your networks, then there is a pathway to get the cost below $2,” he said. It’s exciting times, including for law firms that need couriers like Domino’s needs drivers, except for one thing: drone delivery companies are taking a little longer to get off the ground in the United States....
