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A little more than a week after U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves struck down Mississippi’s gay marriage ban, the Fifth Circuit propped it back up, albeit possibly temporarily. Late last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay pending appeal to the state of Mississippi, allowing the state to continue to enforce its ban on gay marriage. However, the ban may not last long – the court also consolidated the appeal with two others out of Louisiana and Texas, setting the oral argument showdown for all three states in early January....

If asked, judges often say they like their jobs for noble reasons. They dispense justice and bring balance to the universal conflict of man, or something like that. Superman said it better. But if you could get inside the head of a federal judge, you would find they really like being able to speaking their mind. As a lawyer, that’s where you want to be. Speaking Your Mind When you have the job security of a federal judge, you can say just about anything and still keep your position....

In 2011, the First Circuit held that “a citizen’s right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public space is a basic, vital, and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment,” in Glik v. Cunniffe. However, the court noted that the right was not unqualified. Last month, the First Circuit had a similar case before it, but instead of a citizen filming an arrest in a public square, a citizen filmed a traffic stop....

The end of the year is a great time to upgrade your tech around the law office. You may be able to justify big-ticket items, and those big-ticket items are often at their cheapest points between Christmas and New Years when shoppers are making returns left and right, often without receipts. You know there’s a fine line between what you want and what you need. And with the rapid pace with which tech keeps marching on, you might still “need” a few of the following hot tech items for yourself or your practice for the upcoming year....

An important section of the Patriot Act is set to expire June 1st. Without a renewal from Congress, that could mean the end to the NSA’s collection of bulk phone metadata. The surveillance program was recently ruled illegal by the Second Circuit and has lost support in the House. Yet, Senate Republicans remain strongly supportive. As the Senate considers whether to renew the Patriot act, working through an old fashioned filibuster, the question remains: what will happen to the NSA’s phone data collection program?...

Ever wonder how the other half lives? The ABA Journal ran a piece this morning on how BigLaw firms, with massive architectural budgets, are rethinking their office spaces: glass walls, fancy cafeterias, and lounge-braries. It’s high class hotel lobbies and lounges meet law offices, and for most of us, it’s way, way out of the budget. But, nestled in to the glamor shots of sinfully decadent décor were a few considerations that any firm, big or small, can weigh when picking or redesigning its office space....

By now you probably have a LinkedIn profile, which may or may not be getting a little dusty. If so, it’s time to refresh your profile as LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for networking, promoting yourself, and hiring staff. So, with a renewed commitment to LinkedIn, you may want to take it one step further and start a LinkedIn Group. You will get all the benefits of having a LinkedIn profile page – but you will also interact more with colleagues in the same industry, establish your reputation as an expert in the field, and open yourself up to gaining more connections....

In an effort to boost minority enrollment at their school, the University of Texas should have realized that they would likely be facing legal challenges to their affirmative action college admissions programs. After all, an affirmative action college admissions process could easily be criticized and attacked by students who were denied admission, as was the case in several of other affirmative action suits that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court....

Proofreading is important. Whether you’re trying to catch problems with your argument or just fix an incorrect subject verb agreement, if you don’t proofread, you might miss something important or just appear careless to the court and adversaries. Ideally, it helps to have someone you trust proofread your work before you submit it to the court or to your boss. But if you’re stuck proofreading yourself, the following tips can help you catch errors....

Recent headlines are turning up the pressure on Allegheny County in Pennsylvania due to law enforcement’s over-reliance on charging arrestees with possession of an “instrument of crime” just for having a cell phone. The big controversy centers around sex workers, and how law enforcement in Allegheny County routinely arrest and charge sex workers with both prostitution and possession of an instrument of crime, if the arrestee has a cell phone. And if you’re wondering what the big deal is, before sex workers had to worry about a cell phone earning them an extra serious criminal charge, condoms were being considered instruments of crime....

District court’s judgment of liability for unfair and deceptive business practices in violation of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A against the pharmaceutical-defendant is affirmed as evidence supported a finding that defendant unfairly and deceptively published an artificial average wholesale price for a prostate cancer drug that gave no indication of the actual, substantial discounts and rebates it was providing in the market. Accordingly, the district court made the rulings without committing material legal error, abusing its discretionary power, or making clear errors in its fact finding....

In a dispute involving the interpretation of an insurance contract, district court judgment is reversed where the plain language of the Out of State Coverage clause in the policy makes specific reference to any accident that occurs out of state, and does not focus on the limits of the out of the state financial responsibility law, and thus the insurance policy necessarily expands the amount of liability coverage in this case since the accident occurred in New Brunswick....

How many California judges are gay? Not many, according to the results of the state’s Judicial Applicant Data Report, which is administered by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Only 19 women and 17 men out of 1,005 respondents answered the question in the affirmative. That’s about 1%. This is a low number, but the truth is that 40% of judges refused to answer the question altogether. Many of them believe asking about a judge’s sexual preference or gender identity is an invasion of privacy....

In Marshall v. Sec’y., Dept. of Corrs., No. 09-15419, a capital habeas matter, the court of appeals affirmed the denial of petitioner’s habeas petition, holding that nothing in the record suggested that the state courts’ application of the jury-override procedure was arbitrary or discriminatory or that such application produced an arbitrary or discriminatory death sentence. In Vining v. Sec’y., Dept. of Corrs., No. 07-15681, a capital habeas matter, the court of appeals affirmed the denial of petitioner’s petition, on the grounds that 1) no extra-record materials that the trial judge viewed were presented to the jury during the guilt or penalty phases; 2) the trial judge’s experience with hypnosis, conversations with a psychologist, or familiarity with a book on the subject did not influence the jury or prejudice the petitioner because, according to Florida’s law, the witnesses’ testimony would have been admissible in any event; and 3) petitioner failed to demonstrate either deficient performance or prejudice in his ineffective assistance claims....

US v. Bishop, No. 09-20172, involved a prosecution for aggravated identity theft and fraud in connection with access devices. The Fifth Circuit affirmed a condition of defendant’s supervised release requiring her to participate in a mental health program as deemed necessary and approved by the probation officer, holding that any error by the district court in delegating authority to a probation officer to determine the length of a defendant’s treatment was not plain or obvious because the court had not previously addressed the issue....

US v. Gentles, 09-1431, concerned a challenge to a conviction of defendant for distributing crack cocaine and a sentence of 64-months’ imprisonment, followed by four years’ supervised release, with a special condition of substance abuse treatment counseling. In affirming, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s motion for a mistrial as although prosecutorial misconduct occurred, there is no evidence that it prejudiced the outcome of defendant’s trial....

Solos and small firms likely can’t afford much in the way of overhead, whether it’s expansive office space or support staff. Fear not! Technology is here to help. When someone calls the office, who’s going to answer the phone? You? Try again: You’re at a court date, a deposition, a settlement conference – in other words, not in the office. Enter the virtual receptionist, which is like a real receptionist, but more … virtual?...

These are not new ideas: a criminal defendant has the right to remain silent, both in questioning and at trial. The prosecutor isn’t allowed to encourage a jury to infer guilt from a defendant’s silence. Such assertions will end in a mistrial. But what if the prosecutor doesn’t explicitly state, “he-didn’t-testify-so-he-must-be-guilty?” According to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a petitioner is not entitled to relief for prosecutorial innuendo. This week, the Eleventh Circuit rejected an appeal to re-hear Mark Duke’s case....

We generally don’t get terribly excited about Federal Trade Commission (FTC) litigation, but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals achieved the impossible this week: It literally made us laugh out loud while reading an anti-trust opinion. The case, which examined a pharmaceutical pay-for-delay deal, is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., et al. As the Eleventh Circuit notes, “Another maxim might also apply to the patent monopoly of drug pioneers: ‘more money, more problems....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. It has been ages in Internet time since the FTC provided advertising guidance in its “Dot Com Disclosures” release in 2000. Thirteen years later, cyber eons really, the FTC now has come up with new guidance in its “.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising.” This new guidance recognizes the exponentially increasing use of mobile devices and the consequences of their limited screen size, as well as the growing prevalence of social media advertising....