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Hospitals, nurses, doctors and other medical providers have urged New Hampshire to expand Medicaid to an additional 49,000 poor adults under the Affordable Care Act. But the state legislature must pass a law in order to expand Medicaid – and they’re deadlocked in a split. New Hampshire Medicaid Expansion In its current form, New Hampshire’s Medicaid program covers low-income children, parents with nondisabled children under 18, pregnant women, senior citizens and people with disabilities....

Offshore Drilling Co. v. Gulf Copper & Mfg. Corp., No. 08-40885, concerned a declaratory judgment action claiming that an indemnity provision in plaintiff’s contract with defendant released plaintiff from liability for the destruction of a ship in plaintiff’s shipyard. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for plaintiff, on the ground that the parties’ factual disagreements did not create a material issue of fact concerning control of the vessel. However, the court reversed the denial of attorney’s fees where, because plaintiff’s indemnity claim arose under the contract, it was entitled to the costs of its defense under the indemnity provision....

“I need to finish this brief by tomorrow. I can get by on a few hours of sleep.” Except not really. Getting a good night’s sleep can affect your performance as a lawyer – and your practice. It’s easy for us to rationalize sleep as something that’s optional, but in reality, it’s incredibly important. For the sake of your job, don’t skimp on sleep! Sleep doesn’t really rest your body; it rests your brain, which has spent the entire day coping with the non-stop barrage of stimuli that is life....

Maybe you’re ready to make the switch from firm practice to in-house work. Or perhaps you’re already an in-house attorney, looking to transition to a new position elsewhere. Either way, you’re on the hunt for a new job. While an in-house job search isn’t entirely different from finding other jobs, it does require a specific set of skills and a unique approach to the job search. To help you out, here are our top in-house attorney job search tips, from the FindLaw archives....

With Cinco de Mayo inching ever closer, the Hispanic National Bar Association has announced its Top Lawyers under 40. The news comes at a good time as it reminds everyone that the upcoming holiday isn’t just an excuse to drink and party. Cinco de Mayo is about celebrating Latino heritage. It’s about recognizing all the accomplishments and contributions Latino people have given to the world. And the following HNBA honorees this year embody the leadership skills and intelligence every young lawyer needs to succeed....

Conviction of defendant of multiple crimes related to his pyramid scheme is affirmed where: 1) district court did not abuse its discretion in restricting impeachment of a government witness; 2) district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a thirty five year term of imprisonment, two years of supervised release, and restitution in the amount of $19,103,121.73. Read US v. Bunchan, No. 08-1022 Appeal from the United State District Court for the District of Massachusetts...

Defendant’s mail fraud, money laundering and wire fraud convictions are affirmed in part where the government properly indicted defendant as an agent of the Alabama Poison Control Center and of the State of Alabama under 18 U.S.C. section 666, and the evidence was sufficient to show that defendant acted in such capacities. However, the judgment is reversed in part where, as to certain counts, the government indicted defendant as an agent of the State of Alabama under section 666, but he did not act as an agent of the state with respect to those counts....

Windows 8.1. If you don’t want to wait for the rumored fixes to arrive, however, there are a few add-ons that you can install to bring that functionality to your computer today. This is especially handy for those of you who need computers for your law office now, but are apprehensive about learning a new operating system (which is set to revert many of its new “features” over the next few months)....

As the legal market begins to pick up, not all practice areas are growing equally. The growth in a few areas is far outpacing the rest. How can you tell which practice areas are booming these days? Look at who’s hiring. What’s booming according to legal staffing companies? Several distinct practice areas have seen increased hiring and growth, reports Lawyer and Statesman magazine. These areas are expected to see continued growth over the next few years as well – great news for a firm looking to expand....

A Texas judge moved closer to a spot on the Fifth Circuit bench after appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Judge Gregg Costa fielded questions from both sides of the aisle during his nomination hearing in the Committee, with little pushback from either side, The Dallas Morning News reports. With little political friction, is Costa set to become the next Fifth Circuit Judge? There are currently three open spots on the Fifth Circuit bench, and Costa is just one of three nominees that President Obama has selected to try to fill those gaps....

The Internet is a fickle beast. The collective power of just a tiny fraction of the Internet’s 3.2 billion users can make your cat famous in a minute, as it did with Grumpy Cat, whose net worth is estimated to be as high as $100 million dollars. But the Internet’s attention can also destroy lives, or unleash torrents of anonymous online hate and harassment. And when faceless Internet hoards target someone for harassment, the law often does little to stop them, according to a recent report by The Washington Post....

Gender bias is a real problem. So much so that even boilerplate legal docs can be implicitly gender biased. And if you think that implicit bias isn’t a problem, then you haven’t been paying attention. In the venture capital world even, they started making changes to particular contract term language to eliminate implicit gender bias. So if they’re doing it there, you might want to consider doing it for your own company....

In plaintiff-shareholder’s suit against the directors of a company for breach of fiduciary duty, arising from two transactions in which the company issued equity shares as compensation for agreements made by most of its shareholders to guaranty personally loans made to the company, district court’s judgment is affirmed where: 1) even without the business judgment rule, no jury could reasonably find that the directors in emergency conditions breached their duty of care as to the first transaction; and 2) a fact finder could not, on the very thin evidence available, rationally conclude that the directors had carried their burden of proof to show fairness....

We’ve all heard of car insurance, but what about case insurance? Well, that’s the basic service being offered by two personal injury lawyers out in Florida who launched their company Level Insurance last month. It’s too soon to tell if this is going to be a golden goose for them, but it does raise some interesting strategy (and ethics) questions. But with the shifting paradigms of litigation financing, we’re hardly rattled anymore....

Over the past decade, craft brewing has taken off, with hip, local microbreweries popping up everywhere from post-industrial Brooklyn to downtown St. Louis, just a DIPA’s throw away from the Anheuser-Busch mega breweries. But your small batch sours are no longer the hot new thing when it comes to drinking. The cool kids these days (along with plenty of discerning drinkers) are all about craft distilling, seeking out the best microvodkas, the rarest whiskeys, and the most artisanal bitters....

You’re probably scratching your head at the title of this piece. What would compel an attorney to inquire about incriminating doodles? You’re not representing 5-year-olds, right? Wrong. Even older clients have been known to put pen to paper and in incriminating ways. Consider Ariel Jasso, a 22-year-old convicted of armed robbery in 2009. The then teenager drew a picture of a hold-up on his homework and left it in the getaway car....

If you thought the federal case resulting from the malicious prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse team was over with last year’s Fourth Circuit defeat, well, you’re close. It’s near-dead, and now even nearer with last week’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty, Jr. According to the Herald Sun, the district court dismissed claims by 38 lacrosse players against an investigator, Linwood Wilson, formerly employed by now-disbarred and forever disgraced former District Attorney Mike Nifong....

Fox wants to keep its executives from streaming over to Netflix, and it’s calling on its lawyers to help it out. 21st Century Fox sued Netflix in Los Angeles Superior Court last Friday, accusing the online video streaming company of engaging in a “brazen campaign to unlawfully target, recruit, and poach valuable Fox executives.” Such a lawsuit is unusual in the entertainment industry, the Los Angeles Times notes, where back-and-forth hiring of executive talent is common....

US v. Pettiford, 09-4119, concerned the government’s challenge to the district court’s order granting defendant’s petition for post-conviction relief from the enhanced federal sentence of 188 months’ imprisonment and reducing the sentence to a term of 100 months’ imprisonment in a prosecution of defendant for being a felon in possession of a firearm. In reversing and remanding the matter with instruction to reinstate the origianl sentence, the court held that the district court erred in granting defendant’s petition because he did not show, nor could he show, that the vacated sentences alone rendered his federal sentence unlawful on one of the specified grounds....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. In this day and age, practically everyone communicates electronically often and for a multitude of reasons. This of course, is true in the workplace. While employees communicate by email for work-related reasons, it is not uncommon for them also to send emails relating to personal matters. Employers frequently put in place and have employees execute employee email privacy policies....