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Texas. It’s the land of steak, pick-up trucks, football, and for far too long, patent holding companies and trolls. The Eastern District of Texas’s high success rate for patent holders (57.5 percent, per a recent study [PDF] by PricewaterhouseCoopers) and decently high rankings for median damages and time to trial, are just some of the reasons why non-practicing entities (NPEs, or patent trolls) love incorporating in Texas and bringing suit in that district....

Youth aged 9 to 21 will get their day in court in a climate-change case, and not in a moot-court sort of way. In Juliana et al v. United States, the young plaintiffs want the federal government to change the way it deals with global warming and fossil fuels. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced it will hear arguments about whether to push the case towards trial. The Trump administration filed a petition to stay discovery in the case and to dismiss it instead....

Bluebox Security has just released some thankfully vague details on what might be the biggest security flaw in smartphones to date – a coding bug that could allow a hacker to change the code in an app without being detected by the system, allowing that hacker to take control of the phone, its functions (such as calls and data), and its data (emails, passwords, etc.). The trick is to change the code inside the app’s installation package without modifying its “crypographic signature....

After a long interview process, you’ve just hired some new associates. Congrats! Now it’s time to get to work. As you invest hours and other resources into training your new associates, you’ll want to make sure they stay long enough to provide a good return on your investment. Still, despite your best efforts, some new associates may not stick around for very long, for various reasons. Keep an eye out for these three warning signs that your new associates may be looking to stray:...

As predicted late last year, Judge Andre Davis, after only a few years on the Fourth Circuit, took senior status as of February 28, 2014. He was eligible for the semi-retired status due to his prior service on the district court bench for nearly two decades. His move to senior status opens up an extra seat on the bench, which due to tradition, must be filled with a Maryland appointee. Meanwhile, as a senior judge, he’ll still hear cases....

Despite a district court’s holding to the contrary, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals thinks that there are genuine issues of material fact in a hostile work environment lawsuit when a manager allegedly called his 65-year-old employee “old man,” “pops,” and “old mother******” for two months. Milan Dediol, the aforementioned 65-year-old, was a born-again Christian working for Best Chevrolet in Kenner, La., when he requested a day off from work to volunteer at his church....

The USPTO has published a proposed set of changes that calls for “slightly” increasing patent prosecution fees – this despite the proposals also call for common fee increases ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent. The proposed changes to the Information Disclosure Statement are being proposed ostensibly to benefit applicants. The fee hike has been justified by the USPTO on the grounds that the funds will be used to ensure enhanced patent examination quality and improved efficiency....

At FindLaw we’ve done a fine job of talking about branding, whether we address how to attract the right clients, developing a practice niche or nurturing your online presence. But, until now, we’ve never talked about building a cohesive brand image – from a design stand point. We know, you’re thinking “design?” Who has time to think about design? You should make time – and it doesn’t need to be a lot of time – to develop a consistent brand image....

San Juan Cable LLC v. Puerto Rico Tel., Co., Inc., 09-1965, concerned a private cable operator’s suit against a rival-competitor claiming that the defendant has transgressed section 541(b)(1) of the Cable Act by constructing a cable system over public rights-of-way and providing cable service without having obtained a franchise. In affirming the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendant, the court held that section 541(b)(1) of the Cable Act does not give rise to an implied private right of action, and that a private cable operator lacks standing to enforce prohibitions contained in two FCC rulemaking orders....

Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed calls for ‘cyber sovereignty’ last week, arguing that countries should be able to control the internet within their borders. China, with an estimated 721 million citizens online, has more internet users than any other country. Yet those millions remain largely separated from the greater, global internet, confined by China’s “Great Firewall,” which keeps everything from specific Wikipedia entries to all of Google blocked under the country’s internet censorship policy....

Personal injury cases can be a real headache (yes, pun intended). Between unpaid medical providers, liens and claims for reimbursement (let’s just call them all lien claims, shall we?), dealing with lien claims may take up more time than negotiating the underlying settlement itself. And then, of course, you have your client wondering why they have to pay anyone back at all. Here are some ways to make your life (a tiny bit) easier....

Classified ads giant Craigslist has filed a lawsuit against Padmapper for scraping Craigslist’s apartment data and putting it on a map on its own website. The Padmapper lawsuit follows a recent trend of increasingly litigious action by Craigslist. Craigslist has reportedly filed several cease and desist letters and threatened several companies with lawsuits for using data curated from its site, reports Tech Crunch. Given the value of the ads on Craigslist, it makes sense that the classifieds giant would want to keep all that data to itself....

Texas death row inmate, Lisa Ann Coleman, was denied the possibility to appeal her capital murder conviction and death penalty sentence for the death of her partner’s son. In 2004, Coleman’s girlfriend’s son was found dead at his home. The 9-year-old boy had numerous injuries throughout his body indicating he was bound repeatedly. He was also extremely emaciated and his cause of death was from malnutrition and pneumonia. Coleman was convicted in the starvation of the young boy and sentenced to death in 2006....

In US v. Llamas, No. 09-4045, the court faced a challenge to a conviction for multiple offenses arising from defendant’s role in fraudulent sweepstakes scheme, a 132 month sentence and restitution order exceeding $4.2 million. In affirming the conviction and the sentence, the court rejected defendant’s arguments including, that the district court erred in applying an adjustment for preying on unusually vulnerable victims and in finding that he played a central role at the Costa Rica call center in the scheme....

If marijuana insurance were available anywhere, you would think it would be in Colorado. Colorado was one of the first states in the country to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Since 2012, it has been a boon to business there – including businesses like insurance that support the marijuana industry. But it is insurance after all, and exceptions may apply. That’s the question in a wrongful death case involving a man who allegedly went crazy after eating marijuana candy and then killed his wife....

Most people want to avoid prison, and rightly so. Despite the abundance of reading time, it’s crowded, the food’s terrible, and it’s fairly stressful to live knowing that you could be shanked at any second for looking at someone the wrong way in the prison yard. Not to mention the complete loss of personal freedom. There are three cases over the last two years that make observers extra-nervous about prison conditions in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ states: Duvall v....

So, what has Facebook been up to lately? As it turns out, the social media corporation that’s desperate to mine your life for ad dollars may have gone a little too far. Last year, Matthew Campbell alleged in a federal class action complaint that Facebook scanned the contents of users’ private messages in order to better advertise at them. Facebook moved to dismiss, but earlier this week, a federal district judge in Oakland, California, denied the motion, allowing the lawsuit to proceed....

Stephanie Morales, a 32-year-old prosecutor handling her first murder trial, looked across the courtroom at her opponent – the community’s best known criminal defense attorney. James Broccoletti , who had been practicing criminal law longer than his opponent had been alive, was defending his fourth client against murder charges in three months. All three of his other cases ended in acquittal or dismissal. “There seems to be somewhat of a mismatch as far as the lawyer for the commonwealth and the lawyer for the defense,” said former Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant....

Though every person has their own individual pet peeves, there are some acts that will irritate even the most even-keeled Ghandi-like attorney. Solicitation and Cold Calls IBM general counsel Robert Weber cites issues with cold pitch letters and solicitation as some of his biggest irritants, reports the ABA Journal. If you have no experience and no connection to IBM or Weber personally, you shouldn’t be contacting him in hopes of representing IBM in a recently filed lawsuits....

Tom Petty will likely be forever remembered by plaintiff’s lawyers for one reason, and one reason alone … wait for it … wait for it … the wai-ai-ting is the hardest part. And if you’ve ever had to wait for a government entity to approve your plaintiff’s settlement, you’ve likely wanted to slap every person after the first who sang those lyrics to you. However, before you start the waiting game known as settlement limbo, there are a few things you can do to help make your agreement more agreeable to the entity that has to approve it....