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Regardless of what you think about co-working spaces, WeWork has quickly scaled to becoming one of the premier providers of office space for startups, small businesses, and even independent professionals. But despite the polished, connected, and Millennial geared lounges and work spaces, the young, hip setting is, allegedly, rife with “frat-boy culture.” If you’re wondering what that means, it’s generally understood as a male-dominated social setting where heavy drinking is encouraged and peoples’ boundaries are not respected, which is, as any lawyer would know, a recipe for employment lawsuit disaster....

We all have those moments of doubt. Did I choose the right path? Should I have gone to medical school or become a computer programming wizard? Why in the heck am I dealing with schizophrenic clients that try to bite my face during my visits to the prison? For most of us, those doubts pass. Despite all of the crap that comes with being a lawyer, especially a small firm attorney or solo practitioner, there are those good moments, where you keep a client out of jail, or settle a case, or win custody, that make the job worth doing....

Building a client base requires knowing who needs legal services and isn’t getting them. One of those groups may be the middle class. Large firms provide services for rich companies and wealthy individuals. Legal services organizations represent low-income communities. But the middle class don’t often have a good option when it comes to finding legal services. The problem is that it’s not a specific practice but a large economic class. How do you attract that kind of client to your business?...

One metro-Detroit lawyer is learning a hard lesson on how not to make clients angry: Don’t use the word “free” unless you really mean it. The lawyer is facing quite a bit of controversy and a state bar grievance over the fact that his clients were upset when their “no-fee” agreements for “free” debt defense legal services resulted in them not getting any of their own settlements because fees were deducted from their settlements....

Private consumer data can be a minefield, especially when you consider the complexity of data management systems and rapidly changing technology. Which is why Van Dang, Cisco’s deputy general counsel, has decided to take a collaborative approach. Dang recently created a cloud-based privacy compliance portal on the company’s website. On it, she shares Cisco’s privacy policy and compliance mechanisms, as well as a library of reference materials. She even invites outside law firms and fellow general counsel to chime in....

Suspension from legal practice may be embarrassing, but it’s not the end of the world. Some attorneys might take up a new hobby during suspension. Others would bide their time contracting as a researcher. Alexander Zeno passed his suspension time with a $17 million pro se lawsuit against the Justice Department under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Zeno is a criminal defense attorney who practices law primarily in Puerto Rico....

Parsons v. Power Mountain Coal Co., No.09-1822, concerned an action by two former coal miners to collect retirement health benefits allegedly owed to them by their former employer. Because the Resolution of Dispute opinions (RODs) deserve the usual deferential review, the judgment of the district court upholding the arbitrator’s judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is affirmed. In US v. Dean, No. 08-4439, the court faced a challenge to the district court’s imposition of a career offender sentence enhancement upon a defendant for his drug possession conviction....

It can be hard to convey your intentions online. Without the context of a face to look at or voice to hear, the plain words of a text, tweet or email can easily be interpreted, and misinterpreted, in many different ways. While the Internet has stubbornly refused to adopt context clues like the interrobang or irony punctuation, tools like emojis and emoticons can help visual express the intent behind words. But not always....

Hopefully you’ve made the time investment to start making your presence known online in order to expand your market and to tap into other potential clients. You’ve started a blog, you’re managing your SEO, and you’re handling your social media accounts with a handy dashboard. Speaking of social media, have you considered a Facebook Event? LawTechnology Today suggests that it is one option that is effective at getting a burst of referrals and social media shares....

Beyoncé tells us that it’s girls who run the world. The repetitiveness of Miss B’s declaration over the course of four minutes at the gym this morning prompted us to consider who really runs a number of different institutions, like Congress, dog shows, child beauty pageants, and the DMV. At least we know who runs the federal courts: clerks. Sure, judges make the decisions, but clerks do the legwork on most opinions....

Blogging. That’s easy, right. You’ll just birth a few hundred words on a legal topic whenever you’ve got a few minutes of spare time. That should fill the blog archives and make your site content-rich, right? The thing is, it’s not quite as easy as updating your Facebook status. There are many things to consider when managing your law firm’s blog, from tone and audience to post type and frequency....

Back in the day, you looked over your shoulder to make sure no one was following you. Now you have to look in your pocket or your purse. That’s because hackers have found another way to get information from your cell phone or mobile device. They can access your data through Bluetooth technology. In other words, they don’t even need to touch your phone. Now hackers do it in the air....

Last week, we gave you an update on the status of intern litigation – old and new. Today, we’re going to look at what actions you can take to protect your company from the intern litigation trend. Here are some things for the legal department to consider to avoid intern litigation. Is your company a for-profit company? If so, then you’ll need to read on to determine whether the facts and circumstances of your company’s internships are really internships, and not employment, according to the Department of Labor....

As you may have gathered from prior posts on this blog, there are lots of ways that your email can ruin your life. Or at least your reputation. In the past, we’ve discussed how spell check won’t always make you look smarter, and the fact that giving your clients (or opposing counsel) pet names in your phone is simply a terrible idea. To illustrate these points, I’ve offered true stories from professionals who have made these mistakes and lived to tell the tales....

Recently, a lawsuit filed by an individual in possession of literal moon dust against NASA started heating up. The case was filed by Laura Cicco, who claims to have a vial of moon dust that was given to her by Neil Armstrong when she was a 10-year-old girl. Armstrong was friends with her father, and the vial was a gift which she has cherished. Before filing the lawsuit, curiously Cicco stashed away her moon dust in an undisclosed location....

What’s the prize for winning the Vioxx defense cases for a major pharmaceutical company, saving millions of dollars in potential damages? C-E-O. Kenneth C. Frazier has been named the new CEO of Merck & Co. and will receive $1.5 million plus incentives. In addition, the new Merck CEO will receive a bonus of up to 150 percent of his base salary and a long term incentive grant for a cool $7....

On appeal from class action settlements involving actions brought by purchasers of pharmaceutical drugs against publishers of drug pricing data, the judgment of the district court is affirmed where: 1) there is no apparent reason to allow participation as an appellant by one who is neither a class member nor sought to intervene in the district court and here, the proposed settlement was widely known in the industry, the pharmacy interests are amply represented on appeal and it is hard to see what would be added by further parties; 2) district court’s judgment does not operate against non-party pharmacies so as to violate their due process rights or offend FRCP Rule 19 as the district court’s management of the case, its insistence on a revised settlement and multiple hearings have given the pharmacy interests a lengthy period to prepare for the rollback; and 3) the district court permissibly found that the settlements were fair, reasonable, and adequate....

Privacy is dead, and now, as a result, Groklaw, Lavabit, and Silent Mail are too. Groklaw, an award-winning law and technology blog that has served as an invaluable resource for tech-minded individuals that didn’t understand law, law-minded individuals that didn’t understand tech, and everyone in between, will be no more after its founder, Pamela Jones, issued a 2200 word goodbye Tuesday morning, stating “there is now no shield from forced exposure....

In an action brought against an airline by a former employee alleging that the termination of her employment violated her rights under the ADA because she was suffering from lupus, dismissal of the action is affirmed where: 1) an injunction is effective to bar plaintiff’s claims as she failed to pursue her employment discrimination claims through the bankruptcy proceeding; and 2) the district court did not err in rejecting plaintiff’s contention that she nonetheless should be able to litigate her claims based on the doctrines of judicial estoppel and unclean hands....

BigLaw is moving into the cryptocurrency sphere, now that Steptoe and Johnson have announced that they’re opening a blockchain and digital currency practice. Blockchain is the technology that underlies Bitcoin and other alternative digital currencies. It’s been hailed as potentially revolutionary, capable of transforming everything from the legal sphere, to land registries, to international finance. “The blockchain, like the internet, is going to have an impact on just about every existing type of institution in the years ahead,” according to Jason Weinstein, the Steptoe partner co-leading the new practice area....