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Lawyers are not immune to disaster. When the Twin Towers were destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, so too were the offices of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, though remarkably only one employee died. When the levies in New Orleans failed following Hurricane Katrina, firms large and small saw their practices interrupted, offices destroyed, and employees displaced. In order to ensure quick recovery and continued client service, all firms should have in place a disaster recovery plan....

Miguel, being held in a detention center because of a criminal conviction, was stumbling through a deportation hearing. He didn’t speak English well, he didn’t have a lawyer, and the prosecutor wanted him deported immediately. The judge was threatening, too, because Miguel had not completed some paperwork. “What can I do?” said Miguel, a legal resident who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost a decade. “I don’t know how to read....

Dorothy proved it: say something enough and it will come true. However, for Shiva Ayyadurai, the self-proclaimed inventor of email, it didn’t work out that way. He sued Techdirt and its publisher for libel for saying his claim was “complete bull____.” U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor ;found in favor of Techdirt. “One person may consider a claim to be “fake” if any element of it is not true or if it involves a slight twisting of the facts, while another person may only consider a claim to be ‘fake’ only if no element of it is true,” said Judge Saylor....

We’ve seen plenty, and we do mean plenty, of bad lawyer commercials, from rapping attorneys to two guys stuck in a 90s music video. This one, however, just took the title of worst, and it’s not just bad, it’s actually offensive. How does one outdo every bad lawyer commercial ever made? Meet Mr. Wong Fong Shu. Warning: if the preview image of a white guy dressed in fake presumably-Chinese attire offends you, his horrid racist accent and impersonation makes it much worse once you hit play....

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has an easy lesson for those individuals looking to set up fantastically named shell companies to funnel their money and lives through: You can still get reverse pierced just like It’s Thundertime LLC. Reverse piercing of the veil applies to situations where a third party is seeking to hold the corporation liable for the member’s action. As the owner of It’s Thundertime LLC learned the hard way, if you commingle, then the courts will pierce it, in forward or reverse....

In plaintiff’s ERISA action, district court’s summary judgment upholding the termination of plaintiff’s long-term disability benefits by Prudential Insurance Co. of America is affirmed as, the dispute in this case is not whether plaintiff is afflicted with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue immune dysfunction, but that he has not met his burden of showing that these conditions rendered him unable to perform any job for which he is qualified. Read Richards v....

In Gintis v. Bouchard Transp. Co., Inc., No. 09-1717, the First Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s denial of class certification in an action by plaintiffs against a fuel barge owner and operator for substantial amount of oil discharged into a Massachusetts bay. In its decision, the district court relied heavily on the denial of class certification in Church v. General Electric Co., 138 F.Supp. 2d 169 (D. Mass....

Self-driving school bus – what’s wrong with this picture? It’s not a test, but if it were, the self-driving school bus company just failed. After several weeks cruising driverless in suburban Florida, the pilot project has reached the end of the road. Federal regulators shut down Transdev for obvious reasons. It’s a French company. Pilot Project Actually, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stopped the bus for two reasons: 1) the French company didn’t have NHTSA permission to test a school bus; and 2) it’s a school bus!...

Ah, email etiquette. As the professional bunch that we are, you wouldn’t think that attorneys would need to know what etiquette to abide by when it comes to something as obvious as crafting an email, right? Wrong. Because much like the limp handshake, the longer-than-one-page resume, or chewing with your mouth open, some small details can still make or break your image – and email etiquette is definitely one of them...

The FTC recently imposed hefty fines on four high-profile diet supplement companies in a growing effort by the agency to curb deceptive advertising in the weight loss product industry. In all, the weight-loss marketers will pay approximately $34 million for consumer redress. The FTC will make these funds available for refunds to consumers who bought the products. Here is a list of the products fined. If the FTC recently starved your professional conscience, the lesson is: trim the false advertising fat....

Joel Tenenbaum, Boston University graduate student, was handed down a guilty verdict by a federal judge late and pegged with a $675,000 penalty last week in his trial for violation of copyright infringement for illegal downloading and sharing of music online in a case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2007. The trial had its share of quirks and surprises. Even before the opening remarks, presiding U....

Even though paying for it is painful, advertising can be a lot of fun. Thinking up catchy campaigns that will capture the attention of potential clients is a creative process that can pay off big time. Using pop culture references in advertising can often appeal to certain audiences, and if your ad is good, you might get lucky and it will go viral. While intellectual property laws do allow for some fair use of others’ creations, or even when there are no intellectual property laws at issue, going too far with pop culture can result in a public relations disaster....

If electronic discovery is the vehicle through which lawyers conduct business, the meet and confer is the pre-purchase inspection. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f), enacted in 2007, requires that parties to litigation “meet and confer” to negotiate the terms of electronic discovery at least 21 days before a scheduling conference is to be held, or a scheduling order is due. So how can you ensure a successful meet and confer, and steer clear of penalties and discipline?...

Good news law techies. I’ve got five must-have iPad apps for lawyers, and they’re all free. Don’t say I never did anything for you. Or do, it’s fine either way really. So here are the Apps all iPad-wielding attorneys should download: Evernote - One of my favorite programs, available on your computer, iPhone/iTouch and iPad. Evernote sets up an easy to use organizational system that can store documents, notes, reminders and any other kind of idea....

Companies want to be seen and heard in multimedia. And while that may inspire corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts, they may have questions regarding liability implications of social media. And that’s where you come in, esteemed corporate counsel. How do you advise your organization or company on creating a social media policy? Here are some questions to help frame your discussion with the execs: Is a written social media policy necessary?...

If you’re tapping away on an iPhone, make sure you’ve got the latest updates. Otherwise, your calls, text messages, emails, and contacts could all be vulnerable to Israeli cyberspies – or whoever buys their software. The NSO Group, an Israeli software company that the New York Times describes as “one of the world’s most evasive digital arms dealers,” has released software exploiting security vulnerabilities in Apple products, allowing anyone who uses it to collect your information, steal your passwords, track your location, and even secretly record your conversations....

The world got a crash course in copyright law earlier this week when David Slater, a British photographer, requested that the Wikimedia foundation take down a photograph snapped by a macaque. The “monkey selfie” was born when Slater set up his camera in an Indonesian forest and came back later to find that monkeys had snatched it and were snapping pictures, The Washington Post reports. Section 102 of the Copyright Act provides copyright protection for, among other things, “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works....

Every lawyer has a website, whether they know it or not. From the State Bar to LinkedIn, your information is already on the internet for consumers to find. And when you use a web-enabled device to research, send information, download a document or file a pleading, you are effectively practicing law online. You have a virtual law practice; you just didn’t know it. It’s really a matter of how much you use it....

Pro-life clinics are often characterized as “crisis pregnancy centers.” Pro-choice advocates claim the term is misleading because crisis pregnancy centers counsel women to continue their pregnancies. (Pro-life advocates counter that the name Planned Parenthood is equally misleading.) Some cities, like New York and Baltimore, have responded to the misnomer criticism with posting requirements that require a “limited-service pregnancy center” to post signs announcing that they do not offer, or make referrals for, abortions or birth control services...

You’ve probably heard of “Call of Duty.” It’s one of the biggest video game series, in terms of sales, of all time. In “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” real-life dictator-turned-prisoner Manuel Noriega makes an appearance as … a dictator. Turns out Noriega (the real one, not the video-game character) is mad and is suing over the use of his likeness. Activision, the company behind the game, is trying to get the case tossed and has enlisted a very interesting choice of counsel to help: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani....