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The recent Texas voter ID laws that were blocked by a federal district court injunction have just had the enforcement of that order stayed pending the appeal, on the merits, by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This means that the new voter ID laws will remain effective pending the resolution of the case, despite the district court issuing a permanent injunction enjoining their enforcement. However, it is worth noting that the newest provision of the law, under the recently passed SB5, permits voters to submit actual ballots upon the signing of a declaration under the penalty of perjury....

Ninety years ago today, John T. Scopes, a substitute teacher in Datyon, Tennessee, was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution, in violation of a recently passed state law. His case, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, was the first “trial of the century.” It pitted two great lawyers against each other – William Jennings Bryan, a frequent presidential candidate and senator known for his religious conviction, verses Clarence Darrow, an openly agnostic and widely celebrated defense attorney....

You can’t do it all yourself. If you’re running a small or solo firm, you’re going to have to bring in some help sooner or later. But, even if you’re a wiz at the law, you might struggle with staffing and management. To help you out, here are our top tips on finding and retaining the best talent, from the FindLaw archives. You’ve realized you could use some support staff. But can you afford to bring someone on?...

The consult – whether it’s free or costs some kind of money – is like a first date. Not much substantive happens; you and your potential new client are getting to know each other, to see if you really like each other and want to take this to the next (billable) level. By and large, the consult is going to be free of substantive legal talk, except for the outline of the case....

One summer day several years ago, a herd of agitated bison crossed a Montana road oblivious that conservationists were fighting for them in court. County sheriffs were herding the buffalo back to Yellowstone National Park, “hazing” them by horseback, cars, and all-terrain vehicles. Two weeks earlier, a federal court had outlawed hazing by helicopter. Anthony Patrick Reed, a wildlife activist, parked his car fifty yards away to observe the operation. He was cited for obstruction, but in Reed v....

The maker behind the DoNotPay chatbot that has garnered widespread attention and accolades just released an app that’s going to make a lot of people happy and angry. That’s because it’s an app that walks an individual through their small claim filing in every county in all fifty states. The original chatbot was designed to fight parking tickets that most people would have just paid or ignored, and boasted a rather respectable win rate....

The first impression is often the longest-lasting. Because of that truism, and a bit of misinformation about the government’s secret PRISM program, Yahoo! and a number of other major tech companies will be fighting an uphill battle to regain their reputation amongst the increasingly disgruntled public. Yahoo! has just won the first battle in that long war, as they won a motion yesterday to declassify the original court documents in their PRISM case, reports CNET....

Unless you are Martha Stewart, you know about as much about the etiquette of sending holiday cards as anybody. That’s because everybody old enough to write their name and lick an envelope knows to send cards for those special days. Holiday Cards: Do Send cards. Unless it’s too late. There’s nothing like a lawyer missing a deadline and then advertising it. Send generic holiday cards. You can debate whether Christmas has been homogenized later....

Technology can simplify nearly everything in an attorney’s life. Gone are the days where lawyers type pleadings on typewriters and file them by hand. Now there are a host of gadgets that attorneys can use to make their work day more efficient. But with so many tech gadgets out there, which ones are worth it for attorneys? Sure, there are smartphones and tablet computers that can help you stay connected with clients wherever you go....

This week is Thanksgiving, and you’re going to be out of the office, but you’re not really going to be out of the office, are you? Let’s face it: Come Friday, you’re going to be back on your computer, billing furiously. 1. LogMeIn LogMeIn is one of the many “remote desktop” applications (GoToMyPC is another) that allows you to connect to your work computer (or, indeed, any computer) and manipulate it as though you were there....

Want to see how your products liability defense will go? Need to test out a malpractice claim before bringing it before a jury? In the good old days (that is, yesterday and before), there was a fairly established approach: call in a jury expert, poll the public, maybe run a mock trial. But now, virtual juries are beginning to replace, or at least supplement, traditional juror research. Juror research, whether traditional or virtual, can help improve the outcome of a case....

In the litigation over President Trump’s alleged violations of the emoluments clause of the United States Constitution, a recently filed Amici Curiae brief by two scholars of law and linguistics goes into painstaking detail over what the word means. The brief utilizes a scientific method of studying the meaning of language known as corpus linguistics. Basically, this method takes the actual usage of a word, in context, to understand what the word means....

Yes, BlackBerry still exists. And if you’re wondering why we’re covering a nearly defunct product line, well, it’s because lawyers are diehards: if anyone is still on the BlackBerry train, he or she probably has an “Esq.” attached to his or her name. Plus, who doesn’t love a good comeback story? It’s still possible, though BlackBerry hasn’t done much with its last few devices, for the company to hit one out of the park....

“What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.” You’re damn right, Mr. Markus. Markus, writing for his Southern District of Florida Blog, cracked the story that has made Florida papers and is sure to put a smile on every now-disillusioned American’s face. Terrance Brown is one of five defendants accused of conspiring to hold up armored trucks in 2010. Prosecutors are using phone records to corroborate a co-conspirator’s testimony about the planning, conspiracy, and execution of the crimes, and to prove that the defendants were near the locations at the time of the robberies....

When James Kennedy criticized his employer Chipotle over their wages in the form of a Tweet, he found himself suddenly without a job. According to the opinion of ALJ Susan A. Flynn, Chipotle’s actions ran afoul of the National Labor Relations Act. In a somewhat embarrassing twist for Chipotle, the company is also being forced to post signs around its eateries informing employees about how it violated the law. Ask Questions First, Shoot Later Chipotle had various social media rules in effect that basically banned critical comments about the company....

While the taxi industry is taking a hit across the country, in San Francisco, one credit union is fighting back, but not against the rideshare industry. San Francisco Federal Credit Union has sued the city’s transit authority, the SFMTA, as a result of broken promises regarding taxi medallion sales that the credit union helped finance. When rideshare services like Uber and Lyft began to take off, taxi drivers in markets across the country saw their pay swiftly decline as they lost market share....

In July, the Second Circuit ruled that the federal government was not authorized to seize information stored on overseas servers under the Stored Communications Act. That law’s warrant provisions, the three-judge panel held, don’t apply extraterritorially, allowing Microsoft to quash a warrant for a customer’s email data stored on its servers in Ireland. It was a landmark decision, one that earned praise from privacy advocates and industry alike. And it will stand for now, after the Second Circuit split 4-4 on Tuesday on whether to rehear the case en banc....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Long before votes were cast for the 2016 Presidential election, this blogger discussed how Hillary Clinton’s government-related emails that were sent and received on private servers could become a thorn in her political side. Eric Sinrod (@EricSinrod on Twitter) is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris LLP, where he focuses on litigation matters of various types, including information technology and intellectual property disputes....

If the internet has a soul, it has served up bad karma to Marcus Hutchins. Hutchins, a security researcher a.k.a. “MalwareTech,” allegedly created the Kronos malware that steals banking credentials. He has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, but he is getting a crypto-type of payback. Unknown sources have donated at least $150,000 to his legal defense fund – from stolen credit cards or fake account information. Yep, payback is a bit....

Gene Atkins played professional football from 1987 until 1996, spending the majority of his time playing with the New Orleans Saints and a few years with the Miami Dolphins. He was well-recognized for his aggressive, hard-hitting play as a defensive back and he sustained a number of injuries resulting from on-field collisions. Now he says those hard-hitting plays have left him disabled, and entitled to increased benefits under the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan....