Posts

USAA Federal Savings Bank developed an iPhone app to allow subscribers the ability to deposit checks by taking cell phone photos of the front and back of the check and hitting “send” on their iPhones. USAA is a bank intended for military personnel and features programs and services for those serving in the U.S. and abroad. Though it already offers scanning-in options for check depositers, this foray into mobile banking would not only simplify the process but also enable more timely depositing....

For many small firm and solo practitioners, blogging is part of the job. In order to keep those search rankings up, and keep potential clients impressed by the freshness of your content, maintaining a blogging habit is good for any firm’s SEO. However, lawyers and law firms need to be a little bit careful when it comes to the subjects they blog about. Though there may be a natural instinct to write about current, or former, cases, according to a recent (probably unnecessary) ethics opinion, doing so raises ethical considerations that shouldn’t be ignored....

Challenge to Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act In Pearson v. Holder, No. 09-10808, a challenge to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) and state sex-offender laws as unconstitutional on the grounds that they impermissibly labeled those convicted of receipt of images of child pornography as “sex offenders,” the court reversed the dismissal of the action where, inasmuch as plaintiff’s release date was only some two years hence, his case was sufficiently ripe for adjudication....

So let’s get this right. Procter & Gamble wants to trademark WTF? Sorry, but we’re pretty sure they didn’t coin the acronym or the phrase it represents. LOL. Oh yeah, they want to trademark that, too. Wait, are we missing something? FML The company isn’t trying to trademark all the messaging acronyms, just several – including FML and NBD. If you need translations, you are too old to be texting. LOL....

There are a number of things that should not be discussed casually at the office: politics, compensation, and of course, religion. Employees will inevitable bumble into these topics, which is usually okay. But things start getting dicey when the employer starts making decisions based on the political information he or she learned over the water cooler. In-house counsel should be equipped with a solid understanding of religious discrimination in the workplace in order to best advise their corporate clients....

Some people put up a Facebook status update about their cats’ latest hairball. Others use it as a medium to mock the Oakland Raiders’ hilariously inept attempts at locating a starting quarterback. Reed Hastings, of Netflix, used his Facebook account to announce that his company had streamed more than one billion hours worth of video in June 2012, reports the Washington Post. The rules are in place for a reason – selective disclosure through obscure channels can be used to either hide information or to provide it to a select group of shareholders who can beat the market with their advance knowledge....

Albert Einstein had a boring job. He was working at a patent office in Switzerland, and he would stare at the clock tower outside and daydream. It was during those days that he conceived of a theory that changed the world. There was only one Einstein, but there are workers everywhere who are bored with their jobs. There is an upside to that for employers. Boredom Can Work Counter-intuitively, science says that boredom can be a good thing....

Despair, misery, ceaselessly changing puzzles, and constantly impending doom. No, it’s not your first year as a new associate, or even the next season of ‘Game of Thrones.’ It’s Vidar, a role playing computer game “where everyone dies.” And it sprang from the mind of Dean Razavi, who, until just a few weeks ago, was working as a litigation attorney for Katten Muchin Rosenman. “Razavi always knew he would be a lawyer,” according to a recent profile in the video game blog Kotaku....

Simply put, ‘knowledge integration’ is the practice of taking several ‘knowledge models’ and connecting the dots between them. Basically, a knowledge model, also called a knowledge representation, presents information in a way that can be utilized by a computer to solve complex problems or tasks. Though these concepts come from the study of artificial intelligence, they can be applied to nearly every business, even the practice of law. As Thompson Reuters Practical Law explains, it’s about deriving meaning from that mountain of knowledge from all this new data from all this new tech....

“Organic reach” will be slashed to 1 or 2 percent, Valleywag reported. CNET confirmed with the tech giant that the organic reach of Facebook Pages will “decline over time.” This sounds important, especially for law firms that maintain active Facebook brand pages, but what does it mean for your firm’s online marketing strategy? If your firm uses a business page, Facebook is inching closer to “pay to play,” where the only way for your page’s updates to display in users’ News Feeds will be to pay for advertising....

The Cloud is the future, we’re told – over and over. There’s a good reason. Cloud computing, which uses remote servers to store, manage and process data, promises to offer affordability, scalability, and reduced costs. But the cloud is a nebulous place, both legally and technologically. When sensitive data, stored on the cloud, gets hacked, who can be liable for the breach? Data breaches involving cloud-based storage are nothing new. Some of the largest hacking scandals of the last few years have involved hacking the cloud, including the theft and dissemination of celebrity nude photos stored on Apple’s iCloud service....

Artificial intelligence can write, paint, and even create sculpture. This AI art has ushered in a new gold rush, the connoisseurs say. The purists wonder, however, whether it will reinvent or destroy art. Lawyers, meanwhile, wonder who owns the copyrights. After all, art is also about the money. Life of the Artist Artwork often becomes more collectible after the artist dies, but artificial intelligence never dies. That’s interesting because the Copyright Act is based on the life of the artist....

In-house counsel can be subject to various in-company pressures from executives – especially around tax season. But you should not let the stressors in your office lead you to recommend something only plausibly legal or just plain illegal. To keep your head in the game and your keister out of federal jail, be mindful of these three potential tax season pitfalls: It’s happened before and it could happen to you: in-house counsel that conspire with their employers to file false tax returns are subject to federal incarceration....

A strong legal support staff is essential to operating a successful small firm. Just like everything in life, finding the right staff members can be a challenge. Current on Technology: This sounds terrible, but you’re probably going to have to pass over the paralegal who still insists on using a typewriter to write out documents. You absolutely must have legal support staff who are comfortable with the latest technology and who can learn systems fast....

As more and more legal tasks move in-house, the legal department finds itself in the unenviable position of having to be master of several trades, many of which have little to do with the law. I bet you thought when you signed up with the general counsel’s office that you’d be filing lawsuits? Try again: GCs not only have to figure out new and innovative ways to put out fires, but the changing world of technology is putting some affirmative duties on them too....

The Eleventh Circuit has ruled that Allstate Insurance company is owed $663,000 in fees arising out of a multitude of false claims that were made by several Florida clinics. The circumstances of the case indicated that hundreds upon hundreds of insurance claims were completely bogus. The defendants appealed their loss in federal court but lost again at the appellate level. Meanwhile, the doctor named in the case may want to consider retirement....

Victims don’t often testify for their abusers, but such was the case in a Multnomah County courtroom earlier this week. Prosecutors had accused Wayne Martin and Layne Woods of neglecting their three Great Danes, blue pit bull and now-deceased Shar Pei. In a bit of creative lawyering, defense attorney Chris O’Connor subpoenaed the dogs to prove that they are in great shape. It didn’t work. That’s probably because the canines were seized by local authorities in May....

US v. Loftis, No. 09-10482, concerned defendant’s appeal from the district court’s order of garnishment, which set aside a community property partition agreement entered into between defendant and her husband. The court of appeals affirmed the order, on the grounds that 1) the partition agreement was clearly voidable as a fraudulent transfer under 28 U.S.C. section 3304(b)(1)(B)(ii); and 2) the district court was correct to treat the couple’s assets as jointly managed property....

The Fifth Circuit has upheld key and controversial restrictions to a Texas abortion law today. The strict abortion law requires that abortion providers have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that facilities meet standards for surgical centers. When passed, the law made headlines for its restrictions and the 13-hour filibuster former state Senator Wendy Davis held against it. The Texas law imposes some of the most burdensome requirements on abortion providers in the nation and the ruling upholding it will likely force most abortion clinics in the nation’s second most populous state to close....

‘We’ll see you in court’ the American Civil Liberties Union declared shortly after Trump’s election in November. Then, with last Friday’s executive order halting the resettlement of refugees and banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim nations, the battle really began. All the while, the donations were rolling in – so quickly that the ACLU’s website crashed. The group received roughly 120,000 donations in the first five days after the election. On the weekend of Trump’s immigration ban, that number almost tripled....