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Surprising as it may seem, the next cybersecurity breach will probably come from the inside. That’s because employees are often the source of the problem; they don’t practice safe-internet. Disgruntled workers, too, may leave behind viruses that are harder to get rid of than an STD. So if your company has a tendency for self-inflicted cyber wounds, the first thing to do is remove all the sharp objects. This is the inside story about how to fight cyberattacks....

Last week, we read about an article discussing the fine line between having the right amount of stuff on your plate to avoid boredom, and being too busy. That elusive place in the middle was dubbed the “sweet spot” by The Wall Street Journal, and accompanied by a snazzy graphic (see below). That got us thinking, how can lawyers find that elusive sweet spot? Here are our tips for finding that stress sweet spot and avoiding both boredom and overload....

Google Ventures, a leader in technological innovation, has adopted a rather simple way of keeping track of time during meetings – the Magic Clock. Not really “magic,” the term is borrowed from grade schools. Jake Knapp, a design partner at Google Ventures, saw it in his son’s first grade classroom, and said, “I figured what worked for small children would probably work well for CEOs, too,” reports Entrepreneur. So that got us thinking, what else can we borrow from preschool and first grade methodology to make law firms run more efficiently?...

It all happened a lot faster than any had anticipated – or even hoped. The Department of Labor’s proposed overtime regulations, which originated in President Obama’s push to modernize federal labor laws two years ago, is just about to become reality. Whether or not an employee is “exempted” is determined by a number of factors. Under the FLSA, employers must pay employees federal minimum wage and overtime for excess hours over 40 hours per week....

Though most of the quibbling over the purchase of a rival’s name for the purpose of search engine marketing has focused on corporate entities, a recent Wisconsin case focuses on the use of lawyer keywords. A state judge has dismissed a lawsuit between rival firms Habush Habush & Rottier and Cannon & Dunphy, finding that the latter was within its rights under state invasion of privacy laws when it purchased its rivals’ names to market on the internet....

As law firms continue to pump big money into elections and politics, in house counsel increasingly finds itself involved in lobbying activity. Business groups, businesses, lawyers and lobbyists have invested millions in the midterm campaigns alone. The political action committees of the top 10 law firm and lobbying firms donated $5.5 million to federal candidates alone, The Washington Post reports. That figure does not take into account expenditures made by an organization on behalf of a candidate or individual contributions from firm employees, which could as much as double the $5....

Alisa Levin knows the client from hell. Like most horror stories, it didn’t start that way. Levin, a Chicago lawyer, was ghostwriting documents for another lawyer who represented Paul Abramson, a California resident. She literally never met the man, and everyone was innocently going about their business when something sinister came out. It was a dispute over her bill. The $9,000 Bill According to reports, Levin billed the client’s credit card more than $9,000....

Robert “Bob” McDonnell, the embattled former Virginia governor, and his wife and co-defendant Maureen McDonnell, made an appearance in court yesterday, seeking to dismiss the case against them, and failing that, to sever their trial. Both requests were denied, however, and the couple’s joint trial is scheduled to proceed on July 28, reports NPR. The Charges If you missed the indictment earlier this year, the former governor and his wife have been accused of using the power of his office in order to obtain bribes from Johnnie Williams, the former CEO of Star Supplements, a nutrition supplement company....

Edison v. Douberly, No. 08-15819, concerned an action by a prisoner alleging violations of the American With Disabilities Act (ADA). The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant on the ground that the term “instrumentality of a State” referred to governmental units or units created by them, and defendant private corporation was not a public entity merely because it contracted with a public entity to provide some service. Frazier v....

Lawyering can be so contradictory. “Not guilty,” advises the criminal defense attorney for a killer caught in the act. “In the alternative,” says the litigator who argues both sides. So it’s business as usual for prosecutors who won’t say whether they have indicted Julian Assange. At the same time, they oppose unsealing any indictment that may have been filed against him. Wiki/DOJ Leaks Prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia are fighting a request from journalists who have asked a federal judge to unseal any pending indictment against Assange....

District court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ suit against Puerto Rico Police Department officers and their supervisors for violations of their constitutional rights, as well as claims under Puerto Rico’s constitutional and civil law, is affirmed as time-barred where under the identicality requirement, the causes of action asserted in the complaint must be based on the same substantive claims as asserted in the extrajudicial letter. Read Santana-Castro v. Toledo-Davilla, No. 08-1964 Appellate Information...

It seems like just yesterday that we were discussing data breaches – oh wait, that’s right, we were. And while yesterday’s post was more forward-looking (planning for the worst), eBay’s data breach, like Target’s, is a fine example of what a company should not do. Keeping quiet about a major breach? Didn’t they learn anything from Target? And even now, when they’re notifying consumers and forcing password updates, the company still isn’t getting it right, with a password strength algorithm that is encouraging users to pick weaker passwords....

Got some spare time on your hands? Or perhaps, do you have some fresh associates that could use some “real world” practice beyond what they get from reviewing your work? The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida is seeking a few good men and women to represent the indigent. And though the Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP) has been shuttered, that doesn’t mean the court has given up....

With the recent Senate Republican filibuster of judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, it wouldn’t be a surprise if President Barack Obama has become a bit gun-shy about making new judicial appointments. However, his failure to nominate a replacement for soon-to-be-retired Judge Kermit Lipez of the First Circuit Court of Appeals has gotten critics grumbling about a potential “blow to Maine’s legal prestige and delayed justice in a key federal court....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Whole body image scanning machines are designed to peer through clothing and capture three-dimensional images of individuals as if they are completely undressed. This raises a lot of questions about the impact of a citizen’s civil liberty rights and a citizen’s privacy interests. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest research organization that monitors federal actions to determine their impact on civil liberties and privacy interests, has wanted to find out how whole body imaging machines have been used on US citizens by the federal government....

The Eleventh Circuit recently reversed class certification for California and Texas plaintiffs who sought to bring a massive mass tort against home appliance maker, Electrolux. The case, which is about class certification of groups of plaintiffs in California and Texas, involved the unfortunate tendency of the company’s washers to trap water and mold up. Electrolux, dba Frigidaire still has some options litigation wise, but the circuit’s decision can still be seen as a victory, at least because it has a tendency to make plaintiffs’ lawyers jobs that much more difficult....

Are you dying for a vacation? Is summer calling while you’re stuck inside drafting pleading after pleading, or mired in pretrial prep? Did you forget to plan a summer vacation, again? Well, the good news is that thanks to advances in legal technology, you may be able to find time to squeeze in a vacation depending on what work you do actually have to do. Unfortunately, it’s going to require some off-the-clock research, but if you can free up some time for some fun in the sun, or just to do your work poolside, it might just all be worth it....

A Mississippi city will continue to fly a flag that includes the confederate battle emblem, following a decision by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a lawsuit against Ocean Springs that said the flag sent the message black people are not welcome. The appeals court said the plaintiffs were not “aggrieved persons” under the law. In Mississippi Rising Coalition v. City of Ocean Springs, the plaintiffs lost their claim that the flag is “racially demeaning and hostile....

Despite all the jokes and stereotypes of attorneys being unethical, the truth is that only a small percentage of lawyers actually get sued for attorney malpractice. The top two practice areas that lead to malpractice claims against lawyers are real estate and personal injury matters, reports The Washington Times. Claims against lawyers typically vary depending upon the size of the firm. Firms with 2-5 attorneys faced the highest number of claims averaging 2....

If you’re uploading files to a file sharing website, you may as well just leave them on a park bench where everyone can see them. That’s not just a flippant phrase about the risks of file sharing, that’s what the judge said in a case pending in a federal district court in Virginia. Magistrate Pamela Mead Sargent said an insurance company’s decision to upload files online was “the cyber world equivalent of leaving its claims file on a bench in the public square and telling its counsel where they could find it....