Posts

Networking and Eric Holder, or billable hours and court hearings? Hilary Clinton and Justice Anthony Kennedy, or filing a temporary restraining order to protect your client from his violent spouse? Or maybe you just can’t afford the airfare, hotel, and the cost of admission. You’ve got your priorities set correctly, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have to miss out on the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting completely. Even if you can’t attend in person, you can still take part in the festivities remotely, via FindLaw....

Laura Culver is getting another shot at sentencing for her child pornography conviction because the sentencing judge in her case doesn’t like Facebook, TechDirt reports. And yes, you read that correctly. Culver was sentenced to 96 months in prison for producing child pornography of a minor child under her custody and control. She argued that her sentence was procedurally unreasonable because Senior U.S. District Judge Warren Eginton made multiple references to Facebook – which had little to no application to the facts of her case – during sentencing....

The Fourth Circuit decided two immigration cases and a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 case involving whether defendants are liable for a child who has been involuntarily removed from her home by state social workers and knowingly placed in a dangerous foster care environment. In Doe v. S. Carolina Dep’t of Soc. Servs., No. 08-2161, the court faced a challenge to district court’s grant of defendants’ summary judgment motion in a 42 U....

You knew it was coming and now it’s here. The Obama administration announced the long anticipated expansion of overtime requirements last month. Under the proposed new rules, millions of white collar workers, previously exempt, will now qualify for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. The new white collar overtime rules are expected to come into effect in 2016. In-house legal departments should start preparing for the change now....

Let’s face it, artificial intelligence is already here in many different forms. Siri, Alexa, and all the other digital assistants are now commonplace in many peoples’ lives. Rather than flipping on the TV, or opening a computer, or looking at that thermometer hanging outside your back window, or just even opening that window, to find out what the weather’s like, most of us now just ask: “Hey Siri, what’s the weather?...

D.L. was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and anxiety. He is a student at a private Yeshiva seeking special education services. Because Maryland does not allow dual-enrollment in private and public schools, his parents are seeking to have the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners provide these services either part-time at the public school, or at his Yeshiva. The plain language of the statute and appendix are somewhat useless....

Kelly Blazek, the employment director of a popular local job bank listserv, experienced the public’s wrath for the scathing rejection letter she sent to a Cleveland woman in response to her Jobvite request. The rejected applicant certainly got the last laugh when she posted the rejection email on various social media platforms and it went completely viral. It’s a good example of how nasty rejection letters can harm a company’s reputation and goodwill in the community....

At the time, many wondered if it was the first step towards backtracking on the Windows Phone OS exclusivity. Then after Microsoft acquired Nokia, it seemed destined for the trash bin – except, a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft released a second batch of the phones, long after the acquisition. We really hope you didn’t buy one. Layoffs and Restrategizing It was an odd move, made even more odd by an announcement late last week that Microsoft was cutting 18,000 jobs, many of which would come from its Nokia division....

Getting “creative” with your tax returns can cost you, as Gordon and Lorna Kaufman found out last week when the First Circuit affirmed penalties against them for an “historic preservation easement” that had no value. After Lorna bought a $1 million house in Boston, the Kaufmans learned about a “tax incentive program” for houses in the historic preservation district where the house resided. The program allows tax deductions for the value of an historic easement....

Courts are creatures of habit. They like to stick to precedent, and have a hard time changing course. Last week, the First Circuit had to give the district courts in the circuit some guidance on the new “plausibility” standards in federal civil pleadings. From 1957 to 2007, the historic pleading standard under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) espoused by the Supreme Court in Conley v. Gibson, was one of “notice pleading....

Workaholic attorneys may be spending too little time marketing and too much time lawyering. In the long term, this can make lawyers vulnerable to economic dips. The realities of today’s economy make it necessary for attorneys both at large firms and small to be mindful of making hay while the sun still shines. Increasingly, the law is as much about selling oneself and marketing a business as it is about practicing law....

Defendant’s conviction for robbing two banks and for carrying a firearm during and in relation to a robbery is affirmed where: 1) there was sufficient evidence that defendant used a real firearm during the robbery of one of the banks; 2) the district court committed no clear or obvious error in allowing a witness to identify defendant; and 3) the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the prosecutor to ask witnesses leading questions when they returned to the stand to identify defendant....

Each of the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals has one of the nine Supreme Court Justices assigned to handle procedural matters for that circuit. In the case of the late Justice Scalia, that was the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. But now that he’s passed away, who will act as circuit justice? Scalia’s Circuit Replacement The answer is none other than Justice Kennedy. Why? Because he happened to be the justice that was appointed immediately after Scalia, so Kennedy is directly junior to Scalia....

When corporate execs dream of the perfect in-house counsel, what comes to mind? What particular skills and expertise do potential legal department lawyers need to make them the ideal in-house lawyer? Unsurprisingly, the characteristics of a successful BigLaw attorney aren’t the same as a great in-house lawyer or general counsel. In-house attorneys require a specific set of practice skills that will allow them to meet the broad needs of the business, as well as the interpersonal abilities to allow them to work alongside non-lawyers....

Fewer in-house counsel are outsourcing legal work – a change that reflects a power shift between in-house and outside counsel, a new survey suggests. Only 20% of in-house legal departments turned to an outside law firm to handle tax issues in 2011, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Census Report. That’s down from 30% in 2006. The ACC’s report, released March 28, found two other practice areas where retaining outside counsel is also on the decline....

The Fourth Circuit will reconsider a controversial ruling that found a fundamental right to own assault weapons, the court announced last Friday. Just one month ago, a divided Fourth Circuit panel ruled that the possession of firearms was a “fundamental right” under the Second Amendment. As such, laws impinging on that right, here, a Maryland ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines, must be reviewed under a standard of strict scrutiny....

Two judges on the Fifth Circuit agreed on Tuesday to exclude Judge Jones from the review of a death penalty stay, after Jones’ “racist comments” lead to a formal complaint of judicial misconduct. Judge Edith Jones, a former Chief Judge of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, was impaneled with two other judges for review of a stay of execution for Elroy Chester. Chester, a convicted murderer, was executed on Wednesday evening, reports The Associated Press....

It’s tough being an employee. But these days, being an employer can be no picnic either. In fact, it could be a potential mine-field of litigation. Recent cases, including Woods v. City of Berwyn in the Seventh Circuit, have given employers pause when thinking of letting that certain employee go “for cause.” The cat’s paw potentially makes an employer liable for the termination or suspension of an employee due to the discriminatory bias of employee....

How long can cops prolong a protective sweep and how much evidence can they seize in the process? The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals examined the limits of the protective sweep last week in United States v. Laudermilt. (Brief thanks to FedAgent.com for bringing this case to our attention.) In the facts leading up to this case, five police officers responded to a domestic dispute report at Jordan Laudermilt’s home in Wheeling, West Virginia after Laudermilt’s girlfriend, Shannalee Kuri, had placed a 911 call to report that Laudermilt was threatening her and her family with a gun at his home....

A federal appeals court said Georgia’s annotated code cannot be copyrighted, which was not quite as settled a law as lawyers might think. In Code Revision Commission v. Public Resource.Org, the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said the law cannot be copyrighted because it belongs to the public. It was another victory for an open-law advocate who copied the entire state code and published it on the internet. Carl Malamud, a regular thorn in the side of government, tweeted his victory dance with a song....