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It was recently reported that the CEO for CBS, Leslie Moonves, has hired a high profile attorney to protect him from the investigation of his alleged sexual misconduct against six women who spoke to a reporter from the New Yorker. If you haven’t heard the news, CBS, which has largely avoided any #MeToo fallout, recently was rocked by allegations that the CEO attempted to force himself upon, and even going so far as to kiss, subordinates during meetings, and faced no consequences....

Pick up your smartphone. Do you have a cloud storage app installed, such as DropBox, Google Drive, or SkyDrive? Does that cloud storage drive contain client files? What about the rest of your phone – are there any sensitive client emails, records, or other data that could harm you, your client, or your business if your phone is accessed by someone with malicious intent? Data security has always been a hot topic, but it has become especially important in the mobile realm now that professionals and consumers are adopting smartphones and tablets en masse....

It took jurors less than an hour of deliberations to find Michael Coscia guilty of illegal “spoofing” and commodities fraud last November. Coscia was the first person convicted under the Dodd-Frank Act’s anti-spoofing laws, for making $1.4 million off a bait-and-switch scheme. His prosecution was widely watched and the ease the jury had in convicting him was taken as a sign of greater prosecutions to come. Last week, a little over eight months since his conviction, Coscia was sentenced to three years in federal prison and two years of supervised release....

Facebook did it first. They took users’ posts, reviews, and “Likes” and began to use them (without permission, or the ability to opt-out) in advertisements for products. Did you say nice things about Chipotle on their page? Your profile picture and review may have ended up in one of these “sponsored stories.” Of course, that resulted in a class action lawsuit (with a settlement that is on appeal to the Ninth Circuit), as well as an FTC inquiry....

If the Russian government breaks into your email, if the Chinese politburo runs off with your identity, or if Ethiopian state-sponsored spies start monitoring your every Skype call – well, you won’t get any help from the court system. On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit ruled that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction to hear claims against state sponsors of hacking. The case involves an American-Ethiopian political activist who claimed that the Ethiopian government spied on him through malware, but the implications are far-reaching, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation....

Once you get a client through the door, how do you kick him out? Time, after all, is money. The longer a chatty client sits in your office shooting the breeze, the less time you can spend actually working and making money. Or getting new clients. You’re seen Jerry Maguire, right? Jerry, a sports agent, is racing to call a roster of athletes he represents to convince them to join him at a new agency....

Maybe you’re tired of playing Angry Birds all the time. Maybe you want to stop streaming YouTube during meetings. Maybe you feel like you need to justify that $500 iPad price tag. Look no further - there are actually some practical work applications for your iPad (or your iPhone and smartphone)! With a few simple clicks, your iPad can transform into a high tech photo grabber, useful in the discovery process and in trials....

Are you slowing down, missing a step, or getting that eerie feeling that you’re at a high risk of crashing? These are signs that you might need an intervention. Or at least need somebody to help you regain control to get you back up and running. We’re talking about a legal tech intervention here. Sometimes it’s hard to admit your law firm needs one, but these signs can help. Slowing Down Your computer system is slowing down....

Eric Sinrod is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris LLP (http://www.duanemorris.com) where he focuses on litigation matters of various types, including information technology and intellectual property disputes. His Web site is http://www.sinrodlaw.com and he can be reached at ejsinrod@duanemorris.com. To receive a weekly email link to Mr. Sinrod’s columns, please send an email to him with Subscribe in the Subject line. This column is prepared and published for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice....

According to some designers out of California, lying down helps you focus on your work and they’ve have built a work station based on that very concept. In 2016, we’ll be able to try it out. The Altwork Station is one of the latest additions to the ergonomic “be-comfortable-while-you-work” craze. And at the current pre-order price of $3,900 per unit, it’s a steal for a chance to own your very own transformer....

We like Newegg’s style. When confronted with patent trolls in the past, the company has refused to settle, even when the cost of doing so would’ve been miniscule in comparison to fighting the case all the way through the Federal Circuit. The company previously took down Soverain’s “shopping cart” patent through litigation. This time, it’s part of a coalition of companies, including Geico Insurance, that has taken on Macrosolve, a company that allegedly turned troll when other revenue channels collapsed....

In an Indian tribe’s challenge to the decision approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to lease a plot of Passamaquoddy land for the construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas facility, claiming that the BIA approved the lease in violation of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the district court’s judgment dismissing the case is affirmed as the plaintiff did not present its argument in its first appeal and its request for relief from the mandate that exhaustion was mandatory unless an exception applied requires a showing of both blatant error and the threat of serious injustice if the court adheres to the mandate....

A ruling handed down recently by SCOTUS may have a select few foreign corporations breathing a little easier moving forward. The Jensen v. Arab Bank case was on appeal to the High Court over how tied a foreign corporation had to be to the United States in order for it to be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute. The lower courts had found that Arab Bank lacked sufficient activity in the United States related to acts of terrorism that occurred abroad for it to be held liable....

Career change, or new shady scheme? The last time we blogged about Prenda Law, they were ordered to pay $81,319.72 in defense attorneys’ fees after they sent threatening demand letters (and filed frivolous boilerplate lawsuits) regarding porn copyright infringement. The letters were more extortion than legitimate litigation, threatening to reveal the recipient’s porn proclivities to neighbors and relatives unless the recipient settled. Prenda Law is all but dead after sanctions and criminal investigations....

A new client arrived at my office on a motorcycle and parked next to mine. We talked about our rides, then went inside to talk business. In that first meeting, I told him he would need to deposit a $25,000 retainer. He gave me $50,000. There was no sales pitch – obviously no haggling. We were more like friends, and he wanted me to do a good job. If you don’t really like to sell, then try just being friendly....

Remember when pot used to be… Oh that’s right, you don’t remember when you use pot. But still, it used to be legal in an increasing number of states. Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered his legal troops to take another look at enforcing marijuana laws, however, the good old days may be ending for attorneys who serve the cannabis industry. Recreational or Medical Use? Six states – Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington – allow the sale and use of recreational marijuana....

The Black Lives Matter movement has certainly struck a chord with many lawyers, from Supreme Court justices to public defenders. Over the last Supreme Court term, for example, Justice Sonia Sotomayor has repeatedly called out perceived abuses in the criminal justice system. But support for BLM isn’t always well received by judges. In July, a defense attorney was arrested for contempt of court in Ohio after she refused a judges’ order to remove a BLM pin....

If you followed the typical road to in-house counseldom, you probably put in some time at BigLaw. Though many of the issues you may be dealing with are in the same practice area, you are now on the other side of the phone – you are the client. That’s not the only difference. You also need to change your mind set a bit; you should not only be approaching problems with you lawyer hat on, but also your business hat....

State secrets leaked. Sealed private investigations. It is almost certain that this WikiLeaks debacle will some day become a spy-thriller movie. We’re all familiar with PFC Bradley Manning’s leak of confidential information to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks. As part of the government’s investigation into possible criminal charges, they requested electronic communications of those two, plus a security researcher, a Dutch hacker, and an Icelandic Parliament member. That’s quite the ensemble cast of characters....

Tevlin v. Spencer, 09-1894, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief from his convictions for first-degree murder, armed robbery, and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. In affirming the convictions, the court held that the defendant has failed to demonstrate the existence of ineffective assistance of counsel in any of his theories. The court also held that the Massachusetts discovery procedures are not on their face unconstitutional and defendant has not established that their application here violated due process....