Some behaviors are instinctual, like a predator’s instinct to hunt or the prey’s instinct to run. Paying taxes is not instinctual, but you knew that. What you may not know, however, is people pay taxes primarily because of an “internalized motivation.” That means, according to one psychology study, they have a strong moral norm to comply and a sense that the fiscal system is fair. That’s something your corporate clients may need to know....
A few years ago, your “smoking gun” was likely to show up as a “smoking email,” some sort of electronic document, probably found on a single computer, giving essential information in civil litigation, criminal inquiries, or internal investigations. Today, those electronic documents still remain essential, but they’ve expanded from the smoking email to the smoking text message, or even the smoking Snapchat. But as information from mobile devices (cell phones, tablets, and the like) has become increasingly important, developments in cloud computing are making accessing that information ever more difficult....
The First Circuit Court of Appeals did D.A.R.E proud and unanimously upheld Providence, Rhode Island’s anti-tobacco laws, reports the Providence Journal. The pair of ordinances prohibits tobacco companies from selling flavored products and offering price discounts – two Big Tobacco tactics that are notorious for luring children. In 2009, a federal law went into effect under the Obama Administration that enabled the Food and Drug Administration to enforce a ban on candy, fruit and other flavored cigarettes that have a propensity to attract children....
The green law firm is apparently all the rage. Well, at least for those located in Washington, D.C., where a number of firms have recently gone small in an attempt to go green. Large firms like Squire Sanders & Dempsey and McDermott Will & Emery are moving into newly built LEED-certified construction. They’re turning to natural lighting, bamboo cabinets and recycled flooring. And they’re saving a lot of money doing it....
The Office of Personel Management announced last week that it had been hacked – hard. The OPM is essentially the human resources department for the entire federal government, which just happens to be the largest employer in the nation. The personal information of over 22 million people, or almost seven percent of the entire U.S. population, was stolen. The information stolen included almost 20 million background investigation forms, over 1 million fingerprint records, and thousands of confidential security clearance dossiers....
Last year, when Shake debuted, I quipped that we (lawyers) just got replaced by a contract-drafting app. Fortunately, our execution was stayed for a bit – it took over a year for the app to make the leap from iOS (iPhone and iPad) to the wider world of desktops and Android devices. Alas, the day of reckoning is at hand: The Android app dropped yesterday. Is it time to burn my bar card and Juris Doctorate?...
You can use bots to grab the first open reservation at a hard-to-book restaurant. Bots will post your thoughts to Twitter. These relatively simple, automated programs can even pretend to be your girlfriend. Now, some public-minded techies want to use bots to ensure public accountability, by tracking nearly everything legislators say or do when crafting laws. Bots Head to the Statehouse If you’re not familiar, bots are software applications that perform automated tasks....
Is there anything more annoying than being accosted by solicitors outside of a grocery store? Your skin is charred by a sunburn, you are in pain, and in a desperate need of Aloe gel. Instead, there are three charities, four chirping Girl Scouts, and a representative of a cult-like institution clamoring for your attention as you run, red-faced, into the store. It’s enough to make you want to shop elsewhere. This is why many stores now have non-solicitation policies....
Phone numbers are hard to memorize. True story: At one point, I didn’t even know my own cellphone number. Everyone used my Google Voice number, which forwarded to the prepaid cell phone that I carried at school. So when I decided to open my practice, I wanted a phone number that was a little bit easier to memorize. And my old GV number, part of which spelled out the word “CHUNKY,” wasn’t going to cut it for a law firm....
In plaintiff’s disability discrimination action against his former employer under the ADA, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) the district court correctly determined that the allegations of discrimination encompassed by his 2001 Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) charge placed a limitation on the claims plaintiff can present now, and as such, plaintiff could only pursue his action with respect to alleged acts of discrimination that occurred in the 300-day window preceding his 2001 MCAD charge; and 2) the district court correctly determined that, assuming the 2001 MCAD complaint was properly limited, plaintiff’s remaining allegations did not support his claims of violations of the ADA....
Most lawyers out there have non-lawyer friends that will ask for off-the-cuff legal advice. And while we’ve all been trained to tell that friend that “friends don’t let friends get and/or give legal advice from/to friends,” most of us will eventually hand out some free legal advice to friends. And when that friend then completely ignores your advice, to their detriment, what do you do? Below, you can read a couple tips (besides finding new friends)....
It took almost 40 years, but the Animal House fraternity finally got kicked out for real. A New Hampshire court upheld a ruling to ban the fraternity from the house that inspired the raunchy 1978 movie. In “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” John Belushi leads a cast of unruly frat brothers who seek revenge against the dean who kicked them out. The movie immortalized the Alpha Delta fraternity, which had been affiliated with Dartmouth College since the 1840’s....
Maybe you’ve been thinking of making the switch to in-house, or you like the work but want to scale back to part-time. We have a solution: freelance as corporate counsel. It’s true this isn’t a traditional path, but for someone with the right skills and expertise it could be a dream career move. After all, corporations often hire outside counsel for projects that are beyond their in-house expertise. Since it’s not a traditional career path, you might want some tips before getting started....
AT&T may need to change one of its plans – the one that deals with employee pregnancy. According to a proposed class-action, one of the company’s subsidiaries discriminates against pregnant workers. Two class plaintiffs allege that they were fired under a plan that doesn’t account for pregnancy-related leave. Their attorneys claim that the plan “punishes women for being pregnant.” AT&T says it does “not tolerate discrimination of any kind.” AT&T Mobility The women, Katia Hills and Cynthia Allen, worked at different branches of AT&T Mobility in Indiana and Nevada....
Welcome back, Judge Richard Kopf! Around these parts there is a wonderfully talented and very pretty female lawyer who is in her late twenties. She is brilliant, she writes well, she speaks eloquently, she is zealous but not overly so, she is always prepared, she treats others, including her opponents, with civility and respect, she wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest. I especially appreciate the last two attributes....
Beverly “Bev” Stayart has a small, and semi-embarrassing, problem. When you Google her name, one the search suggestions is “bev stayart levitra.” For those who haven’t been subjected to erectile dysfunction commercials, Levitra is a drug that helps men with their sexual performance. In fact, it’s not just Google. At one point, she had similar issued with Yahoo!. What about you, however? When was the last time you Google’d, Yahoo’d, or Bing’d yourself?...
A Florida state appellate court has decided that a class action lawsuit against attorney David J. Stern can move forward. Stern, the self-proclaimed “Foreclosure King,” is accused of charging excessive fees to homeowners desperate to fight their foreclosures. The case against the Plantation, Florida attorney was first filed three years ago. The class includes Wells Fargo customers that were Florida property owners facing foreclosure. The class members received reinstatement letters from Stern’s office....
It you build it, they will come. Maybe. If you build it right. And there’s a lot that goes into building a law firm website “right”: SEO, graphics, mobile-friendly layout, content, conversion optimization, and a whole lot more. But don’t jump off that building yet. Just like those with DIY motivation can learn to tile a bathroom floor, those who want to create their own websites can do so, and you don’t even need to know code....
Chinese citizen’s petition for review of BIA’s denial of his application for asylum is denied where: 1) petitioner never presented his “other resistance” argument to the BIA; 2) petitioner never argued before the BIA that his flight from China constituted other resistance to a coercive population control program; and 3) BIA did not abuse its discretion in refusing to remand for further factfinding. Read Dong v. Holder, No. 08-2083 Appellate Information...
In her book “Reset,” Ellen Pao reveals critical details from her historic lawsuit that never made it to the jury. Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins, one of the nation’s biggest venture capital firms, sued the company in the most-watched sex discrimination case in the history of the Silicon Valley. But she didn’t get to explain some things, and that was most painful part of her experience. “You’ve never done anything for women, have you?...
