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‘Sextortion’ is what is sounds like, and you shouldn’t have to see it to know it. Likewise, ‘revenge porn’ is descriptive enough that you probably know what’s wrong with that picture. In a time when pornography has reached virtually every corner of the internet, perhaps it is no surprise that sextortion and revenge porn are big problems for the family-friendly Facebook. But 54,000 cases in a month on the website! Are you Facebook-kidding me?...

Parking tickets may be tiny squares of paper placed under your windshield, but they have the powerful potential of turning a great day into a terrible one. For University of New Hampshire professor John Collins, receiving a parking ticket got him so rankled it resulted in him “unleashing an expletive-filled tirade” against a fellow professor in 2007 for reporting his car. The tirade then resulted in him getting arrested by UNH authorities, being banned from campus, and losing his department chair position - turning a bad situation into a worse one....

Only a few years ago, regular employees yearned to live the dream of working from home. Taking away the hours spent commuting and the dreary environment of the modern office, and life would be perfect! As everyone knows, reality and fantasy don’t usually overlap. Wondering why you’re not being more productive working from home? Hint: You’re doing it all wrong. Keep a Schedule In many ways, telecommuting is an enabler for people to indulge multi-tasking....

The blockchain is the technology behind “cryptocurrencies” like Bitcoin and it could quickly make its way into the legal tech sphere. No, don’t worry, blockchains aren’t another “robots will replace lawyers” fad. Nor are they another way to ease your eDiscovery woes. Instead, blockchains are being touted as a way to aid encryption and authentication in legal documents and within firms. And that could have a significant impact on how you actually practice law....

Winter weather can be unpredictable in the Fifth Circuit, and lawyers need to be prepared to deal with a sudden ice storm. Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area lawyers learned this lesson the hard way last Friday, as both flights and road travel ground to a halt in the face of a massive ice storm, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram How can Gulf-area legal professionals weather the storms this winter? When a major ice storm hits and the roads turn into driving hazards, it’s important to have a way to effectively work from home....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Facebook is about to be subject to a probe by European Union data protection regulators. They will be looking at Facebook’s implementation of facial recognition software to propose, without permission, the names of people to be tagged in photos, according to press reports. These regulators will study the issue to determine whether there have been any data protection violations....

Two-thousand eleven may have been the year of the tablet, but 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the ultrathin laptop – or the ultrabook, if you will. The sleek devices are slowly trickling into stores. They’re designed to be “thin, light, beautiful” – and priced for the mainstream market. Manufactured by Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, LG and Toshiba, ultrabooks are intended to offer the mobility of a tablet and the functionality of a real laptop....

It’s not enough to give employees equal pay for equal work. According to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Title VII guarantees equal severance packages as well. Last week, the Fourth Circuit ruled that a former Chester County, Va. government employee could proceed with her $1.1 million claim against the County for a Title VII violation because her severance package wasn’t as … well-endowed as those of her male counterparts....

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed former Jefferson County Commissioner Gary White’s sentence this week, finding that there was sufficient evidence to support White’s corruption conviction, and that the corresponding prison sentence was reasonable. Eleventh Circuit Judge Earl Carnes started the court’s decision on White’s appeal with a definition of “kleptocracy.” While that signaled bad news for White, it was good news for those of us who delight in unusual vocabulary lessons in court opinions....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Happy New Year! We’re just a week into January, but 2012 seems to be firing on all tech cylinders. The other night, I went to a shopping mall with my family. While most of the traditional retail stores were not terribly busy, the Apple store was an amazing hive of activity. In the one room that makes up the store, I literally counted as many as 40 Apple employees who were swamped fielding questions from and helping a never-ending parade of customers....

You’ve heard of Google Hangouts, right? It started as Google’s group video-conferencing platform, and eventually merged with the company’s other messaging apps to become an all-in-one messaging platform that provides free text, photo, or video-based chat with individuals or groups. Think Skype, but with a lot more features. Now, Google’s reportedly considering expanding the idea into paid Hangout sessions, called Helpouts, reports TechCrunch. The “secret” unreleased product, which is reportedly in testing, allows professionals, tutors, and others to charge people for their time on the camera....

Bob Dylan’s lyrics get cited more frequently in judicial opinions than those of any other songwriter. Reports of this surprising fact tally judicial citations to Bob Dylan’s reflective, narrative songs against citations to the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Woody Guthrie or the Rolling Stones. Dylan is cited more than twice as often as the nearest “competitor,” the Beatles, reports the Los Angeles Times. What’s going on here? Common sense and the calendar indicate most judges now sitting attended college and law school in the 1960s and 1970s....

In an icy rebuke to Orange County social workers, a federal appeals court said they are not entitled to immunity for lying in a child custody case. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the social workers allegedly presented false evidence to wrest custody away from the mother of Preslie Hardwick, the plaintiff in the case. The court said that no law permits false testimony, and sharply upbraided the social workers for ignoring the obvious....

New York police have a new tool to catch credit-card skimmers. Those are the malicious devices that capture bank information from the magnetic stripe on your credit and debit cards. And then the thieves use the information to buy way too much stuff at Walmart. Anyway, researchers figured out how to detect the devices at the point of sale. So far, police have found one. The Good News The good news is the Skim Reaper is 100-percent effective, according to reports....

District court judgment against defendant for overdue demurrage owed to plaintiff is reversed where: 1) Puerto Rico Commerce Code Article 947’s 180-day limitations period applies to plaintiff’s claim for overdue demurrage charges on international shipments to Puerto Rico; and 2) the court did not err in failing to apply the laches presumption, as the parties offered scant facts relevant to such an inquiry and the parties consented to judgment based on the stipulation....

With social media a mainstay of communication, it’s increasingly becoming an issue to deal with when it comes to jurors. Most judges deal with the issue through a jury instruction that lets jurors know that they may not share any information about the trial on social media. Earlier this year, the American Bar Association answered that question, reports the ABA Journal. Let’s take a look at what the ABA decided, and what, if anything is applicable to your practice....

Apple or Android or Windows? It’s an important consideration, but it’s not the most important. Screen size? Nope. It must be the camera. Still nope. How about app selection? Not at all. Think basics. What is the most annoying thing about your smartphone, regardless of who made it? It’s the battery life. IDC Survey: What Drove Your Purchase? IDC Analyst Francisco Jeronimo tweeted out the results of a recent survey by the company that lays out the motivating factors behind a smartphone purchase, and despite the longstanding debate of Apple v....

Dear, sweet PACER. Its existence is begrudgingly accepted thanks to the convincing argument, “Hey, there’s nothing better out there yet.” Its Web 1.0 interface is clunky, but usable. There’s something charmingly antiquarian about the interface. But there’s a reason we don’t use typewriters anymore. PACER is outdated, but more importantly, its business model is undemocratic. That’s why Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org has declared May 1, 2015, to be a “National Day of PACER Protest....

Something about this deal stinks. In 2006, according to the Eleventh Circuit, Jeffrey Epstein was investigated by the FBI for sexually abusing “several minor girls.” He was eventually non-pros’d by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of a plea deal in which he would plead guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors to engage in prostitution. Paul Cassell, the attorney for two of Epstein’s victims, describes the case in more extreme terms on The Volokh Conspiracy, noting that “wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused dozens and dozens of minor girls....

For lawyers in firms of all shapes, sizes, and practice areas, you are measured by the bottom line – oftencounted in billable hours. We’re trying really hard to avoid the cliché about time and money, but it’s especially true when your merit is measured by time billed. “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” The words are as true today as they were back in 1993. So how do you maximize your productivity, and thereby maximize your firm’s revenue?...