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No one can resist social media. The urge to tweet and post on Facebook walls reaches to the highest levels of our nation, as Justice Stephen Breyer is taking advantage of Twitter and Facebook. What would you expect a Supreme Court Justice to tweet about? “Can’t believe Scalia isn’t going to fight that fender bender ticket in traffic court! Or maybe “What has Clarence Thomas’ wife been up to lately? Haven’t heard much about her in a while....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. The United States Supreme Court currently is considering a case involving the potential privacy of text messages sent and received on employer-provided equipment by employees. While the context is that of a governmental employee, it is possible the Court’s ultimate ruling could have implications for employees and employers in the private sector as well....

Some say that frogs, like lawyers, are insensitive to gradual change. A frog apparently will sit in tepid water right up to the cooking point. Some attorneys don’t recognize the world is changing around them until it’s too late. Fact or fiction, it’s a new world. Maybe you didn’t notice, but artificial intelligence is literally staring you in the face. AI Is Everywhere If your cell phone talks to you, that’s artificial intelligence....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Is the information you post via social media of potential governmental interest? Probably not, but still, it’s possible. To bring home the point, Twitter just issued its first Transparency Report. That report details the number of government demands it has received for user information in the first six months of 2012. What do the numbers reveal?...

Defendant’s firearm possession conviction is reversed where the district court erred in denying defendant’s proposed justification instruction because a reasonable trier of fact could have found that defendant’s possession was justified as self-defense. Read US v. Ricks, No. 07-5127 Appellate Information Argued: March 26, 2009 Decided: July 20, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Gregory Counsel For Appellant: Ross Hall Richardson, Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina, Inc., Charlotte, NC For Appellee:...

If President Trump goes down as the worst president in U.S. history, he could blame it on his kids. While first-son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner are galavanting around the globe, many political commenters view the president sinking in a political and legal quagmire. From Russia to China to India, the problems keep coming back to Washington, D.C. What has all that got to do with the price of tea in China?...

In the movie Moneyball, a team manager uses analytics to helps the Oakland A’s win the World Series. It’s a great sports movie, even though the baseball team didn’t actually win the series. They had a great year, but that was a Hollywood ending. Tony La Russa, the real-life manager, is a Hall-of-Famer in part for bringing analytics to baseball. He says the reality is that analytics will get you in the game, but you also have to rely on human ingenuity....

When a company experiences a data breach, Massachusetts wants the public to know. The commonwealth is currently expanding its public Data Breach Notification Archive to include information about security breaches effecting Massachusetts citizens – going all the way back to 2007. Massachusetts isn’t alone. California, Oregon, and Washington all have laws allowing public access to data breach information. And those laws, some wager, could be great news for the plaintiff’s bar....

A young, ambitious entrepreneur came into the office with the next big thing. Having made millions in other enterprises, the client was confident this was the business that would set him up for life. He wanted to record videos of young women at parties, like Mardi Gras, and sell them online. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I told him, saying that another company was already risking privacy violations in a similar venture....

A Zipcar customer lost her late-fee lawsuit against the car-sharing company. Again. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton’s decision that Naomi Reed could not assert a claim that Zipcar’s automatic late-fee charge constituted an unlawful penalty under Massachusetts law. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter penned the opinion. Reed alleged that Zipcar’s fees exceed those of four comparable firms, which charged late fees of $25 or less....

Being one of those tech savvy lawyers can often be overwhelming due to all the questions from the non-tech savvy lawyers. (“What do you mean it wasn’t plugged in?” … “Wait, I can turn my iPhone off?” … “How do I not reply all?”) But when the tech savvy lawyers have questions, the answers tend to involve a bit more nuance than a Homer Simpson original invention. Below, you’ll find five common questions that tech-savvy lawyers have asked....

We recently saw a post on Above the Law about a caption contest for a photo of a lawyer taking a courtroom selfie, and it got us laughing wondering. What the hell was this guy thinking? We could just see the Instagram post now “Getting ready for oral arguments #CourtRoomDrama.” You can’t help feeling sorry for the guy, he’s probably a newbie attorney that was excited to be in court – he wanted to share that moment with mom and dad, or brag on Facebook....

For the ABA’s Pro Bono Week, you might be trying to avoid the lawyers in your office that seem all too excited to put your name on a list of volunteers. But, if the callous half of your brain forgot to schedule your vacation for this week, then you’re going to get stuck doing some pro bono work because quite frankly, there’s no good reason not to volunteer and you should....

Be careful when evaluating e-Discovery service providers. Every penny matters, especially when heading towards litigation. Many companies use e-Discovery services when litigation arises. Some statutes provide recovery of fees and costs to the prevailing party in litigation. Recently, a federal appeals court handed down a decision that would severely impact the collection of e-Discovery costs by the prevailing party. “Fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials” is recoverable by the prevailing party, the law states....

Everyone wants to get into the habit of eating right so you can shed those few pounds or keep yourself in top shape. But for lawyers who are always on the go, in and out of the office or the courtroom, it can be hard to stay on top of your diet. If you try juggle it all yourself, you might find some things falling by the wayside. So let your phone do the heavy lifting for you....

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reviews a lot of cruise line lawsuits, thanks to the volume of ships going in and out of Florida. Most of the time, the appellate court seems to favor the plaintiffs in these cases. Most of the time, the cruise lines are arguing that liability waivers preclude claims. A cruise line fares better when it argues improper venue based on the passage contract. In the fall of 2009, Tore Myhra and his family vacationed on a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd....

Googling a potential client should be part of any law firm’s client intake process. After all, an adversary most certainly will, and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to find red flags that will warrant further research or discussion. However, for many lawyers, knowing how deep you need to dig online for negative information about your potential client is a difficult question to answer. While criminal defense attorneys might not care what comes up, for civil practitioners, it matters....

When an employee at your company complains about sexual harassment – and yes, it will eventually happen – it’s important to take swift action to investigate and address the claim. By doing so, you may be able to avoid or at least limit liability. If you ignore the situation, get ready to pay out the big bucks in a judgment or court settlement. Let’s look at two examples that demonstrate the wrong way and the right way to handle these situations....

It’s not a good look when a firm practices employment law, but doesn’t pay overtime. For one Los Angeles law firm, it looked even worse when a court ordered the firm to pay almost $277,000 in attorney’s fees to their former secretary. Noemi Bernal was awarded $91,000, plus $30,000 in interest, against J.J. Little & Associates on her wage claims. With the additional attorney’s fees award, it was more than adding insult to injury....

Six degrees of separation? More like 4.74, per a study of Facebook users done in 2011. If the hops-and-degrees perspective isn’t clear, think about it like this: every phone number the terrorist calls, every number those recipients call, and every number those recipients call. Exponential isn’t a big enough word to describe the scope of surveillance. There’s other good news as well. The Atlantic reports that geolocation data was not part of the data mining effort....