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FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. In my most recent blog, I reported on the phenomenon of “revenge porn,” the unfortunate practice by former lovers, boyfriends, and husbands of posting nude and sexual photos and videos of women with whom they had been intimate. Now, according to Reuters, California Gov. Jerry Brown has just signed a unique state law that criminalizes revenge porn....

President Obama’s executive actions on immigration won’t be implemented anytime in the near future, after the Fifth Circuit refused this afternoon to lift a lower court’s injunction against the program. After Obama took action to stem the deportation of non-citizen parents and children, 26 states sued. The states, led by Texas, argued that the president exceeded the scope of his authority and won an injunction in Texas federal court. In a bad omen for the Obama administration, the two judges on the three judge Fifth Circuit panel found that the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal....

It is a rare thing when appellate courts decide to reconsider cases en banc. That was one of the sticking points in Bostock v. Clayton County Board of Commissioners, out of the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court didn’t take the case, prompting the dissenters to say the majority was dodging a momentous issue. Two justices, out of twelve, said gay and lesbian rights in the workplace were important enough to compel the Second and Seventh Circuits to act en banc....

If there’s one thing I think of when I think of the First Circuit, it’s the judges’ unique writing styles. We’ve spent a lot of ink praising the unique stylings of Senior Judge Bruce Selya, but he’s not the only person whose opinions stand out – his successor, Judge Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson, really deserves a shout-out as well. Take today’s opinion for instance. She starts with this: It’s great storytelling, and the ending ought to brighten Starks’ otherwise bad streak of luck....

While AI has arrived for work at some law firms, it is still in the future for most. It’s not that law firms are lagging behind in technology. It’s just that the high end solutions are too expensive for most lawyers. Sure, even a solo practitioner can buy a digital assistant for about $200 to manage a calendar and make electronic deposits. But a small firm will spend about $30,000 to install a software robot to handle legal tasks like workflow management and contract review....

Looks like Apple’s iPad tablet may have some real competition - the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, one of the newest Android-based tablet computers out there. Will attorneys be flocking to this new tablet computer? It’s a tentative “maybe,” and like most Apple v. Android battles, it sometimes comes down to what you want out of your tablet - and what you want to use it for. For example, if you’re looking to use a tablet as a place where you can store some documents and read through papers when you’re on some flight, choosing between the two tablets may be difficult....

The Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) exemption for “learned” individuals – it’s a grey line sometimes. But other times, it’s really, really not. FLSA puts us lawyerly folk into the “exempt” category due to our advanced degrees. The same goes for engineers, doctors, and other individuals putting their graduate degrees to work. But what about paralegals – they’re almost lawyers. True, but no matter how valuable your paralegal is, Labor Department regulations clearly state that paralegals and legal assistants are not exempt from overtime rules, except in a few rare cases....

Fallen Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi is heading to jail barring intervention from the First Circuit Court of Appeals. DiMasi, who was convicted of conspiracy, extortion and honest services fraud, is scheduled to begin an 8-year sentence on Nov. 16. Prosecutors said DiMasi used his position as speaker to direct $17.5 million in state contracts to software firm Cognos in exchange for kickbacks, reports the AP. Despite his ingenious defense that kickbacks are the “mother’s milk” of politics, U....

Everybody knows you shouldn’t fake your resume, so why do lawyers do it? Is it because it’s too late to give them a bad name? (Take it easy, I’m just a messenger.) Seriously, what are these people thinking? And what about this judge! Fake Reviews According to disciplinary records, New Hampshire Judge Paul Moore faked dozens of positive, anonymous evaluations of himself. The state supreme court suspended Moore for tampering with a judicial performance evaluation and the state Attorney General launched an investigation into possible criminal charges....

Non-lawyer investors for law firms might be more prevalent in the future. Jacoby & Meyers, the New York personal injury firm, has filed a lawsuit against the state. They are trying to overturn the rule that prohibits non-attorneys from owning interests in law firms. Some attorneys are against this shift, including Robert Weber, senior vice-president for legal and regulatory affairs and general counsel of tech giant IBM. Weber is openly against the idea that law firms should allow outside investment, and wrote about his opinions in a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article....

Lyft is catching up with Uber in riders and class actions. Not that anyone is counting, but Lyft just picked up a new class action over driver pay. It accuses the company of cutting into drivers’ fares. It sounds a lot like a recent complaint against Uber. But in the lawsuit count, this time Lyft is content to be number two. Fare Dispute According to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Lyft tricks drivers in setting fares....

Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his wife’s indictment was good reading, but the hilarity didn’t stop with the initial pleadings. Thanks to a recent spate of filings, some with little to no basis in existing laws, the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge James Spencer, asked the prosecutors and defense attorneys to limit their filings “for the sanctity of the trees.” Judge Spencer also dismissed McDonell’s request to allow a related civil case to move forward, in hopes that evidence favorable to the defense would emerge, stating that the defense was “dancing through fantasyland,” reports The Washington Post....

The “sharing economy” allows you to make money by “sharing” your car and your house. You can also enlist others help you with physical tasks as well as mental ones. Until recently, at least one company thought you could share your San Francisco public parking space, but the San Francisco City Attorney quickly put that one to bed, as SF Weekly reported. It’s too soon to be sharing our underwear and kidneys – the inevitable endpoint of our dystopian future – but a new app called Fixed is here to help you fight your parking tickets....

The NYC sugary drink ban put in place by Mayor Michael Bloomberg is facing opposition. With a measure that could affect how many New York businesses sell sugary drinks, counsel for restaurants and industry groups are starting to put their heads together to determine whether they plan to sue. Mayor Bloomberg’s soft drink ban would have ramifications on a number of businesses, including not just restaurants but movie theaters, food carts and other venues that sell super-sized drinks....

In 2012, police in Portland, Maine declared a “public safety emergency.” Too many people, it seemed, were panhandling. Asking “brother, can you spare a dime,” the mendicants would often stand on busy street corners and medians, entreating drivers as they passed by. Concerned that panhandlers would stumble into traffic – or just wanting to keep the poor out of sight and out of mind – the Portland City Council adopted a resolution banning virtually all activity in median strips....

Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee died Tuesday at the age of 93. Bradlee was the editor of the Post during one of its most difficult times, and the time that made it famous: the Watergate scandal of 1972-73. Even long after Watergate, Bradlee continued to helm the Post, cementing its place as a national newspaper, not just a “metropolitan daily.” So what lessons can lawyers learn from Bradlee? When Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein came to Bradlee claiming they’d been contacted by a high-level source in the Nixon administration, they also refused to tell him who the person was....

Not even a month after it began, the trial of Ross Ulbricht, alleged to be the “Dread Pirate Roberts” who operated the underground website Silk Road, is over. The verdict is in: After just three hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Ulbricht on all seven charges today, which included trafficking drugs over the Internet, running a continuing criminal enterprise, and several helpings of conspiracy. After telling the judge Monday that he wouldn’t testify in his own defense, Ulbricht basically brought this one down to a standard “the prosecution didn’t meet its burden of proof” defense....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week reversed a district court order requiring a man convicted of sexual offenses against a 14-year-old to maintain Internet monitoring and filtering software on his computer for the rest of his life. While acknowledging the “broad discretion” district courts have in imposing conditions of supervised release, the Fifth Circuit emphasized that supervised-release conditions must be “reasonably related” to the defendant’s conduct. Fernando Fernandez engaged in sex offenses with a 14-year-old and was sentenced to four years in prison....

Succession planning isn’t easy. After all, no one likes to think about death, particularly their own. While many adults can cope with their mortality long enough to put together a will or estate plan, when it comes of business succession planning, one of the biggest obstacles facing lawyers is convincing business owners to just get started. Here’s how attorneys can help clients get over their inertia. Every business needs a succession plan....

According to a new survey, most lawyers will continue investing in technology this year. The American Bar Association announced the survey results at the recent ABA Tech Show in Chicago. A third party company put together the report, which said 67 percent of the respondents plan to use more tech in their practices in 2019. It was somewhat surprising, given that lawyers are known to be slow in adapting to new technology....