You ever load up your calendar for the month of December because you just knew that those cases would settle and then you’d magically have free time? And then, when the cases didn’t settle or go away, you were left wondering why you were so optimistic. Well, the good news is that you still have time to clear your calendar, even if you can’t actually move any of the dates getting in the way of you having a real holiday vacation....
On November 18, 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts propelled the state into making history: Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the court’s historic decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. What a difference a day decade makes. In the Goodridge opinion, penned by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, the court made a landmark constitutional ruling when it declared that “barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution....
We’re barely halfway through 2015 and it already looks like this will be the year of the law firm merger. Firms are merging at a record rate, with 48 mergers thus far, according to the consultancy group Altman Weil. That’s the highest rate since the company began recording mergers. That number is expected to grow even more in the second half of the year, when long-term deal making comes to fruition....
About 70 percent of organizational changes fail, including adaptations to new technology. It’s so predictable, everyone knows that today’s innovation will be replaced – or updated – by tomorrow’s. When it comes to law firm technology, however, it is a little more complicated. It’s not as hard for lawyers to buy tech, as it is to get them to use it. But innovation without implementation is a waste of time and money, right?...
If your company is involved in social media or video games, it could be a busy year for you as they are ripe for mergers. That’s always a double-edged sword, but in this economy, most attorneys are thrilled to see some action. Especially compared to the cost cutting we saw in 2010. Entertainment and media companies are likely to go looking for deals in 2011, according to a recently-released report. “With the industry’s fast-paced shift to digital – and attractive levels of corporate cash reserves and private equity dry powder, (we believe) the catalysts are in place for more E&M deal activity” this year, says a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Variety....
Is it ironic that a smart robot is replacing patent lawyers? Or maybe it is more sardonic, especially for patent lawyers who have a problem with a robot that can do their job in seconds. But according to a startup called TurboPatent, that’ exactly what RoboReview can do. If it’s true, patent attorneys should at least be grateful that the software robot is not well-dressed or funny. Otherwise, some lawyers would be out of a job....
To quote Macauley Culkin as Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, “This is it. Don’t get scared now.” Really. There’s no reason to get scared: We’re just talking about proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Practice and Procedure. The amendments propose changes to the following rules: Appellate Rule 6 Bankruptcy Rules 1014, 7004, 7008, 7012, 7016, 7054, 8001-8028, 9023, 9024, 9027, and 9033, and Official Forms 9033, and Official Forms 9033, and Official Forms Criminal Rules 5 and 58 Evidence Rules 801 and 803 The Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedures says that all comments – favorable, adverse, or otherwise – will be carefully considered by the rules committees....
Harrington v. City of Nashua, No. 09-2275, concerned a plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit alleging Fourth Amendment violations for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, arising from her complaint to the police of an alleged rape by a co-worker. In affirming the judgment of the district court, the court held that the false imprisonment claim is barred by the statute of limitations. The court further held that the plaintiff failed to make out the Fourth Amendment violation needed to sustain her section 1983 malicious prosecution claim....
Now, after three years of hype, the Fire Phone is here, and now that it is, we know why it took so long: eye-tracking technology, a revolutionary interface, and a Firefly search feature that completely reinvents search itself. This is the phone that could shake up the monotony of years of monotonous touchscreen smartphones, one rectangular slab after another, with nothing but minor spec tweaks and gimmicks posing as innovation....
Where does a law firm cross the line when it provides alcohol to its employees? In a case against the Gladstone Law Group, it wasn’t when the firm escorted a paralegal out of the building for being drunk. And according to a Florida appeals court, it wasn’t when she stepped in front of a train on her way home. It’s a story without a happy ending and a reminder that alcohol and law practice really don’t mix....
Joann Cooper and her two-year-old son, Daniel, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both were seriously injured when an armed bank robber attempted to elude the police by attempting to steal the car in which they were riding. Rather than allow the armed bank robber to escape with hostages, the officers on the scene fired their weapons at the suspect until he was neutralized. Unfortunately, Cooper and her son were both hit by bullets intended for the bank robber....
The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that anti-gay attacks are not hate crimes under state law. Affirming a lower court decision, the high court said the legislature did not include “sexual orientation” in defining people protected from hate crimes. In a 3-2 decision, the judges said the court would not re-write the definition of “sex” in the West Virginia Code. “Through application of the presumption that the Legislature said in West Virginia Code § 61-6-21(b) what it meant and meant what it said, and based upon the common and plain meaning of the word ‘sex,’ as well as the Legislature’s clear intent, we are left with the ineluctable conclusion that the word ‘sex’ does not include ‘sexual orientation’,” Chief Justice Allen Loughry II wrote in State of West Virginia v....
After al Qaeda bombed a U.S. ship on Oct. 12, 2000 – killing 17 sailors and injuring dozens more – the survivors fought back through lawsuits against Sudan for supporting the terrorists. As the plaintiffs navigated the judicial system, however, they ran into an obstacle: the United States of America. The government opposed some of the sailors’ claims because of a technical issue: service of process. A trial judge ruled that service by mail to the Sudanese embassy in the U....
In an employment discrimination and breach of contract case, district court’s judgment is affirmed where: 1) district court did not err in jury instructions with respect to SSDI as receipt of SSDI benefits creates a rebuttable presumption that the employee cannot perform the essential functions of the job; 2) district court did not err in the accommodation instruction as in this case, an employer’s duty to accommodate does not arise unless the employee is able to perform the essential functions of his job with an accommodation; and 3) district court did not commit procedural error as plaintiff failed to contemporaneously object when the district court implemented the challenged procedure, and under the 2003 amendments to FRCP 51 the district court is under no obligation to give the parties the full text of its intended instructions at any time before the jury is charged....
Yesterday, we brought you the case of Calvin “Calcutta” Dyess, a former drug kingpin serving a life sentence after pleading guilty and getting a questionably-high sentence. It wasn’t the severity of the sentence that gave us pause, however. It was the entire process, from the investigating officer carrying on an affair with Dyess’ wife (the officer and Dyess’ wife were later married and divorced), coaching her testimony and suborning perjury, and procedurally, there were Apprendi (facts increasing the sentence must be alleged in the indictment) problems glossed over by the majority opinion, which upheld his life sentence....
Finally! We have gotten our hands on the once-elusive Firm Central. Our corporate parents (Thomson Reuters) entered the crowded cloud-practice management field only recently, after competitors Clio, Amicus, MyCase, RocketMatter, and Total Attorneys had already launched their products. How did the first Firm Central fare? Read on to find out. Loved The interface is clean, quick, and intuitive. Adding faux-clients and matters took seconds, even though I had never used the platform before....
In case you haven’t been reading the tabloids lately, Gawker, the Internet gossip site, is currently facing a $100 million lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the 80’s professional wrestling superstar. Gawker, you see, posted an illicit video of Hogan having sex with a friend’s wife, but the real shocker is how poorly Gawker’s editors performed when deposed. Gawker’s terrible showing is a helpful reminder to the rest of us: never cut corners when it comes to prepping high-level employees for litigation....
Last week’s Hearst decision may have been a victory for employers, but it doesn’t mean all unpaid internships are legal. The unpaid interns lost on a procedural note – class certification – before the case even reached the merits. And while the reverberations from that decision, as well as the Supreme Court’s decisions in Comcast and Dukes, will be felt for years by class-action plaintiffs, your company still needs to review its unpaid internship policy....
Maybe you can pick a face out of a crowd – but how about a crowd of 10,000 faces? Didn’t think so. Neither did the lawyers who were trying to prove that a plaintiff was not at certain corporate events over a span of years. They had 10 terabytes of images but not enough time or money to review them. Facial recognition software solved their problem. Don’t you just love it when law and technology come together?...
In the law business, there are ways to collect attorney’s fees and ways not to collect them. In hourly cases, collecting fees in advance is usually the best. Collecting them along the way is good, too. But trying to collect them after a case is over may not be so good. And then there’s this – the worst way to do it. Bad Judgment Rachel Yosha, an Arizona attorney, committed the unforgivable sin of threatening a client with criminal action if the client did not pay her fees....
