A good bit of your solo or small firm practice will be devoted to maintaining the books and making sure money is coming in. As times change, the usual practice of taking in about a third of your client’s takings is becoming less and less pervasive – and there’s good reason: it costs too much to wait for the outcome of a suit. In the worse case, you might not get paid at all....
The Fair Labor Standards Act exempts “highly compensated employees” from overtime requirements. So what qualifies as “highly compensated”? And what’s the difference between a salary and a stipend? Technical questions, to be sure, but ones that have a huge impact on determining whether an employee is entitled to overtime. The First Circuit answered these questions earlier this month in Litz v. The Saint Consulting Group. Crystal Litz and Amanda Payne worked for The Saint Consulting Group, which provides political consulting around the country to land development projects....
What is LinkedIn for? Is it for recruiters? Job seekers? Is it a social network? Yes, it’s all of those. 1. Your Law School’s Group Unquestionably, your own law school is a place to network and find out about job opportunities. Even if you’re not looking for a job, it’s still worthwhile to be a member of your law school’s group so that you can keep up to date on what’s happening at your law school....
Too often, startup founders think they know everything and the only thing they need is money. That’s because they believe they have the next big thing, and that it will put them in the same company as startup legends. But for every startup billionaire, there are a billion startup failures. This blog is ultimately for the exceptions, the founders who know early that they need legal help. It’s also a guide for lawyers to prepare for those who actually have a future....
Lyondell Chem. Co. v. Occidental Chem. Co., No. 08-40060, concerned “apportionment” actions under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) section 107 and “contribution” actions under CERCLA section 113 regarding the allocation of costs for the cleanup of a hazardous waste dump. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part the district court’s order allocating liability among the parties, holding that 1) the use of Monte Carlo analysis to measure waste volume in this case did not differ meaningfully from any other Monte Carlo application; and 2) there was sufficient evidence that defendant dumped waste in the locations at issue....
Apps available for lawyers provide a lot of time saving capabilities. They help with research, with scheduling, and with everyday business needs like billing and email. They can also help you earn CLE credits. West LegalEdcenter’s CLE Mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch allows you to earn CLE credits on the go. The app isn’t new, but it’s earned so much positive acclaim that it’s become something all lawyers should have in their arsenal....
The list of things they don’t teach you in law school is endless. Common sense? Hardly. Career planning? Nope. How to avoid massive debt? Ha! But chief among the skills you don’t learn in law school is how to lawyer. If you don’t take advantage of “extras” like clinical education, internships, and competitions, it’s quite possible to graduate law school without the slightest idea of what working as a lawyer actually entails....
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is full of overdraft litigation. In March, we told you about Maxine Given, an Eleventh Circuit litigant who was challenging an M&T checking account arbitration clause. This week, we have Lacy Barras, a Branch Banking and Trust (BB&T) customer who claims that BB&T charges overdraft fees for payments from checking accounts, even when the account contains sufficient funds to cover the payments. Barras also alleged that BB&T supplies inaccurate and misleading information about account balances, and fails to notify customers about changes to policies for processing checking account transactions, thereby increasing overdraft charges assessed against customers....
Do you ever think about the end of the world and what you can do about it? Do you build a bomb shelter, like many countries since the nuclear scare of the 1950s? Do you store water and food, like the survivalists awaiting the killer comet or the religious sects waiting for the Second Coming? Or, if you are like my teenage daughter, do you declare all is lost because the end of the world means losing contacts on her cell phone?...
An intellectually disabled man successfully proved that he was intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution by the State of Louisiana. It’s been a long voyage through the courts, but unless Louisiana would like to take this up to SCOTUS for a second time, it looks like Mr. Brumfield has escaped state administered death. First-Degree Murder The facts and procedure of the subject case are long and detailed; here’s the thirty-second version:...
If you started your legal career in a foreign country like China, France, or Texas, the New York courts are contemplating a rule change that could make your life a bit easier. The Empire State is considering an amendment to the Rules of the Court of Appeals that would permit foreign lawyers to register as in-house counsel. Under the change, foreign attorneys would not have to be admitted to the New York bar to work in-house, so long as they are a member in good standing of a foreign legal jurisdiction....
An Illinois lawyer is pursuing an interesting strategy to cut down on the time he spends waiting for court. He’s filed a federal lawsuit claiming unconstitutional discrimination against out-of-county lawyers. Attorney Gary Peterlin of LaSalle County, Ill., claims courthouse procedures in Will County – about 50 miles east – violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, Courthouse News Service reports. Peterlin alleges that attorneys who are not members of the Will County Bar Association are forced to wait in long security lines and subjected to search just like members of the public....
Trying to track a stolen iPad? There’s an app for that, and it works. A Nevada man lost his iPad during a flight on Horizon Air but luckily he had already enabled the Find My iPad app on his tablet. By using it, the police were able to track the device to the home of a flight attendant named Wendy Ronelle Dye. On Friday, police arrested the Horizon Air flight attendant....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. By now, we all have heard of potential security problems and risks on the Internet. And most recently, we must worry about which Web browser we use. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cautioned Americans last week to refrain from using Internet Explorer because of a significant security flaw. This type of hack reportedly attacks a victim’s computer by using a corrupted Adobe Flash file....
More than half of all in house counsel cite data security as their top concern, according to Inside Counsel. It’s not a wonder that lawyers are freaking out - with the increase in online everything and move towards cloud computing, data breaches are seemingly an everyday occurrence. Inside Counsel cites hackers’ breaching of 63 PIN pads at Barnes & Noble stores late last year, leading to discontinuance of the use of PIN pads in 700 stores and even worse, a major PR hit....
It was a Halloween surprise for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. President Obama’s Fifth Circuit nominee Stephen Higginson managed both a trick and a treat on Monday, as he won a unanimous confirmation vote in the U.S. Senate. As we mentioned in early October, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Higginson’s nomination in July, but there was debate as to whether the full Senate would take up D.C. Circuit nominee Caitlin Halligan’s vote before considering Higginson because Halligan was ahead in the vote queue....
Yesterday, June 28, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. As is frequently the case, the Justices issued a narrow ruling. In fact, the 5-4 was actually affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The case involved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the board appointed as part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was passed after the accounting scandals of the early 2000s....
In a globalized marketplace, in-house counsel are increasingly called upon to address international issues. And recent events have made knowledge of international law and business even more important, as a potential Brexit threatens to upend European markets and as the U.S. moves to crack down (or not) on international bribery. To help give you a hand in handling international matters, here are our top tips on international law and business, from the FindLaw archives....
Lawyers aren’t often known for their clarity and concision – we paid good money to learn our Latin phrases, after all. We have also been known to fall for the specificity, if not clarity, of a few extra words every now and then. But, pair the somewhat obscure language of legal writing with the in-speak of certain professions, and you can end up with a virtually indecipherable mess. So much in fact, it’s almost enough to get you sanctioned....
Firm life can be draining. Whether it’s in BigLaw or a mom and pop, the practice of law can leave you questioning your career path sometimes. So when you get a call from a headhunter offering a chance to become an in house counsel, your natural inclination is to jump. It seems like a wise choice and it definitely can be. But the pitfalls involved in taking such a leap can sometimes be more than you expect....
