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Ever traveled overseas for business and needed a way to stay connected to the internet? As I learned before my most recent trip to Europe, it’s not as easy as turning on international data roaming and using your trusty old iPhone or firing up your laptop. Not unless you’re down with paying insane roaming charges. For example, Nilofer Merchant traveled to Canada on business. She used an AT&T DataConnect modem to get online for a few hours....

Ah, Facebook. The venerable social media giant is over ten years old now, making it just uncool enough for teenagers. It’s still out there, though, and recent news suggests that Facebook and divorce are becoming more and more linked. What’s the deal with divorcing people over Facebook, anyway? And why a rise in divorces as there’s been a rise in the use of Facebook? There’s got to be something that Mark Zuckerburg isn’t telling us....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments today in three separate gay marriage appeals, from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The longest pending of these cases is the one from Texas, DeLeon v. Perry, which has been in a holding pattern in the Fifth Circuit for almost a year. Now, nearly 11 months since the district court struck down Texas’ same-sex marriage prohibition as unconstitutional, the parties will have their chance (at 30 minutes per side) to have their cases heard before the appellate court....

Amal Alamuddin. Amal Clooney. Amal Alamuddin Clooney. This whole marriage thing can get a bit confusing, right? It’s even more confusing for clients and the court, which is why the decision about whether to practice law under your maiden or married name is pretty darn important. There’s the marketing and name recognition aspect. There are ethics considerations too. And, of course, the convenience factor: changing firm names, business cards, websites, and letting clients and the court know....

Ambulance chasing is so yesterday. Today, lawyers are virtually following people to the hospital. You’ll never see them doing it because it’s done through cell phones. Law firms are using geofencing to send advertisements to patients’ mobile devices even as they sit in the waiting room. It’s like in Minority Report, when ads pop up everywhere Tom Cruise goes. That’s right, now there’s no getting away from attorney advertising. Geofencing Ars Technica explains geofencing this way:...

Did you ever wonder why actors – and not attorneys – usually do the talking in lawyer commercials? After all, lots of lawyers can act. They put on shows in court, and they have winning personalities, too. But seriously, there are other reasons somebody else steps into the spotlight in law firm advertising. It’s because everybody has a job to do, and there are some things a lawyer can’t do. Hence: chat bots....

In plaintiffs’ class action lawsuit against defendants, judgment of the district court remanding the case is vacated and remanded as the court determined prematurely that it lacked the Class Action Fairness Act jurisdiction on the ground that the complaint does not specifically define a proposed class. Read College of Dental Surgeons of Puerto Rico v. Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co., No. 09-2201 Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico...

What do you think of when you hear the name GM? If you’ve been watching news, you’re thinking faulty ignition switches and rolling death traps, even though only thirty-four cars, out of millions recalled, have actually crashed as a result of recalled switches. Of course, that defect is real. In the case of Company Doe, the report of an allegedly unsafe product, which was linked to a child’s death, was labeled “materially inaccurate” by a Maryland federal judge in 2012....

Is it constitutional to deny homosexual couples the right to federal marriage benefits? Was the adoption of the Defense of Marriage Act in violation of Congressional authority? Wednesday morning, the First Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments relating to the Defense of Marriage Act. The cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services bring the constitutionality of DOMA to the forefront of legal debate....

Some legal matters are like a relay race. Clients start out with one lawyer, who passes the baton to the next. It can work if everbody is on the same team. But if law firms drop the baton along the way, clients can lose. Not only that, it can be really embarrasing – especially for the attorneys. Consider Team Trump. Changing Guards Even before he was President, Donald Trump had an army of lawyers working for him....

Last month, we wrote about the government’s mandatory registration of all civilian drones – and the groaning that ensued. Now, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation penned a document announcing plans to solicit public comments and suggestions in a soft-power campaign to make sure all hobbyists register their drones so they can be traced. The chief counsel for the FAA, Reginald Govan, said that traditional rules and laws governing aircraft begin to breakdown when applied to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or “drones....

For many attorneys the question of how to know when you’re billing too much is puzzling because the concept of “billing too much” is just unimaginable nonsense. At least until a client says they don’t want to pay “that much for that.” But for an increasing number of attorneys, this is a legitimate question to ask. Below you can get some pointers on avoiding over-billing. Has the court ever cut down your hourly rate, or questioned your fees?...

How many times do you meet with a client? And how much do you pay to rent your office space? Chances are the first number is low, while the second is quite high. Which is probably why approximately 14% of attorneys now operate some type of virtual law office. Virtual law offices are a growing trend in the legal industry, allowing cash-strapped young attorneys to practice without a physical office. But they’re also increasingly popular amongst the ranks of solo and small firm practitioners who seek more flexibility and less overhead....

Action Alleging Formaldehyde Exposure in FEMA Trailers In In re: FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 09-31131, an action based on allegedly injurious formaldehyde exposure in FEMA trailers following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint where 1) the district court’s attempt to provide trial results that would offer a firm basis for resolution of the thousands of outstanding cases would be thwarted and unreasonably delayed by granting a continuance; and 2) the district court’s action was not so much a sanction against plaintiff as a necessary device to maintain an orderly resolution of the massed cases....

For iPhone X users, and users of other smart devices with facial recognition capabilities, opting in may be the price of convenience and “security.” But when you’re just out in public and your face gets scanned by law enforcement, there is no opting in, at least not yet. Recently, Microsoft, the ACLU, and other major voices in the smart tech revolution have demanded that lawmakers do something fast to prevent facial recognition software from disrupting individual civil rights....

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a nomination hearing for Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Stephanie Thacker. Thacker will appear before the committee on Tuesday, October 4 at 3 p.m. The Senate scheduled Thacker’s hearing relatively quickly. Unlike some of her peers who have toiled in appellate nominee purgatory for over a year, President Obama nominated Thacker for the bench only three weeks ago. How did Thacker get a nomination hearing so quickly?...

Since it is Shakespeare’s birthday, we wanted to talk about lessons from the Bard. He was, at least in one play, a great supporter of lawyers. The famous quote “first, let’s kill all the lawyers” actually praises lawyers. It comes from Henry VI and is spoken by a bad guy, Dick the Butcher, who says that the first step in creating tyranny is to kill all the lawyers. A character in Measure for Measure offers this bit of advice: “Good counselors lack no clients....

You may have heard about the rash of “Choose Life” license plate disputes clogging up the dockets in courts across this fine nation. States pass laws that allow special interest groups to have vanity plates created with their logo, charge a premium to drivers who wish to display the message, and split the revenue. And then someone wants to say something that the majority doesn’t like. In Virginia, it was a battle over a censored Confederate Flag logo....

She asked for asylum and withholding of removal because of alleged persecution by family-planning officials in the Fujian Province. She had apparently been illegally cohabitating with her boyfriend, who accidentally impregnated her. The officials’ response, according to Wu, was to perform a forced abortion. They also got her fired from her job and fined both her and the father of the unborn child. Wu’s Case In support of her claims, Wu presented sworn statements from family members and the boyfriend, an unauthenticated abortion certificate, receipts from the paid fines, and a letter of termination from her prior employer for violating family-planning laws....

A criminal defense specialist named Judy Clarke may soon cement her reputation as the most high profile of public defenders. The New York Times recently profiled Clarke, whose client is Jared Loughner, the man charged in the Jan. 8 Arizona shooting rampage. Clarke has already begun making motions on his behalf, Loughner has pleaded not guilty. Clarke’s efforts to develop a rapport with Loughner is noteworthy, as in federal death penalty cases, earning the trust, or even just the acceptance of the client is often a crucial matter, even more so in cases of potential mental illness....