You may recall Gary May, the former Upper Big Branch mine superintendent sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for hindering U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration investigations into the massive Massey mine explosion back in 2010 that killed 29 miners. He is now asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate his sentence. He wouldn’t be the first Upper Big Branch exec to turn to the Fourth Circuit....
As if being called a shark were not bad enough, now lawyers seeking political office are being attacked for doing their job. At its barest, the ads at issue state: Don’t vote for X, X is a lawyer, and don’t vote for a lawyer. Well one thing lawyers are good at is logic, and these arguments friends, are circular at best. One political attack ad in particular urged voters not to vote for a candidate because he represented criminals – or in other words, yes, doing his job, reports Slate....
In In re: Abrams & Abrams, P.A., No. 09-1283, the Fourth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s reduction of an award of attorneys’ fees from $6 million to $600,000, arising from an $18 million settlement with the insurer of the drunk driver responsible for their client’s permanent and severe disabilities. As stated in the decision: “Particularly when such a steep and indeed drastic reduction from the fee provided in the retainer agreement was ordered, some care in explanation might be expected....
There’s an old saying amongst reasonably prudent attorneys with a staff (and no rhythm): Dance like no one is watching, supervise nonlawyers like they’re all actively trying to get you disbarred. It’s an unfortunate truth for many lawyers out there that their staff are not licensed lawyers and are not ultimately liable to the client or court (or your malpractice carrier) for their mistakes, negligence, or telling you that the hearing was at the wrong courthouse....
In the aftermath of the Yahoo cybersecurity breach, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the U.S. Justice Department has indicted two Russian spies and two mercenary hackers who orchestrated the theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014. It accounts for a substantial portion of the 1.5 billion hacks that Yahoo discovered last year. The bad news is that the indictments reveal a scheme so murky that it will take a long time for criminal authorities, lawyers, and technology experts to figure out how to deal with such attacks....
Body language is so yesterday. Tomorrow, it will be head language. That’s because today Facebook researchers are working on a brain-computer interface that will let you type with just your mind. They want people to communicate with the computers through their heads – no wires or strings attached. It sounds like the closest thing to mind-reading since Kreskin’s ESP, which means it will probably be a board game before it’s a practical interface....
A federal appeals court ruled Google may keep its trademark for the name, despite claims that the word has come to mean “to search the internet.” The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said trademarked names can lose their proprietary meaning as they become generic terms. However, the court rejected an argument that “Google” is synonymous with search engine. In Elliott v. Google, the court said the plaintiff had presented admissible evidence that “google” is used as a verb....
Maybe lighting does strike twice. Using excuses that included his house was struck by lightning, a client struck two big law firms with more than $800,000 in unpaid attorney’s fees. What really shocked the lawyers, however, was that one firm unwittingly vouched for the client to the other firm. Too Good to Be True James P. McLean Jr. was “a very convincing fraudster,” according to Thomas Buchanan, the managing partner and head of litigation for Winston & Strawn’s Washington, D....
A few months back, I got a good chuckle out of a strange notice posted on the Fifth Circuit’s website about the clerk’s office declining to provide change to cash-paying customers. After How Appealing’s Howard Bashman poked fun at the new policy, the court’s clerk Lyle Cayce explained the intelligent rationale for the change to the change policy. Still, when I wrote a mixed review of the Fifth Circuit’s website, I didn’t expect a response from Cayce....
Of all leadership mistakes, the law firm manager whose self-deceipt leads to an illusion things are going okay must surely be the most dangerous. “Failing elegantly” is a sophisticated form of coping behavior to avoid, says John Hamm, Santa Clara University management professor and consultant. Failing elegantly means a subtle shift in daily life, when your firm stops trying to win, and starts trying not to lose. Everyone who has watched a football team sit on a lead, or a tennis player begin to sit back, or a baseball pitcher start walking batters, has seen “failing elegantly....
Petition for review of an order denying relief from removal is denied where the agency did not err in its finding regarding the absence of past persecution, and there is no evidence whatsoever that plaintiff would be singled out for future persecution if he returns to his home country. Read Banturino v. Holder, No. 08-1979 Appellate InformationON PETITION FOR REVIEW OF ORDERS AND DECISIONS OF THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALSDecided: July 31, 2009...
Boston College researchers are still fighting to withhold oral history interviews from foreign authorities. Back in January, the First Circuit Court of Appeals blocked an order from a lower court judge requiring Boston College to turn over documents pertaining to a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to the United Kingdom. In July, the court ruled that Boston College to hand the recordings over to British authorities, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports....
The topic of AT&T’s pitiful cell phone network coverage never seems to die. Those that have gone through the trouble of contacting AT&T to complain or ask for a refund, have encountered a further slap in the face: an offer from AT&T to purchase a signal booster for a couple more Benjamin’s. That’s right, pony up another $200 so that your $200 phone can work reliably while you’re at home....
A Bitcoin exchange service, Coinbase, try as it might, was unable to stop the IRS from securing a court order compelling the company to name names of potential tax evaders. Given that the current value of Bitcoin is at an all time high, this news didn’t make much of an impact. Last year, the IRS issued a summons to Coinbase demanding that the service turn over their entire transaction history for 2014 through 2015....
For a twisted technology crime, former journalist Matthew Keys got a simple decision from an appeals court on his conviction and two-year sentence. Taking only six pages to state the facts, law, and conclusion against the convicted hacker, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. His lawyers had tried to persuade the court that Keys did not cause any damage....
Many drivers take their cars in for service only when something goes wrong. It’s the same with teeth. If they don’t hurt, many people figure, why see a dentist? This approach, of course, is all wrong. If you treat your career the same way, something may well go wrong or worse. Is it time for a check-up and a tune-up? Check Up Everybody knows you should brush and floss your teeth daily....
After obtaining a $7,650 jury verdict in an age discrimination lawsuit, Carmen Diaz went after Jiten Hotel Management for the big bucks: attorney’s fees and costs. Diaz asked the court for $139,622 in attorney’s fees and $13,389.34 in costs. The district court awarded $25,000 in fees and $9,434.74 in costs. This week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the district court’s numbers needed a bit of tinkering. Here, the district court found that two of the claims, which went to trial, were interrelated and based on the same core facts, and the other four were unrelated....
When the consumer electronics industry gathered for the International Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas two weeks ago, the mood was generally celebratory and the Internet of Things – that interconnected network of web-enabled gadgets – was at the center of much of it. Smart devices were everywhere, from watches to fridges to burglar alarms. Commentators on Forbes declared that CES 2016 was the year when the Internet of Things went “from smart to wicked intelligent....
For some, Google+ Authorship in search results was a magic elixir: your photo and name next to your posts in search results would spike traffic and maybe even help with ranking. Some claimed that adding Authorship bumped up their traffic as much as 150 percent. In one of my favorite experiments, Cyrus Shepard at Moz optimized his “ugly” profile picture using a dating site, which led to a 35 percent bump in traffic....
These days, being the GC of a company isn’t quite the cush job everyone imagined it to be. As commerce has gotten increasingly global, legal teams that operate on the company dime are finding themselves busier than they had ever anticipated. The world waits for no one. That means that in-house counsel should really leverage power at the top. And since the CEO is often gone or aloof, the next best buddy a general counsel can have is the CFO....
