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When it comes to intellectual property, everyone talks patents. Trademarks, copyrights, and other bits of intellectual property are scattered about. Even attorneys can sometimes fall into the trap of knowing just enough to be dangerous to themselves. Less known is the trade secret. Trade secret law mostly gets invoked in the context of employment law. Almost everyone has signed a lengthy employment contract that stipulates in prolix language that the employee will not divulge valuable trade secret information to third parties....

In creditors’ appeal from the bankruptcy court’s confirmation of the debtor’s Chapter 11 liquidation plan, the order is affirmed where: 1) 11 U.S.C. section 1123(a)(4) only required equal treatment of members within the same class; 2) the plan made all the disclosures regarding the Equity Subcommittee required by 11 U.S.C. section 1129(a)(5)(A)(i); and 3) because a class of creditors voted in favor of the plan, the absolute priority rule unambiguously did not apply to those claims....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. For the longest time, many workers complained about commuting to work. On top of a long work day at the office, they also had to lose time while being stuck in traffic or commuting by other means. Between work and commuting, there was hardly any time in the day to do anything of personal benefit....

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that convicted terrorist plotter Jose Padilla cannot sue U.S. government officials for alleged constitutional violations, reports Reuters. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that Padilla’s lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officers, alleging that he was “unconstitutionally detained and tortured” on a South Carolina military base, lacked merit. The appellate judges further ruled that Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over military detention cases, and that Congress had not provided a path for civil damages, reports the Associated Press....

Motion denied in a Seattle attorney’s attempt to block the release of her DUI arrest report. 52 year-old Anne Bremner is a Seattle-based attorney who often appears on television shows giving legal commentary on high-profile cases. Bremner claims that she was the victim of a hit and run accident, and experiencing head trauma that caused her to exhibit alcohol-related symptoms the night she was arrested. Police on the scene say the Bremner did not mention the accident, or any need for medical attention....

There’s no need to pore through newspapers for the day’s best news. You don’t even have to scour the web or check your bookmarks. Newsletters – that’s right, newsletters – save you time and effort by bringing a curated collection of the best, most relevant news right to your inbox. There’s no place better to get your newsletters than from the Internet’s #1 site for free legal information. FindLaw has 41 different newsletters for legal professionals....

In defendant’s appeal from the district court’s order certifying a class in an action alleging violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act (RESPA), the order is reversed where the applicable Department of Housing and Urban Development liability standard required an inquiry into the reasonableness of the payments for goods and services at issue, and because that inquiry must be performed on a transaction-by-transaction basis, the plaintiffs did not meet the predominance requirement for class certification....

Today we’re discussing a recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals breach of fiduciary duty appeal that’s a valuable lesson in contradictory clichés. On the plaintiff’s side, we have Plasterers’ Local Union Number 96 (Plasterers), a trade union that subscribes to the “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” school of thought. On the defendant’s side, we have former trustees of the Plasterers’ pension plan, who believe that one is “better safe than sorry....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Dude, where are my clothes? Those might have been the words of Prince Harry when he learned that photos of him naked, but covering his royal private parts, had gone viral worldwide. How did this happen? Apparently, his royal nakedness was partying in Las Vegas when someone snapped cellphone shots of him in the aftermath of a strip billiards game that then ended up on TMZ....

In Garland v. Roy, No. 09-40735, which involved petitioner’s appeal from the dismissal of his habeas corpus petition brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 2241, the court reversed on the ground that, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Santos, petitioner brought a claim that satisfied each of the Reyes-Requena factors, and thus his petition fell within section 2255’s savings clause, allowing him to bring a habeas petition under section 2241....

In plaintiff’s action against her former employer claiming discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Maine Human Rights Act by failing to accommodate her disability and by terminating her employment because of the disability, judgment in favor of defendant-employer is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that she is a “qualified individual” within the meaning of the ADA; and 2) plaintiff’s interactive process claim fails as the two accommodations she identified are, on the record, inadequate to enable her to perform a sufficiently broad range of manual tasks and unreasonable as a matter of law....

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. You, as usual, are stuck in your office. There’s no time to dive into the dating pool. But what about the client pool? Should a lawyer ever date a client? If you’re a divorce attorney, you meet soon-to-be-single prospects all day long. So what’s the harm? Regardless of where you practice, your state has probably adopted a rule about conflicts of interest with current clients. The American Bar Association Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1....

Microsoft’s hopes and dreams of world domination were partially dashed last week when the Supreme Court’s ruling in Microsoft v. i4i upheld a $290 million verdict against the company–what it calls the largest patent award in history. Though the software giant is used to avoiding patent liability, Microsoft’s audacity to challenge a long-standing principle of patent law may have just severely limited its future options. A small Canadian software company, i4i sued Microsoft, alleging that the company had infringed upon one of its patents in developing MS Word 97....

Were you watching the big boxing match last weekend? If you’re scratching your head and wondering: “What big boxing match?” You’re not alone. In one of those rare moments when real life resembles Celebrity Death Match, two competing YouTubers (Logan Paul and KSI) took to the ring in a ridiculous pay-per-view event they hoped would bring in some decent money. Unfortunately, what the YouTubers hadn’t counted on was Twitch pirates hijacking the live-stream....

District court’s imposition of a sentence upon a defendant in connection with the revocation of a term of supervised release is vacated and remanded as the district court committed a procedural error by selecting a sentence for the sole purpose of controlling the running of an unrelated local sentence. Read US v. Santiago-Rivera, No. 08-1499 Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maine Decided February 5, 2010...

Most clients won’t see your car until after they have hired you. So unless you are practicing law out of your car, your choice of vehicle probably does not really matter to clients at first. We’re lawyers, not realtors. However, because we are lawyers, we also think about contingencies. What if the client sees you when you drive up to the courthouse? What if you are chasing an ambulance and you arrive at the accident scene …...

It was supposed to be over, the fight for net neutrality. Net neutrality is the idea that web users should have equal access to all internet content, without paid fast lanes for some websites, throttled speeds for others. And that idea triumphed when the Federal Communications Commission declared that the internet could be regulated like a public utility and subsequently issued its controversial Open Internet rules. But the net neutrality fight is back....

When it comes to taking and organizing client notes, the physical notebook went out of style long ago. There’s just too many benefits to having electronic notes, which you can sync across devices or search for specific information. If you’re just looking for basic word processing, using Word or even Google Drive for your notes is fine. But you’ll have to go through a few extra hoops if you want to really take advantage of electronic notes....

Here’s a really sad personal injury and wrongful death lawsuit, which was appealed in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The case involved the death of a child in a power-mower accident. In this sad story, the father, Kevin O’Neil, accidentally backed over his two-and-a-half year old son with an Exectrolux lawn mower. The young boy’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the parties responsible for the power-mower, including those responsible for manufacture, design and marketing of the mower....

Merle Haggard wasn’t a lawyer, but he knew how to sing the workin’ man blues – the same song that small firm lawyers sometimes hear late at night. “Works hard every day, might get tired on the weekend, after drawing some pay. Back to work on Monday with a little crew, drinking beer that night and singing the workin’ man blues.” It’s the downside of small firm practice, where lawyers often earn less than BigLaw attorneys and get overworked wearing many hats – sometimes clerk, paralegal, and lawyer rolled into one....