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If your company’s reputation is under assault, in court or in the media, is your law department prepared? If you said, “probably not,” you’re not alone. Most corporate legal departments don’t have an up-to-date strategy for reacting to a crisis such as high-profile litigation. Yet having a clear crisis communication plan can be essential to protecting your corporate reputation, in court and out. And they’re not too difficult to get started....

We haven’t been this excited for a BlackBerry product since … ever? The most understood thing about BlackBerry today is that the company is on life support, waited too long to innovate with their hardware and operating system, and has dropped from market leader to statistical footnote, usage-wise. But one thing BlackBerry does well (besides physical keyboards) is BlackBerry Messenger. BBM, which to date has been BlackBerry-only, allows users to communicate in nearly every imaginable way (voice, video, text, pictures, group texts, broadcasts, status updates, public chats, etc....

The Fourth Circuit ruled on Monday, in an en banc decision, that police are justified in frisking individuals with concealed firearms, regardless of whether that individual could have a concealed carry permit or not. The fact that someone may have a concealed carry permit does not make it unreasonable for an officer to search them, “for the officer’s protection and the safety of everyone at the scene,” the Fourth ruled....

Though they provide comfort to inmates, defendants, and families, courthouse dogs are most prominent for their ability to soothe vulnerable witnesses who otherwise would not be able to testify in court. One such instance recently occurred in a New York courtroom, where Rosie, an adorable Golden Retriever, gave emotional support to a 15-year-old testifying about the rape and abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Convicted, his defense attorneys are now appealing, arguing that Rosie and other courthouse dogs unfairly prejudice juries with their cuteness....

A federal appeals court got a taste of air traffic control in ruling that Delta Airlines may continue to fly out of a Dallas airport. The City of Dallas, which owns the airport, had thrown its hands up in the air over a controversy between Delta and Southwest Airlines. The airlines were fighting about which company had the right to use certain gates, so the city asked the court to decide....

Maybe you miss the pay of a high performing firm, or you long to return to litigation. Perhaps you’ve just realized that the General Counsel isn’t going to die and leave you the top spot anytime soon. Whatever the reason, you want to go back to firm life. The good news is, it can be done! Lawyers are increasingly making moves from in-house departments to firm practice. But it’s not always an easy transition....

There’s a joke that aspiring attorneys go to law school because they aren’t good at math. But it’s no joke when it comes to calculating referral fees and fee-splitting between attorneys. Make a mistake, and it could cost you that law license. Fortunately, there are some professional rules for that and they can save you a headache when trying to figure it out. Fee-Splitting Agreements When it comes to sharing fees with another lawyer, Model of Professional Conduct Rule 1....

You want to work in-house. You’ve always wanted to work in-house. But how much experience do you need before moving in to the general counsel’s office? While the traditional path is still common – spend a few years at a firm, then transition – many companies are starting to open their law departments to attorneys with a wider range of experience, including attorneys straight out of law school. The Traditional Way: Paying Your Dues at a Firm The road most traveled by leads through three to five years of firm practice....

As a lawyer, you know the power of persuasion, whether you are trying to persuade a judge or jury, a client, or a party you are negotiating with. We recently came across an article in Inc., written for business people, about seven things persuasive people do, and thought we would tailor it for attorneys. After all, you can never be too persuasive, right? Here are three tips to help you become a more persuasive attorney:...

Remember when landing a job at BigLaw was the holy grail of law school graduates? Hard to believe, but that’s now old hat. The new brass ring in the law world is in-house – with luck, general counsel. But before you can firmly call yourself established in your position of in-house legal counsel, you’re going to have to master a few skills first – like outsourcing your work, believe it or not....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. This blog recently discussed whether international mechanisms exist to award damages caused by potential cyberwars. And now it appears that a cyberwar actually is taking place with respect to Ukraine. Press accounts have been rampant in terms of the turmoil over Crimea, Russia, and Ukraine. And while there have been possible threats of physical force, there also have been reports of disruption of mobile communications as a result of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks....

If you are a regular reader of FindLaw’s Technologist, you may have sensed our growing consternation with large tech companies’ attack on users’ privacy. Google scans emails and displays advertisements based on the content. Apple deletes emails with the phrase “barely legal teen” without user permission. And Facebook privacy? Don’t even get us started on Facebook. A couple weeks ago, we took Microsoft’s Scroogled challenge and analyzed their Terms of Service....

When we lawyers draft a pleading, words like herewith, therewith, forwith, whichwith, and other seemingly required, yet almost nonsensical, phrases materialize effortlessly. Whether they get used to draw attention to our list of demands, or to transition to a conclusion for a dense section of poorly stated facts, the aforementioneds, hereinafters, wherefores, comenows, and legalese nonsense, all need to go. Many attorneys were taught that certain words and phrases, and even Latin ones, were required parts of pleading....

An immigration judge may grant a motion for continuance for “good cause shown.” This week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals clarified that the possibility of legislation that would alter existing immigration laws does not qualify as “good cause shown.” Muhammad Sheikh entered the United States in April 2001 on a nonimmigrant visitor’s visa. The visa expired six months later, yet Sheikh remained in the United States. In the spring of 2003, the government served him with a notice to appear and initiated removal proceedings against him....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Our nation can be threatened not only by physical attacks on terra firma, but also in Cyberspace. Indeed, Cyber attacks could threaten all sorts of mission critical systems. This power is akin to the power President Bush exerted when he grounded commercial aircraft in the wake of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, according to a reported Senate source....

Being a lawyer can sometimes be really rewarding. Not only can you help people in their time of need, but you get to make a living doing so. Despite the tinge of conscience, where there’s potential to recover for your clients, there’s potential for real profits for your firm. The new cases that are being filed against Opioid makers on behalf of individuals, tribal nations, and even counties and whole states, are being compared to the cases filed against big tobacco....

If you’re tired of teleconferences cutting out or sick of the dull light of your office projector, you might want to consider Microsoft’s Surface Hub. Sure, it’s about the same price as a reasonable, midsized car or a house in Detroit, but it promises to make your office meetings a bit more tolerable. The Surface Hub, essentially an enormous touchscreen computer, allows you to present, video conference, and strategize like you’re having a brainstorming session in the future....

Britain’s Conveyancing Association, a professional body whose members handle one in five property transactions in England and Wales, has a simple message for lawyers (alright, solicitors), conveyancers, and clients: if you want to stop fraud, stop using email. The message comes after reports of hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen by criminals who hacked emails between legal professionals and property buyers and sellers. So, the Conveyancing Association argues, to be safe with sensitive information, send it snail mail....

Kenneth Richards was convicted of possessing a cell phone while an inmate, and sentenced to 25 years. After exhausting his state remedies, he moved to file a habeas corpus petition. The district court dismissed his application as time-barred because it was filed after the one-year deadline under 28 U.S.C. §2244. Richards appealed, arguing that the district court erred in deeming the clerk-of-court-stamped date on his petition as the date he filed the petition....

Most of the world is running on laptop computers now, and for good reason. They’re the least expensive they’ve ever been, they’re the most portable they’ve ever been, and for what they are, they’re the most powerful they’ve ever been. But you’ll need a host of accessories to make your laptop useful, and no peripheral is more important to a lawyer than an external monitor (or two). When you’re trying to paste from a deposition into a brief, or have five different windows open, that 13-inch laptop screen just isn’t going to cut it....