Carving out a legal practice niche can be tough for a sole practitioner. Have you ever considered marketing to your cultural background? It’s an audience worth tapping. A University of Georgia report predicts that the buying power of America’s minorities will increase to over $2 trillion by 2015. That’s a lot of money being bandied about. But how do you get some of it to fall towards your growing practice?...
Not too long ago, we wrote a piece describing how the Internet of Things could be used by law enforcement and other entities as a source of evidence. Since billions of devices are constantly tracking an individual’s every move, it would be foolish not to consider this wealth of personal data. Now there is a professional and cultural trend of federal and state regulators pressuring data companies to regulate big data and the IoT....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. The United States and Russia are superpowers and have potential and actual conflicts in various realms. And the Olympics are no exception when it comes to conflicts between the two countries. Let’s set the stage: At first, it appeared the International Olympic Committee was going to ban all Russian athletes from competing in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games because of doping concerns....
We’re not talking mercury in the ground or asbestos in the ceiling here. The type of toxic workplace we have in mind isn’t one that poisons you over decades – it grinds you down every day. A toxic work environment is filled with rude or insensitive interactions, aggressive relationships, and dehumanizing treatment. Stay up late all night finishing a project, only to be told the next morning not to disturb the partners with late night emails?...
If there were a poster boy for an old boys club, Judge Jack B. Weinstein could pose for the picture. He’s white, male, and 96 years old. They don’t come much more “experienced” in a male-dominated profession than that. But contrary to outward appearances, Weinstein may be the most progressive judge in New York. One legal publication calls him “a hero” for women and diversity. A Rule for That Concerned about recent report that women have far fewer opportunities to be lead counsel than men in New York courtrooms, Weinsten made a rule for that....
Over a decade ago, Nick Merrill was approached by an FBI agent with a “national security letter” demanding information about his Internet company’s users. Merrill was the owner of a small New York ISP, Calyx Internet Access, and national security letters were the once ubiquitous administrative subpoenas compelling disclosure of user records. NSLs, like the one Merrill received, are issued without judicial oversight and almost always contain gag orders, prohibiting the recipient from even acknowledging that a NSL has been received....
The Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ Maple v. Thomas decision this week in a 7-2 vote. The Nine, in an opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, decided that defendant-appellant Cory Maples had demonstrated the requisite cause to overcome procedural default, and was entitled to further review of his ineffective counsel appeal. Maples was convicted of killing two friends in 1997 after a night of drinking. Maples appealed, claiming that he was represented by ineffective counsel at his trial....
In the typical speed dating set up, a group of single people looking for love gather for a formalized meet and greet with potential partners. You may spend three minutes speaking to Sandy then, switch, three minutes with Cameron. The point isn’t having a deep experience, it’s developing an interest, seeing if there’s a spark, and then pursuing that further afterwards. If it can work for love, can it work for work?...
A data breach can tarnish a company’s reputation and end up costing millions. And yet, when companies consider new acquisitions, questions about data and cybersecurity often go unasked. That could be changing, though, as corporations start adding cybersecurity to their pre-M&A due diligence, sniffing out a potential partner’s “data hygiene” before any deal is done. The ethical case for cyber due diligence will be made by K2 Intelligence’s senior managing director Austin Berglas at ALM’s CyberSecure conference later this month....
Welcome to an Internet with no rules, no identities, and no certainties. Everything is encrypted, multiple times, and is allegedly as anonymous as you want it to be. You can do, say, or find anything, and we mean anything on the dark side of the Web. It’s called Tor, a project began by the United States Navy to secure their communication, which has spread to the civilian sector. It is a favorite of anyone who needs anonymity, from illicit drug traders and child pornographers, to journalists and political dissidents, and since August 19, according to Ars Technica, usage has doubled to over 1....
You don’t have to be an Internet giant to have a presence on the web. And the web has long been considered relatively lawless when it comes to government regulations – think hacking, illegal trade and streaming, the lack of sales tax. But that sort of lawlessness doesn’t apply to you. There are, indeed, significant legal issues involving your company’s website. Here’s what every in-house counsel needs to know. 1. Laws to Know Before Adding User-Generated Content to Your Website User-generated content is a great way to get people engaged and involved with your website....
When we reviewed Total Attorneys way back in February, we walked away with a generally positive impression. Though the interface was less polished then its competitors, and though it lacked a couple of desired features, the bottom line was the bottom line: $1 per attorney. The insanity just ended. What was that price hike? No clue. The email said that the site would be updated “very soon.” We checked, and checked, and checked....
Andy Oldham barely had time to decorate his office when President Trump nominated him to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oldham was just named general counsel by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Jan. 2, when the President came calling a month later. It may be a bit of a rush for the nominee, but changes have been coming to the appeals court for a while. It is Trump’s third nominee to the Fifth Circuit since he took office, and they all came from Texas....
The SEC has agreed to enter into non-prosecution agreements with two companies in unrelated corruption cases involving unauthorized and illicit handover of gifts to Chinese officials in order to increase business. These cases highlight important cultural differences between businesses in the US and in China. Where Westerners may find corruption, Chinese businesses may simply find a case of guanxi. Doing Business in China: Favors Help In both cases, companies Akamai Technologies and Nortek arranged large payments of money ($40,000 and $290,000, respectively) as well as the illicit giving of meals, travel, hotel-rooms, and gift cards in order to induce individual members of the Chinese Communist Party to dole out favors, hand out preferential treatment, reduce fees, and relax oversight....
District court’s sentence and conviction of defendant for aiding and abetting a carjacking is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded where: 1) defendant’s conviction is affirmed as, although the district court allegedly committed several errors with respect to jury selection, its handling of evidentiary objections, and its handling of a jury note, these alleged errors were all relatively benign; but 2) because defendant was not afforded his right of allocution, his sentence is vacated and remanded....
Medical malpractice? Divorce? Mergers and acquisitions? There’s an app for that! Or there could be – and it could be yours. As mobile technology continues to proliferate, many law firms have thrown their hat into the ring in the form of a mobile app. According to a report by Law Firm Mobile, 36 AmLaw 200 firms have produced 53 different mobile apps, and the numbers continue to rise. Is BigLaw smart to go after the mobile user?...
They may be the Department of Labor, but they have no authority over H-2B labor. Temporary foreign workers are governed by the H-2A (agricultural) and H-2B (non-agricultural) programs. While both programs were originally administered by the Attorney General, the authority was later transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. In 1986, Congress split the agricultural workers into the separate H2-A program and granted the DOL rulemaking authority over those workers alone....
Too many lawyers. Not enough gigs. What happens when supply greatly exceeds demand? Firms charge hundreds of dollars per hour for contract counsel, apparently. Now, we’re all familiar with the job market. Many of us who suffered, or are suffering, long-term post-graduate unemployment are familiar with the effect of that market on contract counsel wages. On the rare occasion that such a position is actually available, it pays far less than $100 per hour - unless the position is extremely specialized (such as Japanese patent law)....
While technology may be able to truly serve businesses large and small by tracking everything to measure results, when the results tech provide aren’t translated properly into human terms, or are based off bad data to begin with, there can often be unintended and discriminatory consequences. Square Metrics in a Round Hole For companies that are implementing high tech metrics tracking, it’s important to keep the human element in mind when making any decision based upon those metrics....
In US v. Pack, No. 08-41063, the court of appeals affirmed defendant’s convictions for possession with intent to distribute 17.91 pounds of marihuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. section 841(a)(1) and using, possessing, and carrying a Luger pistol during, in relation to, and in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 924(c)(1), holding that 1) it was permissible for the police ask a passenger like defendant to identify himself and to run computer checks on his driver’s license; 2) the police did not have to observe the equivalent of direct evidence of a particular specific crime in order to detain a lawfully stopped individual to investigate where there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity on his part; and 3) the length of the detention and the scope of the officer’s investigation were reasonable in light of the facts creating the reasonable suspicion criminal activity....
