There’s good news and bad news about driverless cars. The good news is that Waymo is about to launch an autonomous taxi service in Phoenix. That’s also the bad news. Critics are worried the technology is not ready for public consumption. They just don’t see the good news – they won’t have to tip the drivers. Good News – Some Progress Waymo is not the first to put a driverless car on the road....
It’s never too late to try something different. Thomas Bergstrom is living proof. After spending 33 years as a solo attorney, the former University of Iowa grad is making a move to BigLaw. That means that he is moving out of the converted barn in his backyard, and into the offices of Bechanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a 450-attorney firm where he will be a partner. Bergstrom will be commuting on the morning train to the Bechanan’s Philadelphia office....
Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert may be an accused child molester, but he’s not a poor one, not after years of working as a high-paid lobbyist. That lobbying money has come in handy of late and not only to cover up “past misconduct.” Hastert has dipped into his savings hired some of the best lawyers money can buy. The ex-speaker has retained Thomas Green, a well known white-collar defense attorney, to represent him against accusations that he broke banking laws in an attempt to pay off a victim of sexual abuse....
The problem with being in a rut is it’s hard to get out. If you try to turn one way or another, the rut pulls you back in. You’re stuck going the same old direction. When it happens at work, you have some options. You don’t have to stay stuck. Get Out It’s not as easy as it sounds, but you can quit. Just leave that rut behind and try something new....
In a two-part series in Inside Counsel, Jeff Beemer of Dickinson Wright PPLC talked about transgender discrimination as one of the an up-and-coming issues for the EEOC. Indeed it is, and even though you might not think about it, transgender discrimination most likely falls into Title VII’s prohibition on gender discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to say so, but the EEOC and two federal circuit courts agree that it does....
Every solo lawyer knows the anxiety of too few clients and too little business. Lawyers often complain about not having enough time in the day. But when free time actually does come around, they start to get worried. If business is slow, you have to be proactive. For example, it may be time to start contacting past clients to seek a referral. But get ready to be rejected: people generally only want to see their lawyer when something has already gone wrong....
What constitutes computer competency? How about attorney competency? The answers might be closer to each other than you think. Earlier this year, the ABA revised their model rules to emphasize two duties relevant to both questions: keeping up to date on relevant technology and protecting clients’ sensitive electronic data. That means computer competency, for attorneys, requires a lot more than simple typing skills. It might also require proficiency with PDF files, Bates-numbering, and Excel, at least, if you want to be outside counsel for a multi-national auto manufacturer....
In parties’ dispute over the rights to a song, jury verdict in favor of the defendants is affirmed where: 1) district court did not err in instructing the jury with respect to the 1982 contract; 2) district court did not err in refusing to give missing witness instruction; and 3) plaintiff’s remaining claims are rejected. Read Latin American Music Co. v. American Soc’y of Composers Authors & Publishers, No. 08-1498...
Winning a personal injury claim is a fun part of practice. Gathering evidence, taking depositions, making arguments: those are the aspects of your job that you enjoy. But your work isn’t finished when you win on the merits. Your client still has to deal with lien claims. Some attorneys may be satisfied with disbursing settlement funds to a client and instructing the client to pay the liens and debts from his personal injury case....
The appeal of a non-compete agreement to a small firm is obvious: you’re going to spend a whole lot of time training some new attorney on the tricks and tools of the trade and you really don’t want them walking out six months later with a third of your clients, then sharking off more of your future business. Appealing, no doubt. But apparently, at least under Indiana’s rules of professional conduct, non-competes are unethical....
A prosecutor’s reliance on ‘racially coded references’ during sentencing entitled a South Carolina death row inmate to a new sentencing trial, the Fourth Circuit ruled on Monday. The prosecutor’s comments during sentencing, including likening the defendant to King Kong and calling him “caveman” and “beast,” so imbued the proceedings with racial bias that the defendant was denied a fair proceeding, the Fourth found. The Fourth’s decision upholds a district court ruling tossing the sentencing of Johnny Bennett for murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery, highlighting the way indirect racist appeals can undermine the legal process....
Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel and a wishful thinker. He doesn’t believe the pundits who say artificial intelligence will take many legal jobs. He says robots have a long way to go before they replace him because of the nuances in his job. Williams has a point, but robots don’t have a problem with high-level legal tasks. The problem, in a word, is “legalese.” Legalese So when your eyes glazed over reading 17th Century cases in law school, it wasn’t that you had a problem....
Habeas petition in cocaine trafficking conviction Santiago v. O’Brien, 09-1186, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief from his cocaine trafficking conviction claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense was violated. In affirming, the court held that defendant has failed to show that the state court decision, excluding hearsay testimony of defendant’s friend’s claim that the drugs belonged to the friend and not defendant, was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court....
How does one define a class-action lawsuit? A suit is brought on behalf of a group of aggrieved consumers. A high-priced lawyer is attached to the case. Typically, a big settlement is reached, and the members of the class are compensated in some way. What about a suit by a state attorney general “on behalf of” the citizens? It’s a suit, on behalf of a group of aggrieved customers. Often, high-price lawyers are attached for their expertise....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Corporate America and companies around the globe are spending vast amounts of money trying to keep up with all sorts of threats in this new digital age. So, how are companies really doing? Unfortunately, not so well. Indeed, according to PwC’s 2017 Digital IQ Survey, as reported by PR Daily, barely more than half of IT executives from the US and 52 other countries reported that their companies have a “strong digital IQ....
A list of the top corporate law movies was recently released and not surprisingly in just about every movie the corporations and their legal departments were the bad guys. It’s easy to make the large conglomerate the antagonist in a movie against a young protagonist like Julia Roberts or a determined solo attorney like John Travolta. But how accurate are these portrayals and are companies really as evil as the corporate law movies would like you to believe?...
In the latest chapter in the Trump travel ban saga, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has partially lifted the preliminary injunction issued by the federal district court in Hawaii. After Judge Watson issued the order, the feds appealed and filed for an emergency appeal regarding the preliminary injunction shutting down the travel ban as to the six Muslim majority nations it named. The Ninth Circuit limited the preliminary injunction only to those foreign nationals with bona fide ties to the United States....
You know when someone says, ‘How do you like my new hairstyle?’ It’s usually an awkward moment, right? Even if you say,“oh, I love it,” people know when it’s not working. That might be the response when Outlook rolls out its new redesign. It’s going to take some getting used to. Big Redesign Microsoft is changing the look on both Windows and Mac platforms. Some say it’s “beautiful,” but others not so much....
According to a new study published in the Wall Street Journal examining recent statistics found that individual tort lawsuits are down. By a lot. Maybe even “Winter Is Coming” -style numbers. The hard numbers show that in 2015 less than two people per 1,000 filed tort lawsuits, whereas in 1993, that number was closer to 10 people per 1,000. The types of cases that have seen a significant decline range from medical malpractice to motor vehicle and product liability and other tort claims....
Here is another ruling by an appeals court that favored the petitioning defendant. In the case of In Re: Recardo Pinder, the criminal defendant appealed the heightened penal sentence and successfully showed the higher appellate court that he’d brought “a new rule of constitutional law” before the court. It was a long shot, but it did the trick. Pinder, a criminal defendant, sought to set aside his criminal conviction under 28 U....
