Marketing your law practice is important. There are many ways to do so, and just as many ways not to. Attorneys frequently struggle with marketing for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s a lack of time or a lack of knowledge behind the struggle, if a lawyer fails to market their services or fails to heed the tips below, they may find themselves with quite a bit of free time in the future....
For lawyers, email is quickly becoming the preferred method of communication with nearly everyone. It creates a wonderful paper trail that shows how diligent we are, while also sending messages nearly instantaneously (and dependably, unlike email’s older brother facsimile). Over the last several years, there’s no doubt that, email etiquette has evolved as it has become more ubiquitous. And for lawyers, that means being just as diligent when sending an email as when sending a letter, as the two have nearly the same force and effect these days....
Self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, high-tech Roombas – call them what you may, but they’re becoming increasingly visible on our roads, in our headlines, and, perhaps soon, in court rooms. And self-driving vehicles aren’t just for techno futurists in Silicon Valley anymore; even the federal government and major Detroit automakers are on board. But as the recently-revealed fatality involving the driver of an auto-piloted Tesla car shows, there are still plenty of questions about self-driving cars’ safety and any liability for accidents....
Many have said that startups like LegalZoom.com are “disruptors” of the legal industry. That label, which is about as played out as “cyber-__” is overused, and some might say, misapplied in the LegalZoom context. Sam Glover, over at Lawyerist, points out that legal form distributors and prepaid legal services have been around forever. LegalZoom just tossed it onto the Internet (and added some damn good marketing). He has a great point....
Is your company engaging in false advertising? Are you sure? When was the last time someone from the marketing department walked through your door to make sure they were on the up-and-up? Maybe it’s time you checked. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating “outlet stores” – those low-priced colonies of large clothing labels like Saks, J. Crew, Gap, and so on – that live in outlying outlet malls around the nation....
Who really knows whether the nation’s natural gas and oil infrastructure is at heightened risk of cyber attack? Government officials say the threat is real, and they want to oversee security. Industry leaders, however, are telling the government to back off. Whether you see the drama or the comedy in the debate, gas and oil are basically saying they don’t need any stinking badges. Oil and Gas Breaking Energy, a trade publication for the gas and oil industry, says there is no heightened risk of cyber threats to the infrastructure....
Michael Petite was arrested back in 2010 during an undercover drug bust in Florida. Both a gun and a small amount of cocaine were found in Petite’s possession. Since Petite had a number of prior convictions, the gun charge led to an enhanced sentence of 188 months under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). On appeal, Petite argued that his sentence should be reduced since his prior conviction for “simple vehicle flight” doesn’t qualify as a “violent felony” under the ACCA....
Lawyers have a love-hate relationship with mandatory minimum sentencing: Prosecutors love it, and defense attorneys hate it. But mandatory minimum sentencing isn’t entirely rigid; there is a safety valve statute that lets courts give an offender less time in prison than the mandatory minimum requires. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals interprets the safety valve statute strictly, noting that “by its terms, the safety valve provision applies only to convictions under five specified [drug] offenses:”...
Back in July, John Michael Farren was found guilty of attempted murder for beating his wife, Mary Margaret Farren, nearly to death at their Connecticut mansion in 2010. Farren was a former deputy White House counsel for the George W. Bush administration who, at the time of the assault, was general counsel for Xerox. But it wasn’t over yet. In December, we blogged about the outcome of Farren’s civil suit. He was found liable for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress to the tune of $28....
In Borkowski v. F/V Madison Kate, Sea Ventures, LLC, No. 09-1311, the First Circuit addressed commercial fishermen’s claims of federal maritime law and state wage laws. As stated in the decision: “Where the fishermen have already received a lay share portion of the proceeds from the fishing voyages they participated in, there does not appear to be any other real remedy for the vessel owners’ failure to comply with section 10601, absent section 11107....
The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education 58 years ago, but some public school systems are still operating under federal desegregation orders to achieve the goals set in that landmark decision. The Pitt County School System is one of those monitored school systems. In the 1960s, a district court in North Carolina determined that the Pitt County School Board was operating a racially segregated dual school district in violation of students’ rights to equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment....
Tech is always in motion, and sometimes that includes general counsel. Crowdstrike, NCC Media, and JW Player have announced new chief legal officers. It’s a trifecta that suggests changes to come in the cybersecurity, technology and media industries. And in the Silicon Valley, sometimes one change can change everything. Crowdstrike Cybersecurity company Crowdstrike has appointed Paul Shinn as chief legal officer as the privately held company considers going public. Shinn has worked as corporate counsel for 20 years in Silicon Valley, most recently as chief legal officer for software company Gigaman....
We’ve all been there. Someone, a partner, co-counsel, support staff, whoever, makes commitments at the onset of a project, and they never follow through. This isn’t just a problem with unreliable associates or partners with conflicting priorities; it’s something lawyers and law firms of all sizes experience. You’ll probably never get everyone to do everything they’ve committed to, 100 percent of the time. But there are some steps you can take to improve follow through....
Not a week after Apple announced that it couldn’t break the new default encryption in iOS 8 even if it had to, FBI Director James Comey fired the first of the government’s PR shots at Apple and Google, chiding them for having the audacity to prevent the government from snooping on people’s phones at its pleasure. In Comeyland – which is a lot like Disneyland, but with more armed guards – the government always holds the spare key to your diary and if you don’t let the government snoop on you, children could die....
Few people like to do their taxes, and as a consequence they’ll try to blaze through the tax-paying process as fast as possible. But if you’re an in-house lawyer, that’s greenbacks left in the hands of the IRS. And as much as people hate doing their taxes, they should hate letting the government keep their dollars. One of the most common deductions taken are travel related. Here are a few IRS tips that will help you reduce your company’s tax liability this season....
According to reports, an off-shore company called Legaler will create cryptocurrency for the legal industry. Stevie Ghiassi, chief executive officer of the company, wants to raise up to $35 million for blockchain technology that lawyers can use for transactions with clients and service providers. Legaler also said it will use the technology to help charities with crowdfunding. Not to quote Chicken Little, but didn’t the digital currency market just fall 30 percent?...
The repeated use of a racial slur in an isolated incident can create a hostile work environment, the Fourth Circuit ruled en banc earlier this month. While the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that outlying incidents of discriminatory language or actions often do not create an hostile work environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; at the same time, the Court has emphasized that some instances, when sufficiently severe, can alone create such a violation....
Generally, when you want to rely on amateur legal interpretations promising that you’ll be “arrested” if you try and do such-and-such things, you’re in the realm of some online forum or chain email from Aunt Hilda complaining about how the Obama administration is arresting people who put up Christmas decorations. But what happens when it’s actual lawyers who are making this crazy advice? And of course we’re in Florida. You’ll recall that, in August, Judge Robert Hinkle held the state’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional – like the overwhelming majority of judges to decide the issue....
An attorney for the Labor Department was found dead in his jail cell, with his throat slashed, reports The Washington Post. Fifty-eight-year-old Paul Mannina was charged with sexually assaulting his co-worker when he was sentenced to jail in Washington D.C. His death occurred mere hours after a Supeior Court judge rejected Mannina’s request to seek out mental-health care, and ordered that he instead continued to be held in jail. What can we take from this sad story about the government worker?...
Kyle Goodwin, a videographer of high school sports, got T-boned along the information super highway. He was stopped at an information intersection when a reckless driver rear-ended him and sent him helplessly into internet traffic. A crossing vehicle smashed into him and there he sat – or at least his video information sat – stuck in a third-party server. Unfortunately, it’s been five years and his digital videos are still trapped in the same place....
