Posts

If you’re a lawyer in the Big Apple or Baghdad by the Bay, we’ve got a present for you. FindLaw’s California and New York Codes sections are updated, improved, and ready for you to use. Free, mobile-friendly, and brought to you through FindLaw’s partnership with Westlaw, we’re pretty confident that the new codes will make your practice, and your life, a little better. Here’s how. FindLaw’s updated California and New York codes sections bring you more than half a million pages of laws, all through our partnership with Thomson Reuters Westlaw, our sister company and the industry leader in legal research....

Harder, faster, better, stronger. That’s the promise of technology. With a few gadgets and programs, you can cut down the time spent on tasks and compete work with more ease and accuracy. Just think of what things would be like if we didn’t have email or electronic legal research databases, for example. But even with all these technological advances, it can still seem like the work is never over, especially after the 300th email of the day lands in your inbox....

If you aren’t on Twitter working the social media marketing for your law practice, and you don’t ever plan on doing so, you still might want to check out #LawyerTwitter, as it has been so hashtagged. There’s some really funny stuff on there that’s sure to please lawyers from the most zealous to the most jaded. And who doesn’t like to laugh? While the FindLaw for Legal Professional’s Twitter page may not be a bastion of humor or beacon for laughter, most of us here do enjoy legal humor ranging from the most sarcastic snark to the saddest of puns....

Apple is facing more legal trouble in the wake of a class action lawsuit brought by disgruntled users who haplessly upgraded to its iOS 9 operating system. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that Apple failed to “properly warn” iOS 9 users that the new Wi-Fi Assist feature would automatically turn on after an OS update leading to huge data charges. Mobile devices are all equipped to access the Internet when in close enough proximity to a wireless router; and most are capable of using data to access the mobile networks, depending on the data plan....

Artificial intelligence is taking over a job near you, if it hasn’t already. BigLaw firm DLA Piper has partnered with Canadian tech firm Kira Systems to launch an AI legal tech tool that will be used for document review during M&A transactions. This automation step has been billed by DLA Piper as a boon for clients and the company. It’s the latest in BigLaw handshakes with AI companies, and it has everyone at the bottom of the totem pole worried....

Illinois, the first state to enact a privacy law for biometric data, will soon have another first in the field. The Illinois Supreme Court will decide whether plaintiffs have to show harm to sue under the privacy law. In Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., a state appeals court said a mother wasn’t an “aggrieved party” when she sued Six Flags for scanning her son’s thumbprint. In that sense, it is a unique case....

Here’s some interesting information about a Continuing Legal Education event in the Boston area on Wednesday. The event is titled “First Circuit Court of Appeals: Insights and Observations on Successful Strategies for First Circuit Appellate Practice.” It’s being hosted by The Massachusetts Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, The Boston Bar Association and The Woman’s Bar Association . There are several speakers lined up to present at this event, many of them familiar names within the First Circuit Court of Appeals....

If police impound your client’s car for driving on a suspended license, chances are the police won’t give it back until the client pays a hefty fine and penalties. In California, it also means the client won’t get the car for 30 days. Or so it used to be, until one feisty driver sued the police for violating her Fourth Amendment rights. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said police unlawfully held onto a driver’s car after she presented a valid driver’s license and offered to pay the fees....

From the state that brought you recreational marijuana, Colorado now invites you to text while driving. Whether you are a resident or just passing through, apparently you can text, browse, or use your cell phone for selfies with one-hand while steering with the other. Just don’t do it in a “careless or in an imprudent manner.” In practice, this means don’t text while your car is moving. “Sounds like a political decision made under the influence of legalized marijuana,” wrote Benno Kushnir....

In Florida, email pleadings may soon be the wave of the future. Instead of having to deal with a mass amount of paper and complaints heading toward your way via the U.S. Postal Service, Florida attorneys may soon be facing a deluge of e-mail pleadings. The Florida Bar is proposing that the state change its pleading methods so that attorneys must exchange pleadings with each other via e-mail instead of via paper, reports the AP....

For the first time ever, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed two lawsuits over sexual orientation discrimination. Both suits are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which does not explicitly prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Rather, the suits rely on the EEOC’s relatively new interpretation that Title VII’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination also covers anti-LGBT bias. For decades, there has been no federal prohibition against anti-gay and lesbian discrimination in the workplace....

Anno domini 2014. Some called it the year of “social media engagement.” Others call it the Year of the Horse. And if you’re general counsel for a university with an athletics department, it’s going to be the year of pain. For everyone else, it’s just another year, with an endless list of tasks to complete. To make sure some of those tasks haven’t slipped through the cracks, we thought we’d give you a few reminders....

The good news is that more women are becoming law partners. The bad news is, that represents only about 25 percent at the leading firms. And somewhere in between the good news and the bad news is a question: Small Law Partner Numbers According to reports, women make up less than 35 percent of the women surveyed at American law firms. The “Glass Ceiling Report” by Law360 is based on a survey of 300 law firms with at least 20 attorneys....

Their customers may have no expectation of privacy when using Gmail, but at least now, the kids are all right. Well, kinda. Google announced on Wednesday that it had ceased scanning Google Apps for Education users’ email for the purposes of delivering targeted ads, reports The Wall Street Journal. Though the company never placed advertisements in users’ email accounts, and claims that it never actually used the collected data to deliver ads elsewhere, the collection was scrutinized during the email scanning lawsuit, a dispute that ended with a victory for the tech company last month....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. At this point, it may come as no surprise that the US government has some ability to monitor internet traffic. However, the tremendous extent of government surveillance may be somewhat alarming to those who are interested in privacy on the internet. An article by RT.com reports that the NSA has the ability to read 75 percent of all U....

Civil Rights Action Concerning Prison Food Service In Green v. Atkinson, No. 09-11050, an action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against food service employees, the warden, and the assistant warden of the prison where plaintiff was an inmate, alleging that defendants failed to screen inmates’ food for foreign objects (e.g., a metal nut in plaintiff’s cornbread), the dismissal of the complaint is vacated in part where the district court erred in dismissing the suit for failure to state a nonfrivolous claim without permitting plaintiff to develop further the factual basis for it....

Often the requirements of the job simply make attorneys miserable. Three extra years of schooling and passing an exam were supposed to make life better, right? Whether it’s the long hours, the heavy weight of responsibility, or the nature of the work itself, many lawyers find out too late that the job can wreak havoc on a person’s happiness. Fortunately, even if you need to work miserably long hours, or in an area, or for a boss, you hate, you may still be able to find ways to be happy (especially if you’re making good money) right where you are....

Everybody knows that Thomas Edison said, “Genius is one percent perspiration, ninety-nine percent inspiration.” And everybody knows, or at least with a quick Google search can find out, that Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in a dish of bacteria. But does anybody know that James H. Solomon created a key to legal methodology, a human algorithm that can predict legal outcomes? Of course not, because I just made that up....

When Mark Phariss and Vic Holmes tried to get married two years ago, they were told, “We don’t do that in Texas.” The couple sued, along with Nicole Dimetman and Cleo DeLeon, arguing that their relationship deserved equal legal rights and respect. They won in district court and, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, in the Fifth Circuit. Now, they do do that in Texas....

James “Whitey” Bulger has been found guilty of murder, as well as racketeering and conspiracy, as part of the infamous “Winter Hill Gang” during the 1970s and 80s. Although Bulger, 83, was charged in the murder of 19 victims over the course of the last four decades, a federal jury found that prosecutors had only proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he’d committed 11 of the slayings, reports The Boston Globe....