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Anderson County, Tennessee, is comprised mostly of four small cities and a dozen coal-mining communities. One, Heiskell, is little more than a post office. But the county government boasts that it has evolved into “a world-leading technological powerhouse.” That’s the mayor talking, of course. The thing is, as sometimes happens in small towns, politicians can overstate the case. That’s what happened in a legal battle between two county directors, and it’s not over....

Legal writing isn’t easy. Whether it’s a letter for a client, a complaint, a motion, or other pleading, clear writing can help you win the day for your client. However, sometimes trying to synthesize legal arguments and long fact patterns into easy to read and easy to understand paragraphs can seem impossible. According to Justice Kagan, who has certainly proven herself to be rather prolific with the pen, to be a good legal writer, you have to be good at law, and a good writer....

A routine vehicle stop in Miami became anything but routine after a police officer shot a suspect in the groin – for no apparent reason. Det. Carl Rousseau pulled over a car and reportedly saw the passenger, Robert Valderrama, throw something out the car window that turned out to be a crack pipe. Even though Valderrama appeared to be compliant during the stop, Rousseau shot him in the groin (refer to the Eleventh Circuit opinion for more of the grisly details)....

Florida police may have watched one too many sci-fi films when they tried to use a dead man’s fingerprint to unlock his cell phone. The deceased, Linus Phillips, was already at the morgue when investigators showed up with his cell phone. They suspected him in police-involved shooting, which obviously didn’t end well for Phillips. The fingerprint scan didn’t work out for the police either. Apparently, they didn’t know the line between fact and fiction....

Judge Don R. Willett has more Twitter followers than any other judge, except perhaps Judge Judy. But Willett is a real judge. In fact, some say Willett is more real because he is on Twitter. Willett is a member of the Texas Supreme Court and a short-lister for the U.S. Supreme Court, but closer to the public because he is on social media. “Justice Willett’s tweets are smart, humorous, and informative; he has quickly established a national reputation on social media as a result of his ability to strike the proper balance between accessibility and appropriate judicial decorum,” said Judge Stephen Louis Dillard of the Georgia Court of Appeals....

Even if you’re a die-hard Googler, and use all of Google’s services, you may want to consider deleting that Google+ profile before the company retires the service in April 2019. If that date sounds different than what was previously announced, that’s because it is. Last October, Google announced that the Google+ service was afflicted with a bug that left user data exposed. At that time, it explained that the service, which was suffering due to no one using it, would be officially closed down in August 2019....

When you’re great - haters gonna hate. It’s a fact of life. Dominate global fast food sales and a documentary gets made about the effect of gluttony and fries. Become one of the word’s largest fast food chains, and people will measure the length of your baguette? Apparently so. Some guy in Australia measured his “footlong” and it came up short. (That’s what she said.) He shared the shortcoming with the Internet....

Although law firms do not tend to adhere to the typical structure of most for-profit businesses, the politics certainly can feel rather typical. As associates try to impress partners, backs get stabbed, “friends” get crossed, and lawyers suddenly have to admit that some TV lawyer drama at least got the drama part right. But, office politics don’t have to be tricky. After all, just about everyone is seeking the same exact things in a law firm: promotion to partner and/or more money....

Performance reviews are love-hate relationships. Your employer gives the review, and you either love them or you hate them. It depends, of course, on whether you get a good review or a bad one. According to new research, however, all reviews are basically bad because they start with implicit bias. Like we said, it’s a love-hate thing. 1. Create a Rubric Implicit bias is a virtual fact-of-life. It means that everybody subconsciously judges others based on societal and environmentally programmed assumptions....

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of local-mobile searches, but here’s the two-sentence recap: Searches from mobile phones is rising exponentially, and Google prioritizes local business listings on its search results page. Plus, adding a local listing simply makes it easier for people who are looking for you to actually find you, especially since everybody uses their smartphone for navigation. That latter point is why you may want to sign up for Apple Maps Connect as soon as possible....

If you are a lesbian, gay, bi, or transgendered worker, outing yourself in the office can be risky, even today. Employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is banned in only 21 states and the District of Columbia; protections against gender identity discrimination are even rarer. There are huge swaths of the country where LGBT employees can be freely fired for no other reason than their sexuality or gender identity. But the legal industry across the country continues to be one of the most LGBT-inclusive industries in the nation....

Does corn sugar sound more appealing than High Fructose Corn Syrup to you? The Corn Refiners Association certainly thought so. But the real issue for national corporations is whether the FDA’s decision is intended as a slap on the wrist in response to public outcry. Luckily for national sellers, it appears that the FDA’s decision was based on concerns over public health. It likely wasn’t an attempt to block the Corn Refiner’s Association from rebranding HFCS entirely....

A lifetime ban on Internet and pornography is not unreasonable punishment for a man caught sharing child pornography, the Eleventh Circuit ruled on Wednesday. In 2013, Glen Sterling Carpenter was caught downloading and possessing child pornography. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release. That release included two special conditions: Carpenter may never again possess a device capable of connecting to the Internet and he many never posses any sexually explicit material whatsoever....

Among the many stereotypes that lawyers have to deal with, the one that rings true is the high rate of depression among attorneys. Let’s face it – we are not a happy lot. But maybe we can be. A growing trend among corporations, especially those in Silicon Valley, is the appointment of Chief Happiness Officers. This new member of the C-suite is responsible for making sure employees are happy. Sound silly?...

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has done poorly in recent court decisions which has led some to consider the impact its invalidation could have on employment issues, including health benefits. DOMA’s invalidation would affect federal laws regarding private employment as well as benefits for federal employees. If it’s overturned by the Supreme Court that could require employers to offer the same health benefits to both gay and straight employees....

Wait, what? You mean somewhere in between Aunt Sally and George Takei, the Drug Enforcement Agency was on Facebook? Apparently so. Earlier this month, Buzzfeed reported about Sondra Prince, a real person, whose Facebook page was not her own. Prince (real name: Sondra Arquiett) was arrested on the ground that she was part of a drug ring. She was sentenced to probation. Unbeknownst to her, DEA agent Timothy Sinnigen set up a Facebook profile using her name and photos in the hope that criminals would try to communicate with her....

Challenging the Defense of Marriage Act after being denied spousal benefits, Karen Golinski appeared eager to participate in a federal courtroom camera pilot program. Though she gave her consent to the broadcast of an October 21 hearing in the Northern District of California, that broadcast will not be happening. Without explaining why, Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives last week declined to allow the recording. Under the courtroom camera pilot program, all parties must consent to having the proceedings taped and broadcasted....

We recently saw an interview of Bruce Barket* on Bloomberg Law, where he talked about his experience starting a law firm in the post-recession economy. Bucking industry trends, his firm is not shrinking, but growing. Here are some tips that we gleaned from his interview on how to start a post-2008, recession-proof law firm. When deciding to start your own law firm, consider teaming up with other established superstars. During the course of your career, you’ve likely met many attorneys that you admire and respect....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. When I first started working on legal issues relating to electronic data, we were back in the dark ages of the 1980s. This was well before Bill Clinton talked about the coming “information superhighway” when he was running for president in the early 1990s. We were living in a world where document production in legal cases meant the production of actual hard copy pieces of paper and nothing else....

A federal district judge has preliminarily approved a settlement in a class action, in which plaintiffs allege that J.Crew violated Massachusetts law by collecting zip codes at check out. While that case is wrapping up, another, involving UPS is heating up as the Supreme Court granted cert to hear the case in the 2014 term. Let’s take a look at the issues in the case, which incidentally, affect most companies operating today....