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The U.S. Supreme Court sided with taxpayers this week on a case out of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, U.S. v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC, was one of the notorious “Son-of-Boss” cases. A quick primer on “Son of Boss” cases: The IRS decided to crack down on tax-shelters in the 1990’s. “Boss” stood for “bond and option sales strategies.” Essentially, under a typical “Son of Boss” scheme, there would be paper losses which would offset real gains....

We’re going to steal a page from our Technologist blog and talk tech today. But don’t worry, it’s relevant – we promise. Small firms operate under constraints we can identify with – limited budget, no room for downtime, and a need for maximum productivity. Some of these tips will prevent PC-crashing panic. Others keep you working – at home, in the office, or on the road, with no downtime. Each is worth considering in the New Year, if you haven’t already taken the leap yet....

Two weeks ago, a district court in Hawaii issued a temporary restraining order, barring the implementation of President Trump’s most recent travel ban while the state contested its constitutionality. Now that bar is much less temporary. Yesterday, Judge Derrick Watson agreed to convert that TRO into a preliminary injunction, one that will continue to block the rollout of Trump’s ban for the foreseeable future. That means it’s aloha to the TRO and aloha to a longer-lasting PI....

John Stuart Mill, the political philosopher, wrote about Hobson’s choice: either voting for a candidate or not voting at all. But Thomas Hobson was not a politician. He owned horses, and offered customers the horses nearest to the stable door or none at all. That’s just a bit of history to give context to the general counsel’s choice: compliance or self-governance? Is that really a choice after all? Two Paradigms In a Forbes article on compliance vs....

The Apple-Samsung patent case is in after over 50 hours of testimony and several days of jury deliberation. The verdict was announced Friday afternoon and the jury’s verdict leaves no doubt that Samsung is the loser. At least one member of the Samsung family of smartphones and touchscreens was found to infringe on almost every patent claim Apple made. Samsung’s arguments that the patents were invalid fell on deaf ears with this jury....

When President Donald Trump waived the attorney-client privilege for tapes Michael Cohen made of their conversations, the legal community gasped – but not for the reasons everybody else did. Everyone knew the tapes, including a discussion to pay hush money to a former Playboy model, could become Trump’s Watergate. They could be his Waterloo. They could be… Wait, lawyers exclaimed. Did the President say “cash?” Not a Good Idea Seriously, it’s usually not a good idea to waive the attorney-client privilege....

It’s easy to vilify the perpetrators and beneficiaries of securities fraud — the one percent living in their ivory towers with their golden toilets — so we usually don’t mind when the long arm of the law reaches into a bank account to retrieve ill-gotten gains. It’s slightly harder to cheer for disgorgement, however, when the American Cancer Society (ACS) is being disgorged. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had similar misgivings last week, and ruled that a receiver had not made her case for recovering $240,000 in donations to the ACS....

It’s really true what they say: the hardest part is getting started. So many firms once started out as single person or maybe two-person practices before becoming the storied BigLaw firms they are today. Obviously, things were different back then than they are now. But how much so? If you’re starting out your own firm or have even already done so, take heart in the fact that others have been there to suffer before you....

Clients often ask a lot of their lawyers, but there are some types of favors you should never do for a client. Some lawyers have learned this the hard way, and have faced discipline as a result. While they may have had their client’s best intentions at heart, their actions violated Rules of Professional Conduct, not to mention common sense. Whether you’re just starting out or you need a reminder about ethics, here are five favors for your client that you should do your best to avoid:...

Last October, the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that European citizens’ data isn’t safe when stored in the U.S., cutting some 4,500 American companies off from the benefits of the E.U.’s “Safe Harbor” system. That meant that American businesses could be forced to comply with complicated restrictions on sending personal data out of Europe, limiting the transfer of everything from consumers’ favorite websites to employees’ birthdates. That is, unless Europe and the United States could come to a compromise before the new restrictions came into effect....

In Pages-Ramirez v. Ramirez-Gonzalez, No. 08-1831, the First Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiffs’ medical malpractice suit against an obstetrician and others claiming that the doctor caused catastrophic injuries to their son during his delivery. As stated in the decision: “The dispositive question is not whether an expert is board certified in a particular medical specialty. Rather, the Rules of Evidence require that the judge admit expert testimony relevant to the disposition of the case when it will assist the trier of fact in understanding a fact in issue and rests on a reliable foundation....

There are fewer and fewer women joining the ranks of BigLaw firms these days - at least according to a new survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL). For in-house counsel everywhere, this marked shift in the gender makeup of large law firms begs the question: what will happen to the hiring pool? Many corporations source their legal talent from BigLaw firms. With fewer women entering the associate ranks (47% of first and second year associates are women, down from 48% in past years), there may be a shift coming soon to your company....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals may have to continue waiting for the Senate to confirm Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Higginson’s nomination to the bench due to delays in a D.C. Circuit nominee’s confirmation process. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Higginson’s nomination on July 14, but Caitlin Halligan, a nominee for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is ahead of Higginson in the vote queue. The Senate, however, could agree to hear Higginson’s nomination first; Halligan is expected to encounter Republican opposition, whereas Higginson has enthusiastic bi-partisan support from Senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, reports The Times-Picayune....

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals restored funding to Texas Planned Parenthood clinics on Friday, finding that there’s sufficient evidence that a state law preventing Planned Parenthood from participating in the Women’s Health Program is unconstitutional, reports The Associated Press. The decision reinstates Judge Lee Yeakel’s injunction pending a trial in the matter. Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, however, stayed the injunction. Lawyers for the state previously argued that Judge Yeakel’s injunction would cause Texas women irreparable harm....

Ah, the life of in-house counsel. You were hired after a decade in a BigLaw, tackling transactional work. Now, in addition to structuring your company’s big moves, you handle everything else, from IP protection to litigation, including employment disputes. They aren’t lawyers. You are. Even if you aren’t an employment law guru, you’ve got your work cut out for you. A great place to start is the brief (and free) FindLaw Guide to Counseling the Human Resources Department....

I once had a car, a 1986 Nissan Pulsar NX, that had no keys. The ignition was started with a screwdriver, and the doors were always unlocked. I had this car for more than two years before it was towed away by the city. Imagine an estimated two-thirds of your Internet accounts being that car. This, my friends, is Heartbleed, which has left the doors open since 2011. And the locksmiths are taking their time going around and changing the locks....

Total legal spending by U.S.-based companies in the survey decreased from 0.43% to 0.4% of revenue.The participating companies spent 60% of their legal budget on outside counsel.Spending on outside counsel increased by 4% in for participating U.S. companies, though as a percentage of revenue, outside counsel spending was down slightly, from 0.24% to 0.22%.Responding companies were farming out more of their legal matters to outside counsel (397 matters, versus 377 last year)....

When it comes to reviewing depositions, a little technology can really make a huge difference. If you received a digital file, chances are good that you should be able to run text searches on your computer to find relevant testimony or something you remembered being said from that day. And if you’re using the right software, then applying highlighting or underlining, or inserting notes, could be as simple as clicking along as you read....

In a surprising turn of events for Bill Cosby, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling requiring the disgraced celebrity’s insurer, AIG, to provide his defense in the defamation cases filed against him. While the policy’s terms regarding its duty to defend have exclusions for sexual misconduct, among many others, the court found that the defamation claims did not fall under the exclusions. The court was also adamant that their holding was case specific, and rather narrow to apply only to a policy holder....

If your criminal clients are using iPhones, you should warn them that they are leaving a gold mine of information for the police to access if (when) they get arrested. Former hacker Jonathan Zdziarski now works with the police, teaching them how to access data from iPhones as evidence. He wrote a 144 page book on the matter called iPhone Forensics. Zdziarski wants to educate police about how much information is stored on iPhones and how they can acquire the data for criminal cases....