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It’s one of the hottest topics for in-house counsel, thanks to the countless data debacles over the past few months and years: Target, Neiman Marcus, Barnes & Noble, etc. Companies have sensitive data, hackers break in, and companies respond with mouths agape, including their in-house counsel, who know a lot about law and little to nothing about encryption and best practices. We’re not going to reassure you by saying, “no big deal,” because it is a very big deal – even if you’re a technophobe, you need to have a data breach game plan for when the inevitable happens....

The Ninth Circuit hung fast to its volitional conduct rule in copyright claims last week, while making it a bit harder for copyright holders to go after online service providers for copyright infringement. In a dispute over pornography posted on Usenet (yes, apparently Usenet still exists), the Ninth reaffirmed that plaintiffs must show “volitional conduct” by tech services accused of infringing their copyrights. Simply allowing users to exchange infringing works isn’t enough....

We’ve had our suspicions since June or so, but today, someone far more important than a blogging lawyer came to the conclusion that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone metadata (calling records, phone numbers, etc.) “almost certainly” violates the Fourth Amendment: U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon. Judge Leon granted an injunction barring the NSA from collecting any metadata related to the two plaintiffs who alleged that they were affected by the phone program, while denying a similar injunction for a similar Internet data collection program that allegedly ended in 2011....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. It’s happened: In a landmark e-discovery ruling, a federal judge has explicitly approved of computer-assisted review, also known as predictive coding (the use of sophisticated algorithms to enable a computer to determine relevance based on training by a human reviewer), to search for potentially responsive electronically stored information, or ESI. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck, of the Southern District of New York, concluded “that computer-assisted review is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases” in Monique Da Silva Moore, et al....

Anyone looking for an attorney job in Boston? You have one week left to get your application materials in to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The First Circuit has announced a job opening for Administrative Attorney. The position is in Boston. The attorney will provide legal assistance to First Circuit courts, including the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the District Courts in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island....

No, you read it right. A court in Texas issued Microsoft a permanent injunction, banning it from selling or importing any Microsoft Word products to the U.S. that have capability of opening .XML, .DOX, or DOCM files (XML). And Microsoft was ordered to pay up $290 million to boot. The order stems from a patent infringement action brought by Canadian company i4i. The Toronto-based company claimed that Microsoft’s word processing software infringed on its patent by using a built-in XML editor to display information....

You’re a large firm. You’ve invested in a skilled, sophisticated tech team: data analysts, programmers, legal tech experts, managers. They’ve helped you innovate your offices and practices, writing bespoke software tools or analyzing internal data. Now, you’re looking for ways to continue maximizing their value. What do you do? The answer in many law firms seems to be: turn them in to their own, client-facing service. In what could be the best upsell since McDonald’s started asking “do you want fries with that,” many firms are adding tech services to their roster of services....

A train needs coal, a car needs gas, and a lawyer needs clients. Solo practitioners, you didn’t go to law school to learn to market your legal practice, or to learn to build websites; you went to learn to be a lawyer. While lawyers are known to be persuasive in the courtroom and in legal writing, the same isn’t necessarily true when it comes to persuading new clients to hire you....

One week, rumors are flying about a settlement in the billions range, and as we noted, it wasn’t a far-fetched argument either. For years, Apple, Intel, Google, and Adobe agreed not to poach each others’ talent, an anticompetitive practice that almost certainly depressed salaries. The evidence was strong as well, with smoking gun emails sent by Steve Jobs and others now on public display. Instead, a proposed settlement was reached for millions, which sounds like a lot, until you consider the less-than-$5,000 per head payout and the years of artificially depressed salaries....

How many of you actually market your law firm? With all of these questions, you may not be sold on marketing your law firm. We understand, that’s why we’re here to talk to you like lawyers – to present you the evidence and build the case for lawyer marketing. 1. Results Are Measurable One of the great things about marketing is that you can actually measure your results. It can be as simple as asking new clients “how did you hear about our firm?...

We’ve extolled the virtues of Google’s Pay Per Click advertising, which is a great way to target ads at clients who are already looking for you, but just don’t know it yet – Google can mine its trove of users’ web browsing habits (via its search engine, Chrome browser, Gmail accounts, and other free services) to target ads to people who are researching or dealing with a legal issue. Google isn’t the only game in town, but they certainly are the biggest, and they have the largest amount of personal data....

‘In Fraud We Trust’ was their slogan. What were they thinking? Apparently not that much because U.S. attorneys have filed charges against them in one of the biggest online frauds ever prosecuted by the government. Global Organization In a press release, the Justice Department described a transnational racketeering enterprise. Authorities indicted 36 defendants, and arrested 13 in the United States and six other countries. Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan said the organization caused more than $530 million in actual losses to consumers, businesses and financial institutions....

US v. Brown, 09-1803, concerned a challenge to a defendant’s conviction for possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. In affirming the conviction, the court held that, although the district court’s factual findings and the inferences made from those findings, which formed the basis of its conclusion that reasonable suspicion existed to stop a car, are not compelled by the record or by the facts, both are nonetheless reasonable and therefore pass constitutional muster....

The U.S. Supreme Court may be the most authoritative court in all the land, but it is surely among the least technologically advanced, particularly in the federal judiciary. And since only a couple of the High Court justices reported even using email, and the fact that you can sometimes hear the paper pages flipping on the audio recordings, one can safely assume that the SCOTUS courtroom is an electronics free environment....

In a case that could set the tone for negative Yelp reviews around the country, a California appeals court affirmed a lower court’s injunction that ordered Yelp to remove an angry review against a law firm. The negative Yelp review is the bane of hard-working and honest solo lawyers. The language of the court perhaps provides a means for some attorneys and small businesses to remove defamatory reviews against their businesses whilst also avoiding some restrictions posed by the federal Communications Decency Act....

Remember that 2011 movie “Win Win,” where probate attorney Paul Giamatti tells the court that he’ll become an elderly man’s caretaker, and in return he’ll receive money for doing so from the man’s estate? Then he sticks the guy in a home and pockets the cash. Ah, how life imitates art. That sort of happened to a Maryland elder law attorney, except, unlike Paul Giamatti, he got disbarred. What are some of the obvious professional responsibility lessons to come from this?...

Referrals can be an important source of business for your law firm, as other lawyers recommend your firm for clients they cannot take or cases they won’t handle. John can’t take a personal injury case because he has no time? He may hand it over to Sally. Sally does do divorce but has a client who needs family law services? She may send him to Jim. You get the idea....

There’s a lot of information out there on how important mentors are for solo attorneys and how to find the right mentor as a new attorney. But what about being a good mentor for other lawyers? Most attorneys have benefitted from a mentor at some point in their careers, so it seems only fair that you give back when you have the time and knowledge to help out someone who’s new....

Is there a better place for people watching than a criminal court in California? Most of the nation would agree that us Californians are a wee bit odd. Head to the nearest criminal court and that oddity is multiplied exponentially. No where is this more evident than wardrobe choices. You are in court. You’re facing time. What do you choose to wear? Even worse, you are the attorney, you are representing someone who is facing time, and you choose to wear that?...

No publicity is bad publicity, right? What about getting publicity for being desperate to get publicity? We’ve all heard about Justin Bieber’s recent troubles in Miami. A local attorney, who also serves as the beach commissioner, was so excited about the case, that he sent out emails, offering himself up for an interview, three separate times, for a case that he pretty much isn’t involved in. To make it even more disturbing, he apparently thought he was Bieber’s attorney....