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The circus that is the McDonnell Corruption Trial continued on Monday, this time with former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on the stand facing intense cross-examination by both the government and his co-defendant wife’s counsel. After Bob McDonnell spent days last week testifying as his own star witness, telling jurors that he couldn’t have conspired with his wife because their marriage was estranged, that his wife was on medication for her frequent emotional outbursts, and that she was the one who sought out gifts from Jonnie Williams without his knowledge, the cross-examination, which could last for days, commenced....

If you use Gmail and you’ve been looking for a new way to help you manage your projects, cases, and deadlines, Google’s new standalone Tasks app may be your answer. The new app integrates flawlessly into Gmail, similarly to the recently leaked update that brings Google Calendar into the Gmail web-client. Simply clicking a little box on the sidebar of your Gmail will bring up your Tasks lists, and you can edit and even add tasks without leaving your email browser window....

We don’t practice employment law, so we won’t presume to tell you how to practice employment law. What we can tell you is how to annoy - or avoid annoying - judges in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals when filing a harassment lawsuit. While this niche competency doesn’t translate well to a social-networking profile or a resume, it could save you, and your client, unnecessary drama in the courtroom....

There’s an app for that. Or at least now there is. Court Days Pro is the newest app in the field of iPhone legal technology, and as the first rules-based legal calendaring app, its goal is to make calendaring an easier part of every attorney’s professional life. The only question remaining is whether or not you need it. The first step in using Court Days Pro is inputting court rules and holidays for relevant trial and appellate-related events....

Cyber insurance is the fastest growing area of the insurance market – by leaps and bounds. The cyber insurance market is exploding, as companies look to insulate themselves from liabilities stemming from hacking, data breaches, and the like. The ABA is even selling cyber insurance to lawyers now. Today, cyber insurance isn’t just something that lawyers need to consider adding to their insurance plans. It’s something they need to understand from a legal perspective....

In Nickey Gregory Co. LLC, v. AgriCap, LLC, No. 09-1130, the Fourth Circuit addressed the issue of whether the plaintiffs, sellers of perishable agricultural commodities, could seek disgorgement from a defendant-financier money owed them for the sale of produce to a bankrupt produce distributor under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA). As stated in the decision: “The distinction between a sale and a loan controls the issue of whether AgriCap purchased the assets free of the PACA trust or merely held the assets to collateralize its loans to Robison Farms, in which case the receivables would have remained subject to the PACA trust and would have been required, by the terms of the regulations, to be made “freely available” to pay obligations to commodities sellers....

Now that the Internet is celebrating its 25th birthday, one of its inventors is proposing a digital bill of rights to advance a free and open web for all users. Tim Berners-Lee published his plan for the World Wide Web back in 1989, and now he’s part of a larger campaign called Web at 25. The campaign seeks to raise awareness about Internet surveillance, promoting the need of net neutrality, and acknowledging the fact that nearly two-thirds of the world’s population don’t yet have Internet access, according to Wired....

Basketball fans love Steph Curry for his incredible shooting, but he shot an epic air ball when he said he didn’t think man landed on the moon. It was unbelievable that he didn’t believe in mankind’s giant leap almost 50 years ago. But that was part of the problem; Curry is only 30 years old. It’s also an example of how people – and companies – can be media influencers or just part of fake news....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. So often we hear about bad conduct on the Internet, be it identity theft, distributed denial of service attacks, or online defamation and character assassination. Well, how about a feel-good story? Some people actually do the right thing online. Indeed, blogging now is emerging as a philanthropic force. Take, for example, Bloganthropy.org, an Internet site which seeks to harness the power of social media to incorporate giving resources....

Social Security benefits are not disposable income that must be disclosed in a Chapter 13 petition, according to a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Monday. The New Orleans-based appellate court rejected a trustee’s challenge to a Chapter 13 plan this week, finding that a debtor is not statutorily-required to include Social Security income (SSI) in his projected disposable income calculation. The Ragoses’ actual monthly receipt of Social Security benefits totals $1,854....

Prakazrel Michel, aka “Pras” of the band Fugees, will be allowed to revive his defamation claim against the New York Post over allegations that the gossip publication’s piece on him damaged his reputation. It had earlier been dismissed by a lower federal court because the judge there thought that a gossip column spoke for itself. This case is interesting in that the appeals court affirmed the dismissal for a different reason....

Being perfect is a relative term, of course. “Perfect form” in tennis, for example, may define how a player strokes the ball. In law practice, “perfect writing” may be a brief without blemish. Some law firms, however, may put form over substance. That’s when being perfect is not a good thing. Perfection in Practice Mark Herrmann, author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, has been there and done that. He spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. The London Olympics are set to begin in about 10 weeks’ time. And as the excitement and pageantry build, concern also is growing with respect to congestion and IT challenges. There is little question that London, an already densely populated urban center, will feel the immense weight of the influx of people coming to be part of the Olympic Games....

A number of attorneys are bidding adieu to their in-house corporate law gigs to pursue a business of their own. After all, in-house attorneys have a unique vantage point. They play a meaningful role in nurturing businesses from their nascence and often stick by them until their untimely (or timely) demise. So why not toil away with your blood, sweat and tears to “raise” a business that you can actually call your own?...

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. According to press reports, online dating websites eHarmony, Match.com and Sparks Networks have entered into a joint statement of business principles to protect users from sexual predators and to help prevent identity theft and other scams. California Attorney General Kamala Harris followed up on this development by stating that “consumers should be able to use websites without fear of being scammed or targeted,” in apparent recognition that a woman was assaulted on a date that came about through an online dating site....

In the wee hours of an early April morning, Abdi Dire and his Somali scurvy crew launched an attack on the USS Nicholas, a mighty Navy vessel they mistook for a vulnerable merchant ship. Shiver me timbers, that was a bad idea. The not-so-merry band was captured, and forced to walk the plank all the way to the Eastern District of Virginia, where they were convicted of piracy and sentenced to life plus 80 years....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Following his recent State of the Union address, President Obama issued an Executive Order entitled “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” The Policy section of the Executive Order notes that repeated cyber intrusions into critical infrastructure demand improved cybersecurity. This section correctly points out that the threat to critical infrastructure “continues to grow and represents one of the most serious national security challenges we must confront....

Rolando Rojas was convicted of distributing cocaine, in violation of federal law, to undercover agent Wing Chau, on three different occasions from January 2011 to March 2011. During the course of the investigation, some of the phone calls were recorded, and meetings were video/audio recorded. The Closing Arguments During the closing arguments, “the prosecutor committed two errors,” according to the court. First, the prosecutor played an audiotape during closing arguments, which had not been admitted into evidence....

U.S. ex rel. Loughren v. Unum Group, 09-1606, concerned a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA), claiming that defendants knowingly caused their insureds to file baseless applications for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), thereby burdening the Social Security Administration with the time and expense required to deny such claims. In affirming the district court’s judgment in part, the court held that, because the statement at issue is capable of influencing the agency’s decision to consider and ultimately pay the claim, it is thus material under the FCA....

If you advertise on Saturday Night Live, will it make a joke out of your law firm? DUI attorney Darren Kavinoky isn’t worried about it. He took out a spot on SNL to advertise the “De-Alcohol-Orizer,” an edible air freshener that neutralizes alcohol in your system. It’s a gag, of course, but Kavinoky isn’t joking about drunk-driving. He’s just having some fun with advertising. In a legal system that can be overly intimidating, it’s not a totally bad idea....