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The eDiscovery market is undergoing a major boom. The growth of the eDiscovery industry, estimated to triple in size before 2022, is being fueled primarily by the growth of massive data collection. From corporate instant messaging, to social media, to the Internet of Things, more and more of our information is being electronically stored and sifted through during litigation. But, some eDiscovery industry leaders are starting to question the “collect everything” mindset, arguing that excessive data collection and storage is expensive, impractical, and unnecessary....

For many attorneys, the challenge of running their own practice isn’t necessarily the law. It’s keeping their business going. Maintaining a healthy flow of clients isn’t easy, and sites like LegalZoom don’t help matters much. The online do-it-yourself legal documents company recently filed for an IPO with the SEC. Some analysts believe the move could raise up to $120 million for the organization. So how many potential clients are your firm losing to LegalZoom, and is there hope?...

Negotiating settlements and plea deals as a solo (or at a small firm) can sometimes be tedious. To mix things up, how would you like to broker a deal to have a country music legend sing for his freedom? That’s exactly what is happening with Willie Nelson’s most recent pot bust in West Texas. The prosecutor has offered to let Willie get off if he hands over a C Note and sings for his freedom… literally....

“Do Not Track” could’ve been something major. The DNT standard was introduced as an option that could be toggled by users to tell websites to, you guessed it, stop tracking them with cookies and scripts. Without the option enabled, many sites use these methods to track which sites you visit. (This is why when you look up an item online, but don’t actually purchase it, it’ll show up in ads on other sites for weeks thereafter....

You don’t have to look far to find someone claiming that lawyers are tech-phobic. The perception of lawyers as reactionary Luddites isn’t exactly correct, however. While the legal industry might not embrace the latest tech trends as quickly as say, a Silicon Valley social media startup, lawyers are no strangers to cutting-edge tech. Take artificial intelligence, for example. A developing technology with some of the most “disruptive” potential, artificial intelligence is already working its way in to the legal sphere and leaving its mark on attorneys’ everyday practices....

TV commercials are an integral part of lawyer advertising and marketing. If you go too far outside the mainstream, people will make fun of you (and we have). 1. Standing in Front of Books. Please, spare potential clients a shot of you standing or sitting in front of a bookshelf full of dusty old “legal-looking” books. All of us know that lawyers don’t use books anymore, and hopefully the public is starting to notice that as well....

Mentoring a summer associate? This time is especially crucial, with summer just beginning. Soon, if it hasn’t happened already, many firms will be welcoming a batch of new summer associates into their office. Mentoring is a partnership that exists in nearly all personal and professional arenas. Of course the legal world is not exempt from this. In fact, mentoring at a law firm is one of the most important aspects of a law student’s training....

The ABA Model Rules require that lawyers take reasonable steps towards protecting clients’ data. What’s reasonable? Reading this blog, and staying up to date with security concerns is a good start. Here are a couple of issues involving email providers that you should be aware of, along with a long-forgotten alternative. Apple’s ‘Barely Legal Teen’ Snafu Hey, we can’t say it’s our favorite phrase. We’re almost certain that if any emails are in our inboxes with that phrase, they are unsolicited pornography advertisements....

If you’re looking for a new date night restaurant, you probably check out online reviews. If you’re considering buying a new couch, you’d be smart to find out what other couch buyers have to say about it first. When it comes to finding lawyers, clients are increasingly turning to online reviews to discover and evaluate attorneys. And being reviewed online is becoming increasingly important. According to a new survey by FindLaw’s Lawyer Marketing, two-thirds of consumers would be more likely to hire a lawyer with online reviews....

Faisal Hashime just caught a break. After being sentenced to fifteen years in prison for “manufacturing” child pornography, he’ll, at minimum, get a new trial, with the words of the Forth Circuit guiding future proceedings: Why was the court so apparently disturbed by the lengthy sentence? And why was his conviction reversed? “[T]his was a case in which both police and prosecution applied a heavy foot to the accelerator. We do not doubt for an instant that the defendant’s conduct here was reprehensible and worthy of both investigation and punishment, as the guilty plea attests....

In Robinson v. Clipse, No. 08-6670, the Fourth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s section 1983 suit against a highway patrolman, arising from his arrest and conviction for failing to stop for patrolman’s blue light and for possession of a stolen vehicle. In reversing the judgment, the court held that the district court erred in granting the summary judgment to the patrolman based on running of the statute of limitations because Rule 15(c)’s requirements have been satisfied, the amendment naming the patrolman as defendant relates back to the date of the original complaint....

Governments are making nine percent more data requests from Apple this year, a total of 32,342 requests during the first six months of 2018. In the United States, the federal government wanted information on 14,911 Apple devices during the reporting period. In most cases, officials were investigating extortion, phishing, and unauthorized access to accounts. Around the world, governments requested information on 163,823 Apple devices. The company is giving it up about 80 percent of the time....

In an action against prosecutors and prison officials for violating plaintiff’s constitutional rights by having him transferred from federal to state custody at the end of his federal sentence, judgment on the pleadings for defendants is affirmed in part where: 1) some of the alleged conduct by defendants was directly related to and intimately associated with the state trial court’s sentence and their role as advocates regarding the court’s sentence; and 2) the determination of absolute prosecutorial immunity depended on the nature of the function performed, not whether the prosecutor performed that function incorrectly or even with dishonesty....

What do you know about the role of structured data in e-discovery? What many attorneys do not realize is that structured data can be a great way to find information during the discovery process. Structured data is data that resides in fields. The data is contained in a format or structure and can be placed into rows or columns. A common example of structured data is a contact list. A contact list can contain multiple pieces of organized information....

Challenge to Denial of Sentencing Credit by Bureau of Prisons In Hunter v. Tamez, No. 09-11026, a 28 U.S.C. section 2241 application challenging the decision of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to deny petitioner credit, through a nunc pro tunc order, against his federal sentence for time served in Texas state custody on unrelated state convictions, the court denied the application where 1) the BOP need not give effect to the state sentencing court’s direction that petitioner’s term of imprisonment on his state conviction run concurrently with his already-imposed term of imprisonment on his federal conviction; and 2) the BOP’s order did not violate separation of powers....

Here’s the startup dream: find an untapped need, (say, cheaper travel lodgings or easier cars on demand,) put together a new product to meet that need, “disrupt the paradigm,” and get rich in the process. But, as the rise of Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify show, that fast growth can soon run headfirst into a legal brick wall, causing major problems down the line. Despite these legal troubles, many startup founders think they can worry about the law way down the line....

If you’ve got a mountain of work to get through, don’t put your head down and start powering through it. Instead, take a break. Stopping to check Facebook, read a blog, or go on a walk can actually improve your ability to get things done, helping you address tasks with greater focus when you come back to them. Taking some time to distract yourself makes you a better worker, especially when you’re faced with a long slog through repetitive tasks – just ask science....

For lawyers looking to build a reputation, make a name online, increase their standing as legal experts, or just express themselves, blogging is an essential tool. A good blog can improve your Internet search results, bring traffic to your firm website, and help increase your professional profile. But how much blogging is too much blogging? Or too little? A recent blogging experiment by an SEO company showed that more isn’t always better when it comes to blogging....

Liberty University’s long-awaited return to the Fourth Circuit finally resulted in a decision on the merits last week, but the outcome was not what they were hoping for. The university attacked the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate on constitutional grounds, and while the district court found the mandate constitutional, the Fourth Circuit refused to hear the case, citing the Anti-Injunction Act. However, when the Supreme Court considered the individual insurance mandate in National Federation of Independent Business v....

It was a very techie day in the Supreme Court today, as the Court heard oral arguments in the only two tech-related cases of the year. In the first, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley and Sons, the Court debated whether attorney’s fees in copyright litigation should be awarded when a prevailing defendant has advanced the interests of the Copyright Act, or more restrictively, when they have resisted unreasonable litigation. Let’s take a look at how the arguments went....