For all his fame, Michael Jordan is best known to basketball fans for his signature flight to the hoop. “I Believe I Can Fly,” the song, comes in a close second. But even that is based on his gravity-defying dunks that earned him the title of “His Airness.” “The Jumpman” also earned him a whole lot of money when Nike used the pose to create a logo for Air Jordan basketball shoes....
Jacqueline Lewis had a good reason not to get tased as part of her police training. Nobody wants to get tased, but Lewis had another reason. She had a minor heart condition, and her doctor said she should not be subjected to the shock devices. So the Union City Police Department didn’t tase her; it fired her. She sued and asked for a jury to decide her case, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals saw it her way in Lewis v....
If you’re a solo attorney, the thought of malpractice insurance has no doubt crossed your mind. It’s definitely not a bad idea. But before you purchase insurance from the first carrier that you find, you may want to keep your money in your pocket for just a moment and take into consideration a few things. Shopping for insurance probably rates up there as one of the least enjoyable tasks faced by every day people....
Paperwork and lawyers go together like peanut butter and jelly. During the course of any attorney’s career, they’ll undoubtedly encounter situations where they’ll be handed a pile of documents. And subsequently, they’ll wish CTRL+F worked on paper. DocScanner proposes to make that dream a reality (in a sense). The application allows users to take snapshots of documents using the camera on their iOS or Android device. The program then converts the document into a PDF....
Law Geek Alert: If you’re like us, you plan all of your vacations around important hearing dates in the federal appellate courts. The U.S. Courts websites for each circuit make such planning easy, unless you want to attend oral arguments in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s because the Eleventh Circuit is the only circuit that does not publish its calendar on its website. Want to attend hearings in the challenge to the Alabama immigration law, or the Georgia ban on handguns in church?...
If we are using only 10 percent of our brains, then evolution says our brains are going to shrink. Evolution strongly suggests that species survive by adaptation. Fortunately for humans, there’s still time before the next generation takes over. But if we want to preserve brainpower, we need to adapt quickly. In other words, download some apps to your smartphone. Here are a few: Time Savers There’s nothing like short-cuts to roll back the evolutionary timekeeper....
Facebook went before the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday to urge the appellate court to uphold a $3 million award against a now-defunct competitor, Power Ventures. In the late 2000s, Power Ventures operated the website Power.com, a social network aggregator that allowed users to access sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, all in one spot. Power.com aggressively encouraged users to sign their friends up, using information from Facebook to send out messages to users’ Facebook friends....
Cryogenic rights, procreational autonomy, and embryo embargo are not the usual issues in divorce court. In a landmark Colorado case, the Colorado Supreme Court tried to address them. A divided court resolved the questions for a divorcing couple, and offered guidelines for others. In a futuristic world, it’s not likely to be the last word in the field. However, at least there are some new terms. Procreational Autonomy Mandy and Drake Rooks had three children by in vitro fertilization, and stored six embryos cryogenically....
If you’re going to use social media as a way to market your law firm, it’s important to have a social media strategy in place. Just like a marketing strategy to bring in new clients, your social media strategy should help you meet your business needs. There are many ways to incorporate social media into your practice, so it’s helpful to have a separate strategy to clarify your goals. Setting up your social media accounts is just the beginning....
Who said old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal? It wasn’t Mordie Rochlin, a 106-year-old lawyer who still goes to the office. He “retired” 35 years ago, but he was going to the firm three times a week until he got pneumonia. Rochlin said working was always part of his retirement plan. It’s not like he couldn’t get away from work; he just didn’t want to. Law Firm Lifer For Rochlin, it started when he walked in the door to his office in 1938....
Bloody Blackbeard and his ship perished off the coast of North Carolina, but they nearly appeared before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Paul Niemeyer summoned up the notorious pirate during oral arguments about underwater footage of his wreck, Queen Anne’s Revenge. The vessel sunk in Beaufort Inlet, the scene of the ship’s last voyage. At one point, the judge said he checked the internet for the disputed images of Blackbeard and his ship but couldn’t find them....
Tesla employee Martin Tripp was not happy about his job reassignment. So he retaliated by badmouthing the company and stealing confidential information, according to a new lawsuit. Tesla alleges Tripp took “gigabytes of Tesla data” and dozens of photographs and video of proprietary manufacturing systems. In the meantime, CEO Elon Musk was dealing with reports about delayed production of its Model 3. He said it had been sabotaged, but now there’s no telling what really happened....
The federal government doesn’t usually get much praise from privacy advocates. Whether it’s the NSA’s mass data collection program, or Homeland Security’s collection of facial recognition data, there’s plenty of skepticism when it comes to the federal government and privacy. But, if there’s one agency that has gained the respect of privacy advocates, it may be the Federal Trade Commission. Over the past decade the FTC has evolved into America’s primary “privacy cop,” pursuing actions against companies that have fallen short of their privacy promises, violated consumers’ privacy rights, or failed to keep sensitive data secure....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. The internet is just “there” for us and our many online needs. But how often do you think about what it takes to power cyberspace? Well, consider this: Google alone consumes practically the same amount of electricity each year as does the entire city of San Francisco, according to a recent article by Curbed San Francisco....
General counsel take note: The EEOC, which enforces federal anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, seems to be employing a new attitude. The “new” Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is “aggressive, litigious and particularly on the lookout for matters involving multiple individuals alleging discrimination or claims of ‘systemic discrimination,’” labor lawyer Evan Pontz writes for Inside Counsel. While that may make in-house counsel concerned, consider the other side of the coin, Pontz says: It means you can take advantage of the EEOC’s new mission – by focusing on what they’re not....
With news of general counsel being deposed and even being held personally liable for their actions on the job, you may be wondering how to insulate yourself from legal liability and specifically how to avoid being deposed. The law firm Reed Smith is tackling this exact issue in a series of articles on how in-house counsel can avoid being called as witnesses in employment cases. In its first article, the firm provides its No....
FindLaw has a blog for in-house counsel and a blog for solos and small firms. But what would happen if they collided, like a comic book crossover? That’s what this particular article is about: Marketing yourself to in-house counsel. Mind blown yet? If you specialize in a particular field of niche litigation, you may want to consider marketing to in-house lawyers and general counsels, who always need help when it comes to the esoteric stuff....
The National Bar Association, along with the Corporate Leadership Forum, presented its inaugural NBA Pinnacle Award on August 2nd, honoring the Kraft Legal Department; the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (IILP); Roderick A. Palmore of General Mills; and Veta T. Richardson of the Association of Corporate Counsel. The award is meant to recognize “excellence in corporate America and distinguished corporate counsel, including the highest achievements and accomplishments of corporate counsel in endeavors ranging from improving the legal profession, pro bono, career accomplishments, diversity, and matters of governance....
You’ve always had a dream of being a partner. Perhaps you were one of those very lucky grads who landed a position at a top law firm and moved your way into one of the associate seats, ready to show the guys at the top what you were made of. Before you knew it, five years went by. And you’re still not partner. In fact, attorneys who joined after you have made it, but you haven’t!...
The legal marketplace has changed dramatically over the last decade: the Great Recession halted the legal boom of the mid-aughts, putting a renewed focus on value and efficiency in BigLaw, while the rise of online legal services has undercut business that was once handled by smaller practitioners. But as the legal market has evolved, many firms haven’t been able to keep up. What’s the reason so many firms are falling behind?...
