Posts

Here’s a simple tip for corporate communications: don’t start emails to your team with “Wuddup my n*****.” In fact, don’t use the “N word” at all. Ever. Especially not when you’re working high up in a diversity-starved, struggling tech company. It’s not a hard lesson, but it’s one that Yahoo’s Jerry Shen failed to learn. Shen worked as a director of engineering and joined Yahoo after his fantasy football app was bought up by the purple, exclamatory tech company....

As you may recall, this blog has already covered the decorations you should have in your law office. That includes items that command respect, like your degree, or imply that you’re an approachable person, like your family photos. There’s a lot of leeway when it comes to decorating advice, but under no circumstances should a self-respecting lawyer ever have these five things in his or her office or cubicle: Did you know this was a thing?...

Marketing one’s firm is crucial for a number of reasons. Not only does it put you and your associates on the map as an option for those seeking legal representation, but it reminds your past clients of the connection that they’ve made. And could need again. The problem with all the educational and legal training that we’ve gotten thus far is that it usually focuses on substantive law. In law school, there are no business classes, no ‘how to get a client’ seminars, no outlines on how to market or even run a law firm....

As we’ve learned from the annual ranking of the highest paid general counsel, going in-house can mean big money. Last year, the highest paid lawyer in the U.S. was actually CBS General Counsel Louis Briskman. In 2011, Briskman’s cash compensation was $6.5 million, and his total take home pay was over $14.6 million, Above the Law reports. In fact, all of the top 10 highest paid GCs cleared the $3 million mark in total pay....

Employers Mut. Cas. Co. v. Bonilla, No. 09-10476, involved an action for insurance coverage after a state court judgment established liability for a serious accident. The court of appeals reversed summary judgment for defendants on the ground that the district court erred in denying coverage based on the argument that the injury did not arise from “use” of the vehicle. In re: Moose Oil & Gas Co., No. 08-40840, involved an action for breach of a Working Interest Unit Agreement and Joint Operating Agreement....

Vanity phone numbers are not like vanity license plates, which are more about fun than business. When you buy a vanity phone number, it’s really an investment. Like 401-444-4444; that number cost attorney Ronald J. Resmini about $300,000. At least, that’s what he claims in damages. He says he spent about $50,000 to acquire the number, but had to sue to get his money’s worth. Here’s his story, and a lesson about whether a catchy phone number is worth it....

Failure can be a doorway to success, but only if you push the door open after it slams shut. Some very successful businesswomen have also failed, then won. Here are a few who did it their way: Oprah Winfrey: “Think Like a Queen” Oprah Winfrey had the golden touch, yet her OWN network started to fail – cancellations, layoffs, and falling viewership. She told Forbes about her struggle to overcome failure....

In US v. Huff, No. 08-16272, the court of appeals affirmed in part defendant’s convictions and sentences for bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bribery, holding that 1) the evidence was sufficient to establish a single conspiracy in this case, and there was no material variance between the indictment and the evidence presented at trial; and 2) the district court did not err in basing the loss amount on defendant’s substantive counts of conviction only....

If you don’t know who Joshua Browder is, you might want to check out his new chatbot now. Browder, a 20-year-old Stanford student and legal innovator, is changing the way the law works. He created a chatbot – an interactive program that answers questions in real time – that has beaten 375,000 parking tickets. For free. Now his bot, DoNotPay, is opening up 1,000 legal areas. That might trouble some lawyers, but Browder is also offering the program to attorneys....

Unless you are finishing up a two-year corporate counsel stint at a remote company in rural Antarctica, you are probably pretty well-versed in the language of the recession that has taken hold of news headlines, board-room meetings, and dinner-table conversations. Scaling back, laying off, flat-fee billing, in-house eDiscovery —these have been the recent buzz words in legal departments across nation. Well, now there are a few numbers to back up the in-house recessionary fodder....

On Monday, J. Paul Oetken became the first openly gay man to be confirmed as a federal judge, approved by the Senate to preside over the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. A graduate of Yale Law, Oetken clerked for Justice Blackmun prior to working at the Justice Department and then as associate counsel to President Clinton. He currently serves as a senior vice president at Cablevision. Given his qualifications, it might seem curious that the media is focusing on his sexual orientation....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. We often take for granted the amazing capabilities, power, and reliability of technology. For example, without giving it much thought, we often put ourselves in high-tech cylinders that take us many thousands of feet into the air, propel us through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, and safely land us in destinations all over the world....

In the course of a year, small firm lawyers are working for free after mid-July. That’s because they spend about 40 percent of their time doing non-billable work. It is one of the tough realities of small-firm practice. According to a new report, the biggest challenges have nothing to do with the law. It’s just business. Just Business According to the Thomson Reuters study, 300 solo and small firm lawyers identified five “moderate-to-significant” challenges:...

Many attorneys believe that the unauthorized practice of law is something that can both hurt a lawyer’s business and consumers. LegalZoom, a provider of legal forms and documents like wills, recently settled a class action lawsuit originating in Missouri. Missouri alleged that LegalZoom violated a law prohibiting non-attorneys from preparing legal documents. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. More recently, LegalZoom has launched an attack on the North Carolina bar, filing suit asking for the court to declare that they are legally allowed to sell their documents on the Internet....

Being a litigator can be stressful, but no amount of stress should drive an attorney to commit any of these bonehead mistakes. Take heed, gentle legal professionals, and delight in these top nine litigation no-no’s of 2013: An Illinois attorney received some significant suspension time and some well deserved derisive laughs after posting a video to YouTube of his client engaging in a drug deal. Not exactly competence advocacy. 2. NO Violating State Bar Rules With Blogs This one is a bit more subtle, but attorneys have to be fairly sophisticated about their marketing strategies to avoid being slapped around by their state’s bar association....

Defendant’s aggravated sexual abuse of a minor conviction and sentence are affirmed where: 1) the admissibility of testimony accompanied by a Fed. R. Evid. 612 refreshment did not depend upon the source of the writing, the identity of the writing’s author, or the truth of the writing’s contents; 2) a victim-witness’s youth and nervousness could satisfy Rule 611’s necessity requirement; and 3) defendant’s sentence was not procedurally unreasonable because the district court examined the 18 U....

Third Party Improperly Named in Government’s Brief in Criminal Matter In US v. Holy Land Found. for Relief & Dev., No. 09-10875, third-party movant’s appeal from the district court’s holding that movant’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated by its public naming in an attachment to the government’s criminal pre-trial brief but denying its requested equitable relief, including inter alia expungement of its name and a public declaration by the court that its rights were violated, the court affirmed in part where the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to expunge the mention of movant in the newly sealed attachment....

Conviction of defendant for multiple drug offenses and sentence of 360-months’ imprisonment is affirmed where: 1) the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the reverse 404(b) evidence as it was not of high probative value; and 2) defendant’s sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. Read US v. Myers, No. 08-4343 Appellate Information Argued: October 27, 2009 Decided: December 16, 2009 Judges Opinion by Circuit Judge King Counsel...

With the number of online resources available these days, it’s a wonder that Reddit still exists. The site is well known for being a cesspool of negativity combined with pessimism and anti-establishment hysterics. Yet, there’s actually a chance that one day you might end up with a client who posts their legal question on r/legaladvice, either before or after coming to you. And if you don’t closely monitor the message board (which you should if you need to laugh, and if you’re a lawyer, you probably need to laugh as often as possible), you might be surprised to find out that, pretty regularly, and though often crass and unsympathetic, there’s some solid legal advice there....

If you’re an in-house attorney, you know that disgruntled former employees raise red legal flags. Let Zynga, the company behind “Draw Something” and “Farmville,” serve as a fable for how not to deal with demoralized employees. After Zynga let go 520 employees and completely shut down the New York office of OMGPOP, the laid-off OMG staff threw an all-night anti-Zynga rager. The post-firing bacchanalia was full of booze, loud music and unfettered rage....