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A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit against a West Virginia school district over its Bible studies program. In Deal v. Mercer County Board of Education, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said the 30-minute and 45-minute classes marginalized a student who did not want to participate. The elementary school student was not forced to attend, but enrolled in another district over it. The Bible studies program was also suspended, leading a trial judge to dismiss the case as moot....

A federal appeals court revived a Southern University professor’s gender discrimination case, saying that she could allege a hostile work environment through continuous conduct going back two years before she filed her complaint. The decision is significant because it clears up questions facing trial judges about the continuing violation doctrine in gender discrimination cases. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said it applies to claims of hostile work environment, allowing the Louisiana plaintiff to allege discriminatory conduct more than 300 days, and beyond the one-year statute of limitations, before filing the complaint....

Data theft and breaches are always a hot topic around here. They are, after all, an in-house attorney’s worst nightmare: Lawsuits, lost business, and a whole lot of legal fees will wreak havoc on your bottom line if you have a data leak. But what if there was a way to predict data theft before it happened, a la Tom Cruise’s “Minority Report”? Sure, you’d have to worry about outside hackers ruining your day, but at least mutiny and sabotage would be covered....

Eight point three million dollars. That’s a heck of a compensatory award for a single plaintiff, and Friday’s massive verdict was the first of many expected in DePuy Hip Replacement lawsuits (an estimated 10,000 people have lawsuits pending, according to Walkup Melodia Kelly & Schoenberger, the firm that represented this plaintiff.) That is a lot of suits, and a lot of lawyers. What was the problem with the hip? According to the hip-maker’s recall website, some patients needed “revision surgery” after having Johnson and Johnson’s metal-on-metal hip implanted....

Somewhere around page 11, we lost count of how many clients, former clients, and almost clients Mr. Randy J. Fuerst slept with. The opinion recounts a legion of divorcees that paraded through his office, and his bed, though in the end, despite the ethics opinion repeatedly stating that his adulterous activity with former or almost clients, he’s only on the hook for violations with one client: MRW, since she was the only romantic partner with which he maintained a significant personal and professional relationship simultaneously....

It was a rough start and quick finish for the first trail over General Motors’ defective ignition switches, which have left over 124 dead and many more injured. The first bellwether case fell apart last week as evidence emerged that the plaintiffs had lied about the extent of their injuries. The plaintiff dismissed his claim on Friday, after Southern District of New York Judge Jesse Furman said he had committed “a fraud on the court and on the jury....

Lawyers are beginning to worry that the legal tech wave will render many law jobs obsolete. One thing is for sure: mundane tasks like demand letters are already on their way to the computers. So what tasks will be left for humans? And what future jobs will lawyers likely be holding? To maintain job security these days, it’s all about adaptation. Replacement As you already know, mundane tasks are prime targets for computerization....

In a transgender case of intense interest, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said the trial court should decide whether it is moot. Gavin Grimm, a transgender student, sued his county school board for the right to use the boys’ bathroom when he was a sophomore. He has since graduated, and the school board says now it is a moot point. The appeals court sent the case, Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, back to resolve that issue....

A massive trove of inmate conversations was hacked and extracted out of Securus Technologies, a leading provider of jail and prison phone services, raising deep questions about privacy and constitutional protections. The hack reveals that Securus had also been recording attorney-client communications, a potential violation of constitutional rights. The revelation has been described by one ACLU director as the “most massive breach of attorney-client privilege[d communications] in modern U.S. history.”...

To build a better mousetrap, you have to know something about mice. It’s true in the legal tech business, too. After all, how can you create a better way to monitor a court docket if you don’t really know how it works? Michael Sander, who created Docket Alarm, learned that lesson when he was working at an expensive New York law firm. “Twice a day, we had a paralegal go to the court’s website, enter a case number, see if there was anything new, and repeat that nine times,” he told Wired....

As a practitioner, you may have noticed that you can’t throw a pleading into a crowded room nowadays without hitting someone trying to sell you on some new legal services innovation. In fact, a new report by Thomson Reuters indicates that the number of patents filed for new legal technology has increased by nearly 500 percent. (Disclosure: Thomson Reuters is FindLaw’s parent company.) The numbers are staggering enough to make you want to throw a pleading in a crowded room....

In many ways, e-Commerce has made our lives as consumers so much easier. Need a book? Order it online. Last minute dry cleaning? There’s an app. Looking for a lawyer? Here’s an online directory. But as lawyers, e-Commerce doesn’t usually mean easy. Instead, litigating e-Commerce disputes in the federal court system can present unique challenges and unexpected pitfalls. Thankfully, there are resources available to help you overcome those challenges deftly....

Thanks to all the commercial interest (and money) in outer space, space loving lawyers might finally have something to do when it comes to space law. The math is so simple that even a lawyer can do it: more space money times more space problems equals more space lawyers. Recently, more and more private businesses and even individuals have found ways to launch technology, and technology services, into orbit. Given that an iPhone is as technologically advanced as many older satellites, and the fact that launching a satellite is no longer the exclusive domain of government agencies, there could soon be quite a bit of legal work from space to go around....

In what universe does Mike Rice’s conduct not warrant a full investigation and swift and severe sanctions? Only in New Jersey, apparently, and some of those responsible for the wrist-slapping turned PR nightmare are getting the axe. Meanwhile, we can only hope that the university has learned a lesson in governance from this mess. Mike Rice flung basketballs at players, berated them, physically struck them, and hurled homophobic insults constantly. His conduct only came to light after a disgruntled former employee, who is suing under a state whistleblower statute, leaked the tape to ESPN....

Many Harvard Law graduates dream of appearing before the Supreme Court. Former Louisiana Congressman William “Bill” Jefferson shared that dream with his HLS peers, albeit for a different reason: Jefferson hoped that the Court might vacate his 13-year prison sentence for corruption. This week, the Nine declined to hear Jefferson’s appeal, laying that dream to rest, the Times-Picayune reports. As a nine-term congressman, William Jefferson represented the Second District of Louisiana, which covers most of New Orleans....

In the wake of the celebrity-actress-nude-selfie-hack scandal, should anyone store private things in places like iCloud and Dropbox, that are susceptible to hacking? Absolutely. Internet commenters – including Ricky Gervais – blamed the actresses themselves for putting such private photos online. But “online” is a big place. Certainly they wouldn’t have published them to Facebook or Instagram, which are, by now, public places by definition. These objectors seem to be saying that any location accessible via the Internet is necessarily a public place because it can be hacked....

Running a small law practice can be overwhelming. In addition to being a (or the) revenue generator, you also have to be the boss and manage the business side of things too. Fortunately, small firm clients understand that since they’re paying less, their lawyers are not going to have all the perks of big firm lawyers. Unfortunately though, those same clients certainly won’t understand if your small firm doesn’t have all the same perks for clients as a big firm would....

Obvious proposition of the day: students have less rights when in school. For example, their Fourth Amendment rights are curtailed to the extent that separating them from their belongings and having drug dogs sniff around is permissible. There is also a line of cases, across the circuits, that allow some restrictions on free speech. Candice Hardwick, a Caucasian female who formerly attended middle and high school in Latta, South Carolina. She’s quite proud of her Southern heritage and chose to express that pride by wearing shirts depicting the Confederate Battle Flag, which is the infamous flag that we’ve all seen plastered onto a dirty pickup truck at some time or another....

A few weeks have passed since plaintiffs’ attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan negotiated a controversial $100 million on behalf of Uber drivers who sought backpay, benefits, and other damages over their supposed “misclassification” by the company. The settlement has yet to be approved, but many plaintiffs are angered by the settlement, including the suit’s lead plaintiff. Drivers v. Uber: A New Hope There seemed to be an unstoppable momentum in favor of drivers for both Lyft and Uber as well as many persons who alleged “misclassification” by many Bay Area Silicon Valley companies last year....

In a prosecution for possession by a felon of a firearm, district court’s imposition of a 92-month sentence instead of the minimum 15-years’ imprisonment is vacated and remanded as a North Carolina conviction for breaking and entering under North Carolina General Statutes section 14-54(a) is, as a matter of law, a violent felony within the meaning of ACCA. Read US v. Thompson, No. 08-4994 Appellate Information Argued: September 24, 2009...