Uber wasn’t as lucky in its attempt to stop litigation in its tracks as it was in another lawsuit brought against the transport-app company. A US District judge has decided not to grant Uber’s motion to dismiss and instead let the price-fixing issues be heard by a jury. Uber has to do battle on two front’s as its Ninth Circuit Case O’Connor et al. v. Uber Technologies has just few months left before it will be heard on the merits....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Recently, this blog has touched on how warfare between nations in the digital era includes cyberattacks. And now, just as we already are feeling less than safe, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (the UNODC) has released some homicide statistics that can make us feel even more vulnerable. According to the UNODC study, as many as 437,000 people were murdered around the world in 2012 alone....
For practicing lawyers looking for AI assistance, good help is hard to find. Although there are now several AI tools available, figuring out which ones are worth it and which ones are a waste, can seem like more of a hassle than any of it is worth. However, if you are able to find an AI tool that fits your needs, all the hassles, trials, and tribulations will be worth it....
Clarify your arbitration clauses. Dr. John Sutter sued Oxford Health Plans, on behalf of himself and other physicians, over a payment dispute. The contract itself did not provide for class-action arbitration, but did provide for individual arbitration. The parties agreed to mediation, and Oxford conceded that the arbitrator should decide arbitrability. According to the Supreme Court’s holding, that was the fatal mistake, as far as avoiding class-action arbitration. Here, there was an arbitration clause....
When there is copyright infringement probably an attorney’s first thought is to file a takedown notice. The DMCA has done a lot for copyright holders in terms of making it easy to protect their rights. The process is well known to any corporate counsel whose company owns at least one copyright. What if automatically filing a takedown is the wrong idea? In terms of intellectual property, sometimes you have to protect what you own but not in all cases....
A former Yahoo manager is challenging the tech company’s famous – or infamous, depending on where you stand – employee ranking system in federal court. Gregory Anderson, a former Yahoo editor, sued the company on Monday, alleging that the ranking system was used to violate both California and federal employment law. A hallmark of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s reign at the company, the system requires supervisors to rank every employee on a scale of one to five, with those on the bottom often shown the door....
US v. Vann, 09-4298, concerned a challenge to the district court’s imposition of an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) based on defendant’s three previous convictions for taking indecent liberties with a child, in a prosecution for possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 922(g). In affirming, the court held that the defendant’s three prior convictions were based on his taking indecent liberties with a child by willfully committing a lewd or lascivious act upon the body of a child under the age of 16....
It’s a question that has dogged young lawyers for generations: How do I choose my area of practice? Some people are lucky in the sense that they knew right from a tender age that they wanted to be a lawyer and knew exactly what area of law they wanted to practice. But others usually have to wait a little longer and let the iniquities and practicalities of life form their answer....
Sometimes scheduling conflicts cannot be fixed. While you may be able to perform super-human feats, being in two places at the same time just isn’t possible. Fortunately, help is usually just a call, or even a click or tap, away. Contract attorneys can perform all sorts of various tasks for you. One commonly assigned task is making “special” appearances on behalf of an attorney at record in court for the less important hearings and conferences, like scheduling or arraignment....
There must have been some degree of pearl-clutching from gay marriage opponents on Tuesday, as the Fourth Circuit denied South Carolina’s request to stay last week’s federal ruling against the state’s gay marriage ban. When U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel had struck down the Palmetto State’s prohibition on gay marriage, he placed on automatic stay on the ruling that’s set to expire November 20. For those keeping score at home, that’s tomorrow, and it appears that the Fourth Circuit isn’t going to step in before gay marriages begin....
Knowing the law is one thing, being able to get legal work done well and efficiently is another. And plenty of attorneys could use a little help in the latter category. The solution may be in project management. Learning a few PM skills like effective team communication, budget management, and matter scoping can all help attorneys do their jobs better. Here are some helpful project management tips you can start implementing today....
When your client stiffs you in the middle of litigation with an unpaid legal bill, don’t you just want to complain about it to someone? Not your bartender, but someone who can do something about it – like a judge. Well, you can tell the judge you want to withdraw but you better not give too many details. According to a new ethics opinion, you are bound by confidentiality to disclose only information “reasonably necessary” for the court to make an informed decision....
If you never thought the day would come when you could invest in Monopoly money then you may be in for a big surprise – sort of. In what is a huge symbolic shift, the Federal Government held hearings this week on Bitcoin, and so far, the DOJ has described Bitcoin as a “legal means of exchange,” reports Bloomberg. Ok, so what is it really? This is what we know: Bitcoins “exist as software and aren’t regulated by any country or banking authority,” according to Bloomberg....
It’s such an accepted explanation for impulse buying, it’s practically a mantra. And as religious holidays go, Black Friday is a universally acceptable day to worship the sale. With some guidance from tech experts, FindLaw has a shoppers list for your pilgrimage to tech nirvana on sale day. This is the lawyer’s edition: Virtual Assistants Alexa, the voice of the Echo devices, can do way more than play music and control other internet-enabled devices....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Let’s face it – many of us are addicted to our tech gadgets. We constantly have to check our smart phones for all sorts of communications and updates. Of course, this can be problematical, especially when we might want to reach for our handheld devices while driving our cars. Indeed, texting while driving can be rather dangerous; it is difficult to focus on your driving while looking down into your phone to text....
It’s not just computers that are vulnerable to hacking. According to McAfee Labs’ 2016 Threats Prediction report, our dystopian near-future will see rapid increases in hacked wearables, p0wned critical infrastructure, and, yes, cyber attacks on your cars. Get ready to add car hacking to your list of cybersecurity issues to know. Think of it as Christine, the 1983 Steven King novel where a Plymouth Fury is taken over by blood thirsty supernatural powers – except the year is 2016 and it’s some punk kid whose taken over your car....
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals will not issue further opinions in a decades-long water dispute between Florida, Alabama, and Georgia unless the Supreme Court intervenes. On Monday, the court rejected a request from Florida and Alabama to vacate a unanimous water rights decision from a three-judge panel. The source of the controversy? Atlanta-area death trap Lake Lanier, better known for summer drowning accidents than for its water supply. Following a court battle between Florida, Alabama, and Georgia over Lake Lanier water withdrawal rights, District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled in 2009 that Georgia either had to reach an agreement with her neighbors by July 2012, or return to 1970s water withdrawal levels....
Guinn v. AstraZeneca Pharms. LLP, No. 09-11104, concerned an action claiming that plaintiff’s use of defendant’s prescription drug Seroquel caused her to develop diabetes. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendants, on the grounds that 1) the district court did not abuse its discretion by finding that plaintiff’s expert’s differential diagnosis was unreliable under Daubert because she failed to adequately consider possible alternative causes of plaintiff’s weight gain and diabetes; and 2) plaintiff identified no evidence of specific causation other than the expert’s testimony....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. What are known as the “Paramount Consent Decrees” have governed the manner in which film studios have distributed films to movie theaters for 70 years. But that might change as part of a further deregulatory effort by the current administration. Indeed, the Department of Justice reportedly is reviewing the decrees. The Paramount Consent Decrees emerged from a significant antitrust cased brought by the DOJ against Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, MGM, RKO Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and some other film studios....
If you’re looking to stand out when marketing your firm online, consider video. More and more potential clients are turning to online video, particularly to YouTube, to learn about legal issues. The market for legal videos is huge: 20 percent of people research legal topics on YouTube. While the bad lawyer commercial is a longstanding legal tradition, the bad lawyer online video shouldn’t be. Here are some tips to help you bring your marketing into the video age like a pro....
