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Randall v. Scott, No. 09-12862, involved a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 First Amendment retaliation claim by a terminated law enforcement officer. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part the dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the right to run for office was not clearly established at the time of the complaint. However, the court reversed in part on the ground that the district court erred in applying a heightened pleading standard to plaintiff’s First Amendment claim....

For lawyers, the practice of carrying and passing out business cards hasn’t really changed that much despite how far technology has progressed. However, despite the archaic practice remaining largely unchanged, design trends in business cards have certainly changed. The days of using a generic legal symbol alongside your name, firm, phone, address, website and email are coming to an end. People just don’t keep business cards unless there’s a good reason, and following some of the recent trends can help save your card from recycle bin....

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals thinks that a 17-year sentence is to lenient for a U.S. citizens convicted of aiding terrorists. On Monday, the Eleventh Circuit sent a case against convicted U.S. terrorist Jose Padilla back to the district court for rehearing. At trial, the government claimed that Padilla and his co-defendants formed a support cell linked to radical Islamists worldwide and conspired to send money, recruits, and equipment overseas to groups that the defendants knew used violence in their efforts to establish Islamic states....

Getting the opportunity to serve as outside counsel for a government entity is highly sought after. For the firms that get the opportunity, it can equate to a big payday. As a recent AP article showed, states like Florida are just hemorrhaging money on legal battles, and losing, and paying even more. Whether your firm focuses on representing entities or individuals, there are government outside counsel opportunities that you can pursue....

As a solo attorney, technology can be your friend. Smart use of technology can mean cutting down on costs and making your business efficient. But, it can also mean high initial costs. That new computer isn’t going to buy itself, and neither is that new practice management software. And, if your computer starts emitting smoke, even technology-allergic attorneys know that it’s time to bring it to a repair shop. Maybe this is why the results from the 2011 ABA Legal Technology Survey shows that solo practitioners seem to be a little frugal when it comes to technology....

We’ve got a double dose of updates for you, both involving the mining of your private data. Remember PRISM? Think hard. That’s right, it was one of the seemingly endless series of revelations about ways in which the National Security Agency had been spying upon Americans and others. The PRISM program pilfered tech giants’ data for NSA snooping purposes, and though our initial reaction was to blame the tech companies as collaborators, they quickly proclaimed innocence and ignorance....

With technology’s evolution continuing to exceed Moore’s law, it can be really tough to know which computer is right for your practice. Don’t you wish there was some special laptop buying guide specifically for lawyers? Well, fear not attorneys, you’ve come to the right place. Selecting the proper hardware for all your lawyering needs can be daunting. After all, there are so many choices available today. However, as this guide will teach you, lawyers only need to worry about five things....

All work and no play can make attorneys not just dull, but also burned out. With law firms typically requiring 1,700 to 2,300 billable hours a year, according to Yale Law School’s career office, a lawyer’s life often means long workdays and big sacrifices to your work/life balance. How do you know if you’re burned out? Exhaustion, detachment, boredom, cynicism, irritability, and paranoia are some common signs of attorney burnout, as the Lawyerist points out....

There was a recent survey on lawyer billing efficiency of law firms with 50 or fewer lawyers, and it was revealed that many lawyers bill only for a fraction of their time worked. In fact, the survey showed that the smallest firms with one or two attorneys, only billed for about 40 percent of their time. So what happens to the other 60 percent and what are the takeaways for someone starting your own law firm?...

Here in the FindLaw Strategist blog, we do a lot of writing about writing. From cases hinging on the Oxford comma to silly cease and desist letters to pleadings requesting extensions so lawyers can attend football games, we do what we can to keep our lawyer readers in the know. Below are seven of our best blogs from this year geared toward helping lawyers learn to be better writers. 7 Tips for Writing Better Emails Legal writing isn’t all pleadings and strongly worded letters....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Apple opened its glittery, circular, spaceship campus in Cupertino a few months ago. This campus is the of dream of Steve Jobs, which he pitched to the Cupertino City Council in 2011. It reportedly is estimated by the Santa Clara County Assessor to have cost $5 billion. The gigantic, circular building comes with 45-foot-high curved panels of glass, among other modern, glass features....

So, you want to play Angry Birds on your new Android handset. What information from your phone will the bird-slinging, pig-killing app access? Lets see: your location, your phone’s state, and oddly enough — access to SMS (text messaging). Why SMS? They need it to enable in app purchases. What’s a world to do about pervasive permissions? After all, how in the hell do we live without such apps as Flipboard, Pandora, and OKCupid (so, so lonely)?...

Working from home isn’t just for tech workers and Instagram celebrities anymore. About one quarter of the workforce telecommutes frequently, a number that’s more than doubled over the past decade. Now, that number is starting to include more and more BigLaw associates. Morgan Lewis, Philadelphia’s largest law firm with 2000 attorneys across almost 30 offices, announced last week that it will let its associates work from home starting this May....

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is coming under fire for treating child sex-abuse cases differently when they involve members of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community. Hynes, who’s served as district attorney for Kings County, N.Y., since 1989, set up a program in 2009 specifically to deal with child sex abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community, The New York Times reports. Under the program, called Kol Tzedek or “Voice of Justice” in Hebrew, ultra-Orthodox Jews who are accused or convicted of child sex abuse are never publicly identified....

The tech industry is experiencing a boom in patent litigation and it’s going to shut some, maybe many doors. These claims are costly and time consuming and can even put a small or unprepared company out of business. One company threatened by the high cost of patent litigation is Ditto. Ditto is an eye glass website that offers users the option to digitally try on glasses on their website. They are facing a patent infringement lawsuit by 1-800-Contacts and Lennon Imaging Technology for allegedly using their patented 3D technology....

A.J. Demaree took a picture of his children – ages five, four, and one – lying down naked on a towel with their bottoms exposed. Responding to a report of possible child abuse, a police officer asked the father why he took the photos. “So when we look back on ’em years later, look at their cute little butts,” he said. Child protective services took the children, but returned them after a month without any charges against Demaree or his wife....

When it comes to fault in a smoking-death case, there is no mystery. Tobacco companies and smokers are both blameworthy. But in Florida there was some confusion about liability and damages in Smith v. R.J. Reynolds Company. A jury said the smoker was partially responsible for her death, and awarded $620,000 against R.J. Reynolds. The U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, but said the company was 100 percent responsible for fraudulently concealing the dangers of smoking....

Law firms have a lot on their plates to worry about. The most obvious concern is how to stay in business. For example, we recently pointed out the importance of improving intake procedures. Although it may be easy to dismiss the threat of cybersecurity, don’t. The security of the information handled by your firm really should be a top priority. These best practices can help your firm avoid potential security disasters....

What’s the top online directory for personal injury lawyers? In terms of Google’s traffic rankings, FindLaw comes out on top. That’s according to the findings of Dan Weeks at Lawyer Marketing Score, who gathered the Google traffic from five major cities. Dan Weeks has been tracking professional directories as part of his business, Lawyermarketingscore.com for sometime. Based on a selected batch of the 20 highest value keywords as measured in five major metropolitan areas, FindLaw came out on top by a sizable measure as the top lawyer directory for personal injury....

We like to build things, but we don’t have a table saw. When we need wood cut, we let the hardware store do it for us. On one such occasion, a store employee cut his hand on the saw while cutting our laminate shelving. There was a lot of blood. It was awful. How does this relate to the First Circuit Court of Appeals? Defective design litigation. The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued upheld a $1....