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For those that don’t already have health insurance through their employer, the Affordable Care Act provides a marketplace for insurance plans. Known more broadly as Obamacare, the ACA also requires everyone to have some health insurance plan while guaranteeing coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions. So, when do you need to enroll? And when is it too late to get health insurance coverage for 2019 under Obamacare? The open enrollment period for coverage that began on January 1st of this year was November 1 through December 15 of 2018....

At this point, you’ve likely heard or read about the ABA’s issuance of the ’not qualified’ rating for a handful of President Trump’s federal judicial nominations. Though the ABA’s been interviewing, scrutinizing, and rating nominees since the 1950s, it was never really big news because nominations were usually rated before being announced, with the exception of former President G.W. Bush, and now President Trump. This meant that candidates with a “not qualified” rating wouldn’t get announced and wouldn’t get publicly embarrassed....

Three former Naval Academy football players are facing rape charges following allegations they sexually assaulted a female midshipman at a party in April 2012, reports The Washington Post. Meantime in Tennessee, four ex-Vanderbilt athletes have pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the alleged rape of an unconscious woman at an on-campus dorm, reports CBS News. With sexual assault on college campuses becoming more commonplace, what potential punishments await the alleged abusers?...

Welcome to hell, young first-years. We made that decision once, and if you haven’t heard, the economy made a fool out of us upon graduation. You’re entering a depressed field, full of depressed surplus graduates, at a very depressing time. And now, you’re about to meet the weirdest batch of anal retentive folks you’ve ever seen. Just remember, none of these people will harm you, even the ubiquitous gunner. Also note that most people don’t fit neatly into tiny boxes – they may be a gunning butterfly or a burned-out scholar....

Detroit Lions cornerback Aaron Berry was arrested for the second time in two months and has been released by the team. Over the weekend, Berry was arrested in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on three charges of simple assault. Details of the incident were not reported, but Berry apparently brandished a weapon during the incident, reports the Huffington Post. This most recent incident followed Berry’s DUI arrest last month also in the central Pennsylvania region....

Is there anything rarer than an appellate court choosing to ignore a poorly-reasoned state supreme court opinion? Michael Pizarro has twice been convicted of murdering his 13-year-old half-sister, Amber Barfield, with special circumstances involving lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under age 14. On the night of her death in 1989, she went to retrieve her drunken older half-brother from the roadside after Pizarro had gotten into a drunken argument with his wife....

Add this to the list of things you shouldn’t do if you’re bored at work: watch porn. You’d think this is common sense. But apparently it isn’t. A veteran London court clerk was caught looking at some racy images – during a rape trial. The 54-year-old clerk, Debasish Majumder, had worked at the court for years. He claimed he only looked at the pornography because he was “bored.” Yes, because a victim’s emotional testimony about her attack is just so “dull”?...

Like many of his fellow grads around the country, the person at the center of this story will probably never get to be a greedy associate. Depending on your perspective, he may already fit the adjective, but associate? Not likely – and that is just the problem. For one soon-to-be father and Boston College Law 3L, there is a solution to the problem of the terrible legal job market and the overwhelming likelihood of being saddled with a law school debt he can’t pay: gimme my money back....

A juvenile was arrested for robbing a nine-year-old boy at gunpoint at a makeshift lemonade stand in Monroe, North Carolina. The juvenile made away with $17, but was subsequently caught by police, thanks to video coverage from a nearby security camera. When arrested, drug paraphernalia charges were added to the armed robbery. It appears the gun in question in this crime was a BB gun. This brings up a great issue regarding armed robbery....

In an action by a city against an insurance company seeking indemnification arising from a lawsuit by homeowners involving a landslide that occurred as a result of the city water district’s negligent maintenance of its water system, judgment of the trial court in favor of the defendant-insurance company is affirmed as, an exclusion in the policy plainly and precisely explained to the city that the peril of land subsidence, including landslides, was not covered, regardless of the cause....

In Enzo Biochem. Inc. v. Applera Corp., No. 09-1281, the Federal Circuit addressed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants that asserted claims of plaintiff’s patents were invalid as either indefinite or anticipated and that another of its patent was not infringed. In affirming in part and reversing in part the decision of the district court in this patent infringement suit involved patents directed to various techniques for labeling and detecting nucleic acids, the court affirmed the finding of anticipation but not finding of indefinite of patent ‘928....

Teach for America can offer loan forgiveness through federal programs to participants who support society by teaching in schools where their help is needed. Now, the U.S. Department of Justice has set aside funds to do something similar for those hardworking attorneys in the nation’s DA and PD offices. Announced on Friday, September 17, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) will allocate almost $10 million to support federal and state public defenders and state and local prosecutors....

It’s been a big week at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, with a decision in Motorola’s patent war with Apple and a computer virus spreading via bogus court emails. Ready for the roundup? It’s Friday, so we’ll make it quick: Have you received any strange emails about court hearings in unfamiliar cases? Don’t download the attachments. Multiple state and federal courts have reported that spoof emails, some coming from apparently hijacked BigLaw email addresses, and others claiming to be from court clerks, are proliferating....

The ABA has released employment data for the class of 2014 and things are looking … well, slightly better! Compared to the class of 2013, new law grads saw a marginally higher rate of employment in both legal and non-legal positions. Many of those spots were good jobs – about 60 percent of new grads were employed in full-time, long-term legal work within 10 months of graduating. But, there’s a catch....

They say if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. But what about when you give a man free Burger King for the rest of his life? Then you teach him how to do some math. An Oregon man claims his lifetime of free burgers was cut off after only a few weeks, and the chain is going to need to fork over $9,026....

When Verizon bought Yahoo, it had to know that the mega data breach would come back to haunt the company. Yahoo revealed during the acquisition that hackers got into 1.5 billion email accounts, including user information, passwords and other personal information. It translated into a discount purchase price from $4.83 billion to $4.48 billion – but who’s counting? Apparently, 1.5 billion Yahoo account holders are counting. They have sued over the data breach, and a judge says they all have a case....

Kelley Drye & Warren has just settled its age discrimination case with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Seems they were discriminating against aged partner attorneys. As part of the settlement, Kelley Drye has agreed to drop an internal policy that allegedly required partners who reached age 70 to release any ownership in the firm and take a pay cut, Reuters reports. But that’s not all. All Kelley Drye Partners must also attend a delightfully humiliating two-hour training session on age discrimination....

Legal writing is a language unto itself with endless opportunities for exploration in expression. It need not be so mundane as “memoranda writing,” or “brief writing,” or even “opinion writing.” Take it from legal writers like Antonin Scalia, Alex Kozinski, and now Neil Gorsuch: it is an opportunity to distinguish yourself in an otherwise dreary world of legalisms. Their words will immortalize them because they are different. Here are some tips from the writings of Judge Gorsuch, the newest nominee to the U....

Congratulations, you’ve managed to secure yourself a summer internship position at a firm and you’re certainly relieved by your good fortune. But already, you’re letting yourself fantasize: “Can I work here as a lawyer?” Yes, you can, but there’s a fair bit of luck involved, too. Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to boost your luck and increase your chances of getting an offer. Make a Good Impression You’ve already been hired for the summer, so you’ve already gotten on their good side....

A physical disability does not preclude you from being arrested for a crime. John Champion, 22, didn’t realize this when he rolled his wheelchair into a gas station located in Chiefland, Fla. Once inside, he pulled out a knife and demanded money, telling the clerk to “push the panic button because the police would not arrest a handicapped person.” Well, they did. After they found him and his wheelchair stuck in the sand, of course....