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Congratulations! You made it through your first year of law school. Some liken the first year to hell, others to bootcamp; regardless what you call it, you accomplished your goal and got through the first year. So you’re probably thinking… “now what?” Well, we’re here to tell you. And just in case you thought the hard work was over, boy were you wrong. As FindLaw for Legal Professionals’ Back to (Law) School Week continues, here are five tips for you to make the most out of your 2L year, and your budding legal career:...

Congratulations on surviving another episode of How to Get Away With Murder. Last night’s show was filled with murder, intrigue, and, of course, sex – not to mention a loose, not always accurate understanding of the law. The one law school scene in the episode (we almost forgot this was a show about law school) sets the mood. “What does sex have to do with criminal law [and ratings]?” Annalise asks her students....

Before we begin, one small warning. Don’t use these on humorless coworkers or senior partners. Generally, the more technophobic the victim, the more angry they will get. That being said, if you have coworkers who are still human, such as the fellow associates that you go to happy hour with on Thursday, these are all brilliant ideas for April Fool’s Day. This works best if your coworker has external computer speakers....

The sale of five small islands located within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will proceed as originally planned following the California Supreme Court’s review of the matter. It’s a decision that some Northern California groups have opposed from the very beginning. The buyer, the Metropolitan Water District, has intimated that the islands may be used to provide access to a proposed tunnel system, a project that many fear may be used as a pathway to divert water to Southern California during these worrisome times of drought....

A pair of Texas fighters foiled an attempted MMA gym burglary, and they really didn’t even have to lift a finger. The badly timed break-in took place about 3 a.m., when two mixed martial arts fighters had just wrapped up a late-night training session, San Antonio’s KSAT-TV reports. “We’re just kind of sitting down, drinking water, … and we start to hear pounding on this door,” one of the fighters told KSAT....

In US v. Battle, No. 08-3060, the court of appeals affirmed in part defendant’s convictions for distributing crack cocaine, holding that the evidence was sufficient to show that defendant made the charged sales. However, the court vacated in part, on the ground that convictions on separate counts of distributing crack cocaine and of distributing the same drugs within 1000 feet of a school merge. As the court wrote: “Michael Anthony Battle raises three challenges to his convictions for distributing crack cocaine....

Big shocker: A lower court decided not to hear a case because a higher court is going to decide the issue for them! Yeah, we saw this coming too once the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Fourth Circuit’s Obamacare subsidies case: The D.C. Circuit pressed pause on its own en banc consideration of the issue. Meantime, also in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel upheld the Obama administration’s newest workaround for religious exemption to the birth control mandate....

In In re M.B., No. E048581, the Fourth District faced a challenge to the juvenile court’s judgment terminating petitioners’ parental rights to their minor child. In rejecting the petitioners’ argument that the juvenile court’s decision must be reversed because the Indian expert did not conduct an adequate investigation, the court held that the ICWA does not require an Indian expert to interview parents in every case, and that even without the expert’s opinion, the evidence supported the court’s finding beyond a reasonable doubt that continued custody by the parents was likely to result in serious physical or emotional damage to the child....

Waters v. Shinseki, No. 09-7071, involved a challenge to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Affairs’ dismissal of petitioner’s action challenging the Department of Veterans Affairs refusal to give him a medical examination to aid it in determining whether his medical disability during military service had a causal relationship to the different medical disabilities he suffered after his service. In addressing the petitioner’s assertions to support his claim of a nexus between his military illness and his present medical problems, the court rejected petitioner’s interpretation of the Veterans Court’s ruling as holding that establishing such a nexus necessarilly requires medical evidence....

Cuban cigars are still illegal in the U.S. and smuggling them can get you a hefty punishment. If you’re an attorney, they could get your disbarred. Illinois’ Bar Association recommended just that for Richard Connors, a Chicago lawyer who was convicted of smuggling Cuban cigars into the U.S. Generally smuggling violates laws against drug trafficking. But in this case Connors broke a lesser known statute. He was convicted of violating the Trading with the Enemy Act, according to the ABA Journal....

Gonzalez-Vera v. Townley, No. 09-5134, was an action seeking to invoke one of 18 U.S.C. section 3523’s enforcement procedures, the appointment of a guardian to help collect a judgment against an individual under the Witness Protection Program. As the court of appeals wrote: “[Defendant] was linked to the July 1976 torture and murder of Carmelo Soria Espinoza (“Soria”), a United Nations diplomat then living and working in Chile. In November 2002, Soria’s widow, Laura Gonzalez-Vera, along with the personal representative of Soria’s estate, sued Townley seeking damages for Soria’s torture and killing....

Consultant Peter Zeughauser, in the Recorder piece reporting the Allen Matkins cuts: the top 10 to 15 firms would “never” do this, but the next tier of BigLaw firms might just end up slashing associate pay after exhausting other options.ABA Journal: when it happens, this move will probably go hand-in-hand with the dismantling of lockstep compensation structures and the move to merit-based compensation.WSJ Law Blog: the whole discussion is “ridiculous,” though not because the Journal cares deeply about the financial well-being of the average associate, but because it apparently can’t wait to see what would happen: “Why shouldn’t the first [firm] to jump be applauded for having the fortitude, confidence and business savvy to go first?...

This week brought some mixed news for the family of Giant’s fan Bryan Stow. Kids Tabitha and Tyler may not sue the Dodgers at this time, according to Superior Court Judge Abraham Khan. However, Stow may seek punitive damages against the club, which could place a jury award well into the hundreds of millions. This result leads to two interesting questions: Why can Bryan Stow sue while he’s incapacitated? And why can’t his kids?...

In an appeal from an order terminating Defendant’s parental rights in a juvenile dependency proceeding, the order is affirmed, where the court can exercise dependency jurisdiction based on findings of prior instances of serious harm or abuse, and the evidence in the record is sufficient to support a finding of future risk of harm. Read the full decision in In re J.K., No. B210150. [html] Read the full decision in n re J....

In an action involving jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act in an international custody dispute, trial court judgment is affirmed where the California court that dissolved the marriage properly assumed initial UCCJEA jurisdiction over the child custody matter as the son’s home state, it never lost jurisdiction over the matter, and its order granting custody to husband was valid when entered and thus remains valid. Read In re Marriage of Nurie, No....

In a defamation action regarding defendant’s statement that plaintiff was involved in “crony companies” associated with former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, dismissal of the complaint is affirmed in part where plaintiff’s claim of intentional interference with a business expectancy failed because he did not identify a specific potential transaction that he lost because of defendant’s statements. However, the order is reversed in part where: 1) defendant’s statements were not fair or accurate reports of a government document; and 2) a conclusion based on a misstatement of fact was not protected by the fair comment privilege....

The family of a worker run over by a World War II tank on the property of Jelly Belly Chairman of the Board, Herman Rowland Sr., sued him and his son-in law, Dwayne Brasher, for wrongful death. The tank is part of an extensive antique machinery collection belonging to Roland. The victim of this accident was Kevin Wright, 54, a father of two who assisted with maintenance of this collection. He was in attendance at the family reunion to help, reports the New York Daily News, and was riding in the tank when he was ejected and run over....

Runaway brides are fairly popular, at least in Hollywood. But grooms with cold feet create their fair share of wedding day disasters. But what happens when a jilted bride is also an attorney? A Chicago man is learning that answer the hard way, to the tune of a $95,000-lawsuit from his ex-fiance. Dominique Buttitta, a Chicago-based attorney and former bride, has sued her runaway groom for the costs associated with planning their elaborate wedding after being informed just four days before their nuptials that the marriage was off, MSNBC reports....

If you thought about going to a for-profit law school, don’t. Read John Grisham’s newest novel instead. “The Rooster Bar” is well worth the $27 hardback price because it will save you about $150,000 in tuition. Oh, and it’s a good read. Here’s how it ends. Spoiler Alert Page 368; that’s how it ends. You’ll have to read the book for more. But you already know that it doesn’t end well for anybody who goes to a for-profit law school....

A Noah’s Ark-themed amusement park may have sprung a financial leak after being denied millions of dollars in tax incentives. The Ark Encounter, a Genesis-themed attraction with a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark, was denied approximately $18 million in tax breaks from the state of Kentucky. Why? According to Think Progress, it may have something to do with refusing to comply with the state’s existing nondiscrimination policies. Why is the state giving the Ark park more than two of every legal problem?...