For incoming law students, the first few weeks can really be critical. Not only are you meeting all your new classmates, professors, and getting thrown into the deep end of legal study, you’re taking on a modest home worth of debt to do it. While you won’t be able to escape the pressure and stress of it all, you can certainly do a few things to help lessen both. Below are a few tips to help keep you ahead of the curve....
In an action arising out of a landlord-tenant dispute, judgment for Plaintiff is reversed, where 1) the litigation privilege precluded Plaintiff’s malicious prosecution claims; and 2) a client who provides a copy of a contract to counsel, when seeking legal advice, is not obligated to point out any particular provision to the lawyer as a prerequisite to the advice-of-counsel defense. Read Bisno v. Douglas Emmett Realty Fund 1988, No. B193604 in HTML....
Do you follow celebrity gossip to escape from the mundane reality that is law school (or firm life)? If so, there’s some interesting and recent celebrity law school news. Apparently, in addition to America’s second first daughter being enrolled in law school, two other (somewhat) big names have announced that they’re starting law school this fall. The Duggar family was launched into stardom in 2008 with the launch of the reality TV show 17 Kids and Counting, which became 18 Kids and Counting, and eventually 19 Kids and Counting....
As we noted last month, Washington, D.C.’s voter-approved recreational marijuana law is subject to a veto by Congress, which has the last word in administration over the District. Well, it looks like Congress is going to severely harsh people’s mellows. Buried in a 2015 appropriations bill – on pages 213 to 214, to be exact – is a paragraph noting that “none of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used” by any of the states or jurisdictions that legalize marijuana in any form to implement those laws....
In a construction defect case, trial court’s grant of summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds to the roofing defendants is reversed where: 1) there are triable issues of material fact on whether the alleged defect was patent: 2) there are triable issues of material fact on whether the defect can be deemed discovered in the latent defect context because the damage was sufficiently appreciable so that plaintiff suspected or reasonably should have suspected that defendants had done something wrong to plaintiff....
The existence of graffiti grandpa Charles Wesley has probably increased the average age of captured vandals across the nation. Wesley, 71, was arrested in Florida for spray-painting the letters “SLA” on utility poles. Prior to Wesley’s arrest, officials did not know who was behind the spray-painted “SLA” initials. The initials first appeared around six years ago, the Huffington Post reports. Police originally thought “SLA” stood for the Symbionese Liberation Army. This “SLA” is the one responsible for Patricia’s Hearst 1974 kidnapping....
No good deed goes unpunished. Officer Kara Breci discovered the truth in that old saying during a drug bust outside White Castle burgers in November of 2008. When she spotted a possible drug deal going down in the parking lot, Officer Breci and her partner swung into action, got the suspects out of their vehicle and ordered hands in the air. According to the Star-Tribune, unfortunately the drug bust wasn’t the only thing that when down that fateful day, so did the pants of suspect Frank Wiggins, when he raised his hands....
In a judgment creditor’s action under California Uniform Commercial Code section 8112 to reach shares of stock owned by the judgment debtor and his wife to satisfy a money judgment, judgment of the trial court is reversed as it was an abuse of discretion to order worthless shares of stock transferred to a judgment creditor in satisfaction of a money judgment without any reduction in the outstanding judgment. Read Ho v....
On the one hand, it’s doubtful that the number of test-takers could fall any lower. After all, we’ve seen the numbers plummet at every offering of the test since June 2010. In fact, pretty much every metric of law school demand has plummeted consistently, from LSAT applications to actual applications. On the other hand, it’s the February test – the least popular administration time for the LSAT. The increase of 213 test-takers isn’t quite the surge that schools and the Law School Admissions Counsel were hoping for....
In Full text of McCarther v. Pac. Telesis Group, No. S164692, the California Supreme Court was faced with the question of statutory construction concerning Labor Code section 233 arising from plaintiffs’ suit against their employers for being denied paid for leave to care for plaintiffs’ relatives. In reversing Court of Appeals’ decision in favor of the plaintiffs finding that defendants’ sickness absence policy constituted a sick leave within the meaning of section 233, the Court explained the statute as follows: “The statute does not apply to any and all forms of compensated time off for illness, but only to ‘sick leave’ as defined by the statute and only in the amount specified....
Unless you’re lucky enough to be a trust fund beneficiary, you will most likely have to consider costs when applying to law schools. One perceived drawback for many students is that early decision applicants generally have fewer merit-based options. A few schools, however, have decided to offer money to students who undergo the early decision process. They’re looking to catch those who would otherwise join the regular applicant pool for fear of missing out on greener pastures....
Robble robble! A real-life McDonald’s “hamburglar” who smashed his way into a fast-food joint just to gobble some grub has turned himself in to authorities. Whitley Allen Teslow, 21, was caught breaking and entering – and then cooking, eating, and drinking – on surveillance video recorded at a McDonald’s in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The caper took place just before 2 a.m. on Nov. 20, two hours after the McDonald’s had closed, The Courier reports....
Strike a pose. OK, maybe not if you’re NFL tight end Brent Celek, or any other football player on the field marketing or promoting a product during a live game. Celek, posed in front of television cameras, mimicking the Captain Morgan pose from the famous rum’s label and televison ad campaign. “A company can’t pay a player to somehow promote it’s product on the field,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told Yahoo!...
Fast and loose are two words that should never be associated with diapers, or with patent analysis. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, however, ruled on Monday that a patent appeals board’s “fast and loose” decision rejecting an applicant’s diaper patent disregarded procedural safeguards to the applicant. Phyllis Leithem’s patent application disclosed an improved diaper. Traditional diapers are constructed using an absorbent core of dry shredded wood fiber pulp, known as fluff pulp, interposed between a water barrier sheet and a permeable layer that allows liquid to pass through to the absorbent fluff pulp core....
Conviction for first degree murder and other crimes and sentence to death is affirmed where: 1) the trial court did not err in failing to conduct a Marsden inquiry regarding substitute counsel; 2) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the prosecutor’s challenges for cause against two prospective jurors; 3) the court did not err in its jury instructions concerning consideration of the testimony of a willfully untruthful witness, and the inferring of consciousness of guilt from defendant’s attempt to persuade a witness to provide false evidence or from evidence of his flight from the crime scene; 4) defendant is not entitled to inspect the undisclosed portion of the witness’s juvenile file as it is not material to the defense; and 5) California’s death penalty statute does not violate the state or federal constitutions....
Two girls, one cup. And a pair of pliers. Two Wisconsin sisters are facing sexual assault charges in connection with allegedly forcing a boy to drink a cup of urine, and then using pliers to pinch and twist the boy’s penis. On a scale of one to 10, “the pain to his penis was a 10,” the police report states, according to the website The Smoking Gun. Here’s what else the report says about the sisters’ bizarre alleged sexual assault with pliers:...
To all you first-year associates out there: are your six-figure salaries too low? Do you feel like you’re worth more than a measly $160,000 a year? If you’re currently spending your days as an indentured servant deep within a BigLaw firm’s caverns, you probably wish you had a little more cash. Who wouldn’t, when they’re virtually spending all their time at work? In the absence of having a work/life balance, there is only one alternative: buying yourself something pretty to make your life seem happier and more fulfilled....
The government is coming down hard on product counterfeiting in Philadelphia. A steamroller crushed about 7,000 fake Rolex watches once hawked by the “Rolex Man.” The bulldozing event was staged under orders of federal authorities as the culmination of an international multimillion-dollar federal counterfeiting case, the Philly.com reports. The goal of the staged destruction was to highlight law enforcement’s role in protecting intellectual property rights. The event took place on World Intellectual Property Rights Day....
A little behind on your child support payments? Well, consider this. Rosemary Douglas is suing ex-flame Urban Joseph Grass in a Los Angeles, Ca., courtroom on April 5, for some support payments she claims he missed. About 60 year’s worth of payments. Yes, the plaintiff in this case is a youthful 81 and her son is now a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and grandfather, according to his proud mom....
In plaintiff’s petition to determine priority of the liens from a foreclosure sale of property, trial court’s determination that the remaining funds were properly allocated to the other two lien holders is affirmed as the court did not err in relying on Bratcher v. Buckner (2001) 90 Cal.App.4th 1177, a judicial foreclosure case, in a non-judicial foreclosure case such as the present case. Read Wells Fargo Bank v. Neilsen, No. A122626 [PDF]...
