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Why would anyone want to steal a hearse? Joe Brown and his family were getting ready to carry his father’s casket from the church to the hearse when they were given the bad news. The hearse was gone! Grand Theft Hearse In Buffalo, New York, a funeral was underway at St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church. Right outside, in the parking lot, Michael Healing was stealing the hearse. Healing took the hearse on a short joy ride and was found 15 miles away after a short two hour search by the police....

If you’re the Lithuanian mayor of the country’s capital of Vilnius, and your constituents are deeply concerned with the increase of illegally parked cars around city streets, what would you do? Well, one option as mayor is to crush a car with a tank in order to send a message. Okay, crushing an illegally parked car is certainly not the usual punishment for parking violators. Usually, those who park in bicycle lanes in the city might have to pay a fine, or maybe get their car towed....

Introducing our Ex-Lawyer of the Week: Nelson Mandela. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, turns 94 today. Many are celebrating by completing “67 minutes of good deeds,” one for each year of Mandela’s anti-apartheid struggles, Reuters reports. But Mandela’s push for social justice actually began with a groundbreaking law practice he founded with a friend. The firm of Mandela & Tambo marks its 60th anniversary this year, and stands as a monument to Mandela’s lifelong commitment to equality....

In a new lawsuit, journalists say they want to see everything that goes on during executions in California. The procedure for lethal injections at San Quentin State Prison “intentionally places critical portions of the execution beyond public observation,” the complaint says. The media are suing to see the whole process. Also, new regulations say media witnesses must be removed if something goes wrong with an execution. That, in the world of controversial news, is what the media is waiting for....

The New Orleans Saints’ bounty scandal has resulted in four player suspensions – a move that may eventually lead to a lawsuit against the NFL, a source tells ESPN. “All 4 player suspensions will be appealed, per source who said, ‘Get ready for a massive multiple legal battle over this on several fronts,’” ESPN’s NFL expert Adam Schefter reported via Twitter. The NFL player suspensions, announced Wednesday, are without pay. The suspended players are:...

In 2009, Gregory Fair pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement and mail fraud after selling more than $1 million in pirated copies of Adobe Systems programs on eBay. In addition to a 41-month prison sentence, the court ordered Fair to pay Adobe $743,098 in restitution, The Washington Post reports. Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the restitution order. Fair was ordered to pay restitution to Adobe Systems under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA), which was created to restore a victim to the position the victim occupied before sustaining injury....

An Indiana state trooper is facing a lawsuit for allegedly asking a driver if she had “accepted Jesus Christ as her savior” and handing her a religious pamphlet during a traffic stop. Motorist Ellen Bogan claims she was stopped on U.S. Route 27 by Trooper Brian Hamilton for making an illegal pass. Hamilton issued Bogan a warning ticket for a traffic violation, but then allegedly began inquiring about her religious beliefs, reports Cincinnati’s WLWT-TV....

A college athlete gets in trouble with the law and lawyers up pretty quickly. Then the questions start. How did he find an attorney so fast? Who’s paying for the lawyer? And why does he need a lawyer if he’s innocent. (This last one can be dispelled quickly – anyone charged with a crime should hire a lawyer.) But the first two are far more interesting, especially following news that the University of Tennessee will pay eight women $2....

Once the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) last May, several states scrambled to pass their own sports betting legislation. Since then, Delaware, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia have legalized and implemented sports gambling, and New York and Arkansas could soon follow. (ESPN even has a handy dandy state-by-state guide to sports betting legalization.) But which states could be next on that list?...

Most people in their mid-30s would be hard-pressed to pass as a high school senior. But a 34-year-old Texas woman has been arrested after posing as a 15-year-old sophmore at a local high school since last October. How did she pull it off, and what charge is she now facing? Although jail records list her as 31, police in Longview, Texas, say Charity Johnson is 34. And they’re still not sure why she enrolled at New Life Christian School in October as a sophomore....

If a law school got sued every time a student failed a final exam or was subject to the anguish of not passing the bar, there’d be a lot fewer law schools in this country. Wait. That might be a good thing. A woman is suing Oxford Brookes University (not to be confused with the Oxford) for failing to teach her how to answer basic legal questions. In other words, they didn’t teach her how to take legal exams and now her career is ruined, according to her complaint....

Jodi Greebel collapsed in court as a judge sentenced her husband – a former attorney for Martin Shkreli – to 18 months in prison. It was an awful day for lawyer Evan Greebel and his family, and the beginning of the end to a painful legal process. A jury labored to convict the former Kaye Scholer attorney, and even the judge was emotional at sentencing. But for the victims, it wasn’t about the jail time....

It’s bar results season! On Tuesday, New York dropped results a day earlier last year, and weeks earlier than expected, reports Above the Law. Californians are going to be waiting in agony for at least a few more weeks. If you’re from one of the flyover states, the length of your torture may vary, but the significance of the moment won’t: This is the biggest test of your life. And while many are understandably excited, others are recovering from a hangover with nothing but sorrow and months of bar prep ahead of them....

When the tech revolution comes, it’ll be the lawyers like Chad Au, who still hasn’t even finished law school, who the terminators come back to protect. That’s because Chad Au is one of a select group of law students selected for an Access to Justice Tech Fellowship, and Chad actually did something meaningful: he created a chatbot to help Hawaii’s Legal Aid Society. Most law students these days already know what a chatbot is and does, and legal services chatbots have been around for some time now....

Last month, we talked about the oral arguments made in the Apple-Samsung lawsuit. Apple was trying to enjoin the sale of Samsung’s version of the iPad in the U.S. Now, the verdict is in. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled on the Apple Samsung patent infringement lawsuit. And what’s the court saying? You guessed it. Don’t mess with Apple. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals found that the district court judge erred in deciding that Apple didn’t show a likelihood of success on the merits....

A Chinese plastic manufacturer that did not cooperate with U.S. Commerce investigations was saddled with a “country-wide” duty on all of its woven plastic sacks being imported to the U.S., and the Federal Circuit Court upheld Commerce’s decision. Are political squabbles with China affecting companies who export goods from China to the U.S.? Laminated Woven Sacks This case involves a company called Aifudi, a plastic manufacturer who produces “laminated woven sacks” similar to the bags you might use at IKEA but used primarily to hold things like birdseed and pet foods....

I see skies of blue. And clouds of white. Optimistic law schools. Ignoring their perilous plight. For the past few years, we’ve seen ever-decreasing law school applications and LSAT test administrations. Fewer and fewer undergraduates are looking to the law as the next step, largely because this is a profession largely lacking in lucrative or meaningful opportunities. For the vast majority of law graduates, you’re going to end up with a middling salary working in construction defect litigation, not as Judith Clark or Dana Latham....

Beer lovers sure do love craft beers. In addition to being known for quality, the potent potables often have eye-catching packages and witty names. In an effort to capture some of this rapidly growing niche market, Walmart partnered with a Costa Rican brewery to manufacturer the following allegedly American craft beers: “After Party Pale Ale,” “Cat’s Away IPA,” “Red Flag Amber,” and “Round Midnight Belgian White.” When one craft beer loving Walmart consumer discovered he’d been duped into buying faux-American beer that was labeled and designed to look similar to other American craft beers, he filed a class action lawsuit....

Though he shares his name with a prominent law firm, the only thing prominent about Chicago lawyer Paul Weiss is his apparent fondness for going pantless. Officials with the Illinois State Bar, already investigating the class action litigator on six counts of sexual harassment, have added a new accusation to the mix. A recently hired (and now fired) female employee is accusing him of asking her to wear a swimsuit to the office....

Lawyers are good with words, so it’s easy for us to find ways of blaming other people for our mistakes. A lawyer, for example, never “drinks too much,” he is merely “over-served.” Northern California attorney Tim Pori, however, was not as successful with blame-shifting in front of Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta during a recent court appearance. (For what it’s worth, he actually accepted responsibility.) Judge Panetta, clearly irked that Pori could not begin a murder trial last week due to a scheduling overlap, found Pori in contempt of court, sentenced him to five days in jail, and ordered him to pay a $2,500 fine....