If you are a 2L right now, you are likely sweating out what to do for summer employment. But if you want to get one of the coveted internships at Big Law, you may have to campaign like never before, reports The Wall Street Journal. That’s because the days of resting on the laurels of your 3.70 GPA are long over. Instead, many Big Law firms may not even be coming to your campus....
Pro football and the U.S. Constitution are not typically mentioned in the same sentence, let alone the same blog post. But with a recent string of NFL players being hit with criminal charges for their conduct off the field – including all-pro running back Adrian Peterson, who was indicted on child abuse charges over the weekend – the constitutional concept of due process has entered the football lexicon. The phrase has been used by team officials to explain why players charged with crimes, such as 49ers defensive lineman Ray McDonald, have remained on the field, as well as by players fighting suspensions for their off-the-field conduct, like Ravens running back Ray Rice....
“On call” employees must be paid for calling in to see if they are scheduled to work, even when their employers say they do not need to come in. In Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc., California’s Second District Court of Appeals said on-call shifts burden employees and they should be paid for it. In some cases, that means a half-day’s pay for being on-call. It was a surprise for Tilly’s, the clothing store, but it was not the only one....
It seems like these days posting anything on Facebook isn’t safe. What kind of world do we live in when a teenage girl can’t put photos of a lot of money online without someone trying to rob her? A 17-year-old Australian girl learned the importance of common sense after two armed robbers broke into her grandmother’s home in Sydney. The girl was helping her 72-year-old granny count her savings. Then, like most dingy teens, she decided it was a good idea to snap a picture of the cash and post it on Facebook....
Anything can be used as a weapon so when nothing else was handy, Michael Wayne Jones beat his girlfriend with her own dog. Dogs can be dangerous if they bite. But Jones allegedly used his girlfriend’s small dog as a club and hit her multiple times during a fight. The police report also claims that he choked her before biking away from the scene carrying the dog. He was caught a short time later with the dog and a cut on his right hand....
When it comes to crime, judges rarely get cast in the role of hero. But for Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, although it’s been over a year since she sentenced the infamous former Team USA and MSU gymnastics doctor/predator, she’s still being contacted by victims of abuse. And in keeping with her social-media hero status, when asked about the Nassar case in a recent interview with local news, she spoke broadly and explained that more needs to be done to support abuse victims....
Robe-itis, the disease that sometimes infects new judges, usually is not fatal. The malady transforms ordinary people into ogres when they put on the black robe. With time and experience, however, most judges survive and emerge as patient, dignified, and courteous representatives of the court. But not Conrad Hafen of Las Vegas, it would seem. The former justice of the peace put on the robe and turned into Darth Vader. Now his judicial career is over....
Ex patent attorney Jason Throne has been ordered to pay fines to the tune of $4.84 million and spend a little under six years in federal prison following 14 years of conning his boss. In a word, the high flying patent attorney billed his employer Hunter Douglas with phony bills and used his wife’s name to do it. This case is a reminder to large firms to conduct thorough due diligence, otherwise you too could find yourself paying for an aerobics instructor’s “expertise....
If Homer Simpson were a lawyer, he’d have said ’d’oh’ and that would’ve been the end of it. But among the many mistakes Homer has made, he never sent a confidential email to a Wall Street Journal reporter. That’s why this lawyer story is not going away. WilmerHale accidentally sent an email about its client undergoing an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. D’oh! It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last, that an attorney has blown it with email and accidental disclosures....
Trial court’s judgment denying plaintiff’s motion to vacate the voluntary dismissal of his wrongful termination action against defendant is affirmed but the award of sanctions is reversed as the trial court’s ruling on plaintiff’s motion to vacate deprived him of the full 21-day safe harbor period to avoid imposition of sanctions. Read Li v. Majestic Indus. Hills, LLC., No. B208404 Appellate Information Filed September 8, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Perluss...
Brasstown, North Carolina, rings in the new year with its annual “Possum Drop” – much to the dismay of animal rights activists who sued to stop the marsupial spectacle. But thanks to a local judge, the show will go on. The tradition involves a New Year’s Eve ball drop – oh, except the ball is actually a live opossum in a box. Not surprisingly, PETA protested the event for years, culminating in a full-blown Possum Drop lawsuit....
In plaintiff’s action against Blue Shield after it rescinded her insurance policy, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed as the undisputed evidence established that information plaintiff provided to Blue Shield was false, and contrary to her assertions, Blue Shield had no statutory duty to show that plaintiff’s application had been physically attached to the insurance policy nor to conduct further inquiries during the underwriting process to ascertain the truthfulness of plaintiff’s representations before it issued the policy....
Trial court order denying defendant’s motion to terminate his obligation to register as a sex offender based on his conviction for oral copulation with a person under the age of 16 is reversed and remanded where subjecting defendant to the mandatory sex offender registration violated his equal protection rights, since the nature of the sexual act alone determined whether the defendant received mandatory sex offender registration or if the trial court had discretion....
Our lives were supposed to be better than this. They said, “Go to college.” They said, “Law is a noble, rewarding, and lucrative profession.” They said, “Hard work will lead to greater things.” It hasn’t quite happened that way. We, the twenty-somethings of the recession, are the “new lost generation.” While tuition was rising, we did the “right” thing, went to school, and then graduated into a barren job market, for law grads and laypeople alike....
A Sriracha factory is being sued by a California city where some residents say the fumes and odors from the plant are a nuisance. Sriracha, also known and loved as “rooster sauce,” is produced at the Huy Fong Foods plant in Irwindale, California, but the city’s inhabitants apparently can’t stand the heat of the plant’s fumes. According to the Los Angeles Times, the smell emitted from the Sriracha plant has allegedly caused Irwindale residents to experience “burning eyes, irritated throats, and headaches caused by a powerful, painful odor....
Holy cow. College student Nicole Nelsen was in the middle of a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo dairy science course when an unsupervised 1,400-pound cow broke into the mobile shed where she was working on artificially inseminating another cow and crushed her leg. Whoa Nellie, that’s a whole lotta beef. And now Nelsen has a beef with the school. Nelsen’s attorney alleges that the instructor was not present at the time, and left two students in charge of the cattle and the course....
Lawyers can be forgetful, but how can you forget stealing two pricey paintings from an art gallery and then hanging them up in your own house? Australian lawyer Michael Sullivan claims that’s exactly what happened when he was caught on surveillance video absconding with two works of art valued at more than $14,000 in 2008, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Despite the evidence, Sullivan, 54, tried to use one of the oldest defenses around: He didn’t recall doing it....
The American Association of Law Schools is having its annual meeting in San Francisco this week, not far from FindLaw’s West Coast offices. That means law professors, everywhere. Law professors pitching books. Law professors arguing with panelists. Law professors eating burritos. Want to join them? You can. Despite the rumors, you don’t have to be a Yale Law School grad to become a law professor. So, if academia is in your future, we’ve got some jobs you should check out....
When 19-year-old Sarah Furay was arrested after police found 31.5 grams of cocaine, 126 grams of marijuana, 29 ecstasy tablets, 60 doses of a drug similar to LSD, and methamphetamine in her apartment, she took a smiling mug shot and was dubbed the “World’s Most Adorable Drug Kingpin.” When it was discovered that she was the daughter of a DEA agent, the story looked even more like a farce. But after spending just one day in jail and posting what appears to be a minimal bond amount, many are questioning whether she’s receiving preferential treatment and may walk on the drug charges altogether....
The law school bubble has claimed another victim. You’ll remember that, last year, the self-appointed second-best law school in the country, Thomas M. Cooley School of Law (which is unranked by those barbarians at U.S. News), closed its Ann Arbor campus because of lagging enrollment. Cooley, nevertheless, remained alive. In Minnesota, however, there will soon be one less ABA-accredited law school as Hamline University School of Law has announced it plans to merge with William Mitchell College of Law....
