Applying to law school just keeps on getting more complicated. Law schools these days started trying out a new requirement of applicants: commit or walk. In the past, students who were flush with cash or who desperately wanted to hedge their bets would sign an “intent to enroll” letter or make a cash deposit on a seat. But doing that overzealously could cost you. LSAC and Multiple Deposits Law school applications go more or less like this....
A jury found Hugo Alquicira of Hutto, Tex. guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Thursday despite claims that he never ironed his wife. Prosecutors had alleged that police were called to his home after he attacked wife Maria Puente with a heated iron. Alquicira had an even more bizarre defense to the already bizarre crime. He told jurors that he had pushed Puente onto the bed after she “penetrated his buttocks with a plastic sex toy....
A clerk at a Manhattan law firm leapt to his death this week, a month after a lawyer at a nearby law firm committed suicide the same way. Ken Freeling, an attorney at Covington & Burlington, plunged to his death from his ninth story apartment in March. The clerk, unidentified at the scene on April 10, jumped from the 10th floor offices of Satterlee Stephens. The deaths appear unrelated, except for the fact that both victims worked at law firms five blocks from each other....
Most states have already disclosed their July bar exam results (sorry, California, you’ve got to wait a little longer), and the results are pretty grim. July 2014 had the lowest passage rates in recent memory, and the MBE looks to be the culprit. Why? Well, it could be NCBE’s fault for failing to normalize the scores. It could be due to an increase in the number of repeat test-takers, who generally score worse with each re-taking....
Conviction for assault with a deadly weapon and by force likely to produce great bodily injury is reversed where the trial court abused its discretion by authorizing a uniformed and armed deputy sheriff to stand or sit behind defendant during his testimony based on: 1) the court’s failure to inquire whether defendant posed any danger to courtroom security; 2) the absence of a showing defendant presented such a danger; 3) the likelihood that the challenged procedure prejudiced defendant in juror’s eyes; and 4) the refusal to give a cautionary instruction that might have diminished the possibility that the jury would infer from the deployment of the armed guard that defendant was dangerous and untrustworthy....
Trial court’s order requiring defendant to pay $24,752.35 in restitution to the Municipal Utility District (MUD) after pleading no contest to conspiracy to sell marijuana is affirmed as, under the circumstances, it was reasonable to use the earlier date of when the defendant subscribed for utilities rather than the date when the MUD first determined that power was being illegally diverted into the house. Read People v. Phu, No. C060511 [HTML]...
Alameda County’s drug disposal law, which required pharmaceutical companies to pay for the disposal of unused medicine, has survived an attempted Supreme Court challenge. The High Court refused to hear a challenge to the Ninth Circuit’s decision upholding the county law, which applies to much of Northern California’s East Bay area. The law was modeled on similar laws regulating the disposal of batteries, electronics and other potentially harmful trash. Under Alameda’s law, drug companies must pay to collect expired prescriptions and cannot charge customers for the disposal....
Studying for and taking the bar exam is a major accomplishment. Congratulations, you did it! You just sacrificed several months of fun and free time to get here, studying pretty much anytime you could manage it. Hours of exam prep classes and many many dollars later, it’s done. Win or lose, just making it through the exam is a big deal. So in the first few days after the exam ends, treat yourself right....
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has cancelled the Washington Redskins’ trademark registration. In a ruling issued today, the USPTO cancelled six trademarks held by the team which it found “disparaging to Native Americans,” reports The Washington Post. What led to the USPTO’s decision, and how will this affect the team’s continued use of the controversial Redskins name? As a reminder, a trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others....
About midway across the United States, you hit a 72-mile length of I-80 in Nebraska that is the longest stretch of straight road in the United States. A dozen businesses along that route call it “the crossroads.” Nebraska is also a crossroad for some attorneys deciding where to go in their careers. It offers plenty of opportunities because there are no lawyers for miles and miles. If there were any place left for a country lawyer to settle on the American plains, this could be it....
“Sugar” Shane Mosley’s divorce has just gotten a whole lot messier: Sugar Shane’s championship belts? Three of them are going to his ex-wife, Jin Mosley. The championship belt deal is part of the divorce settlement, reports TMZ. Mosley’s last world title came in his knockout in 2009 against Antonio Margarito, a fight that gained him the welterweight belt. Who knows if he will end up keeping that one. Each of Mosley’s kids will get one of their dad’s championship belts when they turn 18, TMZ reports....
For a teenager hosting a party while his parents are out of town, having the cops show up is typically the worst possible scenario. But one teenager in Puyallup, Washington, not only welcomed the arrival of the police to his out-of-control house party last weekend, he had actually summoned them himself, after 70 kids from 11 local high schools began destroying his house and running amok in his neighborhood, reports Seattle’s KOMO-TV....
Now that Tesla has acquired Solar City, it will be a go for lawyers also. Tesla, the largest electric car-maker in the United States, merged with Solar City, the largest solar panel company in the country, in a $2 billion deal. Shareholders of the companies approved the merger, with stock prices rising about 1.1 percent to almost $187 a share. Elon Musk, who now effectively runs both companies, said the acquisition was all about sustainable energy....
Are you struggling to fill out your Mother’s Day card? Don’t know how to put your emotions into words? We’re here to help. In the past 12 months, many a mom has graced FindLaw.com. Unfortunately for their children, these women behaved badly. We mean really bad. But their shortcomings can help inspire your 2012 Mother’s Day missive. So go ahead and thank your mom for never acting like one of the following worst moms of the year....
Everyone needs a summer vacation, right? Yesterday, we indulged your inner nerd and shared the top five nerdy law-related travel destinations. Today, we’re indulging your “cool dude” persona in case you’re not into embracing your inner nerd. Here are our top five pop culture law-related travel destinations. Los Angeles – The OJ Chase Route Twenty years ago, OJ Simpson went on the ride of his life, in his white Bronco, when he tried to elude authorities after he was asked to surrender in an investigation related to the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman....
It’s been a rough year. Antonin Scalia died, as did Muhammad Ali, Prince, David Bowie – even Princess Leia was taken from us just today. There was that terrible election, Brexit, Zika, Aleppo, and mass shooting after mass shooting. And those are just the top of the list. In the eyes of many, 2016 has been the Worst Year Ever. The year’s terribleness hasn’t spared law schools, either. If you can’t wait for this awful year to come to a close, you’re not alone....
Donald Trump isn’t getting along with his former ghostwriter, these days. Tony Schwartz, the co-author of Trump’s 1987 memoir “The Art of the Deal,” has taken to campaigning against the presidential candidate, going on national TV to call him “impulsive and self-centered.” The man who helped create the Donald Trump myth is now working actively against it, arguing that Trump is unfit to lead the country and claiming full credit for his famous memoir....
When you develop a reputation as the “master of disaster” for winning billions of dollars for tort victims, you have to expect that the those people you defeated in court will delight in watching you fall. The people who had a bone to pick with “famed tort lawyer” Stanley Chesley must be rather delighted this week. Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court permanently disbarred Chesley for accepting an “unreasonable” $20 million fee on a $200 million settlement, the ABA Journal reports....
For most, a $4,000 discovery sanction is a stiff penalty. As a daily sanction, however, it could get out of hand quickly. Tallied over a year, that’s about $1.46 million for non-compliance with a court order. For the Watchtower and Jehovah’s Witnesses, a $4,000-a-day sanction might feel like religious persecution. But to a California appeals court, it was just about right for the defendant in a child molestation case. Discovery Abuse The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the discovery sanction in Padron v....
An Arizona transgender man, known by news outlets as “Pregnant Man,” has been granted the right to divorce his wife by an Arizona appellate court. Thomas Beatie, 40, legally changed his gender to “male” in Hawaii before he married his wife in 2003, reports The Arizona Republic. Although Beatie could still bear children, and Hawaii prohibited same-sex marriage, the state considered his marriage valid. However, after Beatie and his wife moved to Arizona, they found they could not get a divorce because of the state’s refusal to consider their Hawaii marriage valid....
