Posts

The Connecticut witch trials concluded almost 350 years ago but the victims never got their justice. Bernice Mable Graham Telian, the descendant of a woman who was hanged as a witch in 1663, is fighting to clear her ancestor’s name. Mary Barnes is Telian’s seventh grandmother. She was convicted for ‘familiarity with Satan’ and hanged for practicing witchcraft in colonial Connecticut. The state executed 11 women for witchcraft between 1647 and 1663 ....

A state appeals court has upheld a law requiring therapists to report patients who view child porn online or in other digital forms. California’s Second District Court of Appeal said that society’s interest in protecting children outweighs the privacy rights of patients who view child pornography. Under the Child Abuse Neglect and Reporting Act, the court said, therapists are mandated to report anyone who has accessed child pornography through electronic or digital media....

The public has few benefactors and it needs dedicated humanitarian-types like you to represent the interests of individuals. It’s important for quality lawyers to fight for the cause of civil rights. Although nobody goes into public interest law to get rich, there are ways to pursue your passion without completely going broke. Selecting Your School We hate to say it, but you probably have such laudable and callow dreams because you haven’t gotten into law school yet, and haven’t yet faced the debt....

Feeling cooped up? Trapped? As a kid, didn’t you think your life would be a bit more exciting than just working late for a job you don’t love? Well, there’s still time to make a change. No, you don’t have to sell the minivan and get a sports car, or leave your spouse and start dating a college student. But you can find a job in an industry that’s got a bit more sex appeal....

There is a lot of focus lately on the rather amorphous state of gay rights and transgender peoples’ civil liberties in this country as of late. Between religious freedom laws and the right to use the bathroom that corresponds with one’s chosen gender identity, political sentiment is fraught with controversy. That’s why we decided to focus on gay and transgender rights this week. But the overall aim ought to be a renewed focus on civil rights in general....

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that as more Millennials enter law school, more Millennials will be seeking and taking every type of legal job out there. After all, Millennials have now beaten baby boomers as America’s largest generation, and they are entitled enough to enter one of the worst legal job markets in U.S. history. To that end, the number of lawyer Millennials that will be disappointed by their careers is bound to be astronomical....

Who would have thought a show about ducks would be so successful? It surprised almost everybody, but not the 12 million viewers who tuned in for its fourth season. Phil Robertson, the star of the show, said it started as “just a bunch of rednecks shooting ducks.” “Duck Dynasty” is really a story about a family. But four years later, it’s a different story as the co-creators are fighting for their television lives in ITV Gurney Holding Inc....

There’s been a bit of a tradition for the firm Cravath Swaine & Moore to be the first on the BigLaw block to come out with associate bonuses, but this year the firm Sheppard Mullin decided to pull up ahead and break that trend … or not? On Friday, Shepard Mullin released their 2015 bonus “announcement” that mysteriously seemed to appear out of the blue. Above the Law gave Sheppard Mullin the benefit of the doubt and called error....

Penn State’s former president and two other ex-administrators will stand trial on charges that they conspired to cover up the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. A judge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ordered the ex-Penn State officials – former president Graham Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curly, and former senior vice president Gary Schultz – to face charges of perjury, conspiracy, and failure to report suspected child abuse, among others, USA Today reports....

Reeves v. MV Transp. Inc., A125927, concerned a challenge to the trial court’s grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s age discrimination suit against a company, claiming that he was not selected for an interview and not hired for a staff attorney position because he was 56 years old. In affirming the trial court’s judgment, the court held that plaintiff’s qualifications were not so superior to those of the person selected as to make the selection of that person unreasonable as required for a credentials-based finding of pretext....

A man known for his civil liberties work faces disciplinary action by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel – the body responsible for ethics violations by attorneys licensed with the D.C. bar. And what clearly egregious instance of misconduct did this man commit to warrant this charge? Embezzlement? Conspiracy? No, Mr. Thomas Tamm has been charged with two counts professional misconduct stemming from his whistle-blowing on then President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping programs in 2004, almost 12 years ago....

A beauty queen was arrested along with three friends after allegedly lobbing homemade bombs at people and homes. The reigning “Miss Riverton,” whose non-bejeweled name is Kendra McKenzie Gill, was crowned in June and set to compete in the Miss Utah pageant. But that didn’t stop the 18-year-old and her friends from chucking homemade bombs in the Salt Lake City suburb of Riverton. Surprisingly, she didn’t build the bomb with Botox....

The National Jurist has released its ranking of the top 60 Best Value Law Schools, and the results aren’t exactly that surprising. Only three private schools made the list, one of which may or may not game the system. And there seems to be a concentration of schools located in regions with a low cost of living. You know, like the Midwest, South and other places without many BigLaw firm offices....

California secession is on the mind of Jeff Stone, a Republican who sits on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. Have you ever heard of “South California”? Maybe you will! Stone wants to create a 51st state, “South California,” which will include 13 counties in Southern California. Los Angeles County is noticeably absent from the list of counties Stone wants to include, the Los Angeles Times reports. Why exclude LA? “Los Angeles is purposely excluded because they have the same liberal policies that Sacramento does,” Stone said to the Los Angeles Times....

Tribal lawsuits make headlines sometimes because they are like cases from a different country. Technically, they are because Native American tribes exist as sovereign nations within the United States. In Cobell v. Zinke, the underlying case involved an historic dispute over a tribal land trust. But the issue before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals this time addressed only the attorney’s fees in the case. It didn’t matter much to the tribes, but it was a big deal for one attorney....

In Indian tribe’s suit against the United States alleging breach of fiduciary duty and other duties as trustee of property and other assets owned by the tribe, Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of the case without prejudice is reversed and remanded as 28 U.S.C. section 1500 is inapplicable because the present complaint and an earlier complaint filed in a district court seek different relief. Read E. Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma v....

President Trump’s Russia affair just got more complicated, but the latest twist is turning into a nightmare for a major corporation and its former chief executive officer. Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, was head of ExxonMobil three years ago. The company struck a deal with Russian oligarch Igor Sechin on behalf of Rosneft oil, but then the United States sanctioned Sechin for backing Russia when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine a year later....

Remember the character and fitness report? We took that questionnaire pretty seriously. That’s because our law school mandated attendance at a second-year lecture at which a state bar representative told us that he could find anything that we thought we could hide. Over-disclosure, he said, was safer than under-disclosure. And oh, did we over-disclose! Lawyers, of course, aren’t the only professionals who have to disclose every nitty-gritty detail to the background check overlords, so today we’re looking at a case involving pilot background checks....

Well, that’s interesting. Yesterday, the Federal Circuit sua sponte ordered an en banc hearing in Lexmark International v. Impression Products, Inc. A three-judge panel just heard oral arguments on March 6, but that apparently wasn’t sufficient for the Federal Circuit. According to the order, the parties must resubmit new briefs and address the applicability of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons and patent exhaustion in the face of a single-use-and-return restriction....

Motorists reported Warren Thomas Michael for DUI after he nearly ran several cars off the road as he swerved his way down the street. But when police pulled him over he said the squirrel made him do it. Michael was right about one thing, there was a squirrel involved. But he failed to take into account the fact that he was still drunk. Police pulled over his silver pickup after watching it nearly hit a stopped car, according to The Gainesville Sun....