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Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston was cleared Sunday of allegations that he violated the student conduct code by sexually assaulting another student. A two-day Student Conduct Code hearing was held earlier this month in front of former Florida Supreme Court justice Major Harding. In a letter to Winston, Harding wrote that the evidence in the case was “insufficient to satisfy the burden of proof,” reports ESPN. That decision comes more than a year after a similar decision by Florida prosecutors not to charge Winston with a crime in the alleged 2012 sexual assault....

The FBI appeared at the headquarters of Martin & Seibert L.C., a West Virginia law firm, and “aggressively seized property and detained personnel.” The firm said that it was surprised by the magnitude of the action by the FBI but maintained that it would “rise above th[e] allegations” and return to client service. The massive raid by the FBI of Martin & Seibert’s offices is apparently linked to a number of threats and past complaints against the firm by some disgruntled former employees....

Introducing our Ex-Lawyer of the Week: Jodi Ettenberg. While many lawyers only dream of one day leaving the law and becoming globe-trekking vagabonds, Jodi Ettenberg actually did it. After five years of working as an attorney in New York, Ettenberg tendered her resignation, packed her bags, and bought a one-way ticket to South America. She’s never looked back. The writing was on the wall – literally, Ettenberg told The New York Times....

We like to poke a little fun at people who try to pay fines in pennies. But a misguided protest that doesn’t punish any of the people responsible for the fine itself shouldn’t open the door for civil rights violations. And bringing $10 in pennies to pay a ticket doesn’t give court officers the right to grabbed you from behind, choke you and throw to the ground so hard you defecate yourself....

D.C. Circuit nominee Nina Pillard was confirmed on Thursday morning, making her the second Obama nominee to be confirmed to the Court since the filibuster reform. At around 1 a.m. in D.C., the Senate confirmed Pillard by a vote of 51-44, reports The Associated Press. This was after hearing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) do his best Scrooge impression and tell the collected Senators that they would be “work[ing] though Christmas” if these confirmations didn’t go as planned....

Apparently all those trips to amusement parks do pay off! In Des Moines, Iowa, a nine-year-old girl hopped in the family car for a joyride, along with her seven-year-old friend riding shotgun. A 911 caller alerted police, who found the car zig-zagging down the road, going curb to curb. After police failed to be able to pull the car over using their usual lights and sirens technique, the car eventually came to a halt following a minor crash in which no one was injured....

It’s not just the NFL that has a concussion lawsuit problem. Jimmy Snuka and 50 other retired wrestlers filed a lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., claiming the enterprise “placed corporate gain over its wrestlers’ health, safety and financial security, choosing to leave the plaintiffs severely injured and with no recourse to treat their damaged minds and bodies.” Like previous lawsuits against the NFL and NHL, the WWE claim alleges that the league knew about the long-term neurological effects of wrestling and hid them from athletes....

Larry and Diana Moyer brought their 8-month-old, Jimmy, to a McDonald’s in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Jimmy often goes along with Larry and Diana, and the trip to McDonald’s was no exception. A McDonald’s customer, however, called the police. They didn’t like Jimmy, even though he apparently didn’t do anything wrong. Oh, also – Jimmy is a kangaroo. The Moyers actually own five kangaroos, along with sheep, geese, chickens, horses, and a menagerie of other animals....

‘Time’s up.’ Like a death sentence, those words await everyone taking the bar exam. So when time expires, will you? This article is about how to beat that relentless taskmaster – the clock that winds down to the last minute of your bar exam life. Ladies and gentlemen, you may start now: 100 Hours Blake Masters, a Stanford law grad and tech entrepreneur, passed the bar after 100 hours of preparation....

Are you ready for your next Skype interview? These days, interviews conducted over video conferencing technology are just as common as phone or in-person interviews. You may be interviewing for a job a few towns away, or even across the country, or the interviewer is out of town. Either way, it not only saves travel expenses, but it just makes more sense to conduct an interview over the computer. While you may think you’re fully prepared for your next Skype interview, don’t forget that there are certain nuances that come with this type of interview that you may not experience otherwise with regular interviews....

A tip of the hat to comedian Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, which is reportedly buying airtime for commercials ahead of South Carolina’s GOP primary, the Palmetto Public Record blog reports. Colbert, legally, can no longer have anything to do with that, or else he’ll get a wag of the finger – and perhaps a hefty fine. The host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” announced on his show last night that he’s forming an exploratory committee for a possible run “for President of the United States of South Carolina....

Dear Amsterdam Prostitutes, Remember to pay your taxes. Sincerely, The Netherlands. Prostitution is legal in The Netherlands, so it stands to reason that prostitutes have to pay taxes on their income. The Dutch government has stated that it plans to send tax authorities into the red light district in Amsterdam for a “business only” visit. “We began at the larger places, the brothels, so now we’re moving on to the window landlords and the ladies,” a spokeswoman for the country’s Tax Service said, the NY Daily News reports....

Last year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office cancelled the Washington NFL team’s trademark registration for its team mascot, saying the name is “disparaging to Native Americans.” This week, the team appealed that decision by coming up with a novel defense of the name, basically listing a bunch of other trademarks with names just as or more offensive than its own. This is an interesting tack to take, reminiscent of a sibling yelling at his parents, “You let my brother do it!...

The Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States is a 3,000-page book that classifies every single thing that enters the country, all for the purpose of determining how to tax it when it gets here. For example, black tea is free, but flavored green tea will cost the importer 6.4 percent. A T-shirt made of man-made fibers has a whopping 32 percent tariff, but if it’s cotton, then it’s only 16....

A Florida carjacker didn’t get far with his getaway vehicle after realizing that the car was manual transmission. Antoren “Chief Keef” Bell, 19, of Pensacola, was arrested in May following an embarrassing stint of failing to drive stick on a car he had just allegedly jacked from a Florida driver, reports The Huffington Post. Bell is not likely to be starring in any “Fast and Furious” movies with noob car skills like that, although his attempted carjacking may let him see the movie inside from a jail cell....

We’ve had murders, conspiracies, ridiculous plots, and even hallucinated babies. But it wasn’t until last Thursday that How to Get Away With Murder actually landed anyone in the psych ward. Now here we are, held against our will and desperately in need of some intensive therapy, so let’s start the talking cure. Here’s your spoiler-filled lawyer’s guide to How to Get Away With Murder. This week’s background legal drama involved a murder, a mother, and a pretty atypical use of restorative justice proceedings....

If you ever participated in an externship during law school, you’ll remember that you were only allowed to earn academic credit towards your J.D. if the position was unpaid. Well, the ABA is considering whether or not it should relax that rule. According to the US Department of Labor, private employers can be forced to pay their interns, while unpaid internships at non-profits are “generally permissible.” This is why so many students who struggled to give their time free to that dream private-firm came up empty handed: the firms couldn’t indulge students even if they wanted to....

Quit harshing my mellow! Now that recreational marijuana will soon be legal (under state law) in The Last Frontier, can attorneys advise clients on getting into the pot business? After all, it’s still illegal under federal law. Yeah, that’s great. But the thing that lawyers really want to know is: Can I smoke, too? Don’t worry, the Alaska State Bar has your back. An informal preliminary opinion analysis prepared by the state bar’s ethics committee reinforces an Alaska’s lawyer’s right to toke up every now and then....

One Minnesota man just learned a hard life lesson: Monopoly money, cards, and property, aren’t real. After being pulled over by law enforcement due to an arrest warrant being connected to the owner of the vehicle, officers discovered that the driver also had an active arrest warrant. However, in a joking manner, which perhaps had a glimmer of hope behind it, the man handed the officer a “Get Out of Jail Free” card from the famous Monopoly board game....

While the Softbank deal with Uber came to a close before the end of the year, Benchmark’s lawsuit over the Kalanick’s appointment of two Uber board seats was only recently dismissed. Though the case settled months ago, the settlement was contingent upon the Softbank deal successfully closing. As part of the settlement agreement between Benchmark and Uber, both Benchmark and Kalanick were able to sell off significant stakes, which, given the critical reception of Benchmark’s lawsuit and Kalanick’s repeated questionable actions, seemed to be what the majority of investors wanted anyway....