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From here on out, Joanne Fraill will be known for committing Facebook contempt. For contacting a former defendant in an ongoing drug trial for which she was a juror, the mother of six was sentenced to 8 months in jail on contempt charges brought by prosecutors upset that her actions had initiated a mistrial. As is par for the course both in the U.S. and abroad, upon becoming a juror, Joanne Fraill was instructed not to contact any of the parties involved in the criminal trial, as well as to refrain from using the internet to seek outside information on the case....

In a dispute over a denial of disability benefits, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims judgment is affirmed where the absence of a right to confrontation with the Veterans Health Administration ophthalmologist was not prejudicial to plaintiff’s claim as there was no evidence of record that established an actual causal nexus between plaintiff’s in-service injury and his cataracts. Read Gambill v. Shinseki, No. 08-7120 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans ClaimsDecided August 13, 2009...

Do you hate your job as a lawyer? Do you not feel satisfied in the work you do? Unfortunately, it seems that lawyers are particularly prone to asking themselves these probing questions. Lawyers’ personality types generally tend to put them especially at risk of depression and burnout, and some won’t even recognize the problem until it’s too late. It’s a terrible thing to generalize, but there seems to be strong evidence that lawyers as a whole are some of the people least qualified to be lawyers....

A slain Iraq war veteran’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” headstone has been removed from an Ohio cemetery, which called the monument’s installation an “error in judgment.” The late Army Sgt. Kimberly Walker’s tombstone, which stood 7 feet tall and resembled the cartoon character SpongeBob in Walker’s Army uniform, was deemed by Spring Grove Cemetery to be out of place and “inappropriate” for the “historic” cemetery, Cincinnati’s WLWT-TV reports. The cemetery also removed a second SpongeBob headstone, which was meant for Walker’s twin sister....

After 15 months of training paralegal specialists, Washington’s experiment produced a little more than a dozen “Limited License Legal Technicians.” Not exactly a booming field, but at least it didn’t blow up. The State Supreme Court and the State Bar Association started the program to provide legal services to people who could not afford a lawyer but needed more than paralegals could provide traditionally. Unlike paralegals who work in law firms, the LLLTs were trained to provide services directly to clients without attorney supervision....

Stories where a tenant sues a landlord aren’t exactly rare, but how many of those stories involve a spanking? We couldn’t remember any either. But that’s what happened to a 29-year-old tenant of Ron Kronenberger, the 53-year-old former Citizen of the Year in Waynesville, Ohio. The tenant was forced to drop his pants and was spanked with a belt, according to police reports. This wasn’t a romantic interlude gone wrong. Kronenberger allegedly spanked the man during a dispute over some overdue rent....

The 7.0 earthquake that shook Anchorage last November had a real impact on the courts. As walls swayed and fixtures broke apart, people hid under their desks to escape falling debris. The quake broke up roads outside, and sent residents to higher ground for fear of a tsunami. Months later, the survivors still need help. The Alaska Supreme Court has opened a door for lawyers everywhere to volunteer. Free Legal Answers The state Supreme Court issued an order allowing out-of-state attorneys to provide temporary legal services to low-income Alaskans....

The decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board affirming petitioner’s removal from employment by the United States Postal Service (USPS) is vacated and remanded for consideration of petitioner’s evidence of mental impairment, and reapplication of the Douglas factors in light of the evidence. Read Malloy v. US Postal Service, No. 08-3117 Appellate Information Appeal from: Merit Systems Protection Board Decided August 25, 2009 Judges Before Newman, Moore, CIrcuit Judges, and Gettleman, District Judge....

For Paul Manafort, things are going from bad to worse to even worse. After being sentenced in Virginia to 47 months, the federal court in D.C. sentenced him to 73 months, which will basically run concurrently. However, in addition to the second sentence, Manafort was also indicted in Manhattan federal court in a mortgage fraud scheme. It is alleged that Manafort falsified business records to get millions of dollars in loans....

Brides usually stress about their attire, but one San Francisco bride didn’t have that problem when she celebrated her naked wedding in public. The bride and groom were married in their birthday suits on the steps of City Hall, then moved to the sidewalk where police stepped in to issue citations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The idea of a naked wedding probably won’t shock any San Francisco residents, but for a city stereotyped by its groovy vibes, it’s not as lax about nudity laws....

In plaintiff-trust’s suit against defendant-Exxon claiming contamination of its water supply and other allegations, judgment of the trial court is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) trial court’s order substituting Cook Endeavors for the Trust as plaintiff in this action is affirmed; and 2) peremptory writ of mandate is issued directing the superior court to vacate its order granting Exxon’s motion for summary adjudication on plaintiff’s punitive damages claim....

In a petition for review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s order certifying petitioner-shipper’s capacity, the petition is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction where, because the shippers could not show an actual or imminent injury as a result of the challenged orders, they were not aggrieved pursuant to section 19(b) of the Natural Gas Act. Read PNGTS Shipper’s Group v. FERC, No. 09-1029 Appellate Information Argued November 16, 2009 Decided January 26, 2010...

Three years ago, attorney Frank Barnwell McMaster woke up from the worst hangover in his life. It was not the pain in his brain that floored him, it was his mug shot in the media after he was arrested for his second alcohol-related crime. McMaster, the brother of South Carolina’s former attorney general, was now the poster boy for alcoholic lawyers. An irreverent website took a swipe at McMaster and his famous brother, posting the mug shot with the lead-in:...

The bar exam is less than a month away. If you haven’t started studying yet, is there any way that you could pass it? Blake Masters says that you have more than enough time. Masters is a Stanford Law grad and tech entrepreneur who passed the California bar after studying for only 100 hours. So yeah, he knows what he’s talking about. And he’s happy to share how he did it....

Widener Law School faces a class action lawsuit alleging that students were defrauded with deceptive employment statistics. Fortunately for the school, however, the Third Circuit recently ruled that the plaintiffs lacked critical commonality for such an action. It’s a major victory for the law school and marks another victory for schools defending disaffected and disenfranchised law grads. However, the suit is not dead; the circuit court ruling means that each plaintiff must pursue relief one by one....

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, while addressing a group of law students at the 2018 Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium, recently explained his belief that we all need to be less cynical and negative about our country. The statement should be taken with every grain from an entire salt mine as the Justice sits in the highest of ivory towers. However, there is a fine line between being critical and being cynical....

Petition for Review of FERC Ratemaking In Apache Valley Corp. v. FERC, No. 09-1204, a petition for review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of a lease that would enable a larger, interstate pipeline (Midcontinent) to transport natural gas over a smaller, intrastate pipeline (Enogex), the court granted the petition in part where FERC did not provide a reasoned explanation for its decision. However, the court denied the petition in part where petitioner failed to raise its undue discrimination claim before FERC....

From the annals of law school posts, we perused dozens of student missives about when is the best time to get married during law school. The consensus answer was to do it during a winter break or early summer, but definitely not before finals or taking the bar exam. Of course, a few said there is no good time during law school to get married. And then there were some gems, which say more about how prospective lawyers think than anything about the romance of a white wedding....

We occasionally like to joke that a minor rule amendment changes everything. All kidding aside, yesterday’s California Supreme Court decision in Leung v. Verdugo Hills Hospital literally changes the face of tort law in the Golden State. The biggest news: The release rule is gone. Instead, the court has adopted the setoff-with-contribution approach. Before trial, the Aidan and the pediatrician agreed to a settlement of $1 million, the limit of the pediatrician’s malpractice insurance policy....

Happy Election Day, California! Sure, there are no federal or state-wide elections, but today at least a few California voters will go to the ballot to decide 61 local measures, from drastically limiting Airbnb in San Francisco to funding Las Virgenes Unified School District in Los Angeles and Ventura. Speaking of schools, 102 school board seats across 38 districts are up for a vote today. But forget what’s on the ballot....