It’s rarely a headline when a company president pays for some personal expenses with business money – unless that happens to be Donald Trump, President of the United States. Before he was elected, Trump raised $339 million in campaign money with about $66 million coming from his own resources. Since then, he reportedly has spent campaign and RNC funds on legal bills in the probe of alleged Russian interference in the election....
People v. Perez, S167051, concerned a challenge to a conviction of defendant for seven counts of premeditated attempted murder of a peace officer and one count of premeditated attempted murder of a civilian. The court reversed and remanded as the evidence was sufficient to sustain only a single count of premeditated attempted murder of a peace officer as, on the facts such as those in this case, where the shooter indiscriminately fires a single shot at a group of persons with specific intent to kill someone, but without targeting any particular individual or individuals, he is guilty of a single count of attempted murder....
You can have your law license suspended for a lot of reasons, and it should be no surprise that being a convicted child sex offender is one of them. Former Debevoise & Plimpton associate Kenneth Schneider was convicted to 15 years in prison last year for having sex with a minor, reports the ABA Journal. He is appealing his conviction and maintains he didn’t turn the Russian teen into his “sex slave” for 6 years....
In what is quite possibly the year’s most seemingly obvious procedural issue, the California Supreme Court opined that a felony defendant’s failure to execute a written waiver of his required presence constitutes a justified forfeit of bail under Penal Code sec. 1305(a). The moral of the story? Show up to court. Penal Code sec. 1305(a) Under California’s Penal Code sec. 1305(a), bail shall be deemed forfeited if, without sufficient excuse, the defendant fails to appear for this arraignment, trial or judgment, or any other appearance for which his presence is legally required....
You can’t always believe what you read in the National Enquirer, but you can hardly believe this story from the Cincinnati Enquirer. According to reports, a former Kentucky judge has been sentenced to 20 years for human trafficking and related crimes. He forced as many as 19 women, including minors, into sex acts. Tim Nolan, 72, left the bench in 1986 and spent his recent career in politics. But even in a world with Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, Nolan is no position to judge anybody....
Juvenile court’s conclusion that defendant brought marijuana into juvenile hall is reversed and remanded as the person who brings a controlled substance or other contraband into juvenile hall is properly charged under Welfare and Institutions Code section 871.5, not Penal Code section 4573. Read In re Edward Q., No. G041281 Appellate Information Filed September 17, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Fybel Counsel For Appellant: R. Charles Johnson For Appelle: Edmund G....
Merit Systems Protection Board judgment is reversed where plaintiff’s rights under the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act rights were violated and he was entitled to corrective relief as plaintiff had the right to have his experience as related in his military documents credited as part of his application. The Board’s final decision denying plaintiff relief on his Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act claim is vacated where the Board abused its discretion in failing to draw adverse inferences against defendant with respect to its knowing destruction of pertinent documents while the case was underway....
Indiana bankruptcy lawyer Brent Welke had a simple dream: to help his clients screw the banks, which his ads declared he’d been doing “since 1992.” But if one thing is true with American capitalism, it’s that you don’t screw the banks. The banks screw you. Welke was suspended in January for misleading advertising. We kid – a bit. It’s not always impossible to screw a bank and Welke wasn’t suspended for promising something that could never be done....
By now we all know the social media basics. Don’t post anything offensive online. Don’t berate your professors, politicians, peers on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. Don’t skip work then tweet about how sweet the surfing is today, brah. And now, here’s another one: be careful what you retweet, for a single impolitic retweet could jeopardize your legal career. This lesson doesn’t come from a law student who retweeted some Twitter bigot, or a judge who retweeted a party appearing before him....
It is looking more and more like the NFL labor dispute is going to remain unresolved, resulting in a lockout of the 2011 season. As the March 4 collective bargaining deadline approaches, potential compromises seem less and less likely. That’s because there have been no conversations between the owners and the union since NFL labor talks broke off last week. “It was not the meeting we expected when we went there,” Jeffrey Pash, the NFL’s lead negotiator, told the AP....
A professional ax thrower in California managed to fend off a burglar without Tomahawk-chopping the suspect. Though Robin Irvine certainly had an ax to grind with Nicholas Ulloa when he tried to steal a watch (from her wrist while she was sleeping!), she opted to use words as her weapon – very colorful words. Ulloa was ultimately apprehended for burglary and Irvine is more of an ax-wielding rock star than ever....
In President Trump’s war on immigration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions may go down in history as his greatest weapon. One day, Trump is calling the attorney general a cartoon character. The next, Trump’s main lawyer is calling out California for frustrating the president’s policy. If it comes down to a contest between White House lawyers and California lawyers, you might want to lay down your bets soon. Sessions, and Trump for that matter, might not make it to the playoffs....
Finally. It has always seemed, to this practical descendant of Midwestern farmers, that BigLaw’s hiring model was odd. Get recent grads with shiny resumes. Give them $160,000, even though they know little to nothing about practice. Bill the client for the training of these associates. In a way, you could justify it: sometimes you have to overpay for free agent prospects. But in a buyer’s market for firms seeking associates, you’d think they would’ve caught on sooner....
Goodbye 2011, and hello 2012! Time to break out the bubbly – and to reveal our Top 3 New Year’s resolutions for BigLaw associates. 1. Work healthier. How much time do you spend stuck behind a computer or in a cubicle? A lawyer’s sedentary lifestyle can lead to health problems – but you don’t need us to tell you that. The bloggers at Diethack suggest taking frequent, regular breaks: for example, 10 minutes on your feet for every hour at your desk....
‘General counsel – and large corporate departments – are the law’s petri dish.’ As corporate counsel balance competing interests – acting as a company’s legal naysayer and can-do partner at the same time – they conduct business experiments they hope will lead to success. It’s a delicate balance, Mark A. Cohen wrote for Forbes, that requires the general counsel to be the company’s conscience at the boundaries of legality. But what about Cohen’s “petri dish”?...
A South Carolina woman has been busted for selling porn videos door-to-door. And not just any porn videos, mind you: This classic collection was on videotape. As in VHS. Let’s rewind just a bit: Jeanette Ellis, 52, told police she discovered a box of discarded VHS porn tapes near her home. She felt that the obvious thing to do would be to walk around her neighborhood trying to sell the porn tapes, reports The Smoking Gun....
A heartbroken woman is suing a restaurant, alleging bad service on Valentine’s Day. Kathleen Hampton’s lawsuit accuses Enzo’s Caffe Italiano in Portland, Oregon, of refusing to serve her a solo dinner on Valentine’s Day. In her complaint demanding a public apology and $100,000, Hampton claims that when she arrived by herself (she’d made reservations for two, but her husband decided not to join her), the restaurant ignored her, refused to take her order, and wouldn’t permit her to order to-go....
Craig, refused the new card and would not allow the city to fingerprint her. According to an article in the New York Times City Room blog, Craig said she feared accepting the card would jeopardize her salvation. Legal pundits laughed at her. But in 2007, she shocked the City of New York by winning her case. A Brooklyn federal judge found in Craig’s favor, ruling that the city failed to respond to the question of how or why it would be unable to make an exception for Craig’s beliefs pertaining to her ID card....
Practically unknown rapper Montana Millz, who sings the song ‘Sell Drugz,’ was arrested last week for selling drugs. In what has to be more than simply a coincidence, the rap artist’s drug-friendly tune is about how he and his accomplices are now doing financially well because of selling drugs. Millz, also known as Michael Persaud, was arrested along with an accomplice Tiffany Irizarry, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania after selling heroin to an undercover cop....
If you’re a first year law student, you’re probably very heavily invested in your first year exams. Although grades are generally based on a single final exam, some professors will offer also midterms. Here are five study tips to help you prepare for exam day. If your law school professors aren’t sadistic, they’ll have an archive of previous exams that will give you a fair representation of what they want. The good news is that for first year courses, this pattern is pretty much set....
