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Congratulations; you’ve graduated from law school! Three years of hard work and dedication have finally paid off. At long last, you’ll be able to take a break from late-night studying sessions. Just kidding! You have one more teensy-weensy hurdle to overcome before you become a lawyer: THE BAR EXAM. With any luck, you’ll only have to take this thing once and then it will be smooth sailing. Here are some tips to make sure your first time is your last time....

If you put a million monkeys at a million typewriters, eventually, you’ll be sued by PETA. However, if one of those monkeys types “it was the best of bananas, it was the worst of bananas,” and you publish that breakthrough in random text generation without the monkey’s permission, will that monkey be able to sue you for copyright infringement? PETA thinks so. Currently, whether a primate can even hold a copyright is being decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals....

It appears as though a Grand Rapids neighborhood has been hit with a peacock lawsuit, a rare breed of complaint that is brought only by those with a secret fear of birds. Or William Tingley, a resident of the neighborhood near Kent Country Club, where a group of wild peacocks has made its home for the past several years. He wants his neighbors to stop feeding the birds. No one knows where the peacocks came from, according to WXMI-TV, but neighbors generally seem to be in agreement that the magnificent birds are wild, and that they are a welcome addition to the area....

Conviction for first degree murder and other crimes and sentence to death is affirmed where: 1) the trial court properly denied the motion to quash defendant’s indictment as there is no merit in defendant’s claim that Asian-Americans were unconstitutionally excluded from the grand jury; 2) the court did not err in denying his motion for severance; 3) defendant was not prejudiced by the court’s refusal to conduct sequestered voir dire, and was thus not deprived of a fair and impartial jury; 4) the court did not err in admitting evidence of the contents of the victim’s wallet; 5) the court did not commit any instructional errors; 6) the evidence was sufficient to support his convictions; 7) the court did not err in refusing defendant’s requested modified jury instruction; 8) the court properly admitted victim impact testimony; 8) the court did not err in any of its pattern instructions or special instructions to the jury during the penalty phase; and 10) the prosecutor did not commit any misconduct....

People v. Hajjaj, S175307, concerned a challenge to the court of appeal’s reversal of a trial court’s grant of defendant’s motion to dismiss, one day after the last day established by Penal Code section 1282 for bringing the criminal proceeding. In reversing, the court held tha the trial court properly concluded that good cause did not exist under section 1382 to delay defendant’s trial because the lack of any judge or courtroom available to bring this case to trial within the statutory period resulted from chronic court congestion attributable to the state....

A Baltimore Ravens cheerleader claims she’s being benched from performing at the Super Bowl because she’s too fat. Outraged supporters are weighing in online. Courtney Lenz, a five-year veteran of the Ravens’ cheerleading squad, says that she was not asked to join the team for the Super Bowl. She insists it’s because she gained a little weight during the season. The Ravens were in a position where they had to choose only 32 of their 60 cheerleaders to join them at the Super Bowl....

When I was growing up, there was a 6-year-old kid in my neighborhood that liked to wear a brown cape and run around “fighting crime.” He called himself “Moth Man,” which in hindsight was actually pretty clever. However he didn’t actually fight any crime. Instead, he mostly just chased after invisible villains and bugged the neighbors. Now it seems that Seattle has its own version of the Moth Man, a “real life superhero” by the name of Phoenix Jones, who has been assisting police in fighting crime....

In plaintiff’s action against a county seeking a tax refund claiming that, when she received a life estate interest in a residence, no change in ownership occurred within the meaning of Article XIII A, section 2(a) of the California Constitution to trigger reassessment, judgment of the court of appeals’ is reversed where: 1) under governing statutes, plaintiff had to apply for assessment reduction even though her claim presents a pure question of law; 2) the futility exception to the exhaustion requirement is inapplicable; 3) the county is not estopped from relying on plaintiff’s failure to exhaust remedies; and 4) there was a change in ownership within the meaning of Article XIII A, section 2(a)....

Amber Vazquez Bode thought she was entitled to maternity leave when she had a baby in April. The Austin lawyer was prepared to take it easy for a few months before heading back to work. Then Justice of the Peace Glenn Bass denied her motion to continue an upcoming case and she found herself forced to appear at court at 9 am on a Monday morning along with her baby....

Nearly ten years after graduating from Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Anna Alaburda, Esq., will have her day in court. The issue? Misleading employment numbers published by the school. This is just the latest in a string of legal attacks that have recently hit Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Thomas Jefferson School of Law is one of those school that built up a reputation we’ll bet it wishes it could burnish....

In a petition for review of a FERC ratemaking order requiring electricity wholesalers to make refunds to customers, the petition is denied, where Petitioners provided no basis for disturbing FERC’s reasoned decision to apply a point of sale test rather than a sink-based test to Petitioners’ market-based tariffs. Read the full decision in Westar Energy, Inc. v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Commission, No. 08-1196. Appeal Information: Argued March 26, 2009. Decided June 12, 2009....

There’s much ado made about working from home, so when earlier this week I read an article in Entrepreneur about “homing from work” my interest was piqued. The article discussed a study on employees taking breaks during the work day to perform personal errands, and found that most – that is 93% – “of busy professionals take care of personal or family needs during the day by Homing From Work.”...

Dr. Kadri, a plastic surgeon with an office on Los Angeles’s famous Rodeo Drive, has reported that a former employee has stolen thousands of patient records. While privacy rules prevent the doctor from disclosing whether the records stolen include any celebrities, the doctor did explain that the plastic surgery practice has helped countless affluent individuals from many different states and countries. The employee quit after being confronted about embezzling money. When she quit, she claimed to have lost the company cell phone....

For many law students, the size of the workload in law school can be crushing to the soul, spirit, and social life. When there are hundreds of pages of dense case law reading due every week, keeping up with school can be a real challenge. However, law students can take comfort in the fact that they are not alone. Also, historically, just about every licensed lawyer living today has gone through law school, and if Rebel Wilson and Gerard Butler can do it, so can you....

Did lawyers struggle with being thankful this past Thanksgiving holiday? Some of them likely did, according to lecturer and psychology professor Robert Emmons. Emmons speaks to people from all walks of life and characterizes an individual’s orientation as either negative or built on gratitude. Interestingly, Emmons was asked whether he ever spoke to a group of lawyers. His response was simple and straightforward: he had one time and the only class of people he found less grateful that lawyers were teenagers....

The state budget crisis is proving that California budget cuts are as blind as Justice herself. California courts will be tightening their belts to the tune of $350 million in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. According to the Judicial Council of California, the legislature cut an additional $310 million from the State Court Facilities Construction Fund, which will delay some courthouse projects for up to year. Although the judiciary accounts for 2....

California’s rape laws will change dramatically when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, thanks to a host of legislation signed by Governor Brown this week. Earlier this week, the governor signed legislation that removes the statute of limitations for rape and other sexual offenses. Today, Brown signed two more bills, to expand the legal definition of rape and impose mandatory minimums for rape convictions. The new laws go in to effect on January 1st, 2017....

In plaintiff’s legal malpractice suit, his request for writ of relief from two orders excluding evidence in favor of his former attorneys is granted and the orders vacated as the communications are a client and his attorney, outside the presence of, and not otherwise communicated to, any opposing party or the mediator, and reveal nothing said or done in the mediation discussion. Read Cassel v. Sup. Ct., No. B215215 [HTML]...

Southwestern Law School of Los Angeles had its 1L orientation earlier this month, with students surprised to see a Hollywood star among them. Actor Jerry O’Connell is enrolled as a part-time night student at the 1000-student, private, ABA-accredited law school in Southern California. And that’s not all on O’Connell’s plate these days. He and wife Rebecca Romjin recently welcomed twin daughters seven months ago and with Romjin back to work on her tv sitcom, Eastwick, Jerry will be balancing the roles of Mr....

Good stories, even the bad ones, have subplots. Like the story of Charlotte School of Law. It’s a bad story because it tells of greed, where the owners seemed to put profits over standards and led students and the school to failure. It’s also a good story because of subplots, with scores of students alleging the school tricked them to get their money. And now the twist: criminal investigators are looking for a smoking gun....