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The great state of New Jersey is now hiring for some “Special” Assistant U.S. Attorneys (a.k.a. SAUSAs). What makes them so special? The position comes with an extra perk: no salary! If that’s not enough, it seems that the government is intent on forcing you into taking an oath of poverty if you become a SAUSA. For one, SAUSAs cannot engage in “compensated practice of law” outside of the office, and since you won’t be “compensated” for your “practice of law” while being an SAUSA, you’re kind of out of luck....

CMB. Coffee Meets Bagel. Purely for the sake of this blog, and to help the readers, I experimented with the oddly-named site and was blown away. What makes this site different from all of those other dating sites and apps lawyers use that we’ve talked about? For one, the demographics skew towards educated and professional. Also, it avoids the biggest pitfall of most other sites: choice. OK lonesome lawyers, listen up....

College football powerhouse Ohio State University has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit over T-shirts that show silhouetted figures forming the letters “O-H-I-O” with their arms. The Village People-esque flagless semaphore technique featured on Rhode Island-based Teespring Inc.’s T-shirt is a common sight at OSU football games – so much so that the school had it trademarked in 2012, reports The Columbus Dispatch. Can you really trademark things like that? Trademarks are words, names, symbols or devices used in trade with goods to indicate the source of goods in trade and to distinguish them from other goods....

California’s Second Appellate District Court ruled today that parents can request records involving a school district’s investigation and reprimand of one of its teacher under the California Public Records Act (CPRA). In the case, Marken v. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the teacher, Ari Marken, attempted to enjoin the release of the records, arguing that the disclosure of his personnel records was not authorized under the CPRA and would violate his constitutional and statutory rights of privacy....

It’s been a rough few years for Kathleen Kane. The Pennsylvania Attorney General was arrested and charged with felony perjury, “official oppression,” and obstruction of justice last spring – all stemming from her (alleged) leaking of internal memos meant to embarrass rival prosecutors. A few months later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court revoked her license to practice law. It was quite a blow to the state’s top prosecutor. And now, Kane is facing allegations of wage and gender discrimination – from here very own twin sister....

We hear all the time about the virtues of taking control of your destiny, starting your own business, being your own boss, etc. – real rags-to-riches glory. And then when you go out on your own and start dealing drugs out of the drive thru window you installed on your mobile home, next thing you know the cops are showing up and raining on your parade. That’s what happened to enterprising entrepreneurs William Parrish Jr....

For many attorneys out there, their first exposure to the law wasn’t in a courtroom, or even on a TV screen, but rather, it was Harper Lee’s canonical work: To Kill a Mockingbird. And to honor that ground-breaking work, the Harper Lee Award recognizes the best work of fiction depicting the role of lawyers in society since 2011. This year, appellate attorney and author, Cynthia E. Tobisman, was honored with the 2018 Harper Lee Award for best legal fiction for her work Proof....

It’s never fun to get turned down for a job. Jevons Brown, a 58-year-old veteran in St. Louis, had a particularly rough time with the constant rejection. To exact revenge, he mailed cat poop – a lot of cat poop – to companies that didn’t hire him. Though hailed as a hero among dejected commoners, Brown faced criminal consequences for his feisty feline foible. Brown sent the packages of cat poop via the U....

In an action for wages, interest, and waiting-time penalties, trial court judgment is affirmed where under Labor Code sec. 2750.5 the general contractor may be held liable for the unpaid wages of workers hired by an unlicensed subcontractor, and thus the six claimants are not prohibited from suing for their wages. Read Sanders Construction Co., Inc., v. Cerda, No. E047501 in PDF Read Sanders Construction Co., Inc., v. Cerda, No. E047501 in HTML...

The facts of this case are unremarkable. Medtronic licenses patents from Mirowski for some products. Mirowski noticed that Medtronic was about to release new products, which they claimed infringed upon their patents. They wanted more royalties. Medtronic decided not to wait to be sued and filed a declaratory judgment action, seeking to have a judge rule that the new products didn’t implicate the patents at issue. The trial court ruled in Medtronic’s favor, holding that even though they brought the declaratory judgment suit, the burden of proof still fell upon the party alleging infringement....

In an atypical case of Americans refusing government entitlements, a group of senior citizens on Social Security has tried and failed to stop their automatic eligibility for Medicare. Like green eggs and ham, Burt and Ernie, and Batman and Robin, you can’t have Social Security without Medicare, no matter how much you don’t want it. “To say that you can’t decline Medicare Part A and not opt out of Social Security is outrageous,” plaintiffs’ attorney Kent Brown told the Associated Press....

Sounding like a Chris Rock joke gone terribly awry, a former first-grade teacher in Texas insists she is too racist to have fondled a 7-year-old female student in her classroom. Esther Irene Stokes, 61, taught at Northwest Preparatory Academy in Humble, Texas. She’s charged with indecency with a child in an incident that allegedly occurred April 10. But Stokes is relying on a strange defense: She claims that she doesn’t like touching black children, reports the Houston Chronicle....

Car accidents can happen anywhere, and sometimes even the most defensive drivers find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nowadays, thanks to technology, car accident videos are increasingly common on the Internet, giving us a clearer view of the crashes and a chance to learn lessons from what went wrong. A recent post on the auto website Jalopnik highlighted a handful of non-lethal, but visually spectacular, car crashes....

While Venus Williams was competing for a Wimbledon title, her lawyers were competing behind the scenes on a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the tennis star. Although police cleared Williams of responsibility in a car accident in Florida that ultimately claimed the life of Jerome Barson, Barson’s widow and family sued, and discovery in the case is beginning to heat up. The Daily Mail reports that Barson’s family is requesting Williams’s driving records, car insurance documents, and phone bills for the month of June, along with information regarding any and all medications she may have taken before the fatal crash....

The Dallas Cowboys are a team stocked with talent but with a NFC-worst 1-7 record. Naturally Cowboys fans are now calling for coach Wade Phillips to be fired. But for the last several weeks owner Jerry Jones has been adamant that Jones would remain for the rest of the season. But after yet another humiliating loss Sunday, 45-7 to the Green Bay Packers, the calls for Phillip’s head have grown louder....

A devilish design for a proposed statue of Satan at Oklahoma’s state Capitol has gotten more than one legislator’s goat. The Satanic Temple, based in New York, requested that a 7-foot-tall likeness of Satan (in winged, horned, goat-headed form) be erected at the Sooner State’s Capitol building, as a response to the Ten Commandments occupying the public space in 2012, reports The Associated Press. Will Hell freeze over before Satan sits on Oklahoma’s Capitol steps?...

In an action by the plaintiffs-American Meat Institute and National Meat Association seeking a declaration that the consumer warnings required by the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 are preempted by the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), judgment in favor of plaintiffs is affirmed where: 1) the trial court properly overruled the demurrer; and 2) FMIA expressly preempts point of sale warning requirements imposed by Proposition 65 with respect to meat, and on that basis the trial court’s ruling on the motion for summary judgment is affirmed....

Few would say that a Senate Confirmation hearing is their idea of a good time, but if D.C. Circuit nominee Nina Pillard wanted to be scrutinized, she’s certainly getting her money’s worth. Cornelia “Nina” Pillard was nominated to the D.C. Circuit by President Obama along with two others at the start of the summer, giving the Senate plenty of time to grill Pillard about her judicial record and personal philosophies....

In Risely v. Interinsurance Exch. of the Auto. Club, No. D054866, the Fourth District faced a challenge to the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant-insurance company in plaintiff’s suit for breach of contract and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing arising from plaintiff’s claim against the insured for motor negligence, false imprisonment and others. In concluding that the trial court erred in deciding as a matter of law that the insured suffered no damages from insurer’s refusal to defend the underlying suit, the court reversed the judgment where the fact that the insurer provided defense to the insured under his automobile policy does not necessarily insulate him from liability for its breach of duty to settle under his homeowner’s policy with the insurer....

It’s the case of: “who has to foot the bill?” Duke University filed a motion in federal court last week regarding the 2006 Duke lacrosse rape case. The motion was a joint motion asking for more time from Duke and National Union Fire Insurance Company, an affiliate of insurance giant AIG. According to the motion, Duke and National Union have engaged in mediation and hope to make a deal on November 4....