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In everybody’s not-seriously favorite lawyer movie, Jim Carrey’s movie wife explains how divorce insulated her from his personal life. “That’s the magic of divorce,” she says to the chronic liar-lawyer in “Liar Liar.” If only it worked that way in real life when it comes to community debt in divorce court. Attorney Grant Brooks tried, but it was a flop in Direct Capital Corporation v. Brooks. Brooks filed for divorce from Mary Brooks, who was also an attorney, the day before a computer-leasing company had a court hearing to garnish his wages....

A former Los Angeles Clippers intern is now suing the team and the Sterling Family Trust over not being paid for his work. Frank Cooper claims that he worked 40- to 50-hour weeks for two months in the fall of 2012 as an “unpaid fan relations intern,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Cooper asserts he deserves compensation because he performed the same work as a regular, paid employee. Is embattled Clippers owner Donald Sterling ready to be hit with yet another employment suit?...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may need to reconsider its regulations regarding who pays for natural gas storage after the court ruled against it in BNP Paribas Energy Trading GP v. FERC. It was disputed by BNP Paribas that FERC incorrectly assigned costs for natural gas storage. However, the judicial panel held that FERC failed to show any relevant changes to their historic, proportional-to-usage payment plan. So how should fees be calculated?...

The Jerry Sandusky trial began Monday with the first Jerry Sandusky accuser taking the witness stand to describe his alleged abuse in graphic detail. The 68-year-old former Penn State coach faces 50 counts of abusing 10 boys over several years, reports The New York Times. The unidentified accuser, now 28, offered several hours of testimony giving graphic accounts of alleged sexual abuse by Sandusky. Sandusky allegedly groomed the young boy by playing sports with him and giving him gifts, as well as introducing the child to Penn State legends like Lavar Arrington and taking the boy to Penn State bowl games in Florida and Texas....

Writing for Legally Weird is frequently weird and often funny. For example: the recent case of a shoplifter who stole clothes from a retailer, wore them to an interview at the same store, and then stole more clothes on the way out. However, the case of a Florida shoplifter who shoplifted with her baby and then ditched the baby in order to make her escape is simply sad. Two Florida women were allegedly stealing items from JCPenney’s junior department on July 31....

Nearly half of government lawyers can retire in the next two years, and the rest are already getting that sinking feeling. It’s that same feeling you get when your parents die, and you can no longer ask them for advice. It’s real, like death and taxes. “It’s a huge problem,” said a former county litigator in a new survey. “When one of these attorneys retires, it can throw a major wrench into things....

In an action by a Medicare Part B beneficiary challenging a decision by a regional Medicare contractor to reimburse for a particular drug only up to the price of its least costly alternative, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where the Medicare Act unambiguously foreclosed that determination and required instead that Medicare pay for covered items or services at a statutorily prescribed rate. Read Hays v. Sebelius, No. 08-5508 Appellate Information...

You’re terrified of getting cold called and stumbling to remember the procedural posture in Pennoyer v. Neff. Alternatively, you can’t wait to get called on and perfectly recite Pennoyer’s procedural posture and throw in some background details on the Pacific Christian Advocate and 1870’s Multnomah County, Oregon. (Really, tone it down, gunner.) What do you do to prepare? You brief the case. But here’s a hint: you don’t have to do it all yourself....

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) wants to tax text messages in order to subsidize programs that make phone service accessible to the underserved. But the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) may have just blocked that possibility by reclassifying text messaging as information services rather than communication services. This reclassification may not seem like a big deal to the general public, but it could delay, and potentially eliminate, the possibility of the California Text Tax, which is set for a vote on January 10, 2019....

Lawyers are renown for being workaholics – a moniker that most of us don’t willingly earn. It’s not that we want to work till we drop, but it seems that there’s always work to be done with never enough time to do it. That’s largely thanks to the convention of the eight-hour workday, a “relic” of the industrial revolution, as Travis Bradberry at Forbes calls it. But if there is a better way, what is it and how can we get there?...

“I had two robes,” said perplexed Wisconsin Judge Robert Eaton on Monday. “The perpetrator took one. I’m using the other one.” Judge Eaton’s statement is his reaction to a bizarre incident that took place last week. A thief broke into the Ashland County Courthouse and pilfered one of the judge’s robes. The daring criminal was caught on camera, but what’s strange about the situation is that the motive of the crime seems unclear....

Lawyers for the Los Angeles Dodgers want a federal court in Delaware to dismiss beaten fan Bryan Stow’s lawsuit against the team. Dodgers attorneys filed a motion with the bankruptcy court Friday, asserting Stow cannot prove the team is responsible for his injuries, MLB.com reports. Stow, 42, of Santa Cruz, Calif., remains in rehab for severe brain injuries after two men attacked him in a Dodgers Stadium parking lot in March 2011....

Los Angeles Lakers forward Matt Barnes was arrested for threatening a police officer in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on Monday night, the Associated Press reports. Police say Barnes, 32, was walking when he was recognized by a cop. The officer arrested Barnes on an outstanding warrant for driving on a suspended license. During his arrest, police say Barnes made a verbal threat to the arresting officer. Matt Barnes was taken to jail and was released after posting $25,000 bail, according to Yahoo!...

A Missouri man who’d been sentenced to 13 years in prison was released by a judge Monday, after a clerical error helped him avoid years of incarceration. Cornealious “Mike” Anderson, 37, was convicted of armed robbery in 2000 and sentenced – but he was never told to report to prison because of a mix-up in the court system. Instead, Anderson spent the next 13 years turning his life around, CBS News reports....

Conviction of defendant for committing a lewd act upon a child is reversed for retrial because of willful misconduct on the witness stand by a police officer who, in front of the jury, intentionally violated a court order suppressing a statement by defendant. Read People v. Navarrete, No. B210691 [HTML] Read People v. Navarrete, No. B210691 [PDf] Filed February 1, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Rubin CounselFor Appellant: Michael M. Crain...

Things continue to look grim for new attorneys – at least in heavily populated areas. According to stories by The New York Times and NPR, there are areas of rural America where jobs are actually plentiful. Raw Numbers for Rural Lawyers Currently, about two percent of attorneys practice in rural America, and about 20 percent of the population lives there. There’s a clear downside for the rural lawyers that these raw number don’t address, however: the types of legal issues to be handled will be far more limited in rural America....

Do you ever wish that you could run away from your BigLaw job for the life of a rockstar? Millions of dollars in income. A life of cocaine-fueled sex parties? Perhaps the lesson of Tom Lakin will give you pause. It’s the story of how not to be a power broker attorney. Tom Lakin was a successful Illinois personal injury lawyer. Now he is serving six years for a federal drug conviction....

A San Francisco lawyer admits that he filed a wrongful death suit against the wrong defendants in an elevator accident case that cost a life last year. According to SF Weekly, Mr. Zimmerman represented the family of Dan Kliman, who fell to his death in a downtown SF elevator last year. Zimmerman has admitted that he filed the lawsuit against people who don’t even own the building in question. Mr. Zimmerman filed the lawsuit against Coast Counties Management, Inc....

Every attorney goes to law school for a lawsuit like this. It has inspiring facts, a strong social justice angle, and most of all, a sympathetic client. New Yorker Todd Remis filed a lawsuit against the wedding photographers who skipped out on the last fifteen minutes of his wedding. He claims that by leaving early, they failed to take some precious photos. Now he’s suing, and not just for the contract price of about $4,100 ....

It appears that the long struggle of one former Ohio schoolteacher to avoid discrimination is at an end. In 2013, we blogged about Maria Waltherr-Willard, who worked as a school teacher in Cincinnati for 35 years but eventually was diagnosed with anxiety. On Wednesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the school district in Willard’s Americans With Disabilities Act claim. Willard claimed she was forced into early retirement due to her debilitating fear of children....