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A Google employee claims the company has internal spies and encourages workers to report each other for violating company rules and demanding that they keep everything secret. It’s almost as good a story line as The Internship, the comedy set at Google’s headquarters, except this story is not so funny. It’s a lawsuit, and Google is not laughing. “We will defend this suit vigorously because it’s baseless,” Google said in a statement....

Almost four years after an explosion in San Bruno, California, devastated a community, destroying homes and taking lives, the U.S. Government filed a criminal indictment against Pacific Gas and Electric Company (“PG&E”) on April 1. The Criminal Indictment The indictment lists 12 counts of violations of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act, for knowingly and willfully violating minimum safety standards including not maintaining the proper records, failing to identify threats, and failing to fix parts of the pipeline....

California lawyer salaries are among the highest in the nation, reports Silicon Valley Business Journal. Specifically, the average lawyer salary in Silicon Valley and in the greater San Francisco Bay Area are the highest, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, how much do lawyers make annually in California? More importantly, are you being paid what you’re worth, or should you be thinking about moving to a new firm?...

Networking is an art. It’s not for everyone but if you’re working at a law firm, chances are that you’re going to have to start rainmaking sooner or later. If you find yourself in the inevitable position of trying to develop clientele but you have no clue how to be a rainmaker, then read on. There’s more to networking than handing out your card. Step 1 is to get out there and meet people....

At the office, meetings are the bane of your existence, especially if, for some reason, they’re not billable. That means you’re spending half an hour to an hour waiting for the meeting to end so you can go bill some time. Your life becomes unbearable if you’re spending a whole day in meetings instead of doing billable work. Meetings don’t have to make your day awful, though, and you can still stay productive throughout a day of Meetings That Won’t Die....

For service industry employees, from attorneys to food servers, sexual harassment is a serious and pervasive problem. And it isn’t just coming from bosses and co-workers, but customers and clients contribute to the problem as well. The problem of customer sexual harassment is exceedingly prevalent in the restaurant industry, particularly for food servers. Often compounding the problem, frequently, a manager’s response to an incident of customer harassment will solely be to remove a server from the particular customer’s table....

Ever notice that your handwriting worsened as you converted to typing? Or did you forget the phone numbers of your family and friends because you relied on your smartphone for them? That, in a sentence or two, is one of the problems with technology. According to new research, it’s also a problem in legal education. Students are not learning analytical thinking because they have become dependent on technology to do it for them....

If you ever thought about a better way to provide legal services, but didn’t have the time to develop it, then your time may have come. BYU Law School is offering a legal design lab to create products and other ways to improve access to legal services. The brainchild of the dean and a startup attorney, LawX will be offered to students at the law school. “LawX will tackle some of the most challenging issues facing our legal system today,” said Gordon Smith, dean of BYU Law School....

A North Carolina man faces felony charges after allegedly trying to pay for his Walmart purchases with a fake $1 million bill. Police say Michael Fuller, 53, of Lexington, N.C., tried to buy a microwave, a vacuum cleaner, and other items at a Walmart in November, the Winston-Salem Journal reports. His total rang up to $476. Fuller allegedly handed a $1 million bill to the cashier, insisting it was real – but store managers didn’t buy it....

The First Amendment to the Constitution is short – just 45 words – but it covers a lot of ground, everything from corporate campaign donations to yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater to putting the Ten Commandments on a state courthouse. And while “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” there are exceptions to that general rule. There are laws prohibiting obscene, defamatory, and threatening speech. And there are laws prohibiting draping yourself in an American flag and hurtling over the White House fence on Thanksgiving Day....

A prison sentence is really no excuse to let oneself go. Former bodybuilder and convicted drug dealer Malcolm Alarmo King knows this much. His lesson book? Why, “Seinfeld’s” Festivus religion, of course. Festivus, the holiday first made famous on “Seinfeld,” is a secular holiday that includes an unadorned aluminum pole and the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength” as a unique form of religious celebration. Inmate King somehow successfully argued for a prison meal change by citing “Seinfeld’s” Festivus....

From the age of sixteen forward, drivers are taught the rules of the road and given a ticket for not following them. The same holds true for parking. So wouldn’t it follow that even in death, parking laws would be so ingrained in a driver that he or she would continue to follow them? Guess not. According to Gothamist, a Queens traffic officer issued a parking ticket to a dead driver....

In reviving a shareholder action against McAfee, the California Court of Appeals, for the Sixth Appellate District, explained that the plaintiffs still did not have a right to a jury trial. Though the appellate court did revive the case, sending it back down to the court to try the matter as to a few of the several defendants, including McAfee, the matter will only be heard by a judge. The case itself involves some rather juicy details and allegations of corporate misconduct, including board members acting out of self-interest, rather than on behalf of shareholders....

In a petition by a County Public Conservator to reestablish a conservatorship of an individual under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act on the grounds that she remained gravely disabled and was unable to provide for her basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter, trial court’s decision reestablishing conservatorship is affirmed where: 1) the trial court did not violate the individual’s due process rights by accepting a stipulation filed by her attorney stating she consented to the reestablishment and waived her right to a formal hearing; and 2) the individual’s assertion that the court should consider a post-judgment declaration in which she raises new factual allegations challenging her knowing consent to the stipulated reestablishment is rejected....

Sometimes you read a story and all can you can do is close your eyes, shake your head slowly, and maybe mutter, “But why, though?” This is one of those stories. For some reason, a teacher in Idaho decided to feed a puppy to a snapping turtle. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he did it in front of students. After word got out about the teacher’s actions, the news quickly spread and sparked outrage....

A Virginia man was found dead in his home after apparently being bitten by one of his pet venomous snakes. Authorities believe that 70-year-old Jack Redmond naturalist was bitten by a Chinese palm viper and succumbed to complications from the bite, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Chinese palm viper was just one of 24 venomous snakes that Redmond kept in his collection. The man was found by his wife and he had traces of a snake bite on his finger....

Age discrimination stories are not trending, like stories about discrimination based on gender, nationality, or religion these days. After all, President Trump has not banned immigrants, denigrated judges, or changed policies toward student bathrooms based on their ages. However, we are less than 100 days into his administration … Meanwhile, it has been 50 years since age discrimination laws took hold in the United States. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act passed in 1967, along with other legislation designed to improve civil rights and to help older Americans in the Kennedy-Johnson era....

The future for future lawyers is not certain, but one thing is for sure: it will change. Fortunately for law students trying to plan ahead, there are trends in the law. They show the general direction of things, such as starting salaries and evolving practice areas. But there are other considerations that should be part of every law student’s strategy for a changing future. Here are a few to include in your plan:...

Partnerships, like Olsen twins’ movies or Ikea furniture assembly, require two people. This is common knowledge in business associations, but, as some people insist on bringing lawsuits without reviewing facts or statutes, it is one that a California Appellate Court was forced to enumerate this week in its ruling that there cannot be a partnership buyout if there is no longer a partnership. The litigants in this case are brothers Rudy and Richard Corrales, proprietors of RC Electronics (RCE)....

This is bad news for gold miners who invested in expensive equipment designed to suck up tons of earth. Today, the California Supreme Court ruled that despite federal rules allowing citizens to mine for gold on federally owned land, state rules that ban certain mining practices trump those federal rules. The case is still developing, but we continue to examine possible justifications for the courts’ ruling. Regulation of a Practice While some consider placer mining for gold to be a fun summer past-time, gold is serious business for others....