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In today’s #DearFindLaw, we tackle a subject that’s near and dear to my heart: The Bluebook. Forcibly embraced by the staff of law reviews nationwide, and derided by no less an authority than Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, The Bluebook has become the de facto standard for legal citations. Dear Matthew, Short answer: Not so much. In law school, there aren’t really alternatives to The Bluebook, which means the law reviews of Harvard, Columbia, U....

More trouble ahead for San Francisco 49ers’ players: Aldon Smith was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for allegedly making a bomb threat. The linebacker reportedly yelled “bomb” at LAX and made a comment to a TSA agent that he was in possession of an explosive, according to TMZ. Although Smith was released after posting bail, he was arrested for making a false report of a bomb threat. False Report of a Bomb Threat Bomb threats are nothing to joke about....

It’s beginning. The standing room only crowd of recently-admitted lawyers looking for careers just got a bit more crowded, with four states already releasing bar results. For those of you waiting until November, we empathize with your misery. For those who just got their results, well, we empathize with you as well. The results parade began, as usual, with North Carolina, which experienced a ten percent dip in passage rate, according to Above the Law....

There she is, Miss Nevada 2007. And here’s her lawsuit: Caleche Ranae Manos alleges sheriff’s deputies busted the wrong apartment and ogled her naked body as they forced her out of bed. The mistaken ex-beauty queen bust took place in November 2011 in her Los Angeles County apartment, KTLA-TV reports. Manos was asleep in bed with her fiance when armed deputies barged into her unit, clearly labeled apartment “A.” Unfortunately, the deputies’ search warrant was for apartment “C....

Blanket prohibitions on where registered sex offenders can live are unconstitutional, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday. The case was brought by registered sex offenders in San Diego who objected to mandatory residency restrictions in the penal code. Sex offenders can’t, for example, live within 2,000 feet of a public or private school or a park where children regularly gather. These requirements, the court said, have done more harm than good to registered sex offenders and bear “no rational relationship to advancing the state’s goal of protecting children from sexual predators....

A California Appeals Court just reaffirmed a rule that California colleges and universities do not owe a general duty to their student body to protect them from the violent acts of other students. It found that UCLA student, Katherine Rosen, was owed no duty by the university to ensure her safety from a paranoid, knife wielding fellow student. The ruling was handed down almost six years to the day of the attack in question....

Californians knew it was coming, but nobody expected it to be so soon. Move over, a driverless car is about to pass you. The Department of Motor Vehicles has announced new regulations, which go into effect this fall, that allow car manufacturers to certify their own cars. Certification was a roadblock to the industry, which already has found open roads in other states. “Since the adoption of the current testing regulations, the capabilities of autonomous technology has proceeded to the point where manufacturers have developed systems that are capable of operating without the presence of a driver inside the vehicle,” the DMV said in a statement....

In a First Amendment challenge to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) regulations limiting how much non-profit organizations engaged in political activities could raise and spend, summary judgment for defendant-FEC is reversed where: 1) the regulations were not “closely drawn” to serve a cognizable anticorruption interest; and 2) the FEC lacked authority under the Federal Election Campaign Act to presume that any public communications that merely “refer” to a federal candidate necessarily seek to influence a federal election....

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that certain software patents were “abstract ideas,” ineligible for patent protection, despite requiring the use of a computer for implementation. In the subsequent years, that decision, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, and the two-part test it established, has been used to invalidate a host of software patents. Yet, in a handful of decisions, the Federal Circuit has taken a more permissive approach, reversing lower court invalidations and holding that the abstract idea test did not render specific software patents ineligible....

In the latest episode of “Women and Body Shaming in the Legal Industry,” we have a slide from a memo presented by Loyola Law School’s externship director to law students, which Above the Law shared. It says, in relevant part: “I really don’t need to mention that cleavage and stiletto heels are not appropriate office wear (outside of ridiculous lawyer TV shows), do I? Yet I’m getting complaints from supervisors … "...

Everybody knows that “dropping the mic” is a boastful sign of victory, right Captain Obvious? Wrong, at least for Judge Deborah Gross-Quatrone. The New Jersey judge must have thought it had something to do with eavesdropping. She has been suspended for secretly recording meetings with her colleagues. She denied it, but disciplinary authorities said the red light beaming from her purse gave it away. What Red Light? According to the state Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, Gross-Quatrone denied taping the last of three meetings she had with an assignment judge....

Fighting back tears in his closing argument, attorney Tom Pickert described the struggle his homeless client endured after being shot in the leg. Pickert said David Jungerman, the defendant in the personal injury case, wanted the jury to believe that Jeffrey Harris was “less than human” and could be shot and “no one will care.” “A verdict for Mr. Jungerman is giving him and others like him permission to take the law into their own hands, to be judge, jury, and executioner,” he said....

Kris Humphries did exist before Kim Kardashian. One young woman in California can attest to that claiming that the Brooklyn Nets power forward infected her with herpes. Shortly before meeting Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries allegedly had a short-lived relationship with a woman he met at a Sunset Strip nightclub. The relationship had all the makings of a love story including sharing jokes and stories about “intimate experiences” before engaging in unprotected sex, reports the New York Daily News....

Poor – like literally poor – Kelly DeSalvatore… DeSalvatore, a law student, handed her iPhone to a stranger who gave her fake money in return. Not that it was her fault, but maybe she should have looked up “offer-and-acceptance” before she used “Offer Up.” The popular online exchange, like Craigslist and others, does not guarantee bona fide deals. Scams happen all the time, even to law students. “Like in Shock” DeSalvatore, a student at the University of Connecticut, wanted to sell her phone so she could upgrade....

Lululemon’s CEO, Laurent Potdevin, abruptly resigned amid a vague company statement claiming there was some misconduct involving employees. Details are few, but, from what is known, one thing is for sure, Potdevin doesn’t seem to be facing any real consequences. To exit, Potdevin will receive nearly $5 million. Unfortunately for Lululemon, despite the company seeming to pull out ahead of a public scandal, their stock price took a hit on the news....

Remember Anthony Garcia, the New Mexico supermarket employee accused of feeding female customers semen-tainted yogurt? Well, he’s back. And apparently he’s changed his mind. Reports indicate that he has decided to plead guilty to federal charges of adulterating food and lying to investigators. Why the sudden change of heart? And what’s with the bizarre charges? Adulterating food and lying to investigators are fairly serious charges. Anthony Garcia could have been charged with some form of assault or battery....

Future lawyers, are you jealous of all your non-law friends running around catching Pokemon while you cram for the bar? Don’t be. Join them. The summer’s biggest light-hearted cultural phenomenon is the perfect thing for J.D.’s studying for the bar. And no, we’re not kidding. Here’s why. If you were a 90’s kid, you probably dreamt of being a real life Pokémon trainer some day. Then you grew up and settled on just being a regular old lawyer....

The small Michigan town of Ravenna is being terrorized by a pigmy goat, according to the Muskegon Chronicle. The horned critter escaped from a local livestock sale on Monday and has been wreaking havoc ever since. The brazen runaway has turned to a life of crime, breaking a window at a local business. The “really tiny little pygmy goat with horns” was found at the scene of the crime, and has since been spotted running around the neighborhood....

Rapper Ryan Leslie offered a $1 million reward when his laptop was stolen in Germany in 2010. But when it was returned, he tried to take back his promise. Now, he’s going to have to pay up, the New York Post reports. Armin Augstein, a German car mechanic, found the laptop while walking his dog and gave it to German police, who returned it to Leslie in November 2010. It was the right thing to do, but Augstein was also excited about the reward Leslie had promised in a YouTube video asking for the laptop’s return....

We can quibble about whether certain substances are in fact performance enhancing, and we point out that global anti-doping agencies don’t always have the most due process-friendly testing and punishment schemes. What we can all agree on, though, is that you can’t have one country’s drug testing authorities surreptitiously swapping out tainted urine, destroying incriminating samples, and having drug testers threatened by federal security agents. So it’s hard to gather any sympathy for Russia’s track and field team, which will be barred from the Olympics in Rio this summer, punishment for the largest drug scandal since East Germany was secretly doping its own athletes in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s....