Stella Mednik, a lawyer with a suspended law license and a suspended driver’s license, left a few bodies briefly suspended in mid-air last night when a car she was piloting took flight over a curb and went through a window of a Forever 21 in Manhattan. Final BAC: 0.185. Final number of people sent to the hospital: 7, including five pedestrians, Mednik, and her passenger. Fortunately, everyone is expected to survive....
Great literature is great not because it is long, (Tolstoy) or filled to the brim with intricate plots and characters (Dickens), but because it tells a story we can recognize, again and again. So, kindly read along as we go on the newest version of the O. Henry story, The Ransom of Red Chief. As in the original, it all begins when the bad guys blow into town and kidnap the unsuspecting victim(s)....
It seems like not a week goes by without a new Uber story to cover – and they’re rarely good ones. Just in the past few weeks, Uber has been hit with an unpermitted self-driving car scandal, a #deleteuber campaign, a sexual harassment scandal, a related workplace culture scandal, another sexual harassment scandal, and a CEO cursing at drivers scandal. Today, there’s one more to heap on the pile. This afternoon, the New York Times revealed that Uber has been using, for several years, a secret program designed to evade regulatory authorities....
A Florida strip club patron apparently felt entitled to a refund after his VIP encounter with a stripper didn’t lead to the happy ending he was hoping for, sheriff’s deputies said. Deputies in Manatee County, Fla., arrested Trevor Jessup, 21, after an exotic dancer allegedly caught him stealing cash out of her purse, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Jessup allegedly said “he paid for a sexual favor and was not pleased with the performance,” according to a deputy’s report....
University of Virginia 3L Johnathan Perkins made up a zinger of a story recently. He claimed that he was a victim of racially-motivated misconduct at the hands of university police. He even wrote a letter about his experience that was published in the law school’s weekly paper, and covered by Above the Law. Turns out that the entire thing was a lie. In the original letter, which was so incredibly detailed that it included dialogue, Perkins stated that he wanted to share with his classmates a “real-life anecdote illustrating the myth of equal protection under the law....
Facebook sure can be addicting, even for guys on the go. And even, it seems, if you’re running from the cops like Travis A. Nicolaysen of Port Angeles, Wash. Nicolaysen, 26 – who lists his job title as “Boss” at “da game,” according to his Facebook profile – remains a fugitive after officers and a police dog chased him on foot, the local Peninsula Daily News reports. But the wanted man was apparently still updating his Facebook page, up until a few days ago....
Oh the joys of jury duty. The civic responsibility most citizens wish they weren’t responsible for. Excuses range from personal prejudices, to physical handicaps, to Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, mentioning a friendship with Jeffrey Dahmer can now join the list of viable excuses for getting out of jury duty. For those of you who don’t know, Jeffrey Dahmer was a notorious mass murderer convicted of killing and dismembering several boys and men mainly in the Milwaukee area....
You’re hosting a holiday party. You’re attending a holiday party. You just want a quick, but fancy and seasonally-appropriate, nip to get you through the last few hours of some late night work. What you need is a nice holiday cocktail, fit for a festive attorney. No, we’re not talking spiked eggnog. Tasty, festive, merry, kind of impressive, these holiday cocktail recipes definitely beat Santa’s cookies. Sweet but Strong: The Candy Cane Cocktail This drink is perfect for a holiday-themed cocktail hour....
Recently retired from the Seventh Circuit, Judge Richard Posner has indicated that he is interested in directly helping pro se litigants. The retired judge is rather vocal with his criticism of how the justice system is stacked against pro se litigants and has some ideas for systemic change. His book that states these views is drawing criticism from the circuit he used to serve. But since its release, he has received many inquiries requesting help from non-profits that assist pro se litigants and others....
The New York Times has released a new Op-Docs series to keep its audience enthralled – “Verbatim.” The series “transforms verbatim (word for word) legal transcripts into dramatic, and often comedic, performances.” The impetus for this series was a transcript of a deposition that was published on Tumblr. In the case, the Ohio Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office was being sued for charging $2 per page to photocopy public documents. What ensued was a debate that you would never, ever see on a court-room drama....
An Arkansas man has a thing for toes – and it’s getting him in a lot of trouble. Dubbed the “Toe Suck Fairy,” Michael Robert Wyatt was arrested Monday after two women identified him in a photo line-up as “that strange dude that asked to suck on our toes.” Okay, so they didn’t actually identify Wyatt with those exact words. But the 50-year-old man is accused of approaching the women in stores, complimenting their toes, and then asking if he could suck on them....
Did you know that possessing alligator hatchlings is illegal in Florida? Apparently it is, and two Florida men may soon be facing jail time or fines for collecting one too many baby alligators. Martin Duval and Christopher Cork Scroggins were caught with baby alligators in tow when they came ashore Lake Apopka last week. No, the men didn’t just have one baby alligator. Duval and Scroggins were caught with 260 alligator hatchlings....
Now that you know what employers don’t want to see on your resume, the question is: what do they want to see? (Advice framed in the negative is useful, but so is positive advice.) When preparing your resume, make sure that your resume includes all of these elements. And remember: Your resume doesn’t get you a job; it gets you an interview. You don’t need to put your entire life story into your resume....
According to Inside Higher Ed, the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) recommended that the ABA be stripped of its accreditation power for a year. Call it a sign of the times. With over 200 law education institutions accredited by the organization and extreme law school debt affecting graduates, it was only a matter of time before someone suggested that the national face of the law schools should be looked at with a hard eye....
Unlike Star Wars Day, which is a very real phenomenon, (May the 4th be with you), Wednesday’s Back to the Future Day turned out to be an elaborate, Photoshop-manufactured hoax. In case you weren’t wasting your time on Facebook this week, the buzz on the Internet was that June 27, 2012 was the future date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown visited in Back to the Future II. That “future” however, is actually October 21, 2015, more than three years away, reports the Los Angeles Times....
In a case involving a default judgment arising from plaintiff’s attempt to join defendant as a Doe defendant, which served a summons on defendant that omitted the requisite statutory notice that he was served by the fictitious name, denial of defendant’s motion to vacate the default is reversed where, even if the trial court’s rationale could ever sustain a default judgment over a defendant’s objection that service did not comply with statutory requirements, the record does not show partial or colorable compliance with the requirement on which defendant’s objection was predicated, and thus a finding of substantial compliance could not be sustained....
Many of us don’t know why you’d try to keep a wild animal as a pet, especially a purse-snatching, jogger-attacking trash panda. Then again, most of us aren’t President Calvin Coolidge, or, for that matter, the Greers of West Seattle, Washington. Kellie and Chris Greer rescued a weeks-old raccoon seven years ago, naming it Mae. Two weeks ago, a Department of Fish and Wildlife officer seized the raccoon from the Greer household, and now the Greers are suing for Mae’s return....
At times the law makes more sense for some people than for others. Take the California Supreme Court decision in Connor v. First Student, Inc., for example. The justices basically said employers must have workers’ permission before doing background investigations on them. It seems reasonable for workers, although it was apparently confusing for employers. Background Checks The case started when 1,200 bus drivers sued First Student Inc. and its investigative consumer reporting agency that did the company’s background checks....
Derek Boogaard spent six seasons as an enforcer in the National Hockey League, earning nicknames like “Boogeyman” and “The Mountie,” and being voted the second most intimidating player in the league. Those fights took their toll. After Boogaard died of an accidental drug and alcohol overdose in 2011, tests of his brain showed advanced chronic traumatic encephalopathy although he was only 28 years old. Boogaard’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NHL, claiming that the league was negligent in exposing their son to frequent head trauma and failing to offer him adequate care....
A recent order from the D.C. Court of Appeals confirms that D.C. will be the twentieth jurisdiction to adopt the Uniform Bar Examination – better known as the UBE. It will begin administering the exam this July. It seems like only yesterday that a mere scant sixteen jurisdiction had adopted the UBE with the most notorious convert being New York. And Then It Begins The UBE has made some impressive inroad since it was first adopted by North Dakota five years ago in 2011....
