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A Boston law firm’s ad for a full-time associate is raising eyebrows because of two numbers: the salary (just $10,000/year) and the number of people who’ve applied (32 in the first week alone). Gilbert & O’Bryan LLP posted the ad on the Boston College Law School’s career website. “Compensation is mainly based on a percentage of work billed and collected,” the ad states, according to the Boston Business Journal. “We expect an associate to earn ten thousand dollars in compensation in the first year....

It’s taken a couple of billing cycles for California lawyers to absorb the significance of a state Supreme Court decision two months ago. In a controversial decision, the court said that lawyers’ bills are not privileged after a case has concluded. Undermining the Attorney-Client Privilege? Let’s state that again, this time in the words of the dissent for the sake of a losing argument: “[L]egal invoices sent from a law firm to its client, although initially protected by the attorney-client privilege, may lose such protection once the subject litigation is concluded,” wrote Justice Kathryn Werdegar....

Prior restraint of free speech. It’s a dangerous game, and an important one too. Though this trial ended years ago, the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District, heard the case anyway, as this issue is likely to creep up again. Can a trial judge order a lawyer to take pages down off of her website in order to preserve an impartial jury? The attorney, Simona A. Farrise, had a website where she detailed past verdicts against Ford and other car companies for millions of dollars....

Workers aren’t allowed to double-dip between Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) disability retirement annuities and Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must reduce a FERS disability annuity for any month in which the recipient is also “entitled” to SSA disability benefits. Until this week, however, there was a grey area of statutory interpretation: What happens when an employee is eligible for Social Security benefits, but doesn’t receive those benefits?...

There’s no doubt about it, the public employment retirement system throughout the state of California is not doing well. To remedy the retirement problem, the City of San Diego’s voters passed a measure in 2012 to make new public employees get a 401(k) instead of a pension. However, the city’s union reps were not consulted by the mayor who pushed the initiative onto the ballot, and that failure to meet and confer with the union has been the center of much litigation, both before and after the measure passed....

A shoplifter who broke his ankle while getting arrested was awarded $510,000 by a jury this week for his injury. Even more noteworthy: This is actually the third time the man, 50-year-old Kevin Jarman, has gotten a payout from New York City in a case against the New York Police Department. Two previous court cases were settled before trial for $15,000 and $20,000, according to The New York Post. What earned Jarman his biggest payout yet, and how do you go about suing the police in court?...

Sports blogging can be an unrequited love. While a select few have made careers out of covering sports online, the vast majority, those that create most of the content and account for most of the traffic, are underpaid, if they’re paid at all. A Deadspin report on sports blogging empire SB Nation last year noted that “Many, perhaps even most, contributors do not get paid; no one is paid well.”...

Spring is here! It’s time to shove the winter coats and formal goulashes to the back of the closet and start pulling out your new, sunnier attire. The basic rules still apply. Dress formally and conservatively to court, keep yourself well groomed, and no wire hangers, ever. With those down, here’s a few more tips to get you through the spring months and into summer: How drastically your ensemble will change from season to season depends largely on where you are....

Here’s a tip for first-timers who are planning on working full-time while studying for the bar: Don’t do it. Failing doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have a crappy career, but it certainly doesn’t help your short-term and long-term earning potential. Do anything and everything in your power to, at minimum, work just part-time, with a week off before the actual test. But, if you wish to proceed, or if you’re a retaker, a second state/Uniform Bar Exam taker, or a candlestick maker, we’ve got a few ideas on how to balance your full-time with your bar study time....

The criminal justice system may never be perfect, but maybe it’s a little better following the disbarment of DA Charles Sebesta, Jr., the man who wrongfully sent Anthony Graves to death row. The Anthony Graves case made just about everyone skeptical of the criminal justice system. What sort of system allows a completely innocent man to found guilty of murdering six people? Although Graves was exonerated, the facts of the case only came to light due to an unlikely chain of events....

Employment law and OSHA compliance become infinitely more interesting when applied to California’s pornography industry. This week, a Los Angeles city clerk certified more than 70,000 signatures for a ballot initiative to require condoms in porn. Barring legal action, Los Angeles voters would consider the initiative along with the presidential primary in June. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the group that led the ballot initiative, sued earlier this year to compel a Los Angeles Department of Health officer to require adult film industry performers to wear condoms in the production of hardcore pornography, and to obtain hepatitis B vaccinations....

It wouldn’t be the holidays without hearing “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” But some folks in Troy, New York, took it a step further by holding a mock trial to determine who the authored the famous poem. The contested authors are Clement Moore and Henry Livingston. So who gets your vote? What’s not disputed is that the famous line “‘Twas the night before Christmas” comes from the poem “A Visit From St....

San Francisco 49ers’ safety Donte Whitner is planning on changing his name to Donte Hitner. Apparently, Whitner (soon to be without the “W”) has already put in the paperwork, the NFL reports. This decision comes only days after the football star was fined $21,000 from the National Football League (NFL) for unnecessary roughness in a game against the St. Louis Rams, according to 49ers.com. Why this decision to drop one letter from his name?...

Prosecutors have decided not to file domestic abuse charges against San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald. Following an investigation, Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Lindsay Walsh cited “lack of verifiable eyewitnesses and a significant lack of cooperation” from the reported victim in opting not to file charges against McDonald, reports ESPN. McDonald was arrested on August 31 for felony domestic violence. What led to McDonald’s arrest? Fiancee Reportedly Called 911 Police were called to McDonald’s San Jose, California home on August 31 after a woman, who police did not identify but is reportedly McDonald’s fiancee, called 911 and said a man that she identified as her fiance was “trying to pull me out of the house … he’s drunk....

How much does a BigLaw associate receive when they bring in a big client? According to an ex-associate at Nixon Peabody, 5% of the fees they bring in. Not so, said the firm, contending that the bonus was only discretionary. Noah Doolittle began work at Nixon in 2002 and said that he brought in a big client in 2005. Doolittle expected that bringing in the client was going to mean big money for him down the road....

A Baptist university in Waco, Texas this week demoted the school president and fired the Baylor Bears football coach after an external review of the handling of sexual abuse allegations, including against football players, proved highly problematic. Independent investigators found that Baylor authorities ignored abuse reports in violation of federal law, according to ESPN. The now-demoted Baylor president, Kenneth Starr (best known for his investigation of Bill Clinton), apologized to sexual assault victims for his previous indifference, saying he was sorry they were not treated with the care, concern, and support they deserve....

Now your lawyer friends in the public sector are getting a shot at cash bonuses. And they don’t have to bill 2150 hours, either. A Colorado district attorney is offering financial incentives for felony prosecutors who meet their goals for conviction rates at trial, reports the Denver Post. The threshold for an assistant district attorney to earn the average $1,100 reward: Participate in at least five trials during the year, with 70 percent of them ending in a felony conviction, reports the Post....

If you watch late night television, you’d be hard-pressed to find a channel that doesn’t, at least once an hour, pitch a pill (or another product) to cure erectile dysfunction. But what about those men who don’t have E.D., yet deflate at even the thought of wearing a rubber? Enter the ‘Viagra condom.’ In its final stages of European regulatory approval, British company Futura Medical is getting ready to release CSD500, a condom that is scientifically proven to provide longer-lasting pleasure....

In what the dissent called a “hot potato,” a divided appeals court said the National Labor Relations Board erred in rejecting the claims of grocery workers who had cancelled automatic deductions for their dues. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia remanded the case back to the board to reconsider its decision in Stewart v. National Labor Relations Board. The Arizona workers had authorized their employer to deduct union dues, but later resigned from the union and revoked their authorization....

The CIA hasn’t declared that it deploys drones around the world to kill terrorists, but it still has to fight Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about the possible program. Thursday, attorneys from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) answered questions from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals about whether the government has confirmed the program, The Associated Press reports. The central legal issue in the case is whether government officials – including President Obama and former CIA Director and current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – have officially and publicly acknowledged the existence of the CIA’s use of drone airstrikes....