Joey Miller and his dog Roxy got kicked out of court, but it started at a fish market. Joey, a man who had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old, walked into two seafood stores with his dog. The market employees stopped them for health and safety reasons. Joey’s stepfather was not about to have it, however, and they sued for disability discrimination. The courts turned them down again, but that’s the short story....
If you haven’t been living under a rock you’re probably heard of the famous ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ by the late, great Steven Covey. The book is good general advice but when it comes to 1L year there are some specific things you need to know to succeed. Below are the seven we think should be top of your list. These aren’t the only things you need to know....
At FindLaw, we’re a little tired of the negative “lawyers are sharks” jokes, so we’re reclaiming the word. As Run-DMC would say, it’s “Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good.” When people are making all those jokes, they seem to forget that lawyers are also the people defending their civil liberties. So, in honor of the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the most bad-ass lawyer sharks throughout history....
A Utah father and soccer referee died Saturday, one week after being punched in the face by a teenage soccer player. Ricardo Portillo, 46, slipped into a coma following severe internal head injuries from the teen’s assault April 27. It all happened because Portillo had given the player a yellow card, reports CNN. Although Portillo’s family has begun to grieve, they also want justice. The 17-year-old suspect who is charged with punching Richard Portillo in the face was arrested last week; his name has not been released due to his age, reports ABC News....
With 2013 coming to a close, you may be reflecting upon your dreams and disappointments, your ambitions and your inertia. Nothing nourishes such reflection quite like inspirational quotes. Here are 10 inspirational quotes for attorneys and law students: On making a career change: “If you focus on the risks, they’ll multiply in your mind and eventually paralyze you. You want to focus on the task, instead, on doing what needs to be done....
We’ve all done it: lifted a pen here, a post-it pack there. It gets buried at the bottom of your bag, you forget about its existence, and that’s that. But one man who took his penchant for pocketing office supplies to a whole new level has been convicted of stealing $376,000 worth of copy machine toner from his law firm. Toner. But according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., “theft is theft....
If you’re going to have sex with your high school teacher, you probably want to get it on tape. After all, your friends might not believe you if you just told them. So maybe you record it on your cell phone and share it with a few or eleven of your friends. This would actually be a bad idea. Because, unless you had the teacher’s permission to tape the encounter, you may have just committed a felony....
Someone must have been pretty high when they came up with this legal argument. A medical marijuana dispensary in Palm Springs recently argued that it does not need to comply with that city’s dispensary permitting program, which limits the total number of dispensaries to six. According to the dispensary, that permitting rule was preempted by federal law, the very laws that ban marijuana dispensaries themselves. Can you guess how this turned out?...
High-paid, high-stressed attorneys rejoice: Struggling associates who were scraping by on lowly six-figure incomes will soon be able to live a bit more comfortably on higher six-figure incomes. That’s right, pay increases are being announced for West Coast associates. Most of the pay increase can be attributable to the increase in M&A and IPO work in Silicon Valley. As the economy slowly rebounds, the influx of work for corporate, litigation, patent, and licensing attorneys in the Valley is picking up....
A North Carolina pastor who asked for “only white people” to serve as greeters for services has apologized, but not before her request angered some churchgoers and members of the public. Anticipating an increased number of visitors, Makeda Pennycooke, executive pastor of operations at Freedom House Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, sent an email to church volunteers asking for “only white people” to greet worshippers, Time reports. After all, the email said, “first impressions matter....
Jennifer Fitzgerald is revving up for a fight over a jalopy that set a record in the city of Chicago – by accruing more than $100,000 in parking tickets. That’s $105,761.80, to be precise. The total cost came as a shock to the 31-year-old single mother who insists she never drove the car in question. And she certainly didn’t park the car at O’Hare International Airport’s Parking Lot E, where it incurred all the penalties....
“Law school” is not a friendly phrase. You can thank Jon Ng and his fellow students at the University of Calgary Faculty of Law for this little nugget of truth. The third-year has become an overnight Internet sensation, having written – and uploaded – a video entitled “Dear Me, Don’t Go to Law School.” It’s kind of nice to know Canadian law students aren’t any better than those found in the U....
At least until 2015, the bar exam is the bar exam. What’s left to say that hasn’t been said before? Very little, which is why we’re not trying to top our previous brilliant forays into tips for not having a stroke during bar review season. (Tip #1? Stop snorting caffeine pills.) That being said, our previous surviving the [bar] times posts have focused on singular aspects of the experience (cram sessions, stress management, scheduling, etc....
The legal process for immigrating to the United States is “nightmarish,” to put it charitably. Certain types of work visas, however, can make immigration much smoother than it would be otherwise. The L-1B is such a visa, and it’s reserved for employees whose work entails “specialized knowledge.” If you think that phrase is a little vague, and that its definition would be ripe for a lawsuit, then welcome to Fogo de Chao v....
In Classen Immunotherapies v. Biogen, a patent eligibility case on remand from the Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decided last week that the 35 USC 271 patent safe harbor “does not apply to information that may be routinely reported to the FDA, long after marketing approval has been obtained.” Congress passed the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act (“Hatch-Waxman Act”) in 1984. The act included two critical provisions for pharmaceutical manufacturers: a patent term extension to allow for the FDA approval timeline, and a generic drug development safe harbor....
When Hostess was unable to reach a labor agreement with union leaders, the company found itself in bankruptcy court. When Erie Brush & Manufacturing failed to reach an agreement with its union reps, it found itself before the National Labor Relations Board on unfair labor practice charges. An NLRB Administrative Law Judge Board concluded that Erie had violated the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to bargain with the Union over an approximately six-week period in 2006....
In an appeal from the trial court’s order quashing service of summons and process on the Archdiocese of Cashel & Emly in Ireland regarding alleged sexual molestation by clergy, the order is affirmed, where: 1) plaintiff waived the issue by his failure to fairly and completely set forth, discuss, and analyze the relevant facts under the applicable substantial evidence standard of review; and 2) substantial evidence supported the trial court’s ruling that the defendant had insufficient contacts with the State of California to support an exercise of either general or specific jurisdiction....
California lawyers, have you been California dreaming of learning to actually use technology in the courtroom? Have you been too timid to Tweet on behalf of your law firm? Do you get an eerie feeling whenever eDiscovery gets mentioned? If so, stop fearing tech, and take the time to learn about how it can actually help you in your practice. If you can make it Los Angeles on February 10, then you can get schooled on some of the best practices for using technology in your legal practice....
Pharmaceutical Care Mgmt. Corp. v. Dist. of Colum., No. 09-7042, involved an action seeking a declaration that Title II of the District of Columbia’s Access Rx Act of 2004 was preempted by ERISA and various constitutional provisions. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for plaintiffs in part, holding that sections 48-832.01(a), (b)(1), and (d) of Title II were pre-empted by ERISA insofar as they applied to a pharmaceutical benefits manager (PBM) under contract with an employee benefit plan (EBP) because they “related to” an EBP....
Ex-Giants, Dolphins and Patriots cornerback Will Allen has been charged in a Ponzi scheme that targeted athletes across four major sports. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Allen and a female partner, Susan Daub, preyed on athletes and defrauded investors in a complicated loan scam. The names of the athlete-victims have not been released, and both Allen and Daub appear to have attempted to dodge service of the charges to avoid prosecution....
