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Sexually transmitted diseases belong in the bedroom, not in the courtroom. Okay, fine. They don’t really belong anywhere. But they’re better off in the courtroom, because at least then they’re entertaining. And they didn’t happen to you. Tom Redmond, a 77 year old multi-millionaire (and former hair-care CEO), isn’t so lucky. After he infected his ex-girlfriend, aged 56, with herpes, she sued him for failing to disclose his little problem and was subsequently awarded $6....

For an hour on Tuesday and Wednesday, Shena Hardin wore a sign with the word “Idiot” around her neck, as part of a court-ordered punishment. Why? Because Hardin was impatient while a school bus dropped off some children. Instead of waiting behind the bus while it was stopped, she drove her car around the bus – by way of the sidewalk, Cleveland’s WEWS-TV reports. The driver of the bus was a quick thinker and captured the incident on video....

Attorney Eric Christopher Conn said he would flee to Cuba or Ecuador if he ever got caught. Conn, awaiting sentencing in a $550 million fraud on the federal government, apparently has made good on his word. It was no surprise to those who knew him best, but a big surprise to those who only knew his public persona. “He’s not one to walk away from a fight,” the narrator says in one of Conn’s many advertisements....

What are all the requirements for being a lawyer? There are, of course, some obvious ones (like passing the bar), but aside from that, are there more? There are, but they may not be conveniently handed to you on a neat checklist. Until now. Yes, what follows is a real list, and not a cheeky “best shoes for ambulance-chasing” type of list that waxes poetic about cliched attorney traits. But seriously, and especially if you’re thinking about law school (or if you’re currently in law school), here are some requirements for being a lawyer that you may not know about:...

The California Court of Appeal for the Fifth District decided a wrongful death suit against the State of California and a case brought by a doctor against hospitals and others for revoking the doctor’s staff membership and hospital privileges. In Coito v. Sup. Ct., No. F057690, the court faced a challenge to the denial of plaintiff’s motion to compel in her wrongful death action against the State of Calfornia and other defendants for the drowning death of her 13-year old son in a river....

Last month, we mentioned on our Technologist blog that a great debate was erupting in California over a proposed smartphone “kill switch” bill, one that would mandate that manufacturers include an on-by-default security feature that remotely disables and wipes stolen cell phones. Manufacturers and carriers were not happy, to say the least, and proposed an alternative – an opt-in model. The bill quickly died, making this entire debate much ado about nothing, until a tweak to the bill satisfied a couple of Silicon Valley tech firms and the resurrected legislation passed the state Senate, with an Assembly debate guaranteed, reports the San Jose Mercury News....

A New York restaurant owner accused of sexually assaulting a man is dishing out a defense: He’s too old and weak to grope. Silvano Marchetto, 65, owner of the famous Da Silvano Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, is fighting a federal lawsuit that alleges assault and battery, the New York Post reports. The lawsuit describes two incidents in which Marchetto allegedly grabbed a younger man’s genitals. But Marchetto’s response to the suit describes himself as too decrepit to get away with such a dastardly deed....

In Arterberry v. County of San Diego, No. D054699, the Fourth District faced a challenge to the trial court’s order denying plaintiff attorney fees under Civ. Code section 714, which prohibits a public entity from willfully delaying the approval of an application to install or use a solar energy system, in an action against a county and others for damages caused by the county’s delay in issuing a certificate of occupancy for the farm’s solar energy system....

U.S. News & World Report has not released its law school rankings for 2020, but the odds-makers are already placing bets on who’s Number 1. Chances are Yale will win top honors again, with Stanford and Harvard close behind. They are the usual suspects in the annual sweepstakes. Other Top Categories U.S. News will release its “best graduate schools” rankings on March 12. That includes law schools, based on factors the schools report such as peer assessment, admission test scores, undergraduate grades, acceptance rates, and placement success....

In a patent infringement case involving intraluminal grafts for treating aneurysms and occlusive diseases, district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement is affirmed as the court correctly held that no reasonable jury could find literal infringement and that no reasonable jury could find infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. Read Edwards LifeSci. LLC v. Cook Inc., No. 09-1006 Appeal from: United States District Court for the Northern District of California...

When Washington Post editor Marc Fisher received an urgent text message from his teenage son, he rushed home to find the police pulling up to his house. Someone had broken in. Amongst the stolen possessions was his son’s laptop, complete with secure data and stored passwords. This is where the story takes a turn towards the strange. As he tells it, the burglar popped onto his son’s laptop, took a full-face photo of himself wearing a stolen coat and pointing to stolen money, and then posted it on his son’s Facebook wall....

In an attorney’s petition for a writ challenging a trial court’s order of contempt on attorney arising from divorce proceedings, attorney’s petition is treated as one for prohibition and granted, and the order of contempt is reversed and annulled as the requisite procedures were not followed and the applicable law was not applied. Read In re Koehler, No. A125012 [HTML] Read In re Koehler, No. A125012 [PDF] Appellate Information Filed February 5, 2010...

After I passed the bar, I stopped pricing bar review classes because — frankly — I had better things to do. At least I did until today. Do you have any idea how expensive bar prep is these days? More specifically, do you know how much BarBri costs? Law grads spend a hefty sum on bar review classes each year. BarBri’s Massachusetts bar review course costs $3525. In New York, it’s $3675....

Despite decreasing pay and increasing demands, many law associates wouldn’t give up their jobs until you ripped them from their cold, dead fingers. So why did Boris Briskin walk away from his job clerking at Rose, Klein & Marias, a law firm in Los Angeles? So he could watch the Texas Rangers. “This is basically making my year right now,” Briskin said. Briskin, a Plano, Texas native weighed the options after his firm wouldn’t give him time off for the World Series....

“We are the Bears Shufflin’ Crew Shufflin’ on down, doin’ it for you. We’re so bad we know we’re good. Blowin’ your mind like we knew we would. You know we’re just struttin’ for fun Struttin’ our stuff for everyone. We’re not here to start no trouble. We’re just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.” – Super Bowl Shuffle, Chicago Bears, 1985 It sounds incredibly corny now, but it was a big hit in 1985....

This week, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said “game over” to an infringement claim filed against Nintendo. The action was brought by Motiva, an American company that claimed to have beat Nintendo to the technology used in the Wii gaming console. Motiva filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC), claiming Nintendo had infringed its patents to track a game user’s movements. The Commission rejected the claim, holding that Motiva hadn’t taken affirmative steps to capitalize on the technology....

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision today in Perry v. Brown did not say that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed, (like Judge Vaughn Walker’s previous ruling in the case), nor did it immediately lift the California Prop 8 same-sex marriage ban. Instead, Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s narrowly-tailored decision relied on Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s reasoning in the 1996 case, Romer v. Evans, to find that, after the gay community won marriage equality, a law rescinding that right was unconstitutional....

Some Georgia business college students recently got extra lessons in criminal law, anatomy and potentially civil liability. The lesson came by way of part-time instructor, Raymond Devaughn Taylor, who inexplicably took off his clothes off while teaching at Kennesaw State University. He was arrested and charged with public indecency after a student reported the incident. What must the students have been thinking as each layer of clothing came off? “I would think he’s on drugs or something crazy,” said Buddy Johnson, a student from the class....

“There is an atrocious story on social media that I intentionally hurt the seagull. It is illegal and immoral to injure a seagull. If I intentionally hurt the seagull in front of hundreds of witnesses, I would perhaps be the dumbest criminal ever.” Nate Rancloes may not be the dumbest criminal ever, but he did violate federal wildlife laws when he accidentally kicked a seagull that had stolen his cheeseburger. And it turns out New Hampshire Fish and Game officials are pretty strict when it comes to enforcing those laws....

Now here is a great money making idea. Find a few hundred, let’s just call them overly-optimistic clients, some with substantial income tax liabilities. Sell them pre-packaged tax protest lawsuits that falsely claim that the IRS has unlawfully disclosed customers’ federal tax information or unlawfully collected taxes, for the bargain price of $7,500 a pop. Claim that if the suit is successful, they will never have to file a federal income tax return or pay federal taxes ever again!...