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Award of attorney’s fees affirmedc in general contractor’s suit against a school district Mepco Serv., Inc. v. Saddleback Valley Unified Sch. Dist., D055018, concerned a challenge to the trial court’s entry of judgment in favor of the plaintiff, in plaintiff general contractor’s suit against a school district for breach of contract. In affirming, the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding plaintiff all of the attorney fees that it incurred in litigating the case, pursuant to the terms of the performance bond and Civil Code section 1717....

Guest post by Jennifer K. Halford, Esq. You should celebrate when your child graduates from high school. But don’t celebrate too much if it is from South Florence High School. South Carolina mom Shannon Cooper was arrested last Saturday for cheering too loudly at her daughter’s graduation ceremony. “It all seems like a bad dream, a nightmare of what was to be one of the happiest days of our lives. I cheered for my baby and I got the cuffs....

Law firms are hiring more summer associates now. Remember the blissful law school days before the financial meltdown in 2008? When you were a wee little 1L? When your hopes and dreams of landing that summer associate gig were actually within your reach? If you do, you probably also remember the ensuing collapse of the economy. And the reduced hiring that followed. Perhaps you were even no-offered at the end of your summer....

If there’s one thing that regular readers of this blog know, it’s that you don’t mess with grannies. But one naked burglar in Manchester, New Hampshire failed to get the memo, finding himself on the receiving end of a baseball bat early Sunday morning after a 70-year-old grandmother found him naked in her home. Apparently he was also munching on a sandwich. Known only as “Bonnie,” the bat-baring granny woke up in the middle of the night only to find a naked man standing outside her second-floor bedroom, reports NECN-TV....

A recent lawsuit filed in the Fresno Superior Court by the National Rifle Association challenges the actual registration requirements for California assault rifle owners. The lawsuit attacks the requirements enacted by the state’s department of justice in response to the legislation passed last year. Along with the other NRA lawsuits challenging the ban on high capacity magazines and other aspects of the new gun control laws in the state, this most recent case seeks to invalidate the registration requirement on the grounds that the information sought is just overly invasive....

President Barack Obama nominated Judge Evan Jonathan Wallach to serve on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals last week. Wallach has served as a judge on the United States Court of International Trade in New York since 1995. He has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School. Originally from Superior, Ariz., Judge Wallach served in the Vietnam War before returning to complete his degree at the University of Arizona in 1973....

Go figure: the vast majority of California attorneys don’t want the state bar exam to get any easier. In a survey that drew responses from nearly 40,000 California lawyers and others, the State Bar said 80 percent of the respondents don’t want to lower the cut score. They generally said the test – which is one of the most difficult in the country – is good for consumers. “That California’s cut score is the second highest in the nation is something to be proud of, not something to be concerned about,” said one respondent....

The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained in the recent In Re: Micron Technology opinion that the huge SCOTUS TC Heartland decision effectively changed the law on venue in patent cases. That change is causing ripple effects for cases in active litigation, and the ripples might take some time to work their way out of the system. Essentially, SCOTUS ruled in TC Heartland to limit patent infringement venue to the location of the infringement or the infringer’s principal place of business....

In a scene straight out of a movie, Andre Glenn Rogers, 19, is being held by police after he allegedly tried to help his father break out of prison by smuggling a bobby pin into a courtroom. His father, Duane Rogers, stands accused of sexual assault. Duane Rogers is a disbarred lawyer currently in custody in Boulder, Colorado. The former attorney is accused of sexually assaulting a girl over a five-year period between 2003 and 2008....

It’s good to be industrious and start a business while you’re in college. However, it’s best to choose a line of work that isn’t illegal. Two Washington St. football players may have learned this lesson a day late. Jamal Atofau and Andre Barrington were arrested after Pullman police found 38 marijuana plants growing in the house that they were renting with two other people. “We’re in a college town, it’s not that unusual to find five or six plants growing in somebody’s individual bedroom … Thirty-eight plants in a residence is quite a big deal for us,” Tenant said, The Seattle Times reports....

Cooperative law is probably not what you think it is. Family law practitioners, along other lawyers, often think of it as synonymous with collaborative law. In family law, it was recently considered a cutting-edge practice area focused on settlements in divorce. But cooperative law has its roots in antebellum America, when the country was first growing Westward. It was a time when people worked together on real settlements. Despite its long history in America, today, cooperative law is an area of practice young lawyers often overlook....

Arizona Summit Law School has been to the top, but it’s going down fast. The American Bar Association has given the struggling law school until Feb. 1 to explain its financial predicament. The school is “significantly out of compliance,” the ABA says, with requirements it have enough money to continue operating. Don Lively, president of the law school, says they are working on it. For a law school that once had 1,000 students, that may not be enough for the 200 who are still there....

Do thrive off validation? Well so do we! And dear reader, it may bring you great joy to know that your continued interest in FindLaw’s Legally Weird blog is entirely justified! This justification comes not just from our hilarious content and insightful legal angles, but from the ABA Journal – the American Bar Association’s official magazine – which has, for the first time, included Legally Weird in its list of the Top 100 “Blawgs” in all the blogosphere....

An attorney in Florida is facing accusations that he forged judges’ signatures – not once, not twice, but more than a hundred times. Jose Manuel Camacho is facing 14 counts of forgery for allegedly copying seven different judges’ John Handcock’s a total of 114 times. Camacho wasn’t just forging small beans documents, either: these were structured settlement deals which, under Florida law, required judicial approval. We can’t tell what is more shocking: the fact that Camacho had the (alleged) gall to engage in such prolific forgery, or that no one caught on until he had done it so many times....

A good rule of thumb when it comes to drunk driving is: Don’t. Do. It. If you, like many others, think you can have a drink or two at the holiday office party before hopping into your car, you may want to invest in a DUI app. These are not guaranteed tests, but they may illuminate how drunk you actually are, and keep you off the road. State Drive Sober Apps Some states have created free apps to estimate your blood alcohol level and give you a determination of whether it’s ok to drive....

We know that law school demand is down. We know that fewer people are taking the LSAT, applying to law school, and actually going. The trend is inarguable at this point, with schools enrolling the fewest number of 1Ls since 1974 – when there were 53 fewer ABA-accredited law schools. One might think that the smallest class sizes in decades would mean that most law schools’ admissions standards are holding steady....

Denial of plaintiffs’ petition for writ of mandate in their challenge of the use by defendant-Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) of a statutory rate-setting exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is affirmed where: 1) the administrative record contains substantial evidence that MTA’s fare increase was enacted for one or more permissible purposes under Pub. Resources Code section 21080(b)(8); and 2) the MTA’s findings satisfy the specificity requirement in that provision....

The California Supreme Court said dependency judges may take children away from parents who cannot supervise or protect their children – even if the parents are not to blame. Settling a split of authority in In re. R.T., the court ruled the state’s Welfare and Institutions Code authorizes dependency jurisdiction without a finding that a parent is at fault or blameworthy for a failure or inability to supervise or protect a child....

The American Society of International Law (ASIL) and the International Law Association (ILA) are coming together for their first ever joint conference, scheduled for April 7 to 12, 2014, in Washington, D.C. The joint conference will comprise both ASIL’s Annual Meeting and ILA’s Biennial Conference. Based on the theme of “the effectiveness of international law,” the conference will address such topics as how to maximize the effectiveness of international law, the role of international courts, and the effect of non-governmental actors, according to the ASIL’s website....

Nothing is ever simple when it comes to Anna Nicole Smith. Smith, (real name: Vicki Lynn Marshall) spent years tangled in legal battles over late husband J. Howard Marshall’s fortune. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Smith’s estate eventually lost. There was also the paternity battle over her daughter: both boyfriend/attorney Howard K. Stern and ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead claimed to be the girl’s father. DNA testing later proved that Birkhead was the father....