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For those prospective law students who are excited for starting law school, there’s plenty of advice out there on all the things you should be doing. However, now that you’re about to start your journey toward a legal career, there are also quite a few things you need to stop, or avoid, doing entirely. Below are five things you definitely shouldn’t do before your first day of law school. Yes, you certainly earned yourself a nice reward for finishing your undergrad and getting into law school, but law school is going to be very expensive, so be reasonable (and get used to it, because law school is going to drill the “reasonable person standard” into your very core)....

The Biography Channel’s show Female Forces seems to bring out the litigious side in people! Another lawsuit has been filed involving the reality show. This lawsuit is against the City of Naperville, two police officers and the show’s production company. The show features female police officers as they go about their patrols. This is the second lawsuit involving Female Forces in the past three months regarding media consent from others shown in the reality tv show....

It’s a tragic reality that many of America’s veterans return home only to find themselves homeless, unable to find their place in civilian society. However, if studies by the Department of Veterans Affairs are to be believed, many veterans’ issues could be solved with the aid of a competent attorney. We encourage all attorneys to offer reduced or even free assistance to veterans who are in need of help. If you are unable to help or cannot handle the complexity of the veteran’s issue, we have provided a list of additional resources below....

A man who armed his 16-year-old nephew with a fake grenade launcher to “test” police response time is facing some very real criminal consequences for the hoax. Police arrested Michael D. Turley, 39, of Phoenix, on Monday, nearly two months after he posted video of his stunt online, the Associated Press reports. The clip, entitled “Dark Knight Shooting Response, Rocket Launcher Police Test,” has been viewed about 30,000 times on YouTube....

Batman and Captain America saved a cat from a burning home – in real life. Batman and Captain America, or John Buckland and Troy Marcum, were in costume at a nearby event when they sprang into action and rescued the furry feline from the flames, reports Charleston’s WCHS-TV. But were the superheroes legally required to come to the rescue? Batman and Captain American ran toward the fire when they had no legal obligation to do so....

New startups are facing complex legal problems that need sharp, business-minded attorneys to help them work through the processes. Small companies trying to make it big are relying ever more on their attorneys to guide them. If you are an entrepreneur at heart, then that attorney could be you. The Business-Minded Lawyer Given the many hats that in-house lawyers are being asked to wear these days, many companies are in the position to demand an employee or even executive type that happens to be a lawyer....

The California Supreme Court clarified this week that the theory of continuous accrual can be applied to unfair competition claims. Jamshid Aryeh runs a copy business under the name ABC Copy & Print. Canon Business Solutions used to lease copiers to Aryeh. The leases required Aryeh to pay monthly rent for each copier, subject to a maximum copy allowance. Copies in excess of the monthly allowance required payment of an additional per copy charge....

Myrick v. Mastagni, B209854, concerned a wrongful death action against building owners for negligence in failing to perform seismic retrofitting of the building that killed two women in a 2003 earthquake. In affirming the judgment of the trial court, the court held that a city ordinance requiring hazardous buildings to be retrofitted by a certain date does not insulate owners of unreinforced masonry buildings from negligence causing death or injuries prior to the compliance date....

The NSA can continue its controversial mass phone metadata collection now, after the D.C. Circuit threw out a lower court injunction against the program on Friday. The D.C. Circuit panel found that the plaintiff, conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, had not shown a likelihood that he would succeed on the merits sufficient enough to support a preliminary injunction. The ruling is a rare win for the NSA these days. It comes two years after Edward Snowden exposed the agency’s secret, massive data collection program and on the heels of a Second Circuit ruling that such collection is not lawful....

So, you’ve decided to, or are in the process of, applying to law school. Congratulations. Though many will provide lots of reasons why you should not pursue a legal career, we’re sure you’ve already weighed the relevant factors and are now pursuing your dream. If you need a guide, or would like to make sure you haven’t missed a step, here is a link-ridden guide to (nearly) everything you need to know about applying....

In-house attorneys shouldn’t keep the rest of the company at arm’s length. That’s the message from PayPal’s Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer, Louis Pentland. “As an in-house lawyer,” Pentland explains, “the best you can get is when you’re integrated with the business team.” That means forgoing the more traditional role of simply identifying and advising the company on risks, while allowing others to make the final decision. Before she joined PayPal, the in-house legal department was barely integrated into the online payment company, Pentland tells Bloomberg’s Big Law Business....

Ah, the “baseball rule,” one of those little legal quirks that tends to favor Major League Baseball teams by prohibiting lawsuits from fans injured by foul balls or even flying bats. The rule is based on the idea that fans have assumed the risk of such incidents by attending games at sitting close to the action, with ticket stubs often bearing legally foreboding language like: “By attending the baseball game (“Game”), the ticket holder (“Holder”) assumes all risk and danger incidental to the Game … including, but not limited to, the danger of being injured by equipment, objects or persons entering spectator areas....

In a patent case involving nutritional supplements containing a ketoacid and an amino acid to enhance muscle performance or recovery from fatigue, summary judgment holding certain of plaintiff’s patent claims invalid as anticipated is affirmed as the Professional Protein advertisement constitutes an anticipatory printed publication under section 102(b) that invalidates the asserted claims of the patent as: 1) the ad discloses each and every claim limitation as a matter of law; and 2) a person of skill in the art, combining his or her knowledge of the art with the advertisement’s suggestions, would have considered the advertisements to be enabled....

Christine Lagarde has been head of the International Monetary Fund for three years now, and The Washington Post sat down to interview her about her work thus far. As we were reading, and watching, her interview, one thing became tremendously clear: we have a girl crush on Christine Lagarde. As my editor aptly noted, and I agree: “anyone who runs the IMF and carries a Kelly bag is a-ok with me....

Guess what, post-bar law clerks? You’re a professional! No, really, you are. And, in California, that means only one thing: you are not entitled to overtime pay, according to a recent appeals court ruling. Matthew Zelasko-Barrett brought suit against Brayton-Purcell, a law firm in Novato, California. He alleged that because he hadn’t passed the bar, he was entitled to some overtime. Under the FLSA, professionals are exempt from overtime pay. Zelask-Barett was essentially arguing that as an unlicensed attorney, he was not a professional....

In US v. Hall, No. 06-3185, the court of appeals affirmed defendant’s mail and wire fraud convictions, holding that 1) the district court’s findings that defendant’s decision to represent himself (with standby counsel) was knowing and voluntary met the criteria in Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), for determining when a defendant may exercise his constitutional right to forgo his right to counsel; and 2) defendant failed to show a likelihood that the constructive amendment of the indictment affected the verdict or seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings....

Corporate counsel are scrutinizing law firm legal bills more closely than ever. Is this the end of first-class airplane tickets and meals at Michelin-starred restaurants? There was a time when a BigLaw attorney kept receipts for every meal and every cup of coffee while on the clock. These costs were simply counted as work-related, and at month’s end the attorney was automatically reimbursed for everything. But with the economy weakening, corporate clients are increasingly reviewing every itemized expense claimed by outside counsel....

When you filled out your Mother’s Day card this year (you haven’t?), did you pause and think of some bonehead move your mom pulled over the last year? Here’s hoping that dumb move by your mom didn’t get her arrested, as happened to quite a few conniving (and some unwitting) criminal mothers over the past few years. Proving that having the ability to produce or rear children does not a criminal genius make, here are 10 dumb ways moms have gotten arrested:...

In the 1800s, Wells Fargo usually knew when its stage coaches were crossing Indian territory. Today, the bank says its representatives have done nothing to cross the Navajo Nation. Only that was a lie, the tribe says in a federal complaint. The Navajo Nation alleges that Wells Fargo targeted its people with “predatory sales tactics” to create unnecessary accounts. For the nation’s third-largest bank, it is an attack at the worst possible time....

Dog poop has no place in a courtroom. That is, unless your name is Kimberly Zakrzewski, the defendant in Fairfax, Virginia’s pooper scooper trial. Zakrzewski was cited under the county’s pooper scooper law in April. Neighbors and longtime nemeses Virginia and Christine Cornell accused her of not picking up after Baxter, a 19-pound Westie-bichon frise mix. They even photographed the alleged evidence. County and city laws requiring dog owners to pick up after their furry friends are nothing new....