Posts

If you think your law school was hard, think about what happened at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. Hurricane Maria tore through the island territory last year, and officials still don’t know how many people died there. The death toll is almost five times higher than the student population at the law school. It’s no wonder that the law school has had trouble keeping students. But it is hard to understand how the American Bar Association could cite the school for substandard performance....

‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ New Jersey beachgoers might soon have another item to add to the extensive list. A key state legislative committee advanced a bill to clarify the state’s public trust doctrine as it relates to public access to beaches in the Garden State. It’s the latest example of the truism that old laws are often good laws. This is the latest in a long line of New Jersey beach access wars....

If you’re straight and not currently an addict, perhaps you’ll want to think twice before you fill a prescription for Requip, a Parkinson’s disease drug. Didier Jambart, a French father of two, claims that the drug turned him into a gay sex addict and gambling addict, as well as pushing him to attempt suicide three times, the AFP reports. Jambart, 51, is suing GlaxoSmithKline for allegedly causing his life to spiral out of control due to Requip, which he was first prescribed in 2003 to reduce tremors, movement and speech disruption....

According to recent reports, law schools are using legal tech more than many law firms. In one survey, nearly 62 percent of the respondents said they are already using or intend to use new technologies in their classrooms. Meanwhile, another survey revealed a mere 7.5 percent of law firms are using tools like artificial intelligence. While comparing the studies may be like comparing seeds to apples, together they say something about the future of legal tech in the profession....

In the world of law school rankings, William & Mary Law School has earned its stripes as the top military-friendly law school in the nation. William & Mary is one of three law schools this year to be named among the top 10 military-friendly schools in a survey of more than 1,300 institutions. Victory Media publishes the annual rankings primarily to make life better for veterans and their families. Military-Friendly Schools Daniel Nichols, chief product office for Victory Media, said the list is created each year based on research of more than 8,800 schools nationwide, as well as input from veterans, students and schools that respond to a survey....

Two weeks ago, the California Supreme Court-appointed Strategic Evaluation Committee released its over-200-page report on the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). It was not particularly favorable. The media described the Committee’s evaluation as everything from “sharp” to “scathing.” The report concluded that the AOC “must refocus on providing service to the courts; that a fundamental restructuring of the organization is needed; that the AOC must be down-sized to correspond with its core functions; and that its internal processes need to be improved....

Today the District of Columbia Court of Appeals announced proposed changes to Circuit Rules 25, 26 and 32. These rules have been a long time coming, as they are designed to replace the requirements for Case Management / Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, which were adopted by Administrative Order filed on May 15, 2009. The proposed rules would incorporate the CM/ECF requirements into existing Circuit Rules. Here’s a closer look at the changes....

Former Ohio State linebacker Andrew Sweat admits he had a hard time deciding between law school and a potential NFL career. But renewed concerns about the effects of concussions made law school a no-brainer. “Concussion symptoms didn’t want to risk it,” Sweat, 23, tweeted after he skipped the Cleveland Browns’ rookie mini-camp last week. “Health trumps football any day.” That’s a complete reversal from Sweat’s comments about a potential legal career last month: “I don’t want to sit behind a desk,” he told the Columbus Dispatch after he got accepted to five law schools....

This week in #DearFindLaw, we discuss a question that’s increasingly common: If you’re looking for work, should you take that non-legal, but legal-ish job? My first thought was, “Yes, of course, but look for other jobs in the meantime.” The bills still need to be paid, and doing any kind of tangential legal work pays those bills and still shows that you’re interested in pursuing a legal career. The problem, of course, is that for every year you’re not practicing, you’re setting yourself back a little bit more....

Getting a high-paying law firm job was probably your main goal when you went to law school. That’s why deciding to leave your high-paying gig can be so difficult once you’ve attained it. At some point, however, all the money in the world isn’t worth it if it means you’ll have to be miserable. Here are five signs that maybe walking away from your firm job is right for you. If you experience one or more of these signs, you may want to seriously reconsider your priorities:...

Maybe you were unlucky enough to graduate the past few years (or lucky depending who you ask) and have had trouble finding a legal job, or maybe you’ve actually worked as an attorney and realized how much it sucked. Whatever your particular circumstances, know one thing: you are not alone. I personally took the leap out of the legal industry, and then found a middle ground as a legal blogger which had all of what I considered fun as a lawyer (research and writing) without all the stuff I hated about the practice (partners, clients and billable hours)....

In a petition for review of an SEC rule stating that fixed indexed annuities are not “annuity contracts” within the meaning of the Securities Act (Act), the petition is granted in part where the SEC failed to properly consider the effect of the rule upon efficiency, competition, and capital formation; but denied in part, where the SEC’s interpretation of “annuity contract” in the Act was reasonable. Read American Equity Inv. Life Ins....

The only sure winners in the Apple Samsung patent battle were the lawyers and the astronomical legal fees they racked up. As you probably know by now, Apple gave Samsung a historic courtroom beat down over a host of patents used in smartphones and tablets. Basically, Apple said Samsung was a copycat and they were vindicated in a U.S. court. However, despite the victory, it’s unclear just how the court’s ruling will truly benefit Apple....

With marijuana dispensary busts lighting up the news and 4/20 (the semi-official April 20 pot holiday) coming up, cannabis appears to be on the public’s radar. Not everyone may like it, but for marijuana lawyers, this might signal that becoming mainstream might not be far off for them. There are whole organizations dedicated to marijuana law reform and defense strategies – some even hold seminars on the subjects. But for attorneys looking to specialize, is marijuana litigation big enough to encompass an entire practice or is the mainstream still a ways off?...

What started out as a joke may become a ballot reality for 2010. NBC reports that Sacramento web designer John Marcotte wants ensure that his state does all it can to “defend the institution of marriage.” He has proposed a ballot initiative called the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. It would ban divorce in the state. While the site is clearly satirical (the blurb about the author states that he opposes government-funded death panels and Obama talking to children and MSNBC’s entire prime-time line-up), there are many conservatives who are willing to put the bill on the ballot as a legitimate measure....

In an action for dissolution of marriage, trial court’s issuance of a restraining order against defendant and an entry of default judgment awarding a condominium to his former wife as her separate property is reversed and remanded where: 1) the court erred in awarding the condominium as wife’s separate property because it granted greater relief than she had requested in her petitions for dissolution; and 2) it was reversible error for the court not to rule on defendant’s request for accommodation....

You may have heard about the plummeting bar passage rates for the July 2014 examination. If not, you’re not reading our Greedy Associates blog frequently enough. The gist is this: lowest passage rates in recent memory have led to finger-pointing between schools and the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The debate is over whether the test was scored or designed poorly, or whether the students were simply less able. It’s not surprising then to see that California’s bar rate has also plummeted....

American music would be much worse without college radio. College radio stations helped bring us The Pixies and music-snob mags like CMJ. Your local college radio station is one of the few places willing to let kids spin avant-garde African pop for an hour every week. But college radio is much less actual radio, these days. Many college radio stations have taken to streaming their music live over the Internet, to potentially much larger audiences....

In 2011, Homeland Security received an anonymous tip that someone was trying to help an Iranian company obtain relays for an Iranian power project. The source shared an email from that person, which contained a phone number. Homeland Security searched for this number in its secret database and found a match for a number in Los Angeles. They searched for more information in their database, finding that the suspect – Shantia Hassanshahi – had been investigated before for violating the Iranian trade embargo....

Good handwriting often seems like a lost art, but as we celebrate National Handwriting Day, it seems appropriate to remind law students and attorneys why handwriting is important. But in our age of technology, do attorneys really need good handwriting? Attorneys aren’t in the highest echelons of handwriting glory, but we certainly aren’t the worst. In a PR Newswire survey from over a decade ago, lawyers were ranked #4 for best handwriting but also #3 for worst....