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Want to plan a marijuana trip? Go to California! Oh, wait, technically federal law still bans marijuana sales. OK, then go to the Netherlands! Alas, those days are almost over. The Dutch government recently passed new laws that limit pot sales to foreigners. The new rules, which effectively eliminate many tourists’ reasons to visit the Netherlands in the first place, will come into effect soon. Some parts of the country will feel the brunt of the new laws starting January 1, 2012....

You don’t need to be a sneaker head to know the value of Air Jordans. Since their release 1984, annual releases of Nike’s signature product are anxiously awaited, and some editions of the shoe can cost thousands of dollars on the secondary market. And if you can fool someone into thinking some fake Air Jordans are some real Air Jordans, you’re making that profit instead of Nike. You’re also breaking the law....

Former NBA star Jayson Williams entered a guilty plea to fatally shooting his limo driver in 2002. Williams’ plea to aggravated assault in connection to the accidental killing of his limosinue driver in his bedroom finally closes the book on a case that has been dragged out for nearly eight years, the Associated Press reports. The assault charge carries a minimum 18-month sentence because a gun was involved. The reckless manslaughter count would have carried a maximum 10-year prison sentence....

An Ohio woman has successfully petitioned a court to call her “Sexy” – largely because that’s now her legal name. Formerly Sheila Ranea Crabtree, the now-legally baptized Sexy Ranea Crabtree was successful in changing her name from a moniker she considered “ugly” to one that better matched her personality, The Columbus Dispatch reports. If the change from Sheila to Sexy is possible, what new name possibilities lie ahead? Crabtree had petitioned a Licking County court to have her name changed, something that more typically happens after divorce....

Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas entered a guilty plea to felony gun possession. His sentencing is scheduled for March 26. According to the Washington Post, Arenas pleaded guilty Friday in D.C. Superior Court to a felony count of carrying a gun without a license, leaving a cloud of uncertainty over his NBA career. The charge carried a possible jail term of up to five years but Arenas pleaded guilty to violating the city’s gun laws as part of a plea agreement, the AP reports....

President Trump’s strong stance against illegal immigration has been clear from the very beginning. While many of his comments have been controversial, his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border probably caused the most uproar. In fact, eight immigrant families who were affected by this policy have filed claims for millions in damages. The claim filed with the Department of Health and Human Services is the first step in suing the federal government as required by the Federal Tort Claims Act....

If I told you a man was captured on cell phone video circling two AT&T service trucks and calmly firing round after round from a revolver into the trucks’ tires, then asked you to name the state, I doubt you’d need all 50 guesses before you got to Florida. Retired Miami-Dade firefighter Jorge Jove wasn’t too pleased about the trucks being parked near his house. To be fair, who among us is?...

Our love for coffee at FindLaw runs deep. Some of us have been inspired to poetic heights for our love of the java. From haiku to odes, the ways we can express our love for coffee is limitless. I am not much of a poet myself, but I am a top-notch list-maker. Thus, here are five reasons why you should drink coffee as much as we do at work, in court, on the road …...

Here is a story of one Montana man with a very creative, and sadly, very illegal, answer to the foreclosure crisis. Brent Arthur Wilson took possession of a foreclosed house and started living in it. However, in part because he had bigger dreams, he was caught, put on trial and convicted. The Associated Press reports that Brent Wilson was found guilty by a Lake County jury on July 13, of theft, deceptive practices and tampering with public records or information....

There are real problems, and then there are first-world problems. As first-world inhabitants, we expect things to be exactly as we want. The temperature of the shower is not too hot and not too cold. Our coffees have just the right amount of sugar substitute and steamed soy milk. And our t.v.’s are programmed to let us watch whatever we want, when we want. And we want what we pay for....

In one Nevada city, some residents are feeling a little bit more at ease after a woman was taken into custody for basically treating her 3 tigers like house cats. Neighbors reported that the woman would just let her tigers roam outside on her property. The property only had a four-foot high fence around the perimeter, and it didn’t appear that the tigers would be restrained when outside. While photos of the tigers with their owner may look cute, and there were no reports of tiger attacks leading up to the arrest, there are important safety rules and laws about exotic animals that need to be followed....

The NFL is taking the offensive in the head injury lawsuits by suing more than 30 insurance companies for failing to cover the league’s rapidly growing legal bills. A large group of former players has sued the NFL claiming that they suffered permanent head injuries as a result of playing football. In 143 lawsuits, the ex-players accuse the NFL of negligence for failing to inform players of the link between repeated traumatic head impacts and long-term brain injuries, reports Bloomberg....

Medical procedures may hurt physically, but what about hurting your feelings? A colonoscopy patient in Virginia is suing his doctors for defamation and infliction of emotional distress after the medical professionals made fun of him after administering anesthesia, according to United Press International. The doctors allegedly joked about “firing a gun up [the patient’s] rectum,” and it was all caught on a phone recording. One of the legal actions the patient is suing for is defamation....

Defendant’s sentence as a three strikes offender after conviction for robbery and carjacking is affirmed as, by applying the definition of a “strike” as provided by the three strikes law, and by closely hewing to People v. Benson, in cases such as this, the trial court is not compelled to strike a strike, but must consider the closeness of the two strikes as an additional circumstance in conducting a Romero analysis....

Defendant’s conviction and sentence for various sex offenses against four victims is reversed as to one of the counts as the court erred in admitting a witness’s hearsay statements and the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to defendant’s conviction for that count. Read People v. Vargas. No. B211821 [PDF] Read People v. Vargas. No. B211821 [HTML] Filed October 22, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Willhite Counsel...

The Laryngeal Mask Co. Ltd. v. Ambu A/S, Ambu Inc., 10-1028, concerned a challenge to the rulings finding that defendant’s products did not infringe the asserted claims of plaintiff’s ‘100 patent and that all claims were invalid for lack of written description under 35 U.S.C. section 112, in a patent infringement suit related to artificial airway devices used to deliver anesthetic gases during surgery and to establish unobstructed airways in patients in emergency situations....

In litigation, a deleted text message could cost your client the case. It could happen when you least expect it, even before opposing counsel demands that you preserve any evidence. And when your client is a company, it can be like herding cats to notify all the employees to save their text messages. With courts handing out monetary and even terminating sanctions for deleted text messages, it pays to have an eDiscovery plan before a lawsuit happens....

Sedentary lifestyle. Obesity. Alcoholism. Heart attacks. Death is lurking, my friends, and for lawyers living stressful lives, with too much work, too many hours, too massive a debt load, and too little free time for exercise, healthy eating, and a social life, many of us are racing towards our deaths like idiots on crotch rockets. But surprisingly, it might not be the booze or the fried chicken that kills you. It could be the loneliness....

Law schools have come under fire for being diploma mills. Several schools have been sued by disgruntled grads for misleading them about job and salary statistics. As law schools are pulling back on the number of new admittees, Yale Law School announced they are inventing a whole new type of law degree – a law PHD program. Yale announced that the new law PHD program will train law grads that have ambitions on becoming law professors....

Benoit v. USDA, No. 08-5434, concerned an action by Fourteen African American farmers alleging that the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them on the basis of race (and, in one case, gender) in administering the agency’s federally funded credit and benefit programs. The D.C. Circuit affirmed summary judgment for defendants, on the grounds that 1) in order to exhaust their administrative remedies, the plaintiffs would have had to request a formal hearing before an Administrative Law Judge; and 2) plaintiffs suggested no reason to think a formal hearing of that nature would not have proceeded expeditiously....