Posts

Something grabs you. Maybe a current event? Perhaps an awesome ad? Your significant other just dumped you for your best friend? Or maybe your parents think you’re unmotivated and you feel you have something to prove. You walk by a local recruitment office, maybe for the millionth time in your life, but something draws you in this time. And before you know it, Bam! You’re in the Army now! Military enlistment contracts are one of the most unique types of employment contracts in America, bordering on modern-day indentured servitude....

Walnut Producers of California v. Diamond Foods, Inc., C060346, involved plaintiff-walnut producers’ class action suit against Diamond Foods, claiming that defendant breached an agreement by failing to pay them the reasonable market value for their walnuts. In affirming the trial court’s order striking all class action allegations from the complaint, the court held that the plaintiffs have not pleaded sufficient facts showing the class action waiver’s unconscionability to survive defendant’s motion to strike the class action allegations in the complaint....

Continuing legal education is just one of those facts of life for lawyers. However, some lawyers know how to really work those pesky credit requirements to their own personal advantage. It’s no secret, some CLE conferences blatantly appeal to special interests or activities, for example, the annual “CLE and Ski” in January. After all, CLE is a legitimate expense related to maintaining one’s professional license. As such, there’s a good chance your CLE costs will be tax deductible....

When a cop visits for Career Day, you’d think your child would spend the day learning how to be an officer, not learning what it’s like to be stunned by a Taser. During career day at Tularosa Elementary School in New Mexico, a police officer allegedly asked a group of students if they wanted to clean his patrol car. One 10-year-old boy, identified by The Smoking Gun as R.D., jokingly said he didn’t want to do it, which is a pretty reasonable response....

If you ever doubt the criticism that we live in an overly-litigious society, consider this: A California appellate court issued an opinion last week in a matter questioning whether The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was a local paper in Los Angeles. The WSJ is a daily newspaper published in New York City and several other cities by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Andrew P. Johnson, a manager of Dow Jones & Company, Inc....

A federal appeals court struck down a Native American tribe’s claim of sovereign immunity against inter partes patent challenges. In Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said the United States Patent and Trademark Office acts for the United States as a “superior sovereign.” It has the power to review its own grants of patents, the appeals court said. If Allergan has anything to do with it, however, the battle over inter partes review is far from over....

Senate Republicans blocked voting on an Obama nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last Thursday, with Senate Democrats refusing to use the “nuclear option” they’d been threatening. According to The Washington Post, Patricia Millett’s confirmation was blocked after the Senate failed to reach a 3/5 majority to bring Millet’s nomination to a vote. Senate Republicans also blocked the nomination of another Obama nominee to the Federal Housing Finance Agency....

People v. Shrier, B218424, concerned a challenge to the superior court’s denial of the government’s motion to reinstate the felony complaint pursuant to Penal Code section 871.5, in proceedings arising from a prosecution of defendant for grand theft and for filing fraudulent Medi-Cal claims wherein a magistrate judge dismissed the complaint after concluding that intentional eavesdropping of defendant’s attorney-client privileged communications by special agents of the Department of Justice was so outrageous that defendant had been denied due process of law....

As we know, Facebook is a social networking tool for people to connect with friends and send messages, but for Prince Segala the online site has unlocked so much more, helping her to find missing children who were kidnapped nearly 15 years ago. Through a Facebook search Prince Segala, a San Bernardino County, California mother, located her missing children – a daughter, now 17, and son, now 16, and alerted the police to their location, the San Bernardino County Sun reports....

Welcome to “First Week at the Firm,” a new FindLaw feature for beginning associates, focused on helping you navigate the transition into firm life. We hope you’ll enjoy this new series and come back regularly for more insider tips. It’s your first week at the firm and you’re already making a great impression, dressing sharp, making friends and managing your work load. Now, you just need to print out that filing for a one last look through....

Baloney isn’t just at the deli counter. Following last week’s overhyped ExamSoft “barmageddon” story, Above the Law posted that law firms were actively “trawling” for class representatives in preparation for the inevitable lawsuits. You know how cartoon characters get dollar signs in their eyes? I imagine it’s a lot like that. Jay Edelson, of Edelson PC in Chicago, broke through the tape to become the first lawyer to file a class action against ExamSoft....

Senator Jeff Sessions, President-elect Trump’s nominee for attorney general, went before his colleagues today in a marathon confirmation hearing – now on its fifth hour and still ongoing. (You can watch the live stream here.) If confirmed, and so far it looks like Sessions will be confirmed, the Republican Senator from Alabama will become the head of the Department of Justice and the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer in the federal government....

Ever heard of JPay? If not, consider yourself lucky. The company contracts with local, state, and federal detention centers to provide inmates with music players and tablets that allow them to do everything from access email and play games to make parole and probation payments and allow deposits into their commissary or trust accounts. And with potentially millions of dollars whizzing in and out of our nation’s prisons and jails, you’d think JPay would have top-of-the-line security and encryption on their devices....

And that’s before you get to the crooked married cop couple, the former traveling clown running for state legislature, and the connections to the imprisoned former head of Jared Fogle’s foundation. Bad and Broken At the head of the organization were fundamentalist pastor Robert Jaynes Jr., founder of the Irvington Bible Baptist Church, and his brother-in-law and church member Kirk Parsons. As The Indianapolis Star reported: And this was no local operation – 13 people from multiple U....

As coach of the University of Georgia’s football team, Jim Donnan won some big games in the SEC, college football’s powerhouse Southeastern Conference. But it’s unlikely any of those victories could match his victory Friday in a federal courtroom against the other SEC – the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donnan was found not guilty on 41 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. What was the ex-coach’s game plan for his Personal Freedom Bowl, and how his did his accused co-conspirator fare?...

Last week, we told you about a default judgment appeal in which California’s Fourth Appellate District ruled that a plaintiff isn’t guaranteed a win simply because he filed an unopposed motion for default judgment. In the opinion, the court spent a bit of time explaining that, even when faced with silent opposition, the plaintiff must offer facts to support the specific judgment he is seeking. But the plaintiff wasn’t the only one who received a lesson in civil procedure; the Fourth Appellate District had words of wisdom for the trial court as well....

What do you do if you’ve just managed to win one of the most significant law school cases in history in which you were accused of fraud and illicit marketing? You hire Associate Justice Clarence Thomas to teach, of course. At least, it almost looks that way. Thomas Jefferson School of Law (yes, that Thomas Jefferson School of Law) announced on March 22nd that Clarence Thomas would participate in the school’s study abroad program that would take place from June 26 to July 21, 2016....

Lawyers drink. Lawyers drive. A lawyer getting arrested and accused of a DUI ordinarily isn’t news. But Rosanna Heinrichs, 27, of Louisville, Kentucky, just allegedly completed the hat trick of stupidity: On Sunday, she was pulled over for swerving while driving. According to police, she was driving while distracted by her attempts to order Domino’s Pizza on her smartphone after drinking. She admitted to both acts: drinking a half-bottle of wine and a beer before driving and to ordering third-rate pizza on her smartphone, reports Louisville’s WDRB-TV....

As the Advocate in Baton Rouge put it in January, when a local police chief’s wife was spotted behind the wheel of his patrol car in the annual Christmas parade, it led to a few raised eyebrows. When she pulled up to the French Settlement Police Station in February, turned her headlights out, and allegedly attempted to run into an investigating officer before fleeing the scene, it led to DUI, speeding, and driving with a suspended license charges....

An exciting weekend of “March Madness” is upon us, as the 2012 Final Four pursue the NCAA Championship in basketball in New Orleans. But we’d be remiss if we failed to mention another type of “March Madness” that also involves mysterious number-crunching – the annual U.S. News law school rankings. U.S. News released its 2012 law school rankings March 12 – just one day after the NCAA’s “Selection Sunday” revealed college basketball’s top-seeded teams....