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A Florida woman’s methamphetamine manufacturing operation was allegedly uncovered by police after her 7-year-old son told his uncle, as well as police investigators, that “there’s really bad stuff in my mom’s car.” Briana Buchanan, 26, and her 7-year-old son had been living with Buchanan’s boyfriend’s brother, who considers the boy his nephew, reports Central Florida’s News 13. The uncle called police after the boy opened up the trunk of his mother’s car to show him the “really bad stuff,” which turned out to be a mobile meth lab....

In an action by a Sioux Indian tribe seeking a declaration that the 1889 Act of Congress dissolving the Great Sioux Reservation never took effect, the dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946 imposed a 5-year limitations period on Indian claims then existing and arising, and that period expired. Read Oglala Sioux Tribe v. US Army Corps of Eng’rs., No. 08-5133 Appellate Information...

There’s nothing quite like a pay raise to lift your spirits. And with law firms raising starting salaries to all-time highs for new associates, it’s a time for rejoicing. No more recession blues for those law graduates who make it to the top-paying law firms. “Oh Happy Day,” Christmas came early with big-time pay! $190,000 to Start Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy rolled out the red carpet first, offering new associates $190,000 to start....

And then you went to law school. And where your fellow classmates talked BigLaw and BigBucks, you kept using your laptop’s calculator to figure out how you could pay back your student loans and still do non-profit work. It’s an affliction, really. To anyone who told you you have a bleeding heart, you told them that every heart bleeds…it’s just that we’re often too preoccupied to notice. Or to care....

For listeners of streaming radio services, like Pandora, the recent decision over the licensing rates for those service providers may not have much of an impact. But, for some of the copyright holders, the decision in SoundExchange v. Copyright Royalty Board, is bad news. Basically, the appellate court rejected the challengers’ argument that the Board failed to adequately represent their rights when negotiating the rates for the 2016 to 2020 time period....

Everyone uses the terms BigLaw and SmallLaw. Hell, even law school career services–who often doesn’t know anything about the current legal market–uses the popular terms to delineate between the AmLaw 100 and the 20 person firm down the block. But PeerViews, Inc., owner of legal blog TechnoLawyer, doesn’t want you, me, or your mother to be able to the use the terms without prior permission. So, in a diabolical plan to corner the market on legal blog fodder, the company trademarked both of the words....

The electric company might not have known what Bishop William Marshall was doing the past few years, but the Lord certainly did. And now the United Illuminating Company and Bridgeport Police Department know as well. Marshall was arrested on third-degree larceny charges after investigators discovered he was siphoning power to his barber shop and tattoo parlor. When God said, “Let there be light,” we’re not sure he might by illegally reconnecting your shut off electricity meter....

Toys ‘R’ Us is having the post-Christmas sale that many people saw coming. That’s because the company is in bankruptcy, and there appears to be no way out except liquidation. According to reports, it is making preparations for the big sale now. It will mark the end of a store that put toys under American Christmas trees for generations. But this Christmas, there will be no more Toys “R” Us....

That’s the text from the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, upon which birthright citizenship is based. It means that individuals born in the United States are automatically granted U.S. citizenship. But if President Donald Trump has his way, that constitutional right may soon change. “All persons born … in the United States … are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” “We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump told Axios....

One more year. Well, one more year and bar review, but still, it’s almost over. For rising 3Ls, it’s time to work on your golf game, and your brown-nosing game. You need to find a job, obviously, especially if you didn’t get offered after 2L summer. And oh yeah, there’s class, which you’ll totally take seriously. Nine more months. Twelve, if you count bar review. As our series of Back to (Law) School Week blog posts continues, here are five tips to make the most of your 3L year:...

Let’s talk about alternative legal careers. Back in law school, the career services staff thought we were crazy when we said that we had no interest in practicing law. When we asked for assistance with alternative legal careers, they asked, “Why are you in law school?” Now, life at a fancy BigLaw firm is no longer a guaranteed path to a comfortable life, and more Generation Catalano attorneys are discovering that they aren’t satisfied with the BigLaw life … if they can even secure a BigLaw job....

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Maryland law that allowed police to collect and store DNA from arrestees. This put a wrench in a California case called People v. Buza, centering on the validity of California’s own DNA collection law. The First District Court of Appeal decided Buza in the defendant’s favor in 2011. On a petition for review, the state supreme court sent it back for reconsideration in light of King....

Being a greedy associate at a law firm can mean more than just wanting a monster spring bonus. Sometimes it means being really, really greedy. A former associate has been charged in an alleged $32-million insider trading scheme based on information he obtained while working at three of America’s largest law firms, officials said. Matthew Kluger, who specialized in merger and acquisitions for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, will be arraigned in federal court in Newark Wednesday, The Star-Ledger reports....

Yes! If you’re an inmate in the medium security wing of Chicago’s Cook County Jail, that is. But don’t expect one of the city’s iconic deep dish pies – it’s thin crust only on the menu. And you better trust your cellmate because he might be in charge of toppings – all of the delivery pizzas are cooked by inmates in the jail’s brick oven. So the only question is: Are the guards partaking in prisoner-made pepperoni pizzas as well?...

A federal appeals court wants to know if prosecutors intruded on attorney-client communications in a case out of Guantanamo Bay. Defense attorneys withdrew from the case after they found a microphone in the client meeting room. Prosecutors said it was for interrogations and not used during attorney-client meetings. In Spears v. United States of America, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wants to know more. The panel has ordered the government to produce “any and all” relevant information, including “classified or unclassified” information....

A fake cop in New Mexico picked the wrong people to pull over this week when he chose to stop an unmarked truck with two state police officers inside. John Shelton, 26, allegedly armed with a pistol on his hip and his experience as an emergency medical tech and a firefighter, detained two undercover officers traveling on a state highway in San Miguel County and was eventually arrested for impersonating an officer, reports The Albuquerque Journal....

Another day, another patent infringement suit with Apple on the other side of the “v.” This time, the plaintiff is a patent licensing company, but slightly different than what we typically see from those kinds of entities. MobileMedia is a patent licensing company formed by MPEG LA, Nokia, and Sony – in other words, not one-off companies that make all their money from patent settlements. MobileMedia claimed that Apple’s iPhone infringed on 16 of its patents....

When it comes to filing a lawsuit, it’s a problem if you can’t construct a claim properly. The attorneys for plaintiff MarcTec LLC conducted such egregious “litigation misconduct” in a medical patent suit that the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision to award defendants Johnson & Johnson and Cordis $4 million in attorney fees and costs because the case was “exceptional.. The original suit involved patents for various surgical implants that are heat-bonded to antibiotic-containing polymer material....

You aren’t a dog person. They smell, chew up your Thom Browne ties, and they bark – incessantly. No, that isn’t a reflection on you, the one who trained the dog. It’s the dog’s fault. You swear. If that is how you feel, don’t go for one of these associate-appropriate breeds. A young associate attorney on the rise has merely one factor to consider when choosing a cat: the status symbol....

A Florida man has adopted his girlfriend. Yes, you read that right. Businessman John Goodman adopted his girlfriend Heather Laruso Hutchins as his daughter October 13. In case you’re wondering, Goodman is 48. Hutchins is 42. Hutchins and Goodman have been dating since 2009. Now, you might wonder why Goodman would do such a thing. No normal person would want to have their girlfriend legally considered their daughter, right? Well, not so fast....