Posts

Oleksandr Nayda would have been known as a Good Samaritan had he not been arrested for drunk driving while seeking to rescue a stray dog. Instead, the good deeds by Oleksandr Nayda as a dog rescuer were overshadowed police said, when he drove drunk to local police station, the Associated Press reports. Police said the 38-year-old man from Monroe, New York, found a stray Rottweiler and stopped by the department’s headquarters to ask for directions to an animal shelter....

When it comes to a new lawyer’s first job, size doesn’t seem to matter. Nearly two-thirds of new grads who go into the private sector are going to small law firms rather than BigLaw, an analysis of ABA data shows. For the Class of 2010, more than 18,000 newly minted JDs — 42% of total graduates — were employed by private law firms, according to the ABA’s law school placement survey....

A New York couple made the most of their subway ride on Friday by getting married on the train. The unorthodox wedding occurred aboard an N-line train traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan, where Hector Irakliotis, 26, and Tatyana Sandler, 25, tied the knot in front of friends and random commuters. According to the New York Daily News, the train held a special significance for the couple as the backdrop of much of their romantic history....

Twitter is back in the news after an NBA referee filed a federal lawsuit against the Associated Press as well as a sportswriter the AP employs, Jon Krawczynski, over a Twitter post. The message suggested that veteran NBA referee William Spooner intentionally made a bad call to make up for an earlier bad call. Spooner is suing for defamation, the Associated Press reports. Jon Krawczynski’s Twitter post said the following: “Ref Bill Spooner told Rambis he’d ‘get it back’ after a bad call....

Defendant’s conviction for evading a police officer while driving recklessly and kidnapping is affirmed for the most part but reversed and remanded with respect to the kidnapping conviction as the court erred by failing to instruct the jury on a defendant’s incidental movement of an alleged kidnapping victim. Read People v. Bell, No. G041051 [HTML] Read People v. Bell, No. G041051 [PDF] Appellate Information Filed November 20, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Ikola...

A prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office was arrested on Monday. Her crime? Love. Well, love, plus allegedly forging judges’ signatures to fake their approval of an illegal wiretap she used to spy on a police detective and a fellow prosecutor as part of a messy “love triangle gone wrong.” Tara Lenich, a high-ranking prosecutor, is accused of illegally spying on the detective and another assistant district attorney as part of “a personal entanglement between her and the detective,” a law enforcement official told the New York Times....

It’s almost a no-brainer to take the GRE instead of the LSAT for many people thinking about law school. That’s because more and more law schools now accept GRE scores in lieu of LSAT scores. It’s a silver lining in the cloud of fall-out from lower law school enrollments. Basically, law schools are accepting the GRE to attract more students. It’s a tough test, but it’s better than the LSAT for a lot of people for a number of reasons....

Fat Tuesday is just around the corner, so what better way to prepare than to take our T.G.I.FindLaw! “Phat Friday” Mardi Gras Legal Quiz? From the number of police in the French Quarter to the number of attorneys in the ‘Nawlins bar, see how many Mardi Gras- and law-related trivia questions you get right: The Questions What proportion of New Orleans police officers will be deployed to the French Quarter for Mardi Gras?...

A split Federal Circuit just recognized a limited privilege enjoyed by patent agents citing a number of factors including “reason and experience” of the current litigation realities. Although patent agents already enjoy a higher level of intimacy with clients, this will be the first time intellectual property courts have come out and said that anyone besides a patent attorney may refuse to reveal confidential information about client patents. It is already taken for granted that non-attorney patent agents practice law in helping to file or prosecute patent applications....

Did you see the photobomb behind the AT&T-Time Warner deal? President Trump tweeted it earlier this year. The fake video shows him pouncing on a CNN-faced victim at a wrestling event. Strangely, it’s the backstory to the proposed merger and is more interesting than the news. The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to block the deal, and CNN is being dragged into the fight. CNN Story Time Warner owns CNN, which the President has doggedly put down for “fake news....

Ex-NFL star Warren Sapp has taken a huge hit to his bank account – so much so, the defensive tackle-turned-TV commentator is seeking Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Sapp, 38, counts more than $6.7 million in debts in his bankruptcy filing, including unpaid child and spousal support, the Associated Press reports. That figure eclipses Sapp’s $6.4 million in assets, which include a $1,200 lion-skin rug, a $2,250 wristwatch, and 240 pairs of Jordan athletic shoes worth nearly $6,500....

Plaintiff: ‘Crunch Berries’ Aren’t Real FruitJudge: No #@!% Four years is an entire term of office for a President of the United States. It’s how long Michael Phelps has to wait between additions to his gold medal collection. Four years is high school. It’s also the amount of time it took a California woman to learn that the “berries” in “Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries” cereal aren’t an actual fruit, according to a lawsuit that was thrown out of a California court a few weeks back....

You’ve seen her ads on television. She calls herself the “Tax Lady.” Well, you won’t be seeing Roni Deutch’s commercials in California anymore. Roni Deutch resigned from the California State Bar last month, reports the California Bar Journal. While this is a Superior Court case and not an appellate case or a California Supreme Court case, it’s nevertheless relevant to this blog as it affects California practitioners in all courts....

Ah, to be young and solo. Whether it is because of the challenging economy or the desire to blaze their own path, a huge number of attorneys are making the move to go into solo practice. What follows is a list of 10 things that many solos learn the hard way. Maybe we can save you the trouble with this list. These ten tips are by no means meant to cover everything you need to know in order to get going, but they should provide an excellent start....

What do you do when you have to keep hundreds of roosters as evidence of a crime? Put ’em in jail. That’s what one Arkansas sheriff decided to do after arresting over a hundred people suspected of participating in cockfighting. Now a court will have to decide what to do with the jailbirds while neighbors put up with the noise. What Is Cockfighting? According to the ASPCA, cockfighting is “a blood sport in which two roosters specifically bred for aggression are placed beak to beak in a small ring and encouraged to fight to the death....

A summer associate position (or internship, or clerkship) is more than just a summer job – it’s a two- to three-month long interview. And that’s not just because some lucky 2Ls may come out of their summer associate positions with a job offer. Even law students who aren’t expecting an offer at the end of their summer will still build valuable relationships and future recommendations. The key, of course, is to make the right impression....

For many law firm attorneys, pro bono work may be the most rewarding type of work you get to perform. Instead of staring at a computer screen and sifting through endless documents, pro bono work gives a lawyer an opportunity to do some good. The lawyer may actually get the opportunity to leave the office and have some face-time in front of a client. And unlike paper-pushing legal work, you can actually see how your work benefits a person....

California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed a brief with the California Supreme Court last week, supporting Sergio Garcia’s case to be admitted to the California Bar, reports CBS News. California’s Latino state legislators have also spoken out in support of Garcia, reports the Los Angeles Times. The California Legislative Caucus submitted a brief to the court in support of Garcia. Garcia passed the California bar exam but has been unable to gain admission to the California bar due to the fact that he is an undocumented citizen....

For the past few years, immigration officials have focused on deporting immigrants who commit crimes. Convictions for drug offenses or sex offenses, aggravated felonies, weapons possession, and crimes of moral turpitude could all get a legal immigrant deported to his or her home country. But can owing over $84,000 in child support get you deported? To heaven? That’s what one “sovereign citizen” was wondering in an Alaska courtroom last week. Unfortunately, the answer is no....

He called her a fat cow. She mentioned his past patronage of prostitutes. After some pushing, shoving, and scuffling, he punched her in the face, resulting in a detached retina and permanent loss of vision in the eye. She told the Hawaiian police that she had fallen. They returned from their vacation two days later. She came forward days later out of fear for her sons’ safety. The answer should be no, but because we’re lawyers, and all of us (understandably) hate wife-beaters, the District Attorney tried to find a way — and the trial court agreed!...