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Kansas’ governor is preparing to sign a proclamation declaring October to be “Zombie Preparedness Month.” But unless he knows something we don’t, there have been no reports of zombie activity in the Midwest. But this hasn’t deterred Kansas’ Division of Emergency Management from craving brains publicity for its newest initiative. “If you’re prepared for zombies, you’re prepared for anything,” rings the theme of Zombie Preparedness Month. State emergency officials hope that this will prepare Kansas residents from the more likely event of tornadoes, severe storms, and fires....

Free speech or felony? Framingham prosecutors split the difference with a woman who smeared a police station with tasty pork products last year. Lindsey McNamara was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and malicious destruction of property after throwing, and then wiping bacon and pork sausage on an intake window at the Framingham Police Department. The Middlesex District Attorney’s office dismissed the destruction charge this week, and McNamara must pay $150 in court costs on the disorderly charge....

Congratulations to Happy the elephant for being the first pachyderm to receive a habeas corpus order. In case you’ve only heard about a writ of habeas corpus on television, it’s a fancy Latin term lawyers use to say that if you want to detain someone, like imprison them, the person has to be brought before the court and formally charged. Habeas corpus has never been successfully used to free an animal from a zoo, but that could soon change....

As of September 26, 2016, thanks to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and a unanimous vote in the state legislature, it’s now legal to be buried with the remains of your cremated pet in New York. Prior to this past Monday, pet owners would have had to be buried in pet cemeteries if they wished to have their final resting place alongside their furry friend. Now, before you go revising your last will and testament to make sure Mr....

What’s up readers? Welcome to another edition of #DearFindLaw, an advice column for all young lawyers and pre-lawyers. (We recognize that the past few weeks have been all law school, all the time, but optimistic starry-eyed 1Ls are our favorite people, and they ask more questions. If you’re a post-L and have a question, just hit us up on Twitter.) What’s on tap this week? One of our regular readers wants to know how seriously he should take his first 1L assignments (every assignment is life or death!...

Attorneys visiting clients in Portland, Maine, jails can breathe a sigh of relief: they no longer have to remove their bras to get in to the jail. The change came after two attorneys’ underwire bras set off the jail metal detector. The women were told to remove their underwear if they wanted to get in to see their clients. Both declined. After one attorney, Amy Fairfield, reported the incident, Sheriff Kevin Joyce originally defended the policy as a simple safety requirement....

Judgment of the Court of International Trade ordering the re-liquidation of imported entries of preserved mushrooms from India by plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) although the Zenith rule ordinarily renders moot court actions in which liquidation has already occurred, there are exceptions to that general rule as in this case where steps are required to enforce a valid injunction; and 2) here, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in amending the judgment to effect the parties’ intent to prevent liquidation and allow adjudication of the merits of the dispute....

It’s not really news, but it is worth noting: BigLaw partnership is still lacking in diversity, to put it mildly. How bad is the problem? According to a recent study, only 1.9 percent of partners are black in BigLaw, a percentage that hasn’t changed in five years. For black women, it’s an astonishingly low 0.6 percent. Like we said, with the statistics static over the last few years, pale partnership is not exactly news, but the lack of progress does beg the question: what’s the holdup?...

California bankruptcy practitioners, experienced and new: you know that keeping up with the changes to the bankruptcy code and case law is no simple task. Luckily, one of the most popular publishers of California legal practice guides and reference materials, The Rutter Group, is offering an evening seminar in both Northern and Southern California to get you up-to-date: Recent Developments and Hot Topics in Bankruptcy. (Disclosure: The Rutter Group is FindLaw’s sister company....

California’s bar exam is known as one of the hardest, if not the hardest, exams in the country. But that reputation could be fading. In 2015, the state decided to drop the exam’s infamous third day, starting this summer. Now, state legislators want to make the bar even easier – maybe even passable. Last week, lawmakers sent a letter to the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, urging her to address the state’s declining bar passage rates by temporarily lowering the score needed to practice in the Golden State....

Dogs. They sniff bombs. They sniff drugs. They sniff bodies. In some countries, they sniff fruit. But now, they sniff cell phones. And those cell phone-sniffing dogs are headed to New York’s Rikers Island, where they will fight crime from the inside out. By roaming the prison’s halls and sniffing out smuggled cell phones, that is. And at $6,000 a pop, one can only hope these dogs are worth the fee....

Not every court-ordered record or report is available for public consumption, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week. In 2004, after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged American International Group, Inc. (AIG) with securities violations, the parties entered into a consent decree that enjoined future violation. The decree also required AIG to retain an independent consultant to review transaction policies and procedures and to examine a number of AIG’s completed transactions....

A cat fight of sorts broke out at a Florida strip club, where a man tried to enter the club while holding a small kitten. Purr-haps the kitten’s presence violated the club’s 18-and-over policy? Whatever the reason, bouncers denied entry to Everett Robert Lages, 47, of Port Charlotte, Fla., and told him and his kitty to shoo, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. That apparently rubbed Lages the wrong way. He refused to leave, plopped down outside the Emerald City Gentleman’s Club in Murdock, Fla....

ESPN’s Linda Cohn was injured when a coin change machine fell on her at an ice rink, and now she’s suing. The veteran sportscaster suffered a “real deep” wound to her right arm in March, reports The Journal News. Cohn received 25 stitches to her arm that left “a Frankenstein-like scar that looks like her hand and arm were sewn together,” and she’s suing the owners of the Brewster Ice Arena in Brewster, New York, to recover....

Some stories, you just have to tell plain and simple because really, there is very little else to say. This is one of those stories. In Germany, a man is under arrest for attempted murder after he allegedly castrated his daughter’s boyfriend with a bread knife. The daughter of the accused is 17, the boyfriend, 57. The vigilante justice which nearly lead to the victim Phillip Genscher bleeding to death, was necessary according to the accused, Helmut Seifert, reports CBS News....

First-year associates at law firms are getting overpaid for fetching documents from a box of discoverable documents. Is this really all that surprising to anyone? When you first graduated from law school, did you really think your clumsy services were worth a good $200-300 an hour? Be honest. Not that many. Now, it seems that the corporate world is starting to catch up to the fact that most first-years just don’t know what they’re doing....

There is such a thing as everyday heroism, when regular folks do something extraordinary because the situation demands it. A Florida mother and an off-duty Citrus County Sheriff’s Deputy are fine examples of this, after the mom saved her daughter from a kidnapping and the sheriff’s deputy was there to stop the fleeing suspect and arrest him. The incident happened this week, midday in the aisle of a Dollar General store, and the accused is now in custody awaiting a psychiatric evaluation....

Now this is what you call a greedy associate. Ever been really fed up with your law firm? Michael Shaw, a former Greenberg Traurig associate got so fed up that he stole around half a million dollars from them. From 2003 to 2009, Shaw specialized in bankruptcy and commercial-foreclosure litigation, as well as skimming money off the top. He pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. He has been disbarred by the Georgia State Bar....

Dogs may be “man’s best friend,” but an 8-year-old California boy’s cat is being called a hero after the feisty feline fended off a dog attack. Video of the incident quickly went viral. And while the cat is being rightfully celebrated, the question remains: Can the owner of the dog be held liable for the boy’s injuries? Video of the incident, taken by surveillance cameras, shows 8-year-old son Jeremy Triantafilo playing on his bike in the family’s driveway when a neighbor’s dog sneaks up behind the boy, latches onto his leg and drags him off his bike....

The Kim Kardashian Old Navy lawsuit has been settled through mediation, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Sadly, the most famous Kardashian won’t be duking it out with the budget retailer in court over her right of publicity. But could this settlement prompt an entirely new lawsuit? Kardashian filed a right of publicity lawsuit against Old Navy and its parent company, Gap, Inc., in a Los Angeles federal court last year after Old Navy aired advertisement that featured Melissa Molinaro....