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Legal News

Legal Blog Watch

Tracks the daily musings of Law.com bloggers.
By Lisa Stone

Post Frequency: 34.5/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 17:07:51

An Extra Helping of Blawg Review #223

Posted on August 03, 2009
For nearly four and a half years now -- 223 weeks, to be specific -- the weekly carnival of law blogs known as Blawg Review has been going strong. That impressive streak was nearly broken last week, but thanks to a last-minute substitution we now have not one legal blog news roundup today, but two: Blawg Review #223 (Sphincter Rules edition), and Blawg Review #223 (Caribana edition)...

Law Prof Proposes Tax on Texting to Curb Calamities

Posted on August 03, 2009
Texting while driving seems so inherently stupid that I find it difficult to believe that a federal law is necessary to ban the practice. After all, as far as I know, there's no law specifically prohibiting driving while reading a newspaper, so I'm not sure why a special rule should be needed for texting...

For Tenenbaum, It's All Over But the Damages

Posted on July 31, 2009
Following up on my post earlier this week about the music-downloading trial of Joel Tenenbaum underway in federal court in Boston, there has been a major development. Late last night, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said she would order a directed verdict against Tenenbaum on his liability for copyright infringement...

Israeli Group Honored for Legal Innovation

Posted on July 31, 2009
The College of Law Practice Management this week named Israel's New Family Organization as winner of its 2009 InnovAction Award. This year for the first time, the COLPM also named the winner of an Honorable Mention, the New York-based legal services provider Practical Law Company...

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At ABA, Whole Lotta Tweeting Going On

Posted on July 31, 2009
The American Bar Association annual meeting is underway in Chicago, where it runs through Tuesday. You need not be anywhere near the Windy City to follow what is happening there, thanks to an array of Twitter-ers and bloggers who are in attendance. These include three "official" Twitter feeds: ABAChicago, the official feed for the annual meeting...

The Top-Rated Lawyers in Corporate Compliance

Posted on July 31, 2009
As a think-tank that studies best practices in business ethics and corporate responsibility, the Ethisphere Institute likes to do good for those who do good by shining a spotlight on them. In past posts here, I've written about its list of the 100 most influential people in business ethics, among whom were 19 lawyers, and its list of the world's most ethical companies, which highlighted the roles played by key in-house counsel...

Made-Up Lawyers Try Real World Networking

Posted on July 31, 2009
Among the lawyers flocking to contribute their tweets to the microblogging site Twitter are the two name partners in the law firm Bitcher & Prickman, Beatrice Bitcher and Richard Prickman. Those who follow their tweets may well have raised an eyebrow or two over some of what they say there...

Litigants in Bronx Court Have Clothes Encounter With Judge

Posted on July 30, 2009
A Bronx Supreme Court judge reprimanded several litigants for showing up to court in slovenly or casual attire, reports the New York Daily News. According to the story, Bronx Judge Joseph Dawson admonished a man wearing a T-shirt and shorts, asserting "I'm not saying you have to wear a suit ...

Economic Recession May Be Kryptonite for BigLaw

Posted on July 30, 2009
Today's prediction of the end of BigLaw (and in the past few months there have been many) comes from Douglas McCollam in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal. McCollam summarizes the evidence of demise -- declining profits for partners and the massive layoffs -- and notes that in contrast to days of yore when lawyers found a way to make money in boom times or bust, the prolonged recession combined with the unsustainable growth of law firms has forced them up against a wall: When times were good, lawyers earned enormous fees engineering mergers and takeovers...

Thursday Legal News Link Roundup

Posted on July 30, 2009
-- As if it weren't bad enough that Stroock & Stroock & Lavan's typo in a contract for a developer may cost its client $100 million, it now seems that Stroock's malpractice insurance may not cover the damages. [New York Post via Above the Law] -- Will the blawgosphere's pervasive criticism of the 2nd Circuit's decision in Dorozhko v...

Court Hears Challenges to Louisiana Lawyer Advertising Rules

Posted on July 30, 2009
Yesterday, a federal district court in Louisiana held oral argument on First Amendment challenges to Louisiana's proposed advertising rules filed by a group of attorneys, reports The Associated Press. If the article's summary of oral argument is any indication, the state seems poised to lose this case...

Cheerleader Sues School Over Facebook Snooping

Posted on July 29, 2009
Early in the 2007 school year at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., cheerleading coach Tommie Hill demanded that each member of the cheerleading squad give him the passwords to their Facebook accounts. No sooner did the students hand over their passwords than most deleted their accounts...

Ropes & Gray Wins Lien Against Patents

Posted on July 29, 2009
The Boston law firm Ropes & Gray has won a key victory in an attempt to collect unpaid legal fees and has set new precedent in the process. In a case of first impression, Massachusetts' highest court ruled this week that the firm is entitled to an attorney's lien on patents and patent applications, as well as on the proceeds from the sales of those patents...

Lawyer's Ad Tacky, Perhaps, but Unethical?

Posted on July 29, 2009
Is it ethical for a lawyer to solicit a rape victim by leaving a leaflet on her windshield? That is the question to be decided by New Jersey's Committee on Attorney Advertising, according to the New Jersey Law Journal. It seems beyond debate that such a solicitation would be in bad taste, but distasteful is not necessarily synonymous with unethical...

Nesson Tries the 'Sins of a Generation' Defense

Posted on July 29, 2009
Observers who attended yesterday's start of the music-downloading trial of Joel Tenenbaum seemed to be scratching their heads in bewilderment over the defense. Admittedly, Tenenbaum's defense lawyer, Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, has his hands somewhat tied, given that Tenenbaum admitted in his deposition to downloading the songs and given the 11th-hour ruling by U...

Is the Economy Turning Around for Law Firms?

Posted on July 28, 2009
Larry Bodine has some positive news for law firms: Recovery may be just around the corner. Bodine writes that a new forecast by First Research Inc. shows 3 percent growth is on the way for law firms, and firm layoffs are dwindling. Bodine writes that layoffs have slowed since April and May, when more than 1,000 people were laid off each month, and have dipped further this summer...

U.K. Law Society Warns Students Away From a Legal Career

Posted on July 28, 2009
Concerned about the shrinking number of available jobs in the legal profession, the Law Society of England and Wales is warning potential law students to proceed with caution before signing up for law school, advising that they may want to consider alternative careers...

The AAJ Explains Its Media Ban

Posted on July 28, 2009
In response to my post, The AAJ's Misguided Media Ban, I received an e-mail from Ray De Lorenzi, the AAJ's associate director of communications, who I mentioned in the post. He invited me to republish his e-mail here, so here it is: Robert- I saw your blog item and wanted to clarify a few things: First, my statement that AAJ has never allowed media at our convention was overly broad...

Starting a Law Firm Using Craigslist

Posted on July 28, 2009
Back in the olden days, when lawyers sought to start or expand a law practice they'd place a pricey advertisement in a hard-copy legal trade publication or retain a placement firm as a matchmaker. Lawyers would have to be fairly committed to expanding their practice, given the upfront costs involved in finding a potential partner...

Gates-gate: Caller Disputes Account

Posted on July 27, 2009
The woman who called the police in Cambridge, Mass., to report a possible break-in at the home of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is now talking to the public -- through her attorney, at least. The woman, Lucia Whalen, has hired high-profile lawyer and TV commentator Wendy Murphy (pictured)...

The Future of the Law Library (and How to Stop It)

Posted on July 27, 2009
Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain, author of the book, "The Future of the Internet -- and How to Stop It," was the keynote speaker yesterday kicking off the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries in Washington, D.C. I was not there to hear his speech, but Georgetown Law Professor Rebecca Tushnet was and she reported on it on her blog, Rebecca Tushnet's 43(B)log...

At Last We Know: 'Hotel' Is Generic

Posted on July 27, 2009
Attention all ye who think the legal system has run amok: It took six years, two appeals and who-knows-how-many lawyers to arrive at the legal conclusion that the word "hotel" is generic. In fact, the word is "a prima facie case of genericness," said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit...

The AAJ's Misguided Media Ban

Posted on July 27, 2009
When news media showed up this weekend to cover House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech at the annual convention of the American Association for Justice in San Francisco, they were turned away. Ray De Lorenzi, the AAJ's associate director of communications, said the event was open only to members of the national plaintiff-lawyers' group, according to Legal Newsline...

Watching the Blawgs: Lesbian Sex and Other Legal Links

Posted on July 27, 2009
Other posts worth your attention today: The lawyer who blogs anonymously at Mommy on the Floor explains how lesbian sex works -- in Haiku no less. Blawg Review #222 is hosted by Duncan Bucknell Company. Feminist Law Professors wonders why the April issue of The George Washington Law Review includes not a single female author...

Bitter Lawyer Quizzes Elizabeth Wurtzel

Posted on July 24, 2009
A few months ago, author-turned-lawyer Elizabeth Wurtzel stirred up some controversy with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that perhaps time spent working at BigLaw was just one big waste. Now Bitter Lawyer throws a few questions Wurtzel's way in hopes of catching a little more controversy...

Another Example of the Cover-Up Being Worse Than the Crime

Posted on July 24, 2009
In politics, the cover-up is generally worse than the crime. The same is true in the practice of law, where a lawyer's efforts to cover up a not-so-horrible act of neglect eventually landed him in even more hot water. Michael Frisch, an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, posts about an example of this phenomenon at the Legal Profession Blog...

Is Marking Up Contract Lawyer Costs Worse When Plaintiffs Lawyers Do It?

Posted on July 24, 2009
The practice of law firms marking up the cost of contract lawyers has been around for ages. Nearly two years ago, I posted that bar rules allowing firms to mark up the cost of U.S.-based contract lawyers without disclosure gave firms incentive to treat contract lawyers as profit centers, and discouraged them from offshoring document review, because in that situation firms would be required to disclose their markup to clients...

ABA Journal Names Top 25 Greatest Legal Shows

Posted on July 24, 2009
The jury is back from its flat-panel bedecked deliberation room, and the verdict for the greatest legal television show of all time is... "L.A. Law," according to a panel of 12 "experts" (including nine lawyers) selected by the ABA Journal. The rest of the list shows a mixed affinity for the classic (#2 -- "Perry Mason"), the perennial (#4 -- "Law & Order," not to be confused with its spinoffs, two of which also make the list) and the cartoonish (#16 -- "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law")...

The Joke's on Yoo: Law Prof Pranked

Posted on July 23, 2009
As an attorney in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the administration of President George W. Bush, John Yoo helped write the so-called torture memos, justifying the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against "enemy combatants...

A First Amendment Right to Play Online Games?

Posted on July 23, 2009
A California man who suffers from agoraphobia is suing Sony after it banned him from participating in multiplayer games on its PlayStation Network. The man, Erik Estavillo, claims Sony has violated his right to free speech by removing his only form of socialization...

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