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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

Breaking Down Elena Kagan's Stance on ... the Softball Field

Posted on May 13, 2010
I'm sorry, but I can't get all that interested in the blanket coverage about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's view on this or that as expressed in a draft of a law review article she co-wrote in 1992; or in the possible hint on her view of the correct interpretation of the 4th Amendment that she shared with the clerk at Blockbuster in 1997...

The Law Frowns on Attorney's Neglect but 'Positively Glowers' at Its Exploitation

Posted on May 13, 2010
"Admittedly, the law frowns on an attorney?s neglect to comply with a clear rule. However, it positively glowers at another attorney?s exploitation of such neglect as an excuse to break his word."--Ron Burns Const. Co. v. Moore (Cal. Ct. App. - May 11, 2010) The great quote above from yesterday's decision in Ron Burns Const...

Goddesses Gone Wild? Va. AG Puts Some Clothes on State Seal

Posted on May 13, 2010
As a (Northern) Virginian, I'm particularly interested in the nonsense now coming out of the Virginia Attorney General's office. It seems our attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has turned his attention to the Great Seal of the Commonwealth -- an image on the state flag that dates back to 1776...

Avvo Marketing Guy Compiles List of Most Popular Lawyer First Names

Posted on May 12, 2010
For those parents-to-be who want to ensure that their children's lives are saddled with crushing debt and filled with 90-hour work weeks reviewing irrelevant emails in a windowless room on the 22nd floor of a New York office building, Conrad Saam, head of marketing for the controversial "lawyer rating" site Avvo, has done a "groundbreaking new study on lawyer's [sic] names over the past 200 years...

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Selecting the Lesser of Two Evils: Saving Money by Choosing One Legal Research Provider

Posted on May 12, 2010
Last year's Law Librarian Survey from The American Lawyer revealed that 31 percent of law firm librarians were moving in the direction of choosing a single electronic legal research vendor, up from 18 percent the year before. Today, via Joe Hodnicki of the Law Librarian Blog (who also summarized the survey in September), I learned that Toby Brown at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog pulled out his adding machine and did some calculations, concluding that making such a move, at least for "primary law" materials, would save a firm roughly $1500 per year, per attorney (assuming the reduction is from two -- Westlaw and Lexis -- to one)...

Eyebrow-Raising Verdict of the Day: $15 Million to Doctor Poisoned by Botox

Posted on May 12, 2010
It has the word "toxin" in its official scientific name. The phrase "deadly toxic effect" appears in the first paragraph of its Wikipedia entry. Nevertheless, Dr. Sharla Helton of Oklahoma City decided to inject herself with Botox to get rid of some unsightly wrinkles...

Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em in South Carolina

Posted on May 12, 2010
Via our old friend Tax Girl, I discovered that still-South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford vetoed a bill to increase the state tax on a pack of cigarettes by 50 cents. As discussed in Tax Girl's prior post on the issue, South Carolina currently tacks on only a measly seven cents per pack, lowest in the nation, as compared to the national average of $1...

Adam Smith, Esq., Says Law Schools Should Pledge Full Disclosure on Employment Stats

Posted on May 11, 2010
In a post today that is sure to please the law school "scamblogger coalition," Adam Smith, Esq. writes that the entrenched ways of law schools are a big part of the current problem facing the legal profession. Despite the massive recent lay-offs in Big Law and the deterioration of the Big Law model, AS writes, law schools are likely to be "the last to implement any serious reforms attempting to bring their operational practices into line with the New Normal...

Trend Watch: Turning Lawyers Into Project Managers and Six SIgma Black Belts

Posted on May 11, 2010
My "trend watch" antennae are going up as I see at least two Big Law firm are now trying to formally train their lawyers to be better project and quality managers. I noticed one example of this back in April, when a post on the Legal Profession Blog alerted me to an interview with Seyfarth Shaw Managing Partner J...

Foreclosure Standoff Update: Homeowner Carried Out of Home by His Hands and Feet

Posted on May 11, 2010
The foreclosure standoff that I wrote about on Wednesday last week came to a swift end on Friday. To recap, Keith Sadler had sealed himself inside his foreclosed-upon house and refused to leave voluntarily. He shut himself in the home with several buddies and "only a cell phone and a golf ball-sized hole in the front window to enable communication...

Tuesday's Three Burning Legal Questions

Posted on May 11, 2010
Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I love Shakespeare, but where can I find a good "lawyer-actors-only" version of A Midsummer Night?s Dream? Answer: Yikes. I'm not at all sure why you'd want to find that, but it turns out you are in luck...

Monday's Three Burning Legal Questions

Posted on May 10, 2010
Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I am a legal genius. I am objectively infallible. I have the wisdom of King Solomon. I am more interesting than the guy from the Dos Equis beer ads...

In U.K., Tweet About Blowing Up Airport Leads to Conviction

Posted on May 10, 2010
Via this post on TechCrunch Europe comes the story of the first person in the U.K. arrested for a comment made on Twitter. On Jan. 6, 2010, after a snow storm threatened his plans to travel to Ireland on January 15, Paul Chambers tweeted that "Robin Hood airport is closed...

Economist Proposes 'Weight Classes for Prisons' to Reduce Rapes

Posted on May 10, 2010
I thought I was being creative when I suggested "marital prisons" for spouses who are convicted of felonies, but George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan has a far more interesting proposal that might cut down on prison rape: "Reduce the variance of strength and aggression within single-sex prisons by separating prisoners into something like 'weight classes...

Attention Lawyers: Your Office Copier Has a Hard Drive

Posted on May 10, 2010
CBS News produced an interesting video report recently that flags an important data security issue that 60 percent of Americans (including me) admit they were unaware of: An office copier actually contains a hard drive that stores a copy of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by it...

Friday's Three Burning Legal Questions

Posted on May 07, 2010
Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: What is going on here? My phone has been ringing all day with guys from my high school trying to ask me out! Answer: There could be a lot of reasons, but did your school newspaper come out today by any chance? (OnPointNews, Students Named in Oral Sex Expos� Lose Privacy Suit) 2) Question: I'm an alternative health supplement guru and I've been dutifully taking my namesake product twice per day as I recommend to my followers...

The Snark Rolls Out the Big Law 'Webbies'

Posted on May 07, 2010
Over at the Fulton County Daily Report, the Snark takes a look at Big Law Web sites and is not impressed. In fact, the Snark is so underwhelmed by the "formulaic and predictable" Web sites he or she is seeing that the Snark has launched "The First Annual Big Law Webbies...

I'm Sorry I Tripped and Ripped Your $130 Million Picasso, Part 3

Posted on May 07, 2010
You may recall the befuddling incident back in January when a balance-challenged woman walking careening through the Metropolitan Museum of Art stumbled into Picasso's The Actor painting, causing a six-inch tear resulting in an estimated $65 million in damage...

Coming Soon: Unvarnished, 'The Completely Evil Social Network'

Posted on May 07, 2010
"The Completely Evil Social Network" and a "digital extortion racket" (Gawker) "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place For Defamation" (TechCrunch) "Everything that's awful about the Web right now: anonymous, drive-by, ad hominem attacks that can't be erased or edited and that live in search forever...

Strange Bedfellows Indeed: Chong and Wecht Speak Out Against Buchanan

Posted on May 06, 2010
Looking to find die-hard backers for your campaign to retain your seat in Congress? How about recruiting people your opponent tried (in one case successfully) to send to prison? Via this post on The Legal Satyricon, comes a story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about a fundraiser for the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, which is supporting Pennsylvania Congressman Jason Altmire, who is up for reelection this year...

Time for 'Delicate Geniuses' to Get Their Comeuppance

Posted on May 06, 2010
It's been a while since we checked in with D.A. Confidential and his trusty sidekick "The Assistant." But Confidential's most recent post requires broad dissemination. Confidential acknowledges that his day job as a prosecutor doesn't give him the authority to write new laws, but, much like our own Judge Carton, blogging imbues Confidential with any powers he damn well pleases...

Reader Poll: This FDCPA Letter -- Brilliant or Over the Top?

Posted on May 06, 2010
Yesterday, Consumerist posted a letter from a guy named Mark George to a collection agency that claimed he owed just shy of $4,500 on an old Visa account. Collection agencies are notoriously shady, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (.pdf) provides some decent protections for consumers who know how to properly invoke it...

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Sues to Punish Primary Opponent for Tardiness

Posted on May 06, 2010
Justice Tom Parker of the Alabama Supreme Court (no, not that Tom Parker, this one) seems a tad insecure about his ability to hold onto his gavel. Parker, who is up for reelection this year, has filed suit (.pdf) in an Alabama court to have his opponent in the Republican primary, Eric Johnston, declared ineligible to run...

Wednesday's Three Burning Legal Questions

Posted on May 05, 2010
Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: The big day finally arrived! My beloved and I got married yesterday, and I'm just about to send our wedding photo over to the local newspaper...

The LBW Criminal Defense Challenge

Posted on May 05, 2010
Sure, being a criminal defense attorney can be easy when you have, oh, say, the facts, or perhaps the law, in your favor. But what about the tougher cases? After watching the video (below) of two gentlemen who were filmed, with no masks, gloves or disguises, breaking into the New Mexico Court of Appeals building and walking out with thousands of dollars in stolen goods, I hereby offer up the first "LBW Criminal Defense Challenge": Come up with something -- anything -- creative that might be used by these bozos as a defense to charges they will presumably soon be facing and share it in the comments.

R.I.P. Floppy Disks (1981-2011)

Posted on May 05, 2010
To all of you lawyers still using the computer you bought at the "Grand Y2K Sale," I have sad news: the floppy disk era has been declared dead by Sony Corp. Born in 1981, the floppy disk was just 30 years old. Via this post on the FutureLawyer blog I learned that Sony -- which "boasts a 70 percent share of the domestic floppy-disc market" -- announced late last month that it will completely withdraw from that market at the end of March 2011...

Live From Toledo: Foreclosed Homeowner Seals Himself Inside Home and Vows to Stay

Posted on May 05, 2010
Things are starting to get a little chippy in Toledo, Ohio, where Keith Sadler has "sealed himself" inside his foreclosed upon house and says he's not leaving. The Toledo Blade reports (via Consumerist) that Sadler had agreed to vacate the house by midnight on Monday, but had a change of heart...

BigLaw Partner Doesn't Know His Own Billing Rate

Posted on May 04, 2010
Humorous anecdotes coming from in-house counsel that touch on the arrogance and general cluelessness of law firm partners are always a winner. Though he exercises discretion and doesn't name names, Pete Dosik at the In-House Blawg posted a warning to his colleagues about a sure sign that a big bill is likely coming from outside counsel...

Math for Lawyers: CLE Is Cheaper Than Law School

Posted on May 04, 2010
Here at LBW, we've chronicled the many blogs dedicated to convincing potential law students to steer clear. One of those blogs, BL1Y, which is generally pretty damned funny, had a post yesterday -- the 44th in the series of posts expressly detailing reasons not to go to law school, though that theme runs through just about every post on the site -- letting the world know that law school is expensive...

Don't Like the Arizona Immigration Law? Whom Should You Boycott?

Posted on May 04, 2010
The fallout from the passage of Arizona's controversial new immigration law (.pdf) continues to rain down. While celebrities from Ozzie Guillen to Shakira have come out publicly against the law, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who announced yesterday that he will not resign his post to run for governor -- has been running the cable news circuit defending the law, which many say simply justifies questionable tactics his department is already employing...

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