Legal Industry News

Terre Haute Attorney | Edward McGlone

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Profiles In Law Edward McGlone graduated from Indiana State University in 1986 with his Bachelor’s degree. Directly after his graduation, he enrolled at the Indiana University School of Law where he spent three years earning his Juris Doctor Degree. In 1989 he graduated and soon after became a member of the State Bar of Indiana the same. Today, [...] Read the rest of the...

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Drafting A Social-Media Policy That Protects Your Business

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Federal Employment Law Articles Almost every business today relies on the Internet to help improve its operations. Social networking sites are playing an increasingly important role in how companies communicate with their customers and other interested parties. Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are rapidly gaining new users.

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HP Faces Uphill Battle to Stop Hurd From Taking Oracle Job

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Law.com - Newswire Hewlett-Packard's legal team will have a hard time persuading a judge to stop former CEO Mark Hurd from becoming president of Oracle Corp., employment law experts say. HP sued Hurd on Tuesday, claiming that he violated a confidentiality provision of his severance agreement by accepting the post at Oracle. Without explicitly saying so, HP's complaint relies on the doctrine of inevitable disclosure, a concept that has been shot down by some California judges. Read the rest of the...

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Study: Location, Firm Size Key to Billing Rates

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Law.com - Newswire A study of more than $4 billion worth of law firm time sheets submitted by 90,000 people at 3,500 firms portrays an industry fraught with inconsistency. About 85 percent of the lawyers charge clients different rates for the same work. The location of the biller and the size of the biller's firm -- not the biller's experience -- are the variables that most influence how much a client will pay. And while in-house counsel talk tough about keeping rates in check, they OK almost three-fourths of all timekeepers' rate hikes. Read the rest of the...

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3rd Circuit: Probable Cause May Be Needed for Cell Phone Location Data

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Law.com - Newswire In the first appellate ruling on a cutting-edge privacy issue, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that cell phone location data may trigger Fourth Amendment concerns and that prosecutors demanding access to such records may be required at times to satisfy a probable cause standard. The ruling is a setback for the Justice Department, but it also reverses a decision by a Pennsylvania federal court, which had ruled that prosecutors must always show probable cause to access such cell phone data. Read the rest of the...

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Drop in Business Bankruptcies Creates BigLaw Slowdown

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Business bankruptcies are down 4 percent in the first six months of the year, and that’s translating to a bit of a slowdown for law firms once inundated with restructuring work during the height of the economic meltdown. Most partners interviewed by the New York Law Journal said they have enough ongoing bankruptcies to keep them busy, although some lawyers have noticed a difference in work levels. Jay Goffman, co-head of the restructuring group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, was one of them. "If you're in restructuring, you were working around the clock for the last 18 months,"… Read the rest of the...

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Preaching And Practice: The Nature of Legal Education

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Kristin Scheuereman’s thoughtful post on legal education mirrors a debate that has broken out on the law blogs on the nature of legal education and its relationship to what lawyers really do. The critical stance is represented by a forthcoming piece in the South Carolina Law Review entitled Preaching What They Don’t Practice: Why Law Faculties’ Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical Competencies Obstruct Reform in the Legal Academy.  The author, Brent Newton (an adjunct at Georgetown) argues that law schools are populated by faculty that have very little practice experience and are far more interested in theory and the more esoteric and sexy elements of the law than in the day to day practice that most of their students will be concerned with. (Even at schools like Harvard, most students do not go on to specialize in constitutional cases of the first impression or international regime change.) An elaboration of the critique is that most law faculty could not – because they never have – first chair a complicated civil case or corporate acquisition.

In response, the argument is that law school is not trade school and the extensive practice...

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Law Blog Obituary: Edward Swartz, ‘The Nader of the Nursery’

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com Just because you graduate first in your law school class doesn't necessarily mean you have to go work at BigLaw or head back to the academy. If you're Edward Swartz, who died Friday at age 76, you devote your life to making the nation's toys safer for children (and along the way, you make a lot of money as a personal injury lawyer).

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3rd Circuit Gives Judges Discretion to Demand Warrants for Cell Phone Tracking

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories A federal appeals court has ruled that judges have statutory authority to demand a showing of probable cause when the government seeks cell phone location data to track criminal suspects. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Justice Department argument that judges are required to issue orders giving the government access to the data on a showing that it is material and relevant to an ongoing probe, the Legal Intelligencer reports. The New York Times and the Associated Press also have stories. While judges have the authority to demand a probable cause warrant, they should do so… Read the rest of the...

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Who Loves Ya, Baby? (Figure That Out Before You Apply to Law School)

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com According to a new study by test-prepper Kaplan, one thing aspiring law students should not do is ask a college professor who doesn't like you to write a letter on your behalf.

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In Phone-Records Case, Third Circuit Deals Law Enforcement a Blow

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com Technology has made it increasingly easy for the government to track an individual's whereabouts. But on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit ratcheted back the government's surveillance power.

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Report Predicts More Equity Partners Will Be Axed, Sees More Outsourced Work

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Most law firms cut equity partners the first half of 2010, but the bloodletting may not be over. A new survey of 187 law firms by Citi Private Bank shows flat revenues in the first six months of the year and slightly lower demand, according to a summary in the American Lawyer by Dan DiPietro, chairman of Citi's Law Firm Group, and senior client adviser Gretta Rusanow. “At best, we may have reached a bottoming out,” they write. Law firms have cut expenses, largely through cuts in lawyer head counts, leading to increases in productivity and contribution per lawyer, defined… Read the rest of the...

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Stray Remarks May Be Considered Evidence of Discrimination in California.

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: California Employment Law Articles The California Supreme Court recently issued a unanimous decision that could make it more difficult for employers to win summary judgment in certain discrimination cases involving potentially discriminatory comments. In Reid v. Google, Inc., the Court declined to adopt the "stray remarks doctrine," under which some courts have deemed irrelevant and insufficient to defeat summary judgment, "stray" potentially discriminatory remarks made either (a) by non-decision making employees, or (b) by decision-making supervisors outside of the decisional process.

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SUPREME COURT CONTINUES TO GREENLIGHT EMPLOYMENT ARBITRATION (pdf).

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Federal Employment Law Articles The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue rulings favorable to arbitration agreements in the employment setting. Employers who have arbitration agreements with their employees, or those considering putting such agreements in place, should make sure their agreements are drafted and updated to take full advantage of developing Supreme Court precedent. The two most recent Supreme Court decisions and their implications for employers are addressed below.

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6th Circuit: Employee Can Proceed With FMLA Claim Despite "Negative Certification"

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Federal Employment Law Articles When an employee remains absent even after her doctor provides a medical certification confirming that she can return to work, it might seem reasonable for an employer to deny the employee any further FMLA leave and, if the employee fails to return, to terminate her employment. However, if the employer has not specifically informed the employee of the need to provide a medical certification in writing, relying on the "negative certification" may violate the FMLA, according to a recent decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Branham v. Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc.

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The Law School Welcomes Visiting Professor Mary Beth Beazley

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Source: Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

This semester, the law school is hosting another highly-esteemed  professor as a Robert E. Boden Visiting Professor of Law:  Mary Beth Beazley.  Professor Beazley is Associate Professor of Law and Director of Legal Writing at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.  She has taught at Ohio State for more than 20 years, and taught at Vermont Law School and the University of Toledo before that.

Professor Beazley is the author of numerous articles related to legal writing, and one of the most widely-used textbooks in law school Appellate Advocacy courses (including our own):  A Practical Guide to Appellate Advocacy . She served as the Legal Writing Institute’s President from 1998 until 2000; served as editor-in-chief (and member of the board of editors) for Legal Writing:  The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. She is also the immediate past president of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD).

In 2006, Professor Beazley’s excellence in teaching, writing, and service earned her the prestigious Thomas F. Blackwell award, given each year by the Legal Writing Institute and ALWD, to recognize a person who has demonstrated  “an ability to create and integrate new ideas for teaching...

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