Local Search and Mobile Search Marketing Dominance: March 2018

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Immigration backlog grows as Trump administration curtails administrative closures

immigration Law

Posted March 30, 2018, 3:07 pm CDT

Shutterstock.com.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration extends to increased opposition to administrative case closures in which judges indefinitely pause lower-priority deportation cases.

Prosecutors with U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement appealed less than 1 percent of administrative case closures during the last four years of the Obama administration, while immigration prosecutors in the Trump administration have appealed such decisions 10 times more often, Reuters reports.

Administrative closures are used in a variety of cases, including those of immigrants who have long lived in the United States without committing serious crimes, or who are waiting for action on a visa petition or another event that will affect their immigration status. Cases that are administratively closed can be reopened, but until then immigrants can remain in the country and may be eligible to work.

In the final year of the Obama administration, there were about 56,000 administrative case closures. That number dropped by 64 percent in the first year of the Trump administration.

At the same time, the case backlog is growing, according to Reuters. An average of about 41,000 cases were added to the backlog each year during the Obama administration. Since Trump took office, the backlog grew by an estimated 145,000 cases.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in January that he is considering whether immigration judges should have the authority to administratively close cases. The ABA has filed a brief arguing immigration judges have the authority to administratively close cases, and they needed that authority to manage their high caseloads.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/immigration-backlog-grows-as-trump-administration-curtails-administrative-closures/

Juror faints after watching graphic video of lawyer accused of trading sex for legal services

Juries

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 30, 2018, 3:55 pm CDT

Shutterstock.com.

Jurors considering the fate of a former Texas lawyer accused of trading sex with clients for legal services were so taken aback by a video of one rough sexual encounter on Tuesday that a judge sent them out of the courtroom for a break.

One juror fainted on the way out of the courtroom, report the San Antonio Express-News and KSAT.

Jurors are considering the fate of 48-year-old Mark Benavides, a former San Antonio lawyer who is charged with continuous trafficking of persons.

The video was shown only to the jurors, but courtroom observers could hear the woman sobbing and saying, “Mark, it hurts! You’re hurting me. … Don’t be so rough.” The woman testified Benavides had recorded the sexual encounters.

A common theme among the women testifying against Benavides was that they felt the lawyer would give them poor legal representation if they didn’t agree to sex, KENS5 reports. One woman said Benavides told her that one of the perks of having sex with him was that he could get her cases dropped.

The judge excused the fainting woman from the jury and appointed an alternate.

The trial is scheduled to continue Monday.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/juror-faints-after-watching-graphic-video-of-lawyer-accused-of-trading-sex-for-legal-services/

Lawyer Dispute Escalates From Picture of Cat Playing Violin to Gunfire

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/lawyer-dispute-escalates-from-picture-of-cat-playing-violin-to-gunfire/

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Friday, March 30, 2018

Foley & Lardner, Gardere announce merger

Foley & Lardner and Gardere Wynne Sewell will merge effective on Sunday.

The combined firm will have about 1,100 lawyers and revenues of $830 million,…

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/foley-amp-lardner-gardere-announce-merger/

‘Serial’ subject should get new murder trial because of ineffective assistance, appeals court says

A Maryland appeals court has ruled that Adnan Syed received ineffective assistance from a lawyer who didn’t contact an alibi witness in his trial for…

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/serial-subject-should-get-new-murder-trial-because-of-ineffective-assistance-appeals-court-says/

Coffee must carry cancer warning, California judge rules in tentative decision

A California judge has tentatively ruled that coffee sold in the state must carry a cancer warning label.

Judge Elihu Berle based his decision on…

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/coffee-must-carry-cancer-warning-california-judge-rules-in-tentative-decision/

Former Skadden associate argues repercussions are sentence enough for lying in special counsel probe

Criminal Justice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 29, 2018, 4:55 pm CDT

Lawyers for a former London associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom say “his world has collapsed” as a result of lying to investigators in the special counsel investigation, and he should be spared jail time after his guilty plea.

The former associate, 33-year-old Alex Van Der Zwaan, had been warned he could be prosecuted for making false statements, yet he returned to the United States less than two weeks later to correct the record, according to the sentencing memo filed on his behalf. His cooperation and remorse justify a sentence that does not include incarceration, according to Van Der Zwaan’s lawyers at Cooley. The National Law Journal has a story.

Van Der Zwaan has remained in the United States for more than four months awaiting resolution of the matter, the brief says. “Although has not been incarcerated, Alex has in many ways been serving a sentence while stuck in limbo since mid-November,” the brief says. “He has been alone, separated from his wife; he has lost his job and his career; and he has to live with the knowledge that his suffering and that of his family is due to his own actions.”

Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty on Feb. 20 to lying in connection with his Ukraine work as a lawyer for Skadden. Prosecutors said Van Der Zwaan lied about his communications with “Person A” and with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, who pleaded guilty on Feb. 23 to failing to disclose the Ukrainian consulting work and offshore holdings.

Skadden was hired in 2012 by the Ukraine Ministry of Justice to prepare a report on the trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a political rival to Yanukovych. The Skadden report concluded Tymoshenko was denied counsel at critical stages of her trial but her conviction was supported by evidence.

The sentencing memo says Person A told Van Der Zwaan in September 2016 that the new Ukrainian government might file charges against Van Der Zwaan as well as Skadden. Alex had recorded the calls with Person A, and he recorded his call with a Skadden partner when he spoke with him about the prosecution threat.

The brief notes that Van Der Zwaan was represented by Skadden lawyers when he spoke to investigators, and he feared truthful answers could reveal existence of the recordings, including the recording of the Skadden partner. “In his mind,” the brief says, “his boss was listening to every word.”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/former-skadden-associate-argues-repercussions-are-sentence-enough-for-lying-in-special-counsel-probe/

Sessions says US attorney is reviewing FBI conduct, second special counsel not needed now

Attorney General

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 29, 2018, 5:55 pm CDT

Attorney General Jeff Sessions/Shutterstock.com.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Republican lawmakers in a letter on Thursday that there is no need—at this time—to appoint a special counsel to investigate the FBI’s handling of high-profile investigations.

Sessions said he has appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber of Utah to conduct an inquiry and make recommendations on whether there is a need for additional resources or the appointment of a special counsel. The Washington Post, CNN and Politico have stories.

Sessions said Huber is conducting his work in cooperation with the Justice Department’s inspector general, who has been investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

The inspector general has also announced review of the process used to obtain surveillance warrants with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Republicans have complained that the FBI and the Justice Department improperly relied on a dossier partly financed by the Clinton campaign to obtain a surveillance warrant from the court for Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to Donald Trump.

Sessions said he appointed Huber after a request for further investigation by the Republican lawmakers. The attorney general addressed his letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; House Judiciary Committee chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va.; and House Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

Goodlatte has called for a second special counsel to address topics that include: Clinton’s handling of classified information in emails on her private server; the FBI’s handling of the email investigation; leaks of nonpublic information, including those by former FBI director James Comey; connections between the Clinton Foundation and Russia; and whether Clinton Foundation donations influenced the Obama administration’s approval of the sale of a Canadian uranium company to Russia’s nuclear agency.

Huber was appointed in 2015 by President Barack Obama, and reappointed last year by President Donald Trump.

“I am confident that Mr. Huber’s review will include a full, complete and objective evaluation of these matters in a manner that is consistent with the law and the facts,” Sessions said in the letter.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/sessions-says-us-attorney-is-reviewing-fbi-conduct-second-special-counsel-not-needed-now/

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Guy With Axe Embedded in Roof of Car Gets Probation

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/guy-with-axe-embedded-in-roof-of-car-gets-probation/

Emoluments suit against Trump clears standing and political question hurdles

Constitutional Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 28, 2018, 3:38 pm CDT

The Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C./Shutterstock.com.

A federal judge in Maryland has ruled that Maryland and Washington, D.C., have standing to pursue a narrowed claim in their lawsuit contending that President Donald Trump is violating the Constitution’s foreign and domestic emoluments clauses by accepting payments from foreign governments and states through his business empire.

U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte ruled on Wednesday that the jurisdictions had standing, and the political question doctrine is not a bar to the court taking action. The Washington Post, the National Law Journal, BuzzFeed News and the New York Times covered the decision.

Messitte limited the suit to a claim that the clauses were violated when the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., accepted business from foreign and state governments.

In December, a federal judge in Manhattan tossed a different emoluments suit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a restaurant industry group. In that case, U.S. District Judge George Daniels ruled that Congress, not the courts, should decide whether Trump is violating the Constitution by failing to divest his business holdings.

The foreign emoluments clause states that, absent congressional consent, no one holding any office of profit or trust shall “accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state.”

The domestic emoluments clause, also known as the presidential compensation clause, says the president shall receive compensation for his services, “which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.”

According to Messitte, many residents of Maryland and Washington, D.C., are affected when foreign and state governments choose to stay or dine at the Trump hotel in those jurisdictions and they “are, quite plausibly, trying to protect a large segment of their commercial residents and hospitality industry employees from economic harm,” he said.

He also noted that the two jurisdictions have buildings and land interests that directly compete with the hotel.

Messitte said his ruling restricting the suit to claims regarding the Washington, D.C., hotel is limited to the particular plaintiffs and the particular facts of the case.

“This is in no way meant to say that other states or other businesses or individuals immediately affected by the same sort of violations alleged in the case at bar, e.g., a major hotel competitor in Palm Beach (near Mar-a-Lago) or indeed a hotel anywhere in the state of Florida, might not have standing to pursue litigation similar to that which is in process here,” he wrote.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/emoluments-suit-against-trump-clears-standing-and-political-question-hurdles/

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

City Council Appeals Its Own Decision

http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/535464560/0/loweringthebar~City-Council-Appeals-Its-Own-Decision.html

Jury service had unexpected benefit for these 2 people

Juries

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 27, 2018, 3:18 pm CDT

Shutterstock.com.

Kris Gerig and Sarah Abbott first met when they served on a New Orleans jury in August 2015 for a theft case.

They were back in court on March 14 when they were married by the Orleans Parish judge who presided in the original trial, report the New Orleans Advocate and ABC News.

Gerig says he immediately noticed Abbott, who ended up as an alternate. “I thought it would be nice to end up on a jury with her,” Gerig told the Advocate. “In some of the questions, they asked each of us if we were married. And I paid close attention to see that she was not.”

Abbott was dismissed from the jury room when deliberations began, before Gerig had asked for her phone number. But he met Abbott again the next week when they returned to the court to be considered for another trial. This time, he asked out his new friend.

Judge Robin Pittman conducted the wedding ceremony. She tells potential jurors the story about the couple. “No one’s happy about being there,” Pittman told the Advocate. “And then I say, ‘Well, it’s going to get better. Because you may be sitting next to the person who will become your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé or husband.’ ”

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/qEsXPdLHtk8/jury_service_had_unexpected_benefit_for_these_two_people

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

US refuses to identify experts consulted on transgender troop ban, seeks lifting of injunctions

Military Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 26, 2018, 12:53 pm CDT

Shutterstock.com.

A day before Donald Trump approved new limits on transgender troops, the U.S. Justice Department said it would not identify generals and military experts the president consulted before his first ban on transgender people in the military.

DOJ lawyers told a federal judge in Seattle that the government will not disclose “information about the president’s deliberations,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Seattle judge is among four justci who have enjoined Trump’s former ban, report Politico and the Associated Press.

The Justice Department said in a statement late Friday that it is asking the courts to lift all preliminary injunctions in cases challenging the original ban.

Trump’s new executive order, issued late Friday, adopts a recommendation by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to generally ban people with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria who require medical treatment to change their gender. Also banned from the military are transgender persons who have undergone gender transition.

The Justice Department said in the Seattle filing it does not intend to rely on information about the president’s deliberative process in defending the ban, “including potentially privileged information about presidential deliberations.” The legal document was filed after U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ordered government lawyers to identify the experts Trump had consulted.

Justice Department lawyers argued that “judicial deference to executive decisions about the composition of the military is not dependent upon judicial review of the deliberative process that preceded the decisions.”

The new policy announced hasn’t taken effect yet, the New York Times reports. The next step is to publish the policy in the Federal Register.

Mattis’ recommendation contains several exceptions. Transgender people without a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria who are otherwise qualified for service may serve “in their biological sex.” Also, transgender people with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria may serve if they have been stable for 36 consecutive months “in their biological sex prior to accession.”

Other exceptions outlined by Mattis allow service by those who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria after entering the service but who don’t require a gender change, and by current service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the period between the Obama administration policy allowing their service and the date the latest policy takes effect. People in the latter category can continue to serve in their preferred gender and may receive medically necessary treatment.

Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN filed the Seattle suit in August on behalf of nine transgender plaintiffs challenging Trump’s initial ban on transgender people in the military. Six of the plaintiffs were current service members and three were people who would like to enlist. Three groups and the state of Washington are also plaintiffs.

The case is Karnoski v. Trump.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/Sjs_rZ7Ml2Q/us_refuses_to_identify_experts_consulted_on_transgender_troop_ban_seeks_lif

Illinois’ most populous county files new suit over Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data

Privacy Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 26, 2018, 2:17 pm CDT

Shutterstock.com.

The county that includes Chicago may be the first government entity to sue over Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data for use in federal election campaigns.

Cook County, Illinois, claims in a lawsuit filed on Friday that the use of information from more than 50 million Facebook users, including millions in the state, violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. Ars Technica and the Chicago Tribune covered the suit, filed on behalf of Illinoisans in Cook County circuit court against Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and Cambridge Analytica’s parent company.

Facebook’s platform “has essentially become a data aggregation machine disguised as a social network,” the lawsuit says. Cook County is Illinois’ most populous county and the second-largest county by population in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2017.

The suit seeks $50,000 for each violation of the law, plus an additional $10,000 for each violation involving an Illinois resident who is at least 65 years old. Cook County is represented in the suit by the Edelson law firm.

Ars Technica reports that six other cases are pending in federal court, while the Tribune says there are at least five pending federal lawsuits. Suits have claimed violations of user privacy and breaches of duties to shareholders. The Federal Trade Commission is also investigating.

The lawsuits followed a report by the New York Times and the Observer of London that said Cambridge Analytica acquired the information from a researcher who told Facebook he was using the information for academic purposes.

According to the Cook County suit, the Cambridge Analytica researcher collected information from about 270,000 American voters who downloaded an app and took a personality quiz. The company then acquired information about the 270,000 people from Facebook as well as information about all of their friends, amounting to a “data grab of 40 million users,” the suit says.

When Facebook learned the information was being used in elections, the company asked Cambridge Analytica to delete the data, but didn’t confirm that it actually happened, according to news coverage.

Cambridge Analytica used its information to identify “the most persuadable voters” and to target them with fake news during the 2016 presidential campaign, the suit says. The company had worked on Donald Trump’s campaign.

According to the Washington Post and the Times, election lawyer Laurence Levy of Bracewell & Giuliani had warned Cambridge Analytica against allowing noncitizens to provide high-level advice to candidates, pointing to laws limiting the involvement of foreign nationals in U.S. elections. Yet dozens of noncitizens provided advice to Republican candidates in 2014, according to the articles.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/XJwzbXgfuDY/illinois_most_populous_county_files_new_suit_over_cambridge_analyticas_use

ABA women’s commission updates manual about preventing and addressing sex harassment

Women in the Law

By Stephanie Francis Ward

Posted March 26, 2018, 3:00 pm CDT

While it may seem hard to believe now, many attorneys have been under the impression that sexual harassment was no longer a significant problem in the legal profession, says Wendi Lazar, an employment lawyer who edited a recently updated manual on the topic for the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.

Lazar adds that while much has been said about gender discrimination and pay equity for lawyers, attention to sexual harassment involving the profession had decreased until the recent #MeToo movement.

“They did not hear much about it, and they wanted to pretend—like in all professions—that we were way past that point in the workplace. It’s fascinating how in 2016, we were all sitting around trying to convince people that there is still sexual harassment,” Lazar said.

Lazar, a partner with Outten & Golden, she is a member of the ABA Commission of Women in the Profession and chairs its Sexual Harassment and Gender-based Bullying Committee.

The manual, titled Zero Tolerance: Best Practices for Combating Sex-Based Harassment in the Legal Profession, was fully edited and in large part rewritten over the past two years, according to Lazar. It can be purchased here.

ABA President Hilarie Bass. Photo by The Canadian Press Images/Michael Desjardins

Today, everyone understands that sexual harassment is “a problem in every workplace, often one that employers are either not aware of or have not addressed appropriately,” ABA President Hilarie Bass said in a press release about the manual. “Our goal today is to make sure that our workplaces are environments free of harassing behavior and that, to the extent that such behavior does take place, it will be expeditiously and appropriately addressed without retaliation to the victim. This manual will help make that aspiration a reality.”

The manual has recent summaries of case law, as well as best practices for developing and enforcing anti-harassment policies. Also, it addresses new areas, including LGBTQ rights and gender-based bullying.

Other topics include the problems of sex-based harassment and the need for zero tolerance, recent manifestations of sex-based harassment and selected resources on sex-based harassment. A goal of the publication, which was first released in 2002, is to eliminate sexual harassment in the legal workplace by 2020, according to the press release.

The manual’s preface was written by Anita Hill, who testified at the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas that he sexually harassed her when she worked for him at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Even in the wake of these new revelations, there are only a few reported sexual harassment complaints filed against law firms and a series of complaints against a prominent federal judge to indicate the scope and nature of the problem in the legal profession,” Hill wrote in the preface. “But the limited number of allegations should not be taken as clear evidence that the array of misconduct and all of its negative consequences found in other industries and professions do not exist in the legal profession.”

There are many reasons why people don’t report sexual harassment, says Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.

Michele Mayes. ABA Journal file photo by Len Irish.

“Sometimes they believe that their claim won’t be taken seriously, sometimes they don’t want to go through what they think will be an uncomfortable, public review and sometimes they think that maybe they should just ignore it and it will go away. There are a number of studies that show that sexual harassment are not reported as often as they take place,” says Scharf, a partner with Chicago’s Scharf Banks Marmor.

Michele Coleman Mayes, who was chair of Commission on Women in the Profession when the group decided to update the manual, says that while attorneys may act like sexual harassment isn’t an issue in the profession, many know that it is, based on personal experiences.

“For professional women, it has always been hard to talk about,” says Mayes, the vice president, general counsel and secretary for the New York Public Library.

The commission’s manual follows a February resolution adopted by the ABA’s House of Delegates that urges that all employers adopt and enforce policies to “prohibit, prevent and promptly redress” harassment and retaliation based on “sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and the intersection of sex with race and/or ethnicity.”

“We’re flushing out the implications of Resolution 302, to see if there’s any more meat on those bones that we need to develop,” Scharf says.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/1OWHo83mfWQ/aba_womens_commission_does_significant_updates_to_manual_about_preventing

Monday, March 26, 2018

Here’s the lowdown on contract analytics software

Legal Technology

By Nicole Black

Posted March 23, 2018, 8:30 am CDT

Nicole Black

Updated: It's time for another post focusing on a specific type of software, explaining how it will solve a problem for your law firm, and discussing the options available. In this column I’ll cover contract analytics software, a new breed of legal software grounded in machine learning that assists lawyers in analyzing contracts more effectively and efficiently.

This software will likely appeal to all lawyers who work with contracts, since reviewing and drafting contracts is legal work that is performed by lawyers from firms of all sizes.

This software works by constantly “learning” from new contracts, such as nondisclosure agreements, as they are uploaded into its database. The software then applies this knowledge to contracts submitted by users. It compares the document under review against a multitude of similar documents contained in its database. Then the software typically provides a report that includes recommended revisions drawn from its analysis of the components of similar contracts, including suggesting paragraphs that appear often in other contracts but are missing from the one uploaded, and highlighting outlier paragraphs in the uploaded document that are atypical.

But before discussing the software options available to you, let’s address the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence. Yes, the contract analytics software I’ll be discussing is powered by AI, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from considering it as part of your law firm’s technology arsenal.

There’s been a lot of hype about AI lately, but there’s a reason for that: When used wisely, it increases your efficiency by removing mundane legal work from your plate, allowing you to focus on more interesting, high-level tasks. Rather than replacing lawyers, as many fear, the judicious use of AI software offers firms large and small the potential to save both time and money.

Of course, one of the main roadblocks to AI adoption by lawyers is the element of trust. Lawyers are unlikely to use the software unless they trust the results it provides.

The good news is that a recent study commissioned by LawGeex, one of the software products I’ll be discussing, offers evidence that AI can perform some legal tasks far more quickly—and just as accurately, and in some cases, more accurately—than lawyers.

In this study, 20 experienced U.S.-trained lawyers each reviewed five NDAs to locate risks, as did the AI software. The study was audited by four independent individuals to ensure accuracy. The results showed that the output of machines was significantly more accurate than that of the lawyers performing the same tasks, with the machine’s accuracy level at 94 percent and the lawyers’ at 85 percent.

Also of note was how much more quickly the software performed the task than the lawyers. The lawyers took an average of 92 minutes to review the contracts, whereas the AI software took a 26 seconds.

Certainly the accuracy of the AI’s results may vary from one software product to another, which is why it’s important to thoroughly vet each product when you’re comparison shopping. Review a few contracts and track your time while doing so. Then run those same contracts through each software product that you’re considering and see how long each analysis took and how the results compare to your own work product, and to the results of the other software tools.

So let’s move on to the software. Without further ado, here are three of the leading contract analytics software programs to consider if you’re in the market for this type of technology.

First, there’s LawGeex, the Israeli company that sponsored the study I discussed above. With LawGeex, contracts are analyzed by the software, which then suggests revisions based on the firm or company’s preset policies and language. You can edit the document within the platform, including redlining. Pricing is not available on the website, but is reportedly around $1,000 per month, depending on a number of different factors.

Another option to consider is LegalSifter, a new entrant in this space. Like the other software products, LegalSifter uses AI to review and compare uploaded contracts to those in its database, and the software then highlights any unusual clauses. It can be used to analyze a number of different types of documents, including:

1) Purchase or sales agreements for goods or services.
2) General terms and conditions.
3) Business associate agreements.
4) Nondisclosure/confidentiality agreements.

Once the analysis is complete, you can export the contract and accompanying advice into Word, where you can edit the document to comport with the advice provided. Pricing is based on the number of documents analyzed and drops as the number of documents analyzed increases. And the more years you commit to, the less it costs. Prices start as low as $27 per document per year for 1,000-plus documents with a four-year commitment, to as high as $49 per document per year for a one-year commitment. A two-year subscription for 75 annual documents would cost $2,925 per year for two years ($39 x 75 documents = $2,925). You can learn more about the pricing scale here.

Finally, there’s Bloomberg Law’s Draft Analyzer, which is part of Corporate Transactions, a research and software tool suite for corporate transactions attorneys. With this tool, you can quickly and easily determine how your contract compares to the market standard, or, as Darby Green, Bloomberg Law’s commercial director for bankruptcy and litigation, recently explained to me: “Draft Analyzer will help you pull out different clauses and see … different templates from different law firms and try to find the best language for you, and redline where there are differences.” Pricing for the Corporate Transactions suite of products is not available on the website.

So, if your practice involves a significant amount of contractual drafting and analysis, then one of these software products may very well be worth the investment. Certainly these software tools aren’t cheap, but imagine the benefits of saving hundreds of hours per year while still providing the same high-quality work product to your clients. What you do with the recouped time is up to you: you can take on more work or enjoy some well-earned leisure time. The choice will be yours, and it’s one that will only be made available by using these cutting edge, 21st-century tools in your law practice.

Updated to clarify the types of documents supported by LegalSifter.

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York, attorney, author, journalist and the legal technology evangelist at MyCase, legal practice management software for solo and small-firm lawyers. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, and she co-authored Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier.She also co-authored Criminal Law in New York, a Thomson West treatise. She writes regular columns for The Daily Record, Above the Law and Legal IT Pros, has authored hundreds of articles and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law, mobile and cloud computing, and internet-based technology. She can be contacted at niki.black@mycase.com.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/yeFQK_cjjEk/heres_the_lowdown_on_contract_analytics_software

9 Iranians indicted for hacking computers of law firm, universities, government agencies

Criminal Justice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 9:20 am CDT

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Screenshot from Friday press conference.

Indictments announced Friday allege nine Iranians working on behalf of the Iranian government hacked university computers to access scientific research, while also targeting one law firm, private companies and government agencies.

Entities hacked included the U.S. Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the United Nations, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the states of Hawaii and Indiana, prosecutors said.

The indictments were announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York and other officials. The hacked law firm was not named. Rosenstein’s remarks are here and a press release is here.

The hackers were working for the Mabna Institute, a group founded to help Iranian universities access scientific research, Rosenstein said. The group gave the information to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, one of several Iranian entities that gather intelligence, which used the information or sold it, according to Rosenstein.

The defendants face several charges, including wire fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy and identity theft.

The hackers are accused of obtaining information from about 320 universities in 22 countries, including 144 American universities. The defendants stole research that cost the universities about $3.4 billion to procure and maintain, Rosenstein said.

The hackers accessed university information by getting college professors to click on links in phishing emails that appeared to be sent by a professor from another university. When professors clicked on the links, they were taken to a login page of an internet domain that resembled the that of the professor’s university. Believing they had been logged out of their university computer system, the professors would enter login information. The hackers used the login information to access university research.

The law firm was among 36 U.S. companies that were hacked. The other victims were three academic publishers, two media and entertainment companies, 11 technology companies, five consulting firms, four marketing firms, two banking and/or investment firms, two online car sales companies, one healthcare company, one employee benefits company, one industrial machinery company, one biotechnology company, one food and beverage company, and one stock images company. Hackers also targeted 11 companies in other countries.

Hackers used a “password spraying” technique to access the private entities. It worked this way: Hackers would collect names and email accounts associated with the targeted company, then it would try commonly used passwords to access the accounts. After hacking into an email, the hackers “exfiltrated entire email mailboxes from the victims,” the press release says. In many cases, the hackers set up automatic forwarding rules for compromised email accounts that allowed the hackers to receive all incoming and outgoing email messages from the accounts.

Password spraying was also used to access the government and nongovernmental organizations.

All the defendants are citizens and residents of Iran.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/a7z2C1HUN_w/nine_iranians_indicted_for_hacking_computers_of_universities_law_firms_and

White House counsel Don McGahn would like to resign later this year, sources say

Executive Branch

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 10:56 am CDT

White House counsel Don McGahn. Photo by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons.

White House counsel Don McGahn is said to be mulling a resignation later this year.

McGahn has signaled an interest in returning to Jones Day, but any exit would likely be delayed, anonymous sources tell Politico.

McGahn has reportedly told associates he would like to leave the job by the summer, but he may not step down that soon.

Trump wants to choose a new White House counsel before McGahn leaves, which could delay McGahn’s departure. Another holdup could be spurred by a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. According to prior press coverage, McGahn has “almost unilateral authority” to run the judicial nominations process.

Politico describes the relationship between Trump and McGahn as complicated. Two sources said they rarely speak, but a third said Trump still relies on McGahn’s advice. “It’s hard to explain, but I think values Don and his advice, and part of it is that Don is probably one of the only people who’s ever said ‘no’ to him,” a McGahn associate told Politico.

McGahn reportedly threatened to resign if pushed to ask the Justice Department to fire special counsel Robert Mueller.

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Sunday, March 25, 2018

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Ginsburg considers Colbert question

U.S. Supreme Court

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 11:41 am CDT

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked out with Stephen Colbert and answered his frank question: Is a hot dog a sandwich?

The segment that aired Wednesday on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert is getting lots of press attention. The 85-year-old Ginsburg sported a “super diva” sweatshirt while Colbert worked out beside her at the gym and peppered her with questions.

The National Law Journal noted the hot dog exchange:

Colbert: Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Ginsburg: You’re asking me? Well, you tell me what a sandwich is and then I’ll tell you if a hot dog is a sandwich.

Colbert: A sandwich is two pieces of bread with almost any type of filling in between, as long as it’s not more bread.

Ginsburg: You say two pieces of bread. Does that include a roll that’s cut open but still not completely?

Colbert: That’s the crux. You’ve gotten immediately. See this is why you’re on the Supreme Court. That gets immediately to the question: Does the roll need to be separated into two parts? Because a sub sandwich—a sub is not split, and yet it is a sandwich.

Ginsburg: Yes.

Colbert: So then a hot dog is a sandwich?

Ginsburg: On your definition, yes, it is.

The National Law Journal put the question to several U.S. Supreme Court lawyers. Vinson & Elkins partner John Elwood recalled a childhood memory in opining that a hot dog is not a sandwich.

“Think back to when you were a kid and your mom ran out of buns and had to serve you a hot dog on bread, and she sliced the dog in half so it would fit between the slices and not roll out,” he said. “That was, admittedly, a sandwich. But it also was an abomination against all that is good, and inferior in every way to a hot dog.”

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/JVuu649lNu8/is_a_hot_dog_a_sandwich_ginsburg_considers_colbert_question

Dechert settles discrimination suit by 2 former payroll managers

Law Firms

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 12:08 pm CDT

Two former payroll managers at Dechert have settled their lawsuit claiming they experienced a culture of bias against older and female employees at the firm.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in an order dismissing the case, report the Legal Intelligencer and Law360. The suit was filed last November in Philadelphia federal court.

Patricia Gindhart and Dana Dudek were in their 50s when they were laid off in October 2016. They had claimed to be the oldest employees in the firm’s payroll department, and were ousted because of their age and gender. They also alleged there was a “boys club” at the firm that gave better treatment to younger male employees.

Dechert had responded that the two women were laid off because it upgraded its technology and outsourced their jobs.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/ipPyxpj-Vj0/dechert_settles_discrimination_suit_by_two_former_payroll_managers

Legal tech mergers continue with e-discovery firm announcement

Legal Technology

By Jason Tashea

Posted March 23, 2018, 1:27 pm CDT

Andy McDonald

E-discovery companies Advanced Discovery and Consilio have announced they are joining forces.

“By combining with Consilio, we create the scale and scope of operations to serve our clients anywhere in the world and provide a tremendous breadth of technology solutions at all stages of the eDiscovery and risk management lifecycles,” said Jim Burke, CEO of Advanced Discovery, in a release. “Together, we plan to build even more competitive advantages for our clients by expanding our infrastructure, extending our solutions portfolio, expanding our geographic coverage and retaining and attracting the strongest teams of expert advisers.”

Collectively, their suite of services will include information governance, risk management, ediscovery and document review. The agreement brings together 2,500 employees, 14 data centers and 23 document review facilities in 11 countries, according to the release.

Consilio CEO Andy MacDonald will lead the new merged company, while Advanced Discovery CEO Jim Burke, will join the company’s board of directors.

Making this deal a reality was GI Partners, a private equity firm in San Francisco, which will take a majority stake in the combined companies. With this deal, two current investors will exit.

According to the release, the deal will close in the second quarter of 2018.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/rqILYLoR44k/legal_tech_mergers_continue_with_e_discovery_firm_announcement

Saturday, March 24, 2018

ABA president applauds $25M increase for Legal Services Corp. in spending bill, says more needed

ABA

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 1:59 pm CDT

ABA President Hilarie Bass. Photo by the Canadian Press Images/Michael Desjardins.

ABA President Hilarie Bass commended Congress for passing an omnibus spending bill with a funding increase for the Legal Services Corp.

The Legal Services Corp. will get an additional $25 million, for a total of $410 million in fiscal 2018, Bass said in a statement. President Donald Trump signed the bill on Friday, the New York Times reported.

In the past, Trump has proposed defunding the LSC.

“The ABA is encouraged that Congress understands the importance of LSC to the lives of their constituents,” Bass said in the statement. “LSC helps more than 1.8 million low-income Americans nationwide gain access to the courts for cases involving domestic violence, disaster relief, housing, veteran benefits, and child custody. The extra funding will allow LSC to assist at least an additional 100,000 people.”

The $410 million appropriation is the highest since 2010.

“Even with this welcomed increase, more funding is needed,” Bass said. She cited a study finding that low-income Americans had received inadequate or no legal help for 86 percent of their civil legal problems in the prior year.

The ABA is requesting LSC funding of $482 million for fiscal 2019, an amount that would match the funding level for fiscal 2010 when adjusted for inflation.

Bass also applauded the appropriation of an additional $2.3 million that she said would be used “to correct deficiencies in the Department of Education’s efforts to educate and certify borrowers about their eligibility for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.” Bass said “full transparency and access to information” about the program is important.

The ABA has filed a lawsuit contending the Education Department reneged on its commitments to public service lawyers who had qualified for the loan forgiveness program.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/GVfdq9sGhVg/aba_president_applauds_25m_increase_for_legal_services_in_spending_bill_say

Cosby’s lawyers seek to replace judge because of his wife’s advocacy for sex assault victims

Judiciary

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 23, 2018, 3:39 pm CDT

Bill Cosby/Shutterstock.com.

Bill Cosby’s lawyers contend the Pennsylvania judge who is presiding in the comedian’s retrial on charges of aggravated indecent assault should recuse himself because the judge’s wife is an advocate for sexual assault victims.

Lawyers for Cosby said in a motion filed on Thursday that Judge Steven O’Neill had shown “a clear appearance of partiality” in rulings made in advance of the April 2 retrial, report the New York Times, the Associated Press and Philly.com.

O’Neill had declared a mistrial last June when jurors deadlocked after 52 hours of deliberations. Cosby’s accuser, Andrea Constand, had testified Cosby groped and penetrated her with his hand in January 2004 at his suburban Philadelphia home after he gave her three pills that caused her to temporarily lose consciousness.

The judge’s wife, Deborah O’Neill, is a social worker on a University of Pennsylvania team that supports and advocates for students who are victims of sexual assault. According to the motion, she has donated money to an advocacy group that plans a rally outside the courthouse during Cosby’s trial.

The motion cites several recent decisions deemed to show apparent bias. One indication, the motion says, was O’Neill’s ruling last week that allowed five accusers besides Constand to testify in the retrial. On Monday, O’Neill refused to delay the retrial to allow Cosby’s lawyers more time to prepare for the witnesses.

Cosby’s motion also pointed to a decision in which O’Neill allowed the retrial even though records show the sexual assault could not have occurred in January 2004. The records suggest that any incident fell outside the window for prosecution, the motion argued.

Philly.com and the Times spoke with ethics experts for their take on the recusal motion.

Typically, conflicts of interest involve situations in which a spouse has a direct financial interest to a party in the case, Widener University law professor Robert David told Philly.com.

In an interview with the Times, New York University law professor Stephen Gillers gave examples where recusal is warranted: where a spouse is a member of a law firm that could benefit from a judge’s decision, or where a spouse is a lawyer in the case.

But ideological views of spouses are not attributed to judges, Gillers said.

“We trust judges to make decisions based on the law, and not because their husbands or wives would like to see a particular result. We trust judges to be independent of the influence of good friends, of parents, of spouses, and decide on the law.”

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/F08wIs4rJOI/bill_cosby_lawyers_seek_to_replace_judge_because_of_wifes_advocacy

Spaghetti Arsonist in a Bull Onesie? I’m Guessing It’s Florida

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Friday, March 23, 2018

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House committee found ‘ill-advised’ WikiLeaks contacts but no collusion, GOP report says

Executive Branch

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 22, 2018, 1:05 pm CDT

President Donald Trump/Shutterstock.com.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said in a summary report released Thursday that some aides to Donald Trump’s campaign made “ill-advised” contacts with WikiLeaks, but there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.

On a party-lines vote, the committee voted to end its investigation and to move to declassify its report, report Politico, National Public Radio, ABC News and Fox News.

The move follows an announcement regarding some of the findings made last week.

The summary included these findings:

The committee found no evidence that Trump’s business dealings before the campaign formed the basis for collusion with Russia.
The committee found no evidence of “collusion, coordination or conspiracy with the Russian government” as a result of meetings between Trump associates, including now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and official Russian representatives.
None of the interviewed witnesses provided evidence of “collusion, coordination or conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
There is no evidence that Trump associates were involved in the theft or publication of Hillary Clinton-related emails, although Trump associates “had numerous ill-advised contacts with WikiLeaks.”
Possible Russian efforts to set up a back channel with Trump associates after the election suggest there was no collusion during the campaign, because communication associated with collusion would have made a back channel unnecessary.
Foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was unsuccessful in facilitating meetings between the Trump campaign and Russians.
Trump adviser Carter Page appeared to give incomplete accounts about his trips to Moscow. Page has denied any wrongdoing. He told Politico he has no idea why the committee questioned his account.

The committee’s top Democrat, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said the report was a whitewash.

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Impeachment threat for redistricting ruling is attack on independence, top state justice says

Judiciary

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 22, 2018, 2:27 pm CDT

Pennsylvania Chief Justice Thomas Saylor is expressing concern over impeachment resolutions filed by lawmakers against four of his colleagues.

Saylor had dissented when the state supreme court struck down a congressional map benefiting Republicans as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. But he condemned introduction of resolutions backed by 12 GOP lawmakers to impeach the justices in the majority.

“As chief justice of Pennsylvania, I am very concerned by the reported filing of impeachment resolutions against justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania related to the court’s decision about congressional redistricting,” he said.

“Threats of impeachment directed against justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government,” he said in the statement.

The resolutions seek the impeachment of Justices David Wecht, Debra Todd, Christine Donohue and Kevin Dougherty, PennLive.com reports. So far, legislative leaders have not discussed an impeachment vote.

State Rep. Cris Dush was prime sponsor of the resolutions, the Associated Press previously reported. He said lawmakers need to take action to prevent future courts from deciding they have the ability to write law.

The state supreme court had adopted a map drawn with the help of a Stanford law professor after state lawmakers and the Democratic governor were unable to agree on a new map.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down a Republican request to block the new district boundaries.

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New bar exam data released: Pass rate up almost 3 percentage points

Bar Exam

By Stephanie Francis Ward

Posted March 22, 2018, 1:52 pm CDT

Barry Currier, the ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education. ABA file photo by the Canadian Press Images/Michael Desjardins.

The aggregate first-time bar passage rate for the class of 2017 was 77.2 percent—an increase from 2016, when the first time pass rate was 74.3 percent, according to data released Thursday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

After a June 2017 change to law school questionnaires, bar passage data—found in this spreadsheet—is now released separately from Standard 509 Information Reports, which were released in December 2017. A goal is reporting timely data to potential students, says Barry Currier, managing director of accreditation and legal education.

“This report is not a compliance report for ABA Standard 316, which sets the standard for bar passage. That is a separate and distinct matter. But these reports provide important consumer information for students considering whether and where to attend law school and for others with an interest in legal education,” Currier said in a news release.

In addition to first-time bar passage rates, data released Thursday includes ultimate bar passage rates. Previously, only law schools that could not demonstrate a first-time test taker bar pass rate that was within 15 percentage points of the state first-time pass rate where the school is located, for three of the last five years, would report ultimate bar passage percentages. Ultimate bar passage data covers a school’s graduates who passed a bar examination within one and two years of graduation.

Currier noted that while results vary by school, the data shows that out of the class of 2015, 87.83 percent of the graduates who sat for a bar exam passed within two years of graduating. In February 2017, the ABA House of Delegates rejected a proposed Standard 316 revision from the Legal Education Section council, where to be in compliance with the rule accredited law schools would need to have at least 75 percent of graduates pass a bar exam within a two-year period.

Under ABA rules, the House of Delegates can send a proposed rule back to the council twice for review with or without recommendations, but the council has the final decision on matters related to law school accreditation. At a November 2017 meeting, council members voted in favor of tabling the proposed revision to Standard 316 so that additional time could be spent getting more support.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/OUjsVZP_cAc/ultimate_and_first_time_bar_pass_rates_in_legal_ed_data_released_thursday

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Prosecutors can seek death penalty for drug kingpins, Sessions says in directive

Criminal Justice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 21, 2018, 2:25 pm CDT

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. mark reinstein / Shutterstock.com

Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a memo Wednesday that directs federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty “in appropriate cases” and cited a law allowing the death penalty for drug kingpins.

Sessions said in his memo that drug overdoses killed more than 64,000 Americans in 2016. “In the face of all of this death, we cannot continue with business as usual,” he said.

Sessions listed four laws that prosecutors can use, including 18 U.S.C. § 3591(b)(1), which authorizes the death penalty for people who deal in extremely large quantities of drugs. The other statutes cited by Sessions punish murder in a racketeering offense, the use of a firearm resulting in death during a drug trafficking crime, and murder in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise.

A fact page and a post at the Death Penalty Information Center website say the drug kingpin law authorizes the death penalty even if no murder occurs. It’s unclear if the statute would survive a challenge under Kennedy v. Louisiana, a 2008 Supreme Court decision that held the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional in cases that do not result in death, according to the DPIC website.

But Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan notes that nearly all of the statutes in Sessions’ memo refer to murders by drug kingpins in the course of pursing their criminal enterprise. “If you follow the trail of statutes in that memo, they still all lead back to death penalty eligibility only for an underlying murder,” he tells the ABA Journal in an email.

President Donald Trump backed the death penalty for drug dealers in a speech earlier this month. Trump said people who kill just one person get the death penalty, while drug dealers can kill 5,000 people with drugs. “These people are killing our kids and they’re killing our families, and we have to do something,” Trump said. He made similar statements in a speech this week in New Hampshire.

Fagan says Trump would apparently like to eliminate the murder limitation. “But he recognizes that this would take a major restructuring of long-established jurisprudence on capital punishment (which is restricted to murder) and a vast normative shift in public sentiment,” Fagan says. “At the moment, support for capital punishment is barely over 50 percent, (and less when the option of life without parole is included in the survey). So it’s hard to imagine how adding major drug dealers would shift popular sentiment.”

Writing at his blog Sentencing Law and Policy, Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman said he didn’t see Sessions’ directive as a big departure from “business as usual,” referring to Sessions’ words in his directive. Berman said his sense has always been that the feds will pursue “capital punishment in appropriate cases,” especially for intentional murders in conjunction with drug dealing.

“The big practical question that follows, of course, is whether and when more federal capital prosecutions will be forthcoming and in what kinds of cases,” Berman wrote.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/7nTTL_-8TRI/prosecutors_can_seek_death_penalty_for_drug_kingpins_sessions_says_in_direc

Pregnant UC Irvine law student on bed rest used robot to attend lectures remotely

Law Schools

By Gerardo Alvarez

Posted March 21, 2018, 3:20 pm CDT

University of California at Irvine School of Law professor Rick Hasen teaching torts with Tess Messiha on the robot display in attendance.

A pregnant 1L at the University of California at Irvine School of Law used a robot to remotely attend her classes after being prescribed bed rest for the first three weeks of the spring semester.

The Double 2—the telepresence robot used by student Tess Messiha—gives its user total control over its movements. The user maneuvers it remotely through an application that also acts as a videoconferencing device.

“It’s very easy to understand,” said David Cann, a co-founder of Double Robotics. “It’s just an iPad on wheels, you know, Skype on wheels or FaceTime on wheels.”

During her bed rest, Tess Messiha controlled her Double 2 from her computer at home. Many of her classmates were shocked to see this technology being implemented in the classroom.

“The reactions of people were really funny,” she said. “When I moved it around, I scared a few people—they had no idea what was going on.”

Hasen with Messiha on the robot display

But the robot quickly grew on students and professors for its capacity to allow Messiha to interact with the class.

“It was surprisingly natural to have Tess in the classroom via the mounted tablet,” said Messiha’s torts professor, Rick Hasen, in a news release. “I could make eye contact with her, call on her, and have the class hear her responses. For someone unable to attend class physically, this was definitely the next best thing.”

Although Messiha was initially nervous about how it would all work out, she ultimately had a very positive experience with the Double 2 and did not miss a single class during her bed rest.

“I was very pleasantly surprised at how far UCI was willing to go to help accommodate my situation,” she said. “Medical conditions arise sometimes, and you just never know how the school is going to handle it.”

Because her first child had been born prematurely, Messiha’s doctor put her on bed rest 32 weeks into her second pregnancy.

When she realized that this would cut into her spring semester, she immediately reached out to the university to figure out what her options were. She had thought she would either have to rely on lecture recordings or even take a leave of absence; she never knew about the Double 2 until the UCI Disability Services Center presented the option.

This isn’t a first for UCI; A nursing student remotely attended classes via a Double 2 last fall because of a disability that prevented her from being physically present. In fact, UCI’s Class of 2016 used their senior class gift to buy four of these telepresence robots for the university, which have also been used by PhD students to research the use of telepresence robots in K-12 education.

“I think it’s something that we’ll continue to have access to if there is a future need that arises,” said Somphone Eno, assistive technology manager at the UCI Disability Services Center. “We’re not advertising it as an accommodation for someone who just wants to go hang out at the beach and miss class—there has to be someone with a documented disability for which they are not physically able to attend class.”

Messiha was able to get off bed rest at 37 weeks and return to classes. She gave birth to her second son on Feb. 8 after almost 40 weeks of pregnancy.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/81WhwhAZKpQ/university_of_california_irvine_law_student_used_robot_to_remotely_attend

Constitution signature campaign is designed to send a message to Trump

Constitutional Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 21, 2018, 3:59 pm CDT

A progressive group calling itself the Shadow Cabinet is inviting like-minded individuals to send a message to President Donald Trump by adding their signature to an online Constitution.

Those who add their signature will be prompted to send an auto-filled message to Trump on Facebook and Twitter, according to a press release and a story by the Hill. The message reads: “We demand that you now respect the ethic of ‘with justice for all’ for individual rights and stop regularly violating laws & norms because, in America, Mr. President, no one is above the law.”

Those who sign will also be invited to join the Shadow Cabinet’s parent organization, Shadowing Trump, or other groups such as people for the American Way, Public Citizen and the National Immigration Law Center. The document can be signed here.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe serves as the Shadow Cabinet’s “citizen attorney general.” The group also has a “rule of law committee” that includes the University of California at Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky; former White House ethics adviser Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor; and Norman Eisen, chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

New York City public advocate Mark Green founded Shadowing Trump. “Trump’s contempt for law is unprecedented and undeniable,” he told the Hill. “We decided to organize a citizen group to shame him on social media and be in place should he pull the trigger and create a constitutional crisis.”

Triggers could include Trump pardoning his family or firing special counsel Robert Mueller, Green said.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/3fHl9LGrM3s/constitution_signature_campaign_is_designed_to_send_a_message_to_trump

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Florida Supreme Court amends referral rules to include online resources

Legal Ethics

By Jason Tashea

Posted March 20, 2018, 2:40 pm CDT

The Florida Supreme Court has amended the state’s lawyer referral rules to include for-profit “matching” sites and lawyer directories.

The court announced its decision in a per curiam opinion dated March 8. According to the opinion, “lawyer referral services” are redefined as “qualifying providers,” which creates a single regulatory scheme that includes for-profit lawyer referral services, pooled advertising programs, lawyer directories, internet “matching” sites and lead generation services.

“How consumers find lawyers has been rapidly changing,” says Lori Holcomb, division director of Ethics and Consumer Protection at the Florida Bar, over email. “Rather than propose rule changes that may be obsolete by the time they were approved, it was decided that the rules should broaden the scope of covered entities thereby protecting the public and putting all such entities on a level playing field.”

The new rules require certain documentation and disclosures to lawyers and consumers. The changes also ban qualifying providers from requiring or pressuring lawyer participation and end the requirement that qualifying providers or participating attorneys have a minimum amount of malpractice insurance.

Other parts of the rule went untouched. Ads for qualifying providers must still comply with lawyer advertising rules and may only connect users to attorneys authorized to practice law in Florida. The rule also keeps in place the ban on fee-sharing.

While qualifying providers still have to provide names of participating attorneys to the state bar, the new rule requires this report to be filed annually instead of quarterly.

The qualifying provider definition does not apply to referrals for pro bono cases from legal aid or similar organizations. It also does not apply to the Florida Bar or voluntary bar association lawyer referral services.

This change stems from the Special Committee on Lawyer Referral Services report from 2012, which concerned itself with the potential harms raised by non-lawyer owned, for-profit referral services.

The report made seven recommendations, some of which are reflected in the recent rule change. According to the majority, some issues remain unanswered.

“These amendments do not, however, resolve our concern with how some lawyer referral services operate in Florida,” reads the majority opinion, “especially those that refer clients to other professionals and occupational disciplines for services arising from the same incident.” The opinion also noted how the bar had “disregarded the findings of the Special Committee” but that “having considered the bar’s proposals, the comments filed, the bar’s response, and having had the benefit of oral argument, the court adopts the amendments to the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar as proposed by the bar.”

The court asked the bar to provide further amendments within 90 days that would prohibit a lawyer from taking a referral from such a service.

Justice C. Alan Lawson, with Justice Charles T. Canady concurring, dissented from the majority’s request for further amendments, arguing that the two referral agencies in the state at issue, which provide both legal and medical referrals, have never had an incident of misconduct.

According to Holcomb, the bar has not developed language yet to meet the court’s request.

The rule goes into effect on April 30.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/8VEc_AuSNWI/florida_supreme_court_amends_referral_rules_to_include_online_resources

Judge rules former ‘Apprentice’ contestant’s suit against Trump can proceed while he is president

Constitutional Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Posted March 20, 2018, 3:20 pm CDT

President Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump is not immune from a state court lawsuit alleging he defamed a former contestant on The Apprentice by denying her allegations of unwanted kissing and groping, a New York judge has ruled.

Judge Jennifer Schechter allowed the suit by Summer Zervos in a decision on Tuesday, report the Washington Post, Politico, BuzzFeed News and Bloomberg News.

“No one is above the law,” Schechter wrote.

Lawyers for Trump had argued the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in Clinton v. Jones did not settle the question of immunity in state court. The Supreme Court had held that federal courts were not required to stay a civil harassment suit by Paula Jones against President Bill Clinton while he was in office.

Schechter said the court’s ruling in the Jones lawsuit should be “no different for suits commenced in state court related to the president’s unofficial conduct.”

“Nothing in the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the president cannot be called to account before a state court for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any executive responsibility,” Schechter said.

Schechter also refused to dismiss the case for failure to state a cause of action.

Zervos says Trump’s conduct occurred after she was a contestant. She had contacted Trump in hopes that he could help her pursue job opportunities.

Zervos alleges Trump kissed her twice on the lips during a 2007 meeting at his office, and kissed and groped her the next time she saw him at a Beverly Hills, California, hotel, where she had gone to join him for dinner.

She spoke out about her alleged experiences after Trump’s comments to a reporter for Access Hollywood became public. Trump had said that he just starts kissing women, “and when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Marc Kasowitz, a lawyer for Trump, told Politico in a statement that he plans “to immediately appeal and will seek a stay of the case until this issue is finally determined.”

“We disagree with this decision, which is wrong as a matter of constitutional law,” he said.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abajournal/dailynews/~3/Eamis7Pmw5I/judge_rules_former_apprentice_contestants_suit_against_trump_can_proceed_wh