AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE -- December 2008

* Apple is being sued for false advertising for its claim that the iPhone 3G gives twice the speed at half the cost.

* From the CL&P blog, new credit card rules are set to be adopted. Also from the CL&P Blog, complaints against debt collectors are on the rise. 

* The New Legal Writer has a quote from Judge Posner admonishing misleading statements of fact in appellate briefs.

* The Legal Malpractice Blog, has a post regarding attorney client privilege in legal malpractice.
* AboveTheLaw, as always, has a ton of great posts. Big firms are having difficulty getting clients to pay their bills. Lindsay Lohan's girlfriend Samantha Ronson sued blogger Perez Hilton for calling her a "lezbot," lost, sued her attorney for malpractice, and is now being sued by both Perez and her former attorney, Martin Garbus, for legal fees. An Australian Court approved service of process through Facebook where a couple had evaded all other avenues of service; the couple, catching wind of the decision, promptly closed their facebook accounts.

* From the NY Personal Injury Law Blog, Bronx County Trial Judge Paul Victor has issued an opinion expressing his frustration at New York's No-Fault scheme. The blog also contains a fairly persuasive argument by Chief Judge Kaye should be named to the US Senate.

* According to the WSJ Law Blog, Bambu Rolling Paper Company has sued a t-shirt company that makes Obama themed t-shirts, some of which use altered versions of their logo, for patent infringement. Apparently, Bambu is is one of the world's 1000 oldest companies dates to 1764.  The Law Blog also followed up on an op-ed in the print edition from a man named Learned Foote.  Apparently, Mr. Foote -- whose father is a Harvard Law School Alumn -- was indeed named after famed jurist Learned Hand.  

* A lot of blogging about blogging.  Advice for the Young Lawyer is celebrating its 1st year online, and has a post giving advice on starting a blog. Frank Ramos advises posting regularly, have a niche, and know where your blog fits into a business plan. I did an introspective 1 year post about six months ago (trackback), and I've kept to about half of what I planned.  Law.com also has a post giving advice on blogging.  The How to Build A Solo Practice Blog had a post on using social media. 

* The Volokh Conspiracy has a post on property rights on the moon, here. I posted on the same topic a while ago, here.

* The economy is still terrible.  AboveTheLaw has a post on finding a job during the recession.  Law.com also reported on the continuing and disturbing trend of large firms rescinding the offers they made to students earlier in the year.  For those who are being laid off, the Connecticut Employment Blog has a post on seperation agreements, including an interesting survey of average severance pay.  

* Motions to dismiss have been denied in the class action suits against Countrywide and New Century, related to their roles in the subprime meltdown.  

* A federal judge ordered that a portion of a video deposition be removed from YouTube.  

* Scholastic has settled its lawsuit against Infinity Resources Inc. and DeepDiscount.com for shipping the last potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, ahead of schedule.  Damn muggles can't follow directions!

Around the Blogosphere: 11.24.08

Apparently, the blogosphere has gone on without me for the last few weeks.  Here's some of what I've missed.  

* From Law.com's Inside Opinions Blog.  Partner at uber-firm Cravath Swain & Moore offers clients advice on cost-cutting, recommending that they give some of their work to smaller firms.

* Above the Law  is having drinks on 12/2 at Professor  Thoms', 219 2nd Avenue, south of 14th Street (NY).  Also from ATL, US News now has worldwide college rangings.  

* From Geeklawyer, the BBC has a new documentary on Barristers. 

* Andrew Lavoot Bluestone, from the New York Legal Malpractice Blog, has a post on attorney's charging and retaining liens.  

*  Hat-Tip to legal antics, George Bush admitted on CNN that he regrets saying certain things, such as "Bring 'em on." 

* The Empirical Legal Studies Blog has posted a Blawg ranking.  

* By the way, the economy is bad.  Susan Cartier Libel compiles a collection of post about the dismal outlook for 2009 law grads.  She also comments about Tauro Law School's radio advertisment, letting employers know that its graduates are ready for the real world.  

*  According to the CL&P Blog, NY's Appellate Division, Third Department, has held that NY State Courts do not permit incentive payments to the named plaintiffs in class actions.  

* Also from the CL&P blog, credit card companies are generally reducing limits. 

* Prof. Schiess has a post on dealing with time constraints in legal writing.   I left a comment.  

* The New York Personal Injury Law Blog has a piece on NY's system of electing judges.  Also, hat-tip to NYPILB, there is a class action against Victoria Secret. 

Around The Blogosphere: Depression Edition

I haven't done an "Around the Blogosphere" post since late July, and a lot has happened. The economy collapsed; there was a hurricane or two; and we are on the verge of a new election. There is a silver lining, however: we have not swallowed by a black hole (yet). 

* Nicole Black posted a letter from a Texas attorney, Dale Markland, on her Legal Antics Blog. Mr. Markland had to reschedule a deposition because of the recent hurricane that hit Texas, and one of his opponents apparently gave him a very hard time about it. To give you a gist of the letter, one line is: "I am sorry that the Houston Public Works Department had to use a fire hose to blow human feces out of my yard on the day our deposition was scheduled." There is rarely ever a reason to be a jerk about an adjournment. I had a more junior associate ask me the other day (yes -- there are finally associates more junior than me), about adjourning a deposition, and I told him that, in my experience, on the rare occasion I have decided to give someone a hard time about an adjournment, it has quickly come back to haunt me three-fold. 

* From The New York Personal Injury Blog, a New York absentee Ballot was mailed out naming "Barack Osama" as a candidate. Conspiracy theorists should eat that one up. 

* From the CL&P Blog, New York has enacted a new law (really adding State teeth to a pre-existing Federal Law), saying that the first $2,500 from a bank account where social security funds are deposited cannot be frozen. They reviewed a New York Times discussing how New York's Civil Court (for cases worth $25,000 or less) has become the new debtors court. I previously posted about this issue here. The House has passed a credit card holders bill of rights.  A new study shows that new credit card accounts, on average, generate $15 per month in add-on fees; this number, however, goes down as people learn over time how to manage their credit cards.  

* At Law.com, humor columnist the Snark has a piece about associate networking on sites such as Facebook, Myspace, et al. I like the Snark, but -- as happens way too often on many blogs -- the piece is addressed specifically to "BigLaw" associates as-if the rest of us don't exist, or don't work at BigLaw firms and so obviously aren't intelligent enough to use the internet. Don't drink the punch young BigLaw Associates; don't drink the punch! 

* The New Legal Writer has a piece on diffusing negative facts or law. Wayne Scheiss' legal writing blog has a good piece on prepositions. 

* According to Carolyn Elefant, posting on Law.com's Inside Opinion's blog, Plaintiffs only win employment cases 15% of the time, she comments on it twice. Serious commentators are realizing that Law School grades are a fraud. Small firms (2-150 lawyers) have experience abanner year. 

* Above-The-Law comments that Some BigLaw Firms may be switching to performance based bonuses, relying not just on billable hours but also work quality. Heller Ehrman, a very large, very old law firm, has broken up. The economists at the Conglomerate have determined that, even though we are in the midst of "economic armageddon" a law degree is still a great investment based on median salary. (Note of Caution: legal salaries have a bimodal distribution, so people make either above or below, but rarely at, the median -- See here). 

* Also from ATL, the Knights Templar have sued the Pope to undue the 1307 disbandment of the order and siezure of the groups assets.  

* From GeekLawyer, a lawsuit from several students to shut down the Large Hadron Collider has been thrown out. The relief being sought: Save the world! For those of you who are not familiar with it, the Large Hadron Collider was turned on in September and experienced technical difficulties, requiring it to be shut down. The LHC is an enormous underground particle accelerator/collider in Europe. Two sub-atomic particles are spun around at near the speed of light, then slammed into each other, resulting in sub-atomic black holes that scientists can study. Not to worry, however; there is little chance that the machine would create a stable black hole that would swallow the Earth from the inside. Black holes evaporate and, in theory (a very solid theory), the black holes created by the LHC would evaporate in milliseconds. 

* Gerry Spence has a post on "The Secret of Winning."  It's worth reading because, well, I like winning.  

* New York State Assemblyman Rory Lancman has started a blog, entitled the "Fiscal Fairness" blog.  

Around the Blogosphere: July 2008

* The Empirical Legal Studies Blog has an interesting piece on the legal job market for new attorneys. It is old news that most law graduates do not make $160,000. What leaves many graduates still perplexed, however, is how much less their starting salaries actually are and where the "middle of the road" jobs are hiding. Based on NALP statistics, the ELS blog explains that first year law salaries have something of an inverse bell curve -- or two peaks with a trough in the middle -- called bimodal distribution. As the ELS Blog explains, until approximately the year 2000, law salaries followed an ordinary bell-curve, but then top firms started following "the Cravath system," i.e. hiring only top law graduates or laterals from comparable firms and paying them exorbitant salaries. The result was a two-tiered system for recent law graduates: one with a dominant salary around $40,000 (in 2006); and the other with a dominant salary of $135,000 (in 2006); with relatively few jobs available in the intervening ranges.

* The Snark has an amusing post on office decoration. Unfortunately, I think my office may fall into the "as soon as I finish my novel I'm out of here" category. I still haven't hung my law degree or bar admissions (I'm just too lazy to get them framed). I do, however, have several plaques, a plant, a nice desk set, a stuffed dragon, and a little talking Yoda figure. And, of course, a lot of redwells. Hopefully, rather than "I'm out of here...," my office says "I'm too busy to frame stuff." Of course, who knows what'll happen when that novel is finished.

* According to the WSJ Law Blog, Texas wants to execute five mexican nationals who were not offered their Geneva Convention Rights (Foreign Nationals must be instructed that they can contact their consulate). At least one of the nationals had lived in the US illegally since preschool. The World Court found that the executions would violate the Geneva Convention, and ordered the US to stop them. President Bush issued a memo telling the Texas State Court to impliment the decision, but the Texas courts found that the nationals had waived their rights by not raising them in the ordinary course of the appeals process. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling, President Bush went to the World Court and said, essentially, "I tried." Mexico is arguing that the US Federal Government should do more to stop the execution.

Around the Blogosphere: June 2008

* Spain has declared by statute that Apes are legal persons. (U.K. Guardian). Also, last month, the EU Court of Human Rights accepted an appeal on the issue of whether Apes are legal persons under the EU Charter. (LiveScience, Associated Press). Fans of Arthur C. Clark, a Science Fiction author famed for accurately predicting many scientific and cultural developments of the past century, may recall that his second-to-last book, Sunstorm, published in 2005, describes a not-to-distant future where apes and highly advanced artificial intelligence systems are considered "legal persons (non-human)."

* According to a post on the Consumer Law and Policy Blog, "Bounce loans, the Fed rule and the unbanked," the Federal Reserve is now considering a rule to curb abusive overdraft fees by banks.

* Although the deadline for submissions has already passed, Above the Law was recently looking for a full time writer. Apparently you can actually make a living doing this.

* From the WSJ Law Blog, the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that federal employees have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment that extends to work phones and e-mail accounts.

* At the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Alan Turkewitz is posting a play-by-play from his recent motor vehicle trial. Among the interesting points, he explains that he used a peremptory challenge on a juror who's son is going to Iraq because he does not want the juror comparing his client's trauma to what his son is going through, and struck another juror because she never smiled. He also structured his opening starting from the middle so as to emphasize how the accident changed his client's life.

* The US Supreme Court overturned Washington DC's gun ban, rendering its first Second Amendment decision in many, many years. (WSJ Law Blog).

* Carolyn Elefant at Law.com's Inside Opinions has two great posts on law firm marketing: one on the need for video entries on your website, here ; and the other linking to ten law firm marketing tips from Larry Bodine at The Law Marketing Blog, here.

* LinkedIn - a professional social networking site -- has been valued at 1 Billion dollars. (Law.com: Inside Opinions). More importantly, I recently opened a LinkedIn profile.

* In an employment discrimination fee award decision, Rozell v. Ross-Holst , courtesy of Daniel Schwartz' Connecticut Employment Law Blog, the SDNY approved a $600 per hour fee for a partner specializing in employment law

* Over at How Appealing, Howard Bashman and Judge Richard Posner are engaged in an entertaining reparte. According to Mr. Bashman, the phrase "ostriches when frightened bury their head in the sand" would imply that multiple ostriches share a single head; but Judge Posner retorts that to say "ostriches hide their heads in the sand" would imply that each ostrich has multiple heads.

Happy Birthday Blog!

My blog turned a year old last Friday. It is far from where I want it to be, but I have kept up with it for a year (albeit sometimes sporatically), and I'm proud of that. In light of the occasion, I decided to review and evaluate what I have done with this blog for the past year, and set some goals to make it better.

My blog is still looking for a voice, a name and a direction. In retrospect, my posts can be roughly grouped into four categories: substantive or procedural law; consumer protection; the legal job market for new attorneys; and random legal news.

First, the largest portion of my posts have been substantive or procedural, and these have also been the posts that have received the best response. Within my firm I concentrate on appellate and complex motion practice, mostly Torts, and commercial litigation, but because I am a young attorney I have yet to carve out a specific niche. One of my posts, which was actually an article that I co-wrote with a partner and another associate at my firm on slip and fall litigation, was included in a blog round up from Eric Turkewitz's New York Personal Injury Blog (one of my favorite blogs), which I considered to be a tremendous compliment. Another post on appellate procedure prompted an e-mail from a pro se litigant saying that they had found the information helpful. In the future, I want to expand on these posts. Specifically, I do a tremendous amount of research and writing, and much of that work could be fodder for great blog posts. My plan is to have a regular segment called Little Bit O' Law, which will consist of short research pieces.

Second, many of my posts -- particularly the more opinionated ones -- relate to consumer protection. I suppose technically this could be considered a substantive area, but it is not an area where I currently practice (my firm does not do consumer class actions... yet). The most recent post, here, is a New York Civil Court case I read in the New York Law Journal which touched on an issue -- default credit card rates -- that I believe will become increasingly important in the future. I think I was the only person to comment on that case other than the Law Journal. I have also had two posts, here and here, covering a British case where the U.K. government is challenging bank overdraft fees, and contrasting that case to how U.S. courts have handled the issue. Professor Arnold S. Rosenberg found interest in the same topic, and wrote a law review article that was featured the Consumer Law and Policy Blog, here. I feel like this has been one of my blogs strongest areas, and I plan to continue these posts in a segment called Consumer Advocate.

A third group of posts have related to the legal job market for people who -- like myself -- recently graduated with a decent rank, from a decent law school, and were shocked to discover that a law degree is not a golden ticket. There have been hundreds of similar posts on other blogs, but at first I felt like this was ground-breaking information. Shortly after my first post, Loyola2L gained a great deal of publicity. I'll admit I was a little jealous, for a minute, but I am probably better off having not garnered a great deal of publicity for complaining about law school tuition. I in no way regret having gone to law school. The only thing I would have done differently, if I had a more accurate picture of the job prospects for a top-50-ish school, would be to have more seriously considered a public or lower ranked school. That said: I love being an attorney; I believe that I am extremely good at what I do; and I am sure it is just a matter of time before my education pays off financially. Over the past year, the issue of return on intvestment for legal education has been greatly publicized, and I am glad to have put in my two cents. I cannot, however, keep re-posting on the same topic. I have had a few staggered posts about practical lessons I've learned, and my plan is to combine these categories and expand them to include a broader range of topics relevant to young (or prospective) attorneys. I'll include regular (maybe quarterly?) articles about the legal job market, but also pieces with practical lessons that I have picked up. I need a catchy name for this one, but my working title is: I'm a lawyer, now what?

My fourth category of posts over the past year have related to random law related news, but these posts have not had a unifying theme. What I plan to do is have an Around the Bloggosphere segment, where I'll include links and comments to other blog posts that I find interesting.

Re: Encouraging Discretion in Blogging Is Better Than Restricting It

Carolyn Elefant of the Law.com blog recently published an interesting post, here, entitled "Encouraging Discretion in Blogging Is Better Than Restricting It." Elefant's post was itself a response to Connecticut Employment Law blogger Daniel Schwartz' "The Blog Post I Didn't Publish," here, and here is my two cents:

I am a relatively new blogger, but there are definitely some difficult choices in deciding what to post. First, blogging is habit forming, and as a junior associate I don't want it to detract from my work. Second, there is a danger of damaging a pending case. In fact, a week or so ago I read a post that discussed an appeal where I had written the bulk of the winning brief, and I was tremendously tempted to post a comment that drew from an an off-the record discussion with the opposing attorney about his theory of the case. The comment likely would have been harmless, and was well intended, but with the possibility of the matter being re-filed I thought it tread into some questionable territory.

If my firm were to create guidelines, however, I would hope they would be along the lines of the ethical canons, as opposed to strict directives. The nice part of blogging is the freedom of it. Most of what I write is heavily constrained by seriousness and a desire to maintain a certain level of decorum, but in a blog post you can -- in theory -- write whatever you want and be as stylistically creative as you want.