Law

Law

Touchy With The Teeth: Sidley associate fired after (politely) gnawing on her co-workers.

* Another former partner sues Kasowitz alleging unpaid compensation. [ NY Law Journal] * The Post Office will no longer postmark mail on the day it's sent. The goal is to prevent mail-in voting, but... so long mailbox rule![ Brookings] * Alex Spiro writes California governor warning him that his clients will leave California if the state attempts to make them actually pay taxes. [ Yahoo] * Jeffrey Toobin profiles Tom Goldstein's predicament. Key takeaway... it seems as though he might not have been quite as good at poker as he thought. [ New York Times Magazine]

This notion masquerading as a truism sounds good. We like it. We want it to be true. It alleviates the need to worry about what AI is doing to our profession. It assures we will all have jobs in the future gazing out the window and thinking all day. And getting paid vast sums of money to do so. It's in every press release and white paper from vendors.

A nonprofit group that advocates for law clerks has taken the rare step of filing a misconduct complaint against a federal appeals court judge, alleging she bullies and mistreats law clerks and that the courts' process for fielding such claims is broken. The complaint from the Legal Accountability Project against Judge Sarah Merriam of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit states that it is based on conversations with multiple former law clerks who fear retaliation if they come forward themselves.

Samsung Electronics America Inc. escaped nearly all claims brought by a group of consumers who alleged the hinges on its Chromebook convertible laptop are defective.

Integrated social features allow users to share their achievements interact with other players and participate in community challenges thus creating an enriching social dimension and fostering long-term engagement on the platform. Interface design automatically adapts to various screen sizes and device orientations delivering optimal visual experience across desktop tablet and mobile devices through native apps or web browsers. Technical infrastructure is built on distributed server networks ensuring fast loading times smooth navigation and responsive performance even during high-traffic periods maintaining consistent user experience quality.

[W]e normally do not interpret claim terms in a way that excludes embodiments disclosed in the specification.

The court declares certain crimes to be " per se grave or serious," which in practice means that no one convicted of such crimes can ever challenge their sentence, no matter its severity. Colorado's state constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual" punishment, including excessive or "disproportionate" prison terms. To assess excessive punishment claims, Colorado courts begin by comparing "the gravity or seriousness of the offense to the harshness of the penalty." Normally, Colorado case law takes a relatively capacious view of how a crime's "gravity" should be measured.

A Utah judge on Monday ordered the release of a transcript from a closed-door hearing in October over whether the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk must be shackled during court proceedings. State District Judge Tony Graf said the transcript must be posted on the court docket by the end of the day. Attorneys for media outlets including The Associated Press had argued for details of the closed hearing to be made public.

Days ahead of trial, a federal judge has dismissed an indictment against a TikTok streamer shot by ICE earlier this year, citing constitutional violations by the government. In a Saturday order, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin cited the deprivation of Carlitos Ricardo Parias' access to counsel while held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and the government's failure to comply with discovery deadlines - including the timely release of body worn camera footage that captured the shooting.

An upstate couple who relocated to Florida is still on the hook for a $60,000 New York tax bill because they didn't prove their Sunshine State pad was their main residence, the state tax panel ruled in a recent bombshell decision. John Hoff and his wife, Kathleen Ocorr-Hoff, kept cashing paychecks here and didn't give up their local country club memberships, the tax panel found in the decision - which could give pause to snowbirds splitting time between the Empire State and Florida.

While campaigning for his seat in 2023, Plass, who served as a Hyde Park police officer and worked at his family's limousine business for decades, sent out a campaign mailer where he pledged to keep drug dealers off our streets and out of our hotels, incarcerate offenders and protect victims of domestic violence, and assure repeat offenders are sentenced to the full extent of the law.

In response, NWMLS has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claimed that it has no duty to deal with Compass, and it most recently indicated that it intends to assert counterclaims, if the judge does not grant its motion to dismiss the suit. Earlier this month, Compass filed a motion to compel NWMLS to produce documents. In this motion and other filings, Compass has argued that NWMLS has delayed production of documents and has failed to respond to requests since discovery began in June.

Terrell Eleby, a Brooklyn native incarcerated in New York's Shawangunk Correctional Facility, wrote to a conviction review unit in Kings County in 2013, asking it to reinvestigate his murder and assault convictions. He claimed in part that police had threatened witnesses to keep them from testifying in his favor. A decade would pass before he learned the unit rejected his application.

Police say they two girls ran away from their group home on Dec. 14, and ended up with Williams. He allegedly raped one of them at the Park Lane Hotel on MacArthur Boulevard, and later told the girl to go to "work" on International Boulevard, a well-known open air sex market. Police stopped the girl around 4:20 p.m. on Dec. 15, for wearing scantily clad lingerie, and discovered her young age and runaway status, according to court records.

I am an attorney and have served time in prison. I witnessed inmates spending every moment inside the prison library accessing computers and combing through court decisions. These inmates hold themselves out as jailhouse lawyers. The law library is their sanctuary where they search for ways to get released but also prey on other inmates who look to them for their freedom.

In this episode of the Jabot podcast, I chat with Sandra Cohen, co-managing partner at Cohen & Buckmann. Sandra shares her journey from HR to law, specializing in executive compensation and employee benefits. Discover the challenges and rewards of running a boutique law firm and gain insights into the niche legal field of ERISA. It's a must-listen for those curious about dynamic law careers and the evolving landscape of boutique legal practices!

Manhattan's Appellate Division courthouse, located at 27 Madison Ave., is an example of Beaux-Arts architecture, a time capsule of Progressive Era aesthetic values and recently a canvas for its contemporary leadership to imprint modern attitudes. Photo by Dean Moses [Editors note: Welcome to the amNew York Law Bench Report, where we will feature notable rulings from state and federal courts, brief news bulletins that impact the judiciary and announcements from judges' chambers. Are we missing anything? Contact editor-in-chief Andrew Denney at adenney@schnepsmedia.com]

The state's police oversight board has suspended the certification of former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the embattled investigator who was fired earlier this year over his conduct during the Karen Read case. The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, or POST, said it has "concluded by a preponderance of the evidence that the suspension is in the best interest of the health, safety, or welfare of the public," according to a Dec. 18 order. Proctor had been certified through July 1, 2026.

When Brian Susbielles, 35, disembarked in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers conducted a border search of his iPhone and MacBook and found illicit images and videos of children engaged in sexual acts along with sexual online conversations regarding the pictures and videos, according to a criminal affidavit. Susbielles had been sailing on Holland America Line's Volendam for 30 days, leaving from New York.

Dianne Hensley filed the suit against the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on Friday, claiming that the 2015 ruling that legalized marriage equality nationally, Obergefell v. Hodges, is somehow unconstitutional. The lawsuit states, via The Texas Tribune, that "the federal judiciary has no authority to recognize or invent 'fundamental' constitutional rights." Hensley's lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, acknowledged in the filing that federal courts do not have the authority to overturn marriage equality,

Budget should have inspected the van when you returned it and quickly given you a detailed invoice explaining the $450 fee. Budget's own policy states that its cleaning charges will be reasonable (although it reserves the right to determine what is reasonable). California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act also prohibits deceptive claims, including vague fees. You should've taken photos of the van at pickup and return, even if you thought nothing was wrong,

John Foster is a respected lawyer and public sector legal leader with more than thirty years of experience in government and education law. He grew up on military bases across the United States, where a childhood shaped by discipline, duty, and resilience set the tone for his career. His father was a decorated Marine Corps officer, and his mother was an English immigrant who survived wartime evacuation before building a long career as a paralegal.

The Delaware Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling, reinstating Elon Musk's 2018 compensation package originally valued at $56 billion but now worth approximately $139 billion due to Tesla's soaring stock price. The unanimous decision criticized the prior total rescission as "improper and inequitable," arguing that it left Musk uncompensated for six years of transformative leadership at Tesla. Musk quickly celebrated the outcome on X, stating that he felt "vindicated." He also shared his gratitude to TSLA shareholders.