Posts

After you spend all your blood, sweat, tears (and money) pursuing a law degree, what happens if the law school you attended loses its accreditation status with the American Bar Association? The American Bar Association is responsible for setting legal education standards and minimum bar examination pass rates for accredited law schools. Currently, there are 199 ABA-approved law schools in the U.S. How Are Law Schools Accredited? A law school receives accreditation from the state in which they operate according to its laws....

After a few slow weeks, the Supreme Court dropped five new opinions this morning. They’re not just small-beans disputes either – rather, they include two of the Court’s most important cases of the term, both of which touch on important constitutional issues. Those are Zubik v. Burwell, a challenge to Obamacare’s contraception mandate, and Spokeo v. Robins, a dispute over whether privacy violations are sufficient to confer standing. Here’s a quick and dirty review of those opinions, with more to come in the following days....

The ongoing pandemic will likely have long-term repercussions on everything from health systems to bankruptcies to workplaces. But it will also have societal effects on families, children, and marriages for years to come. Divorce rates will undoubtedly spike as courts put most divorce proceedings on hold during the quarantine. Other courts have continued taking cases at a limited capacity, which has created a queue of pending divorces. If the enormous spikes in divorce in China are any indication, we might be looking at a surge of divorces in the coming months....

Quite a few cases making the rounds in the Eighth Circuit are making headlines and deal with everything from Wizard of Oz merchandise, to kosher hot dogs. Here’s a breakdown in the latest news out of the Eighth Circuit. Iowa Campaign Finance Ban In 2013, the Eighth Circuit upheld an Iowa law that “allow[s] for independent expenditures by corporations and unions but … ban[s] … direct contributions to candidates and committees by corporations,” reports Reuters....

Kansas recently passed a law requiring voters to prove their citizenship before they can register to vote. Arizona also passed such a law. But here’s the rub: Federal law doesn’t make voters prove their citizenship through a document like a passport or a birth certificate. Under federal law, voters merely have to affirm they’re citizens, and that’s that. On Monday, the Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in an appeal of the Kansas version of the case....

Tips for preparing to take final exams are a dime a dozen. Everybody – meaning law students, law professors, and lawyers – has a pointer. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But when time is running out before the big day, you need to get down to basics. Here are three – out of dozens – that we chose just for you: No. 1 Create a Study Plan Mary Kate Sheridan, a senior editor at Vault, offers 8 tips for tackling law school exams....

Huh? This is a weird opinion. That’s not to say that it is correct or incorrect: facing a balance between free speech rights of peaceful anti-abortion protestors and a woman’s right to obtain reproductive health services, the Court sided with free speech unanimously, while five justices suggested that there might be other avenues for protecting those headed in to abortion clinics. But just a few years ago, the Court upheld a buffer zone in Colorado, one which was barely mentioned in the McCullen opinion....

No good deed goes unpunished, and you can’t even sue for it. That’s a summary of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Katz-Crank v. Haskett, which says an acquitted lawyer is barred from suing government officials who unsuccessfully prosecuted her. Here’s what happened: An attorney discovered her client was committing fraud and reported him to authorities. But they already knew about it and were investigating whether the attorney was involved....

In a murder prosecution, Petitioner’s habeas petition is granted, where a comparative juror analysis, in combination with other facts in the record, demonstrated that the prosecutor’s purported race-neutral reasons for striking at least one of the jurors were pretexts for racial discrimination. Read Ali v. Hickman, No. 07-16731 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted December 12, 2008 Filed July 7, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Berzon Counsel For Appellant: Albert Joel Kutchins, Berkeley, CA...

Everything involving the National Football League is now televised, including all seven rounds of the NFL draft. Because, apparently, we care about which collegiate athlete we’ve never heard of has the chance to become a backup in the NFL. Media speculation about trades, offseason workouts and even the players’ off-the-field activities is ubiquitous. You never need to go long without hearing about how your favorite team is doing. Despite the NFL’s focus on being constantly in front of fans, however, it remains difficult for out-of-market fans to watch NFL games involving their favorite team....

We all remember Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” scandal from a few years ago. The car manufacturer pleaded guilty to criminal charges and spent almost $20 billion in fines, settlements, and refit costs after it got caught gaming emissions tests. Lesser known, however, was Fiat Chrysler’s own diesel emissions scandal – that company was also found to have installed illegal software that produced false results on diesel-emissions tests. And last week, a federal judge approved a $307....

Google did not violate privacy laws by creating face templates of people who uploaded their photos to the company’s cloud service, a federal judge ruled. In Rivera v. Google, Inc., the plaintiffs sued under a unique law that allows individuals to sue for collection of their biometric data. The Illinois law was also the first state statute to regulate the practice. The problem, the judge said, was that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t really recognize an expectation of privacy in a person’s face....

Cases of statutory interpretation are rarely as sexy as those involving constitutional issues. But King v. Burwell is among the most important cases of this term, and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today. If the justices agree with the petitioners, then one of the three legs of the Affordable Care Act – subsidies for low-income Americans – would be cut off, effectively neutralizing the ACA itself. The ACA defines an “Exchange” as one established pursuant to Section 1311 of the ACA....

Happy 2015. We have many thing to be thankful as the new year begins, not the least of which is this: We didn’t make this list. Last year, we talked about the biggest legal fools of 2013 on social media, and fortunately for our industry’s sake, we’re going to have to expand that a bit to all of the fools: criminals, pornographers, stabbers, and photoshoppers. Here are four lawyers who really wish 2014 didn’t happen:...

California has long been known for its vehicle emissions requirements, thanks to The Price is Right. (Every car we ever watched Bob Barker give away had standard California emissions.) But the strict standards of yesteryear are no longer enough for the Golden State. In 2006, California approved the Low Carbon Fuel Standard after the adoption of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. Last year, U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill enjoined implementation of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, finding that it was unconstitutional because it discriminated against interstate commerce....

Curious about what constitutes a playground? Then today is your lucky day, because the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has a 16-page opinion delving into the essence of playgrounds under federal law. While the Tenth Circuit review fell short of an Aristotelian examination of a playground’s metaphysical characteristics, it was enough to affirm the defendant’s conviction for distributing drugs near a playground. Federal law defines a “playground” as “any outdoor facility (including any parking lot appurtenant thereto) intended for recreation, open to the public, and with any portion thereof containing three or more separate apparatus intended for the recreation of children including, but not limited to, sliding boards, swingsets, and teeterboards....

No attorney reading this will be surprised to hear that the legal profession is a demanding one. Nor is it surprising, then, that the profession has had long-running struggles with mental health, work-life balance, and substance use. It is a topic that has been covered well, including by FindLaw. Yet, just because we know that the profession needs to focus on attorney wellness does not mean it is an easy task to complete....

“I’m going to use whatever means necessary to stop you, and that’s for your safety.” At first blush, these words, from a New York Police Department officer to a cyclist whose Citi Bike was currently lodged in the officer’s wheel well, seem contradictory. But when you think about it, it really makes sense. The officer, a student of history, knows that sometimes you need to burn a village to save it....

Maybe you didn’t watch Justice Antonin Scalia’s interview with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler yesterday. Maybe you thought, “What could Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner say about their new book that I haven’t heard in the last three months?” Perhaps you’ve heard that ol’ Nino and Judge Richard Posner have a little tiff over Posner’s less-than-favorable review of the Justice’s new book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Text. Posner – he’s a court of appeals judge, isn’t he – wrote a lengthy review of the book for The New Republic, arguing that cases are decided by judges’ personal and political values and preferences, not the legal rules and canons of interpretation that Scalia and Garner promote, Huffington Post reports....

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled in October that phone books may be obsolescent, but they’re still entitled to First Amendment protection. That decision may end up costing Seattle $500,000, according to The Seattle Times. Thursday, the paper reported that the city has reached a tentative agreement to pay the six-figure settlement after losing its fight against the phone book publishers, according to two unnamed sources. In 2010, Seattle passed an ordinance requiring yellow-pages publishers to advertise an opt-out registry on the front covers of their directories....