justia

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but there’s still time to get terrific gifts for lawyers and clients.  Here are some of our favs:

• The Apple iPad —  It’s sleek, small, and über cool. It holds nifty free legal apps like Fastcase to find state and federal statutes and cases and Oyez’s PocketJustice that let’s lawyers listen to Supreme Court oral arguments.  When your attorney friend is done raging at opposing counsel’s latest outrageous offer to their client, the attorney can vent his or her anger by playing Angry Birds or Star Wars Falcon Gunner. Plus, it makes them (and everyone they meet) think that they’re a swell lawyer, right?
• Adopt a Volume of the Federal Reporter — No, we’re not crazy (at least not all the time)!  For $1,200, you can actually make a tax-deductible donation to Public.Resource.Org to support scanning a volume or two of the first series of the Federal Reporter of the United States in the name of your favorite lawyer or law firm.  The donation is to help them “adopt” a volume of federal case law  from 1880 – 1924 that is now in the public domain.

• Free Law – Justia truly believes that the law belongs to the people. It was created for us, by us. That is why we are thankful for Law.Gov, the brainchild of passionate Government open source advocate Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org.
• Google – We are thankful for Google and its continued support of free law by awarding the non-profit Public.Resource.org a $2 million grant to jump-start the Law.Gov initiative. The grant was one of five awarded to Google Project 10^100 winners, a contest to help as many people in the world as possible.
• Facebook – We are thankful for Facebook because we really like making friends. 🙂
• Twitter – We are thankful for Twitter. We love tweeting about the law like little birdies 🙂

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us.  A time for being thankful, eating turkey or tofurkey, cranberry sauce, yams, and pumpkin pie.

In Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Laws, this is a time when Minnesotans had better be on their best behavior when it comes to how their treatment of livestock.

You see, under Minnesota state law, turkey and chicken scrambles are patently illegal.  We’re not talking about scrambled eggs here.  Section 343.36 of the Minnesota Code outlaws ‘turkey scrambles,’ defined as when a “turkey is released or thrown into the air and wherein the object is the capture of the chicken or turkey.”

What exactly gets scrambled when turkeys and chickens are released in the air?  Do they get indigestion?  Do they get dizzy like kids who spin themselves and their friends silly on playground merry-go-rounds (a perfectly legal activity in Minnesota)?  Does the their ability to think straight get a little too gobblery, what with all the brief, momentary period of flying to and fro?

As we go about our routines on Veterans Day today, we should take time to remember the men and women in our communities who served with the U.S. Armed Forces. Their commitment to serve our country at home and abroad protects the Constitution for all of us.

We owe veterans our compassion, our understanding, and our support for doing what others choose not to: put themselves in harms way to protect our freedoms.

Veterans Days was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge after the U.S. Congress passed this resolution on June 4, 1926 to make it a legal holiday:

On Friday, many law school graduates were eagerly waiting for their July 2010 New York Bar exam results.

The New York State Board of Law Examiners (‘BOLE’) promised law students that “the results of the July 2010 bar examination are being emailed to candidates beginning on November 5, 2010,” but warned candidates that there might be a delay of up to 24 hours before “your email system” would get them.

Any e-mail problems for the lawyers-in-waiting, however, paled in comparison to the results being posted online before they actually received them.  It’s sort of like you already know that your  significant other is going to propose to you, but you don’t know when.  Would you rather find out from him or her directly, or from Facebook first?

“Conviction” tells a compelling tale of the love that siblings can have for one another, and the lengths to which some families will go to seek justice for their kin. This legal drama draws you into the movie from the outset, making you feel that you should have served on the legal team for Kenny Waters. Sam Rockwell, who plays Kenny, deftly portrays the wide range of emotions experienced by a person who has been wrongfully convicted of murder.

The opening of the film aptly sets the scene. The camera pans inside a trailer home with blood-stained walls depicting raging violence. We soon learn that the victim’s murderer brutally stabbed her more than 30 times. While chopping firewood for his grandfather, Kenny is soon accused by a local police officer of brutally murdering his neighbor.

Times have changed.  The legal job market now tilts in favor of law firms, not law school graduates.  Newly minted JDs are competing with laid-off associates who have years of experience, and are already admitted to the bar.

Some law schools have opted to subsidize their unemployed new graduates by either paying them or law firms, so that their JDs can garner relevant work experience in their new profession.

Here is a look at four law schools that subsidize unemployed graduates looking for work:

Do you like free, quick access to case law and codes? Of course you do. What’s not to like?

With an iPad or iPhone, you can download the free Fastcase app to research state and federal court opinions, as well as find state and federal codes.

That’s right, it costs you and your firm nothing. Nada. Rien. Zilch. You pay nothing to get it, and nothing to use it. No other legal app out there gives lawyers and legal professionals this much portable legal research, convenience, and speed for virtually nothing.