The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported last month that a class action suit against legal forms provider Legal Zoom survived a motion for summary judgement and will proceed to trial in a Missouri federal court. In rejecting the defendant’s motion, Judge Laughrey allowed the plaintiffs to move forward with their complaint that consumers have been harmed by the company’s unauthorized practice of law in the state.

For an overview of the litigation and the recent order, see Venkat’s post on Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog. We’ve pulled the filings on Justia Dockets, and you can follow the case there.

Last Friday, Governor Brown signed California Assembly Bill 141 into law. AB 141 formalizes long-standing informal rules banning the use of social media and electronic devices (including smart phones) by jurors to discuss or research cases. As well, the bill forbids jurors from using electronic or wireless devices to contact court officials. While existing laws require a court to remind and admonish jurors to refrain from conversing about a case during trial, the bill:

[W]ould require the court, when admonishing the jury against conversation, research, or dissemination of information pursuant to these provisions, to clearly explain, as part of the admonishment, that the prohibition applies to all forms of electronic and wireless communication. The bill would require the officer in charge of a jury to prevent any form of electronic or wireless communication.

Beginning in January, if a juror disobeys such an admonishment, he or she will face contempt of court charges.

While Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2 is the eighth and final film in the Harry Potter Series, its theatrical release does not signal the end of Pottermania. Instead, fans can continue enjoying the magical world of Harry Potter through Pottermore, an online interactive reading experience by J.K. Rowling.

Last week, Potter fans, such as myself, scrambled at all hours of the night to get one of the coveted 1 million early access slots to the new site, which is due to open in October.

Last November, I wrote Introduction to Wizarding Law to celebrate the arrival of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1. I had fun writing the article and received some great comments (including some from a professor teaching a college class on the very topic), so I decided to write a follow-up now as the movie series winds down and Pottermore begins.

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS. If you are waiting to read the book or see the movie, don’t read on.

It’s a bad week for government documents. OMB Watch recently reported that the House voted to cut funding to the Government Printing Office. This comes as no surprise, given the recent budget drama, and it’s not likely to get a lot of mainstream attention with looming cuts to entitlement programs and the military funding.

It’s important for those of us that advocate for government transparency and open access to take note, however. The GPO is the office tasked with preserving and disseminating federal documents. Cuts to its budget means less access to the law for people who can least afford to pay for it.

Considering the amount of attention that our dear Congress devotes to children, I am quite surprised by the average academic performance delivered by our sweet angels when compared to their peers in other countries. Lest you think Congress is too focused on earmarks for their donors constituents, I must point out that even the rancorous debt ceiling debate during the past few weeks was all about the children. In face of the spending cuts called for in the debt ceiling bill, Senator Durbin urged his colleagues to consider its impact on the children:

Durbin, speaking from the Senate floor, said fewer poor children will be enrolled in early childhood education programs, working families and children will face more college debt and medical research dollars stand to be cut.

So, how else does Congress look out for the future of America? Let’s take a look.

Here is a rundown of July’s highest scoring lawyers on Justia Legal Answers, along with a look at which Onward blog and Facebook posts readers viewed the most.

Justia Legal Answers’ Top 10 Legal Answerers for July 2011

1. Mark A. Siesel, 11,600 points, 232 answers
2. Burton A. Padove, 10,195 points, 215 answers
3. Terrence Rubino, 2,805 oints, 72 answers
4. Robert Neal Katz, 1,545 points, 33 answers
5. David Philip Shapiro, 1,020 points,22 answers
6. Cedulie Renee Laumann, 850 points, 17 answers
7. Andrew Bresalier, 650 points, 13 answers
8. Stephen J. Plog, 552 points, 11 answers
9. Gojko Kasich, 510 points, 13 answers
10. Christopher Gilreath, 500 points, 10 answers

Update: In a post  I wrote on collaborative democracy back in April, I mentioned that our friend Mary Minow had recently traveled to Sacramento to voice her support for California Senate Bill (“SB”) 445. The Bill, which increases privacy protections for library patrons by amending the California Public Records Act, was Mary’s idea and one which she submitted as a part of a “There Oughta be a Law” contest.  As a contest winner, Mary’s bill was introduced by California State Senator Joe Simitian in Feburary, 2011. I’m happy to report that SB 445 was signed into law by Governor Brown a few weeks ago.

Way to go Mary!

As more and more information becomes increasingly accessible, our attention spans grow ever shorter. Several decades ago, one needed only to turn to the newspaper, radio, or television for all the news someone else deemed was relevant to you and your life. Now, with the Internet, blogs, email and RSS feeds, we no longer rely on others to decide what information we should be processing, for better and for worse.

If you’ve made it to this sentence, you’ve probably made it farther than 80 percent of those who read the headline. While the merits of a wealth of readily available information are generally obvious (more information means more knowledge, right?), the drawbacks are what I want to discuss.

I wanted to make sure that all of our readers are aware that Justia recently launched the new legal commentary site Verdict.  Have no fear, the Onward backbenchers will still post here, but each weekday, you’ll also be able to catch original and informed analysis of breaking news and developments in the law written by a great group of columnists over at Verdict.

Verdict columns cover a broad range of legal subjects, including constitutional law, international human rights, new technologies, discrimination, family law, law and economics, defamation, consumer issues, child sexual abuse and animal rights. Check out recent articles on such breaking legal issues as the debt limit controversy, cell phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and health care.

Verdict’s team of ten columnists includes nine former law clerks—among them four U.S. Supreme Court clerks—seven law professors and the director of a new college-level human-rights program, all currently teaching at eminent schools.  We’ve set up a twitter feed @verdictjustia if you’d like to follow Verdict there, or you can also subscribe via RSS to make sure you’re staying on top of all these great columns.  Stop by and check it out!

John Mayer, Executive Director of CALI

For the third year in a row, I’ve had the pleasure of being part of a delegation that represented Justia and the Free Law Coalition at CALICon, the annual Conference for Law School Computing^® from CALI (The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction).

This year’s conference was themed “Unbound,” which to CALI meant both the idea that boundaries to technology in legal education are falling away, and that the binding of books are becoming “electronically unbound,” which is certainly a theme we here at Justia can get behind.