Analysis And Headlines

Federal Judges Want You to Spare Them the Clever Rhetoric and Get to the Point I spend a lot of time in the world of securities litigation and SEC enforcement. One of the best bloggers in that corner of the blawgosphere is Kevin LaCroix, the author since 2006 of an excellent blog called The D&O Diary. Today, Kevin wrote about developments in a case brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. against two former IndyMac executives that all lawyers should take note of, even those who have zero interest in the underlying case. In the course of defending themselves against the FDIC, the IndyMac executives aggressively attacked the FDIC for its failure to preserve certain documents. In court papers seeking sanctions, counsel for the defendants accused the agency of a "stunning display of incompetence" for failing to preserve documents. "The breadth and depth of the government's document-retention failures are staggering, and violations of this magnitude rarely occur," they argued. "It is a stunning display of incompetence from an agency that is supposed to be the expert at seizing and managing banks." On Jan. 30, Central District of California Judge Dale Fischer held a hearing on the defendants' motion seeking sanctions, dismissal of certain counts of the lawsuit and an adverse instruction to the jury based...

Friday's Three Burning Legal Questions Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: Where can I go in New York to meet top business executives and political figures? I'm trying to think outside of the box a bit here. Answer: Try the Midstate Correctional Facility. It is reportedly "amazing" for that type of networking. (New York Daily News, Rapper Ja Rule, serving two years for gun possession, finds new posse behind bars) 2) Question: I'm one of the best high school linebackers in the country. I was deciding between scholarships offers from Clemson to Auburn, and ultimately chose Auburn because when I visited Clemson they had no Chick-fil-A on campus. But after I signed my National Letter of Intent saying I would attend Auburn, I learned that there was, in fact, a Chick-fil-A on the Clemson campus. D'oh!! Is my Letter of Intent binding? Answer: According to the NCAA, your NLI is, in fact, binding and if you breach it and attend a different school you will lose one season of competition in your sport. On the bright side, you have a Chick-fil-A in your future no matter what you do! (Dr. Saturday, Cassanova McKinzy spurned...

Thursday's Three Burning Legal Questions Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I would like to make a donation to my law school and possibly have something named after me. My donation will be generous, but not enough to get my name on a whole wing of a building or anything like that. How about a Men's Room? Answer: That is a novel idea, but just know that if you went to Harvard Law School, the Men's Room naming rights are already taken. (Above the Law, True Story: Harvard Law Sells Naming Rights to Its New Bathrooms, and a Berkeley Law Professor Couldn't Be Happier) 2) Question: I just got my welfare check. Time to hit the strip club -- who is with me?! Answer: Not so fast. (CBS News, House bans welfare recipients' money from strip clubs, liquor stores) 3) Question: Here is the plan. I will take about five tons of ice from a glacier in my hometown in the Patagonia region of Chile (nobody is using it, trust me). Then we'll ship it by a refrigerated truck to Santiago and make designer ice cubes out of it for cocktails. Brilliant! Approve? Answer:...

Burrito Restaurant Shares Surveillance Video on Social Media to Catch Thieves The idea of catching criminals via social media seems to be catching on. Earlier this month, I wrote here about new crime-stopper programs such as Silent Witness. These programs post surveillance videos, photos and other information about crimes online, and provide people who can help identify the perpetrators with an anonymous and financially rewarding way (up to $1,000 rewards) to work with authorities. This week, I saw (via Consumerist) that companies like Boloco, a Boston burrito restaurant, are using their own social media followers and community to try to solve crimes such as the theft of a safe from one of their stores. On Jan. 28, 2012, Boloco posted the following to its Facebook page: ‎$1000 cash reward for information that leads to apprehension of these 3 individuals who broke in and robbed our Boloco Berklee location last night less than 30 minutes after our team locked the doors. We added music to the video (because that's what we do), but it was haunting even without it. We debated about whether to share this or not - traditionally this isn't something that is "shared"... but it's 2012 ... and we think everyone needs to see what is happening out there,...

Wednesday's Three Burning Legal Questions Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I'm at the public library in Seattle with my grade school-age daughter. There's a guy in the middle of the library looking at hard-core pornography on one of the library's computers! Can he do that?! This is very uncomfortable! Answer: The Seattle public library "facilitates access to constitutionally protected information," and will not compromise freedom of speech or censor information. The porn stays. (Consumerist, Should Libraries Let People Look At Porn In The Open?) 2) Question: I applied early admission to college. I went online yesterday and was thrilled to learn that I had been admitted! The admission letter instructed me to withdraw my applications to other schools, which I did right away. But when I went online later to check out the letter again there was a notice that the acceptance letter had been a mistake and I was actually rejected. Now what?? Answer: Oooofffff. That hurts, sorry. The same thing happened at Vassar recently, so keep an eye on how things shake out there. (NBC New York, Dozens of Vassar College Applicants Mistakenly Get Admissions Letters) 3) Question: I'm about to...

Use of Songs, Videos in 2012 Presidential Campaign Prompting Legal Challenges On Monday, Evan Brown noted on his Internet Cases blog that the 2012 presidential election is providing some unexpected material for Internet and intellectual property law enthusiasts to talk about. First, Brown said, the Ron Paul campaign sued certain John Doe defendants in federal court trying to determine who posted an offensive video on YouTube attacking Jon Huntsman. Next, NBC recently objected to Mitt Romney's use of a "Nightly News" video clip from 1997 that showed Tom Brokaw discussing findings of ethics violations by Newt Gingrich. Today brings yet another campaign development that may interest IP lawyers: a new lawsuit filed against Newt Gingrich's campaign for using the song "Eye of the Tiger" as his entrance music, without authorization, at his campaign rallies. Here are where these three campaign-related disputes stand at the moment: Ron Paul case: A Twitter user who purported to be a Ron Paul supporter ("NHLiberty4Paul") posted the offensive video about Huntsman. Internet Cases reports that the Paul campaign sought “expedited discovery” to allow the service of subpoenas on YouTube and Twitter, but the motion was denied. The court ruled that the Paul campaign failed to show the required “good cause” for expedited discovery. Romney/NBC: Last week,...