Is Google Books the greatest-ever collection of human knowledge or a massive infringer of copyrights? A lawsuit brought by authors and publishers said it is the latter. In 2008, the Authors Guild and Google reached a settlement of that lawsuit, but the settlement requires the approval of the court. Recently, U.S. District Judge Denny…
Listen to Lawyer2Lawyer, Earn CLE Credit
I am pleased to announce that you can now earn CLE credit for listening to Lawyer2Lawyer, the weekly legal-affairs podcast I cohost with J. Craig Williams. Our podcast and all 15 of the podcasts produced by the Legal Talk Network are…
Planned Law and History School Launches Web Site
A planned law and history college that is gearing up to open its doors to students in August has taken another step in that direction with the launch of its Web site. To be based in Salem, N.H., the American College of History and Legal Studies will be an undergraduate “completion college,” offering only…
More on Dubious ‘Best Attorneys’ Site
Caryn Tamber at The Daily Record in Baltimore picked up on my post yesterday, Beware New ‘Best Attorneys’ Site, and did some digging of her own. Like me, she found lawyers ranked as best in practice areas that they have nothing to do with. As one of those lawyers remarked, it would all…
Dubious Achievement: Shorty Awards for Law
The Shorty Awards have been announced. They honor the best Twitter-ers. Awards are given in a number of official categories. Users can also create their own award categories. Of those 2,714 user-created categories, there is one for law.
For the winners in the law category, the achievement is somewhat dubious. Of the…
Beware New ‘Best Attorneys’ Site
With all the lawyer-ranking sites already out there, I wasn’t surprised to see yet another one make its debut. But as I looked under the skin of this latest entrant, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Launched March 1, the new site is called BestAttorneysOnline.com. A press release described it as…
The Indicted Executive’s Guide to the Justice System
The former founder and CEO of a biotechnology company who was indicted and convicted of federal criminal charges has written a 640-page guidebook to help others who face federal criminal charges. The book, The Federal Criminal Defendant’s Guide, is billed as “a blueprint to guide you throughout the entire process from indictment to probable…
Mass. Seeks Someone to Run Bar Exam
An interesting job opportunity has been posted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: executive director of the Board of Bar Examiners. This, of course, is the board that is responsible for conducting the bar exam and reviewing the qualifications of bar applicants.
The executive director provides management and support for all aspects of the…
New Blog Tracks Religious Land Use Law
A blog launched this month by a Michigan law firm may be the first devoted exclusively to the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 2000 law designed to prevent local governments from making land-use decisions that disfavor religious groups, which are exempt from paying property taxes.
The RLUIPA Blog…
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
Here are some of the events at which I will be speaking in the coming months:…
Blawg Briefs Upcoming SJC Arguments
A new legal blog, Mass. Appellate Briefs, provides an advance look at cases accepted for argument by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. “The goal,” says author Jack Cushman, “is to tell you not just what the court is doing, but what it will be doing, while there’s still time to respond — whether…