For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama has succeeded in placing a judge on a key Washington appeals court.

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The State Department's Office of Chief of Protocol has provided a list of the goodies federal government officials received from foreign officials in 2011 and 2010.

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Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.



Drone strikes: The Obama administration’s acknowledgment Wednesday that drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan had killed four Americans overseas included the name of a person who hadn’t previously been identified. WSJ, Time

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Michael Hedlund graduated from Willamette Law School and took the Oregon bar exam in 1997. He failed. He tried again the next year and failed again. He lost his job at the district attorney's office as a result.He got a job as a juvenile counselor in Klamath Falls, Ore., and prepared to take the test a third time. Mr. Hedlund locked his keys in his car while stopping to get coffee on the way to the exam and missed it. His goal of becoming a lawyer seemed to vanish. His loans did not. . .

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Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, you can't be compelled to testify against yourself in a criminal case. But can you forfeit your Fifth Amendment protections by saying anything at all?

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There's a new twist in the First Amendment dispute between a Texas Tech University business professor and his school's administration.

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Maryland --- Here is an excerpt from Kindle's best selling book on Medical Malpractice Law:

"Malpractice lawyer Paul Bekman has an office in downtown Baltimore with window walls overlooking center field at Camden Yards, where the Baltimore Orioles play.
The man is obviously wildly successful, and over the years has developed “a relationship with Johns Hopkins,” which is how he put it to me. Bekman and Hopkins see each other as someone you can do business with.

For example, Baltimore Sun investigative reporter Fred Schulte wrote that “Lawyers who sue Maryland’s elite hospitals for alleged medical mistakes often don’t target the physicians involved, a practice that expedites such cases but can shield doctors from government regulators and the public.”

When doctors are removed as defendants they are not reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal program that tracks malpractice payments and is used by the health care industry to do background checks on physicians. Neither are the doctors likely to be scrutinized by the Maryland Board of Physicians—not that many doctors shudder at that prospect...."

Collateral Damage: A Patient, a New Procedure and the Learning Curve | Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation, the Selling of a Procedure

(It's a good read!)

For noise-sensitive Amtrak passengers, there's the quiet car. For hungry ones, there's the Cafe Car. But what about pet owners who want to bring along a dog or cat? Where do they sit? Furgettaboutit.

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Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.



Privacy concerns: Big phone companies have begun to sell the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers’ locations, travels and Web-browsing habits. WSJ

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These days, if you ignore the news on the abortion front for a day or two, you're bound to miss something interesting. Like a new law, or a lawsuit. Or a controversial new legislative proposal.With that, we thought we'd take the time to get you caught up on recent developments.

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n a ruling that is likely to reverberate through the video game industry, a federal appeals court said that Electronic Arts Inc. can be sued by a former college quarterback who alleges the game-maker stole his likeness for its popular "NCAA Football" series.

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The former SAC Capital Advisors LP trader at the center of what prosecutors have called the most lucrative insider-trading case ever continues to press the government for more details about the allegations against him.

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A law professor thinks that the theory v. practice debate over legal teaching needs to be reframed.

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A new video sharing app is emerging as the latest source of anxiety for employers worried about social-media risks at the office.

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Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.



Pot vote: Voters will head to the polls Tuesday to decide how Los Angeles should regulate medical marijuana storefronts that have cropped up over the past several years. AP

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Legal observers stomp on a Justice Scalia footnote.

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The Indiana Supreme Court suspending an attorney for three years for what justices described was a "mean-spirited and vindictive attempt to embarrass and harm" a former colleague who had spurned his advances.

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Hello, I have found an awesome legal project, which main goal is to help other people totally for free legal advices (only according to law of Slovenia), free contracts and so on. Their wish is, that this project would spread among other law students from different countries.


From their site: PravniPortal.si


"Project Pravo za VSE, or Law for EVERYONE if we translate it to English, is a project of a group of law students from the Faculty of Law in Maribor, Slovenia, who wanted to help people and gain precious experience and knowledge in return for this help. Its main founders are M. Senica and H. Jagodic. Pravo za VSE is the realization of the idea to translate our theoretical knowledge, gained throughout years of studying law, to practice and to help as much people as we possibly can by doing so.
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It is a fact that the times we live in can be without a doubt described as hard. Financial crisis, lack of time, spreading of the internet – these are all key elements that helped us decide to offer our services totally free of charge and via internet.


On pravniportal.si anyone can ask a legal question at any time absolutely anonymously. The team will answer the question free of charge and send the answer to the email address, stated in the form. ​
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At first there were only four students working on this project, but with time the word got out and the news about us spread throughout Slovenia. With this the number of questions also rose and this called for some changes. Today there are currently 13 law students working on the project Pravo za VSE. It all started on 23. May 2012, and until today we have helped more than 900 people.
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Our vision is to spread this great idea not only throughout Slovenia, but worldwide.
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​We are hoping that great law students will make a decision to help people who need legal advice free of charge in every single country of the world.
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The world needs solidarity desperately.
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Are you willing to be the change you want to see in the world? Help make a difference!"

The Supreme Court is tackling one of the most divisive First Amendment issues, agreeing on Monday to hear a case on whether an upstate New York town violated the Constitution by opening its public meetings with a Christian prayer.

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An experimental dessert served by one of San Francisco's trendiest restaurants is also apparently a metaphor for legal marketing.

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