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Morning Docket: 12.15.11

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* Guys in my high school White House dropped threats to veto defense bills authorizing infinite detention of U.S. citizens all the time, it was no big deal. Nothing like bastardizing the Sixth Amendment. [New York Times]

* So much for occupying the court system, eh? This judge won’t budge on dismissals, and more than half of the OWS protesters who appeared in court yesterday accepted an offer over going to trial. [Bloomberg]

* Gibson Dunn says that it will file a motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s Facebook suit in January. Now taking bets on whether Ceglia will have another lawyer by then. [Buffalo News]

* Just like Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray’s money was gone too soon. He’s requesting a public defender to handle the appeal of his conviction for involuntary manslaughter. [CNN]

* Lindsay Lohan was finally able to please Judge Sautner during her probation progress hearing. She was also able to please her adoring fans, because she reportedly flashed her bra. [USA Today]

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Perkins Coie Gets E-Male; Does This Qualify as a Legal Response?

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Just when you thought “revenge porn” couldn’t get worse, IsAnyoneUp came along. In addition to posting user-submitted nude photos — often sent in by someone’s angry ex — the site’s proprietor, Hunter Moore, includes a screenshot of the amateur porn star’s Facebook profile page, so that it’s clear exactly who the person is, where they live (and work), and how to contact him or her. It’s not the only porn website where those featured get “poked,” but the only one where visitors get to do the poking.

Those featured on the site have struggled to get their photos taken down — the most successful legal approach so far has been to claim copyright and issue a DMCA takedown notice. Now Facebook is bringing its legal power to bear. Facebook had its lawyers at Perkins Coie send the site a cease-and-desist notice, saying Moore was violating Facebook’s terms of service by harassing users and posting their content without their consent. Moore immediately posted a copy of the letter to his NSFW site, and was excited to send Perkins lawyer Joseph Cutler a response.

“I replied with a picture of my dick,” he told Gawker. Classy.

Continue reading at Forbes.com….

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Morning Docket: 11.30.11

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* Facebook settled with the FTC over its privacy violations. Mark Zuckerberg will be adding a “dislike” button to the site so he has an appropriate way to deal with this. [National Law Journal]

* The lawsuit seeking to overturn gay marriage in New York will proceed. Eric Schneiderman just got disinvited from more holiday parties than he can even count. [New York Times]

* On appeal, Dechert will get to walk away from the Dreier drama without losing a single dime, but not if Marc Kasowitz has anything to do with it. [New York Law Journal]

* Herman Cain’s defamation lawyer, Lin Wood, is apparently living on a very nice planet where “guilt by accusation” isn’t already the norm in the realm of politics. [Washington Post]

* What’s with all of the child predator attorneys flocking to New Jersey? Solo practitioner Tobin Nilsen got 12 years for trying to have sex with a 7-year-old girl. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

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Model Who Says, ‘I’m Too Sexy For This Trademark’ Loses $81K Suit

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The real Elizabeth Sky

The Internet may be infinite, but people still are constantly fighting over online real estate. It happens in the porn industry, and it happens to celebrities. Even Miami Dolphins cheerleaders have to fight for their right to party at their own website.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently ruled in a dispute between two models using the stage name Elizabeth Sky. The defendant allegedly went on a campaign across the Internet to destroy the other model’s social networking presence. Will the real Elizabeth Sky please stand up, please stand up, please stand up.…

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The Practice: The Definitive (All You Need To Know) Guide (This Is It) To Social Media For Lawyers

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Sorry to disappoint the snake-oil salesmen, but in this small post I will buck the trend, and debunk the fallacy of non-practicing lawyers who write books about social media for lawyers. Here, today my friends, I will tell you everything you need to know about the complicated and scary topic of: how to talk to people on the internet like a normal person.

Facebook

If you think Facebook is code for “high school,” you’re correct. But if you live in the same town you went to high school, why not connect with your loser friends who have some mid-level job? They need lawyers. Yes, as part of reconnecting with your past you’ll experience the joy of seeing that girl you wanted to date has moved to some small crap town and married Jim, who’s prematurely bald but “an awesome husband,” but so what?

Do not post every single picture you take of your kids, dogs, in-laws with your kids, kids with your dogs, the 189 pictures of your vacation, or “fake” complain about the first class service on some airline. You’re practicing law, not creating a family scrapbook.

Do not have a Facebook fan page for your law firm. No one should ever be a fan of a law firm. You are not a “rock star” and even if you were, rock stars do not ask people to be their fans. It just happens with good music. Asking people to be your “fan” may also violate your state bar ethics rules, if that kind of nuisance interests you — you know, ethics rules….

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Facebook Spoliation Costs Widower and His Attorney $700K in Sanctions

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When a tipster sent us an e-mail with the subject, “Court awards $700,000+ in sanctions for destruction of FB page,” I thought it sounded like it might be interesting. Because hey, that’s a lot of money.

I didn’t realize it would also be one of the most depressing legal news stories I’ve read since this tragic murder-suicide.

The three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar sanction award was levied against the widower of a woman killed in a car accident and the widower’s lawyer. The ruling was an abrupt table-turn for Isaiah Lester, who had previously won a $10 million wrongful death suit against the driver whose truck overturned and killed his wife.

Keep reading for the depressing details….

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Size Matters: Should I Friend a Small Firm?

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Like many of my other uber-productive legal brethren, I spend an obscene amount of time on Facebook. In between looking at pictures of friends in slutty Halloween costumes and friend’s babies in slightly less risqué garb, I decided to look for small firms on Facebook. Much to my delight, I found a great Facebook page belonging to the Lee Law Firm. With 5,717 other fans (or are we called something else now on the new Facebook?), I was not the only person to appreciate the firm’s highly effective use of Facebook.

So why do the 5,718 of us dig the Lee Law Firm’s Facebook page? Let me count the ways….

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Morning Docket: 11.03.11

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* Only in Texas can a judge get paid leave after a video of him beating his daughter’s ass goes viral. Makes you wonder about the kind of crazy sh*t you’d need to do to get stuck with unpaid leave. [KRIS TV]

* A federal judge has ordered Paul Ceglia to return from Ireland to produce more of his hidden destroyed missing evidence. Oh, Facebook, always trying to steal his lucky charms. [paidContent]

* Memo to the NBA: you know you’re playing on the wrong court, right? On the bright side, at least we don’t have to worry about this happening with the WNBA. Or anyone caring about it if it did. [Bloomberg]

* Bar passage rates for first-time takers in New York were up by half a percentage point. Biggest contributing factor: I didn’t take the New York exam. Yeah, you’re welcome. [New York Law Journal]

* Joe Francis is suing over a debt dispute and vows to take the it to the Ninth Circuit if he loses. He needs to realize that no one cares about what he does unless it involves boobs. [Washington Post]

* Don’t be fat and then smush a lawyer at Shea Stadium. You’ll break her back, she’ll sue, and you might be known as the guy who got fat people banned from the upper deck. [New York Post]

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New York Court Says Sometimes Facebook Info Might Actually Be Private

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Remember how everyone used say, “Don’t post anything on Facebook you wouldn’t want your boss to see. But if you do, just make sure you set your privacy settings so that your boss can’t see.”

Well, things have changed. Now, when companies enter workman’s compensation or personal injury litigation, courts will sometimes order discovery on password-protected Facebook information.

On Thursday, a New York appeals court ruled that a company could not see the plaintiff’s protected data, but not simply because it was private. Let’s see what happened…

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Inside Straight: Why Your Four-Month-Old Social Media Policy Is Obsolete

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Four months ago, you revised your company’s policy on employees’ use of social media. The policy said all the right things: When employees use social media, they should respect the rights of others and treat people with dignity; obey the company’s code of business conduct; maintain corporate confidences; and so on.

Unbelievably, some recent communications from the National Labor Relations Board suggest that each of those provisions (except for the “and so on”) could actually cause your company some labor pains. Why?

Here’s the easy part: The National Labor Relations Act protects employees who engage in “concerted activities” for the employees’ “mutual aid or protection.” Those words apply across the workforce and are not limited to unionized employees. An employee acting solely on his or her own behalf is not engaging in “concerted activities.” On the other hand, consider an individual employee who is working with (or on the authority of) other employees, or is trying to induce a group of employees to act, or is bringing group complaints to the attention of management. The NLRA may protect all of those activities, and an employer may violate the NLRA if it maintains a rule that could reasonably “chill employees in the exercise of their” rights.

What does that mean for the three examples suggested in the opening paragraph of this post?

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