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Today’s Tech: How A California Personal Injury Attorney Uses Google Glass

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As you know, in this column I examine how individual solo and small-firm lawyers are using new technologies in their day-to-day practices. Hopefully, my columns will encourage and help other lawyers to do the same.

In today’s column you will meet Mitch Jackson, a California personal injury attorney, and will learn how he uses the wearable technology Google Glass in his law firm. Mitch founded his law firm, Jackson & Wilson, Inc., with his wife in 1988. Since then they’ve dedicated their practice to representing victims of personal injury and wrongful death.

It’s entirely possible that you’ve already heard of Mitch. Whether on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube, he has an incredibly strong social media presence. Most recently, part of his online focus has been on his use of Google Glass in his law practice. So of course he immediately came to mind when I conceived of the idea for the column. I knew I had to reach out to Mitch and explore how he uses Google Glass in his practice — and whether the technology is actually useful or whether it’s too nascent to be particularly helpful for lawyers.

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The Trouble With Insider Trading Prosecutions

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Time Magazine cover boy Preet Bharara

In the federal criminal world, there are certain cases where the government almost always wins.

Illegal reentry for a previously deported person, for example, is pretty close to a lock for a government win — all the government has to show is that the person isn’t a citizen, was previously deported, and is in the United States again. If the dude’s in the courtroom, the government is a third of the way there. For example, in the last fiscal year, there were 20,840 folks charged with illegal reentry.  Four of them were acquitted at trial.

Similarly, bank robbery is a high-percentage game for the government. These days, most banks have amazing technology that lets them record pretty much everyone inside. Last fiscal year, 896 people were charged with bank robbery. One lucky guy was acquitted.

These days, federal law enforcement is using wiretaps and, according to the Wall Street Journal, old-school sting operations, to go build white-collar cases (it’s a pretty cool article — very cloak and dagger). The strategies that got the federal government the conviction rate it has in drug and gun cases are being applied to investment fraud and insider trading cases.

This is one reason that insider trading cases have looked like as much of a layup as a bank robbery case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York has secured a record of 85 convictions in either guilty pleas or trials without a single loss.

Until this week….

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Morning Docket: 07.10.14

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See the resemblance here?

* Utah is appealing its gay marriage case directly to the Supreme Court, presumably because the state’s attorney general doesn’t even want to bother with an en banc hearing before the Tenth Circuit. This should be good. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* Perkins Coie recently appointed its first ever Washington, D.C.-based managing partner in its 102-year history. Congrats to John Devaney, who will lead a “true national firm” beginning in January 2015. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* When your career goes awry in Biglaw through no one’s fault but your own, you can end up living your life in shame or in jail. We’re going venture a guess and say the former is nicer than the latter. [Am Law Daily]

* How can law school graduates obtain law work experience? Simple. Get on your knees and learn how to please. Just kidding. Take some advice from this “poorly written” article instead. [CollegeRecruiter.com]

* Everything about Lacey Jonas from Grand Theft Auto V is so Lindsay Lohan-esque that she should totally win her lawsuit. Just take it from someone who’s “no legal expert, but know[s] [her] tabloid stars.” [TIME]

* Need a break from bar exam studying? Searching for something to do as a summer associate? Are you an attorney in need of fun? Come to tonight’s trivia event! All are welcome, sign up here. [Above the Law]

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Radical Right-Wing Lawyer Fights With Revenge Porn Site On Twitter — Everyone Wins

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Winston Churchill once said, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

This quote springs to mind when confronted with the ongoing legal tussle over the “revenge porn” site Pinkmeth.com. As vile as that business may be, the intrepid attorney battling to shut it down has an ally with a reprehensible past of his own — like fronting an organization recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a bona fide hate group. It’s a legal conflagration that makes you want to cast a pox on both houses and curl up in the fetal position and pray for humanity.

But in the wake of the latest lawsuit filing, the two sides took to Twitter to lower the debate with public sniping.

Just like that, it’s the rest of us that win….

UPDATE (7/10/14 4:37 p.m.): The attorney involved in this suit, Jason Lee Van Dyke, has drafted a response to my post, which you can read on page 3. If you’ve already read this post, you can jump directly to page 3 here.

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.09.14

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* Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes took advantage of Washington state law and purchased himself some legal pot yesterday, making him the highest-profile lawyer in the country. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

* DC Comics blocked plans to build a memorial to a murdered 5-year-old Superman fan dressed in costume. Realizing that this was awful and stupid, they’ve reversed themselves. [Gawker]

* New York Justice Roger Barto said he was attacked and beaten with a toilet seat. The police disagree. [WHAM]

* Laurence Tribe recounting his experiences with a young Barack Obama. [Fiscal Times]

* Remember when Justice Scalia screwed up that decision and quietly edited it hoping we wouldn’t notice? Well the days of the secret editing of SCOTUS opinions are over. [CREW]

* The continuing coverage of the Donald Sterling trial: Sterling takes the stand. [mitchell epner]

* We talk a lot about work-life balance among lawyers, but we don’t think much about the work-life balance among law professors. [TaxProf Blog]

* If you wanted to understand the UK legal market, this infographic is basically “choose your own adventure” for a legal career across the pond. [Gorvins]

* What do the former Biglaw Bigshot and Joan Rivers have in common? [Law and More]

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Thanks A Lot To All Of Our Advertisers On ATL

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Thank you to our sponsors here at Above the Law:

If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, please download our media kits or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!

This Dominatrix Needs A Lawyer. Any Volunteers?

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Here is Virginia’s prostitution statute:

§ 18.2-346. Prostitution; commercial sexual conduct; commercial exploitation of a minor; penalties.

A. Any person who, for money or its equivalent, (i) commits adultery, fornication, or any act in violation of § 18.2-361, performs cunnilingus, fellatio, or anilingus upon or by another person, or engages in anal intercourse or (ii) offers to commit adultery, fornication, or any act in violation of § 18.2-361, perform cunnilingus, fellatio, or anilingus upon or by another person, or engage in anal intercourse and thereafter does any substantial act in furtherance thereof is guilty of prostitution, which is punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

If you think that fully covers all reasonable definitions of “prostitution,” well then you probably have an uncreative mind and a boring sex life. Look, the law gets even more vague further down:

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The Internet — A ‘Silk Route’ For The Ages

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We broke up. I dropped the bitch cold. No quarter. No compromises. No regrets.

I left the practice of law. Here’s what happened next….

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Back In The Race: Getting Professional Help

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Soon after I started my solo practice, I realized that I needed to develop and execute a plan for getting new clients. At first, I did it the old-fashioned way: networking, joining organizations, giving elevator speeches, passing out business cards, and doing contract work for other attorneys. This method took time and cost money and it didn’t work to the extent I had hoped. So I asked a few colleagues whether I should hire someone to help me improve my business.

I received the names of consultants, SEO experts, and coaches. Someone even suggested I talk to Tony Robbins. Some people swore by them while others said that the “advice” they provided was a bunch of hooey and can be found on the internet or at the library for free.

Over the last few years, I have become very skeptical of business development professionals (sometimes known as “marketeers”) who claim that they know the “secret technique” for improving my solo practice. A number of them are lawyers or ex-lawyers who — for one reason or another — decided to go into consulting and coaching. Also, some of these “experts” have questionable backgrounds and may not understand the professional rules that we lawyers have to follow.

I should point out that the purpose of this post is not to badmouth any particular person or the legal business development industry. This guy covered that already. But click onwards to find out the reasons for my skepticism and my thoughts on when it might make sense to retain a business development professional….

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Donald Sterling Calls Lawyer A ‘Smartass’ During Testimony

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Donald Sterling

Go back to answering questions rather than making somewhat entertaining comments.

– Judge Michael Levanas, in response to Donald Sterling’s combative antics during a trial to determine whether the 80-year-old billionaire was competent to remain as co-trustee of the Los Angeles Clippers trust. During testimony, Sterling called opposing counsel a “weird lawyer” and a “smartass.”

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Greetings From The Great White North

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Ed. note: Please welcome Steve Dykstra, our newest columnist, who will be covering the Canadian legal market.

I am a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. I recruit throughout North America so I really get to study the legal systems on both sides of the border. I thought it would be fun and interesting to highlight some of the differences between the American and Canadian systems — hence the column’s title, “The View From Up North”.

As this is my first column, I want to provide a bit of an overview. In coming weeks, I’ll focus more narrowly on specific topics.

Sound good?

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How To Get A Competitive Edge On The Bar Exam

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Ed. note: This post comes to us from Professor Joseph Marino, Executive Director of Marino Legal Academy.

I have never met a student that failed the bar exam because they did not know enough law. They failed because they could not score points with the law they knew.

JFK, Jr. failed the bar exam twice with other bar courses, receiving MBE scores of 117 and 118 (scaled), before skyrocketing to a 167 score after some one-on-one time with a trained Marino Tutor and having learned my MBE method.

In the last few weeks of your bar studies, you should focus on how to score points. I call this the “memory and exam performance” part of bar review. Exam Performance Training is learning how to score points. Marino Legal Academy has several well-tested tools to boost your ability to score points on the bar exam…

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