Internet Law

Lawyer is disbarred for ‘social media blitz’ intended to influence custody case and top state court

A divided Louisiana Supreme Court has disbarred a lawyer who used Twitter and an online petition to urge readers to contact two judges she accused of being unwilling to consider the evidence in two custody cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse. The supreme court disbarred 52-year-old lawyer Joyce Nanine…

Jul 8, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Ex-judge is charged with creating fake sex ads for 2 women, one of whom was a former client

A onetime Texas judge who was mired in controversy during his few years on the bench is facing new trouble. Former Galveston County Court-at-Law Judge Christopher Dupuy, 43, was arrested last week on online harassment charges. He is accused of posting fake Internet ads offering the paid sexual services of…

Jul 7, 2015 11:35 AM CDT

Lawyer can’t learn identity of anonymous Avvo critic absent defamation evidence, appeals court says

A Florida lawyer hoping to unmask an anonymous critic on Avvo isn’t entitled to identifying information absent any evidence supporting her defamation claim, an appeals court in Washington state has ruled. The decision (PDF) on Monday against lawyer Deborah Thomson is a victory for the First Amendment and lawyer Paul…

Jul 7, 2015 8:56 AM CDT

Judge nixes jury conviction of ex-Goldman Sachs programmer, calls law a bad fit in source-code case

A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer committed a crime by taking computer code for a high-speed trading program with him when he left the investment bank for a new job, prosecutors insist. But they didn’t prove their case against Sergey Aleynikov, 45, because the facts of the case don’t…

Jul 6, 2015 1:45 PM CDT

2nd Circuit OKs verdict against Apple in $450M e-book price-fixing case

A divided federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a 2013 antitrust verdict against Apple Inc. It centers on the company’s participation in a price-fixing conspiracy concerning e-books, as Apple was promoting its new iPad in 2010. Agreeing with a trial judge that the company conspired with publishers, the New York-based 2nd…

Jun 30, 2015 3:30 PM CDT

Ex-worker wins $18M in suit against CEO over blog posts; law prof’s case is still pending

A lawyer for Benjamin Wey, the chief executive officer of a New York City investment firm, says Wey never had sex with former employee Hanna Bouveng, and claims Bouveng sued in retaliation for being fired for poor work performance. However, a federal jury in Manhattan found Bouveng’s story of sexual…

Jun 30, 2015 11:25 AM CDT

Dutch court to Facebook: Turn over info about sex video or give outside expert access to servers

A Dutch court has ordered Facebook to turn over information about who posted a sex video on the social media site without the consent of the identifiable young woman depicted. If, as company officials say, Facebook cannot do so because information about how the video was posted was deleted in…

Jun 29, 2015 12:30 PM CDT

Worker who claimed law firm released her private video of sex harassment loses appeal

A woman who secretly made a video of alleged sex harassment at work can’t sue a law firm accused of releasing it to the media, an appeals court ruled last week. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the privacy and emotional distress suit by the Jane…

Jun 29, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

Top state court to hear case of lawyers accused of asking paralegal to ‘friend’ litigant on Facebook

The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether legal discipline officials have jurisdiction in an ethics case accusing two lawyers of directing their paralegal to friend a litigant on Facebook. The lawyers, John Robertelli and Gabriel Adamo, claim the Office of Attorney Ethics had no jurisdiction to charge…

Jun 25, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

‘Patch and pray’ remains the norm nearly 20 years after hackers warned US lawmakers about risks

In 1998, a group of young hackers testified before a U.S. Senate committee, warning that what one describes as a “patch and pray” after-the-fact approach to cybersecurity was bound to create serious Internet security repercussions sooner or later. Any one of the seven had the skills to take down the…

Jun 23, 2015 8:10 AM CDT

Top Cardinals executives weren’t involved in hacking, lawyer says

A lawyer hired by the St. Louis Cardinals says he is “100 percent confident” that upper management was not involved in the hacking of a computer database for the Houston Astros. The lawyer, Jim Martin, said the Cardinals hired his firm, Dowd Bennett, in February to conduct an internal investigation…

Jun 19, 2015 7:57 AM CDT

FCC seeks to impose record $100M fine on AT&T for slowdown on ‘unlimited’ data plans

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Wednesday that it will seek to impose a $100 million fine on telecommunications giant AT&T for misleading consumers about the company’s “unlimited” data plans for mobile devices. The plans could involve speeds considerably slower than what AT&T advertised, as the company throttled down traffic…

Jun 17, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Facebook posts point police to slain woman’s body and establish probable cause

Facebook posts on the account of a Missouri woman stating that she had been the victim of a violent crime led authorities in Springfield to make a well-being check and discover her dead body. Then the same posts helped establish probable cause to charge the dead woman’s daughter and a…

Jun 17, 2015 3:50 PM CDT

New York bar section releases social media guidelines for lawyers

Corrected: They’re suggestions, rather than requirements. But new legal ethics guidelines developed by the Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association say lawyers need to develop appropriate social media skills and recommend appropriate social media practices. “A lawyer cannot be competent absent a working knowledge…

Jun 17, 2015 3:15 PM CDT

Google’s requests for law firm documents are an ‘abuse of the litigation process,’ filing contends

Google is going on a “fishing expedition” for “highly confidential” documents between Jenner & Block and its clients, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the law firm contends in a legal filing (PDF) on Monday. Jenner & Block called Google’s quest for the documents an “abuse of the litigation…

Jun 17, 2015 12:30 PM CDT