The huge climate rally last week in New York City and other cities around the globe kicked off UN Climate Summit 2014, perhaps the most important government initiative ever. To show my support, I attended the rally on my folding bicycle and filmed what I saw with a...
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Lawyers Convince Court Client Never Died
Sharolyn Jackson never died. So ruled a Philadelphia court on June 10, 2014. As a result, the formerly homeless, 51-year-old Ms. Jackson can obtain social security benefits including medical care. This unique judicial ruling arose from unusual facts. Ms. Jackson is...
They’re back! More employers using noncompete clauses.
“”There has been a definite, significant rise in the use of noncompetes, and not only for high tech, not only for high-skilled knowledge positions.” That’s according to law professor Orly Lobel quoted in the New York Times today. The truth is that noncompetes never...
Thinking of starting your own law firm?
If so, then you may wish to listen to this podcast of an excellent panel discussion, Making Private Practice Leap, sponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association on June 4, 2014, as part of its Law Firm Laboratory Series. The panelists were Steve Harvey of Steve...
Litigating Life … or Death—One Year Later
On June 5, 2013, federal judge Michael Baylson in Philadelphia made national news when he issued a temporary restraining order directing Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and the federal organ allocation system to disregard the age of Sarah...
Dr. Strangelaw or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Deposition Disputes
A courtroom trial is the law at its most glamorous. Hollywood has made it so. Think Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Al Pacino, Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, Denzel Washington, Joe Pesci, and many others. We all know the roles and the scenes: the cross exams, courtroom...
Supreme Court in Town of Greece v. Galloway Approves Overtly Sectarian Prayer Chosen by Local Majority for Public Town Meetings
The Supreme Court disappoints with its decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway. The case concerned the constitutionality under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause of government-sponsored prayer at public town meetings, where over a period of nine years the town...
Auernheimer Case Leaves Unsettled Key Issues of Internet Freedom
Celebrate Freedom. Support a free and open Internet. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (federal appellate court for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) in April 2014 decided to duck, that is, not decide, whether the U.S. Department of Justice had...
Irish Elk, Anyone?
Fossil of Irish Elk, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA. We are approaching the ten-year anniversary of the events that set into motion the “modern day Scopes monkey trial,” the 2005 landmark intelligent design case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School...
Auernheimer Case Will Define Extent of Internet Freedom
“He had to do all kinds of things I don’t even understand.” That was a quote from the government’s attorney on March 19, 2014, at the Third Circuit oral argument in U.S. v. Auernheimer. He was referring to the alleged criminal activity of the defendant, 28-year-old...