1. I use forms but charge you as if I did it from scratch.
BULLSHIT. You pay for a lawyer's time and talents. Using a form means less time, which means you pay less. It also means that you're using a document which was successful in the past. Let's put it this way: do you want your lawyer to try a novel legal document just for you, or do you want him to use the one that has survived the fires of litigation?
2. I hand off work to peons but charge you a lawyer’s rate.
That's illegal in every state. A lawyer cannot pass off non-lawyer's work as the product of lawyers. They can charge you a lawyer's rate for that work though, iff you agree to something that stupid.
3. My Ivy League education doesn’t make me a better lawyer.
True. Look at Bush.
4. I hope you don’t look too closely at the expense report.
Firms don't charge their clients for fixed overhead in expense reports. It comes out of the exorbitant hourly rates they charge (at large firms) or is swallowed by the firm as the cost of doing business (small-mid firms).
Here's a hint for your bullshit meter: the "source" doesn't work for a law firm.
5. You don’t really need me.
For any situation where you wouldn't normally need a lawyer, this is true. For any other situation, you can bet your ass that as soon as the shit hits the fan, the other side will have a lawyer.
6. My fee is negotiable.
Lawyers are required by ethical regulations to disclose their fees (and the negotiability) of those fees. At least they are in CA, OH, PA, NY, NJ, and TX.
7. You’re always on the clock.
You're only on the clock if you're discussing legal representation (advice, case status, etc). If your lawyer is billing you for chit chat, find another lawyer, and file a complaint with the bar. Lawyers are only allowed to charge you for actual work, and that's true in every state.
Lawyers are also only allowed to bill you for actual time put in to your case.
8. I don’t know much about the law.
A lawyer is required to disclose this to you. If he didn't, file an ethical complaint. If the violation (lack of knowledge is serious enough), he will get suspended or disbarred.
9. I don’t refer you to the best lawyers.
Bullshit. Lawyers depend on clients for referrals more than on referrals from other lawyers. If they refer you to a bad lawyer, they won't get your repeat business.
11. I don’t have to tell you how I screwed up in the past.
They do if you ask them.
12. I put on a tough act but that won’t actually help your case.
Depends on the situation on whether this is desired. You don't want a tough act for contract negotiations, but you do want a tough act for settlement negotiations.
13. Mediation might be the better choice.
This should be obvious. Your lawyer shouldn't need to tell you this. Getting along is always better than fighting.
15. I’m training junior attorneys on your dime.
This is true in a "biglaw" firm, and only in a biglaw firm. Its also true that firms discount the time charged by lawyers in training.
16. I’m a dime a dozen.
Most law school graduates drop out of the field by the 3rd year after graduation.
If you don't hire the negotiator when you get an offer, when exactly would you do it? It would be pointless to do so after accepting the offer.
Don't ever hire a large large law firm (50+ lawyers). Unless you have tens of millions at stake, to them you'll be nothing but a small fry that they use for associate training. And for that dubious privilege, you'll pay through the nose.
Go with a boutique firm if possible. Those firms are usually smaller, charge less, and have fewer clients so they can do better work for their clients. They're also better capable of addressing the non-legal issues (i.e., quality of life) related to accepting/rejecting the offer.
And don't hire an investment banker. They'll charge you a large percentage to offer you meaningless advice that you're usually better off rejecting.
I am a lawyer, and I can tell you that you're wrong.
Copyright infringement is entirely dependent on the state of mind of the infringer: you have to know that a work exists, and deliberate copy from that work, in order to be guilty of copyright infringment. The reason: it's possible for people to independently come up with the same "art", especially in music, so infringement is infringement only if its deliberate.
Courts have come up with degrees of deliberateness, ranging from intentional to accidental. (Yes, that defeats the point of using the word "deliberate".) Accidental infringement (knowing of a work in the back of your mind, and copying it, without conscious decision) usually results in minimal damages.
On another note, any person who hires a law firm (ladas.com) that doesn't understand basic copyright law deserves to lose their case.
Publication is a fancy way of saying dissemination. A blog post, a source-control commit to a public repository, a public presentation, all qualify as "publication".
You don't understand how FOPA works. FOPA is not merely a procedural defense. It is a due process protection against being arrested for mere firearm possession by local authorities.
In that situation, FOPA provides for automatic dismissal; the burden is on the local jurisdiction to prove that FOPA does not apply.
TSA stops are not arrests; the TSA is a federal agency, and so FOPA does not bar the TSA from detaining persons for firearm possession.
FOPA makes it illegal to arrest a person for carrying a firearm while traveling through a jurisdiction. It is not a defense after-the-fact, it is a complete defense.
If you are arrested, that is a violation of FOPA, which means a constitutional violation of your due process rights accorded under FOPA. This means not just an automatic dismissal of the case, but significant moola for the violation of rights.
As is typical of the usually shoddy reporting by the WSJ, the article completely fails to explain or even briefly describe the court's ruling itself, despite spending nearly 4 paragraphs describing how the ruling could be monumentally helpful for others.
(And no, providing the disposition of the case is not the same thing as providing a disposition of the legal ruling by the court.)
And those are just the commercial products. Microsoft also contributes plenty of purely academic research to various tech related fields, including AI research, electronics, and biotech.
Harm, as the law defines it, must be physical injury, monetary loss, severe emotional distress, or a substantial interference with recognized contractual rights.
Denying access to a manual is not a cognizable harm, since the customer is not contractually entitled to a manual. (Unless the box says, "Contents:...manual..."
Hence, no extortion, legally, or otherwise.
Furthermore, the manufacturer does not get to set return policies -- the STORE sets return policies. (Also, if the product was purchased with a credit card, the CC company should be more than happy to handle the billing dispute for you.)
No, it won't. You can get out of your contract only for a material change in service.
You can still search, and you can still use your preferred search engine using the built-in browser. This change merely makes it inconvenient to do so.
Ergo, no material change, ergo, no getting out of your contract.
I call bullshit on each and every one of those "facts".
- Teachers and school employees in California are paid less than teachers in NY, NJ, MA, VA, and DC.
- Public-safety workers (i.e., cops and firemen) get to retire early. Other public employees have to wait until the normal retirement age. Also, the pension doesn't pay "90%" of salary; that number is the modifier used to determine pension contributions.
- Your father is violating the law by receiving a pension and working: pensioners cannot work for any state/local agency for pay and receive a pension from a state/local agency.
- Bullshit. California spends less per capita on its social services than almost any other state, primarily b/c we have so many people. (Do you even know what per capita means?)
- True story: California pays several hundred billions in taxes to the federal government each year. It gets back less than 70% of that money in the form of federal dollars. Without California acting as the nation's piggy bank, 40 states in this country would be insolvent.
That's the exact opposite of the way the law works: you CAN ignore small-time infringers, b/c you don't need to actively patrol for abuse -- enforcement actions only need be sought once an infringement is discovered.
Courts don't have to be tech savvy for trademark law, which predates computers by some 8 or 9 decades. Most of the finer distinctions of trademark law arise not from the computer arena but from the retail arena. You seriously underestimate the level of specificity required to successfully bring a trademark infringement action.
I do disagree with what you say. US State and local governments are not filled with business development agencies or startup clinics. Those organizations which do exist are almost all privately run (with some minor government sponsorship).
You may be thinking of the Chambers of Commerce, many of which do offer similar programs but which are not government affiliated.
BULLSHIT. You pay for a lawyer's time and talents. Using a form means less time, which means you pay less. It also means that you're using a document which was successful in the past. Let's put it this way: do you want your lawyer to try a novel legal document just for you, or do you want him to use the one that has survived the fires of litigation?
2. I hand off work to peons but charge you a lawyer’s rate.
That's illegal in every state. A lawyer cannot pass off non-lawyer's work as the product of lawyers. They can charge you a lawyer's rate for that work though, iff you agree to something that stupid.
3. My Ivy League education doesn’t make me a better lawyer.
True. Look at Bush.
4. I hope you don’t look too closely at the expense report.
Firms don't charge their clients for fixed overhead in expense reports. It comes out of the exorbitant hourly rates they charge (at large firms) or is swallowed by the firm as the cost of doing business (small-mid firms). Here's a hint for your bullshit meter: the "source" doesn't work for a law firm.
5. You don’t really need me.
For any situation where you wouldn't normally need a lawyer, this is true. For any other situation, you can bet your ass that as soon as the shit hits the fan, the other side will have a lawyer.
6. My fee is negotiable.
Lawyers are required by ethical regulations to disclose their fees (and the negotiability) of those fees. At least they are in CA, OH, PA, NY, NJ, and TX.
7. You’re always on the clock.
You're only on the clock if you're discussing legal representation (advice, case status, etc). If your lawyer is billing you for chit chat, find another lawyer, and file a complaint with the bar. Lawyers are only allowed to charge you for actual work, and that's true in every state.
Lawyers are also only allowed to bill you for actual time put in to your case.
8. I don’t know much about the law.
A lawyer is required to disclose this to you. If he didn't, file an ethical complaint. If the violation (lack of knowledge is serious enough), he will get suspended or disbarred.
9. I don’t refer you to the best lawyers.
Bullshit. Lawyers depend on clients for referrals more than on referrals from other lawyers. If they refer you to a bad lawyer, they won't get your repeat business.
11. I don’t have to tell you how I screwed up in the past.
They do if you ask them.
12. I put on a tough act but that won’t actually help your case.
Depends on the situation on whether this is desired. You don't want a tough act for contract negotiations, but you do want a tough act for settlement negotiations.
13. Mediation might be the better choice.
This should be obvious. Your lawyer shouldn't need to tell you this. Getting along is always better than fighting.
15. I’m training junior attorneys on your dime.
This is true in a "biglaw" firm, and only in a biglaw firm. Its also true that firms discount the time charged by lawyers in training.
16. I’m a dime a dozen.
Most law school graduates drop out of the field by the 3rd year after graduation.