Consider the following scenario: You represent a foreign corporation in a breach of contract action in Pennsylvania state court. Your client is seeking substantial damages for unpaid widgets that it shipped to the defendant...more
The crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege: As an attorney, you may not anticipate it applying to your emails, your letters or your advice to your client. But even if you never see it coming, your client’s...more
On the eve of a criminal trial, you decide to Google the names of a few prospective jurors. One appears to have been suspended from the practice of law due to a criminal conviction. The next day at voir dire, however, the...more
Companies in every industry—private and public—struggle with the difficult task of promptly identifying employee wrongdoing and responding appropriately. The National Football League continues to be embroiled in a controversy...more
10/28/2014
/ Chief Compliance Officers ,
Discipline ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Ethics ,
Football ,
Internal Investigations ,
Jerry Sandusky ,
Lloyds Banking Group ,
NFL ,
Penn State ,
Policies and Procedures
You are general counsel to a company, and your CEO steps into your office, clutching his iPhone in one hand and wiping sweat from his brow with the other, and tells you that a compromising photograph of him was stolen from...more
9/25/2014
/ Celebrities ,
CEOs ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
FBI ,
Hackers ,
iPhone ,
Law Enforcement ,
Photographs ,
Popular ,
Privacy Laws ,
Takedown Notices
Lawyers must take “appropriate” steps to preserve their clients’ potentially relevant and discoverable social media evidence. That is the key take-away from an ethics opinion recently issued by the Philadelphia Bar...more
With fewer trials and an increasing focus on using the discovery process to leverage a favorable settlement or resolution, it is common for litigation counsel to be obstructionist during discovery. For example, counsel may...more
In a world where the overwhelming majority of cases never make it to trial, depositions take on outsized importance. They will almost certainly be the only in-person testimony either party has the opportunity to elicit and...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently issued two decisions regarding the use of social science experts in criminal cases. As noted by University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris, however, the opinions appear to...more
Last year, Suarez, while playing for Liverpool, was suspended for 10 games for biting a Chelsea player. Suarez issued a public apology and paid a fine. British Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated that Suarez’s conduct set...more
On June 2, 2014, a fight broke out in the hallway of a Brevard Country, Florida courtroom. The fight was between an assistant public defender and the presiding Judge, Retired Army Reserve Colonel, John Murphy, who threatened...more
Are communications between attorneys and their retained experts discoverable? For now, the answer appears to be no, as a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently affirmed a Superior Court decision “creat[ing] a...more
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr.'s recent ruling in Red Vision Systems v. National Real Estate Information Services, No. 14-0411 (Comm. Pls. Feb. 26, 2014), that the attorney-client...more
On Sept. 9, 2010, a pipeline running through a residential neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif., ruptured, permitting natural gas to escape into the air. The gas ultimately ignited, resulting in an explosion and a fire that...more
5/7/2014
Can a company require that you give up your right to sue the company if you download a coupon from the company’s website? What if you “like” one of the company’s products on Facebook? Over the last month, General Mills...more
Previously, we talked about the legal standards applied to claims of attorney-client privilege between a company's general counsel and outside consultants. Now, let's talk about practical tips for maintaining that...more
Eddie Ohlbaum, my close friend, recently passed away. He loved trial work, teaching at Temple Law and advocating for the indigent. He also loved the Brooklyn Dodgers. I called him for his input when I wrote my first...more
4/7/2014
A recent case, albeit one dealing with a governmental subpoena, shows that the SCA may not be the panacea that social networking sites think it is. In People v. Harris, Twitter sought to quash a subpoena it had received to...more
Penn State University recently decided to waive attorney-client privilege and cooperate in the criminal prosecutions of certain former employees. Obviously, the former employees have attempted to assert privilege to exclude...more
Most in-house lawyers, if they're fortunate, haven't bumped up against the Fifth Amendment and its related issues since the bar exam. After all, the so-called "nickel" typically arises solely in the criminal context, and...more
A recent court decision has added support to the idea that there is no privacy on the internet.
In United States v. Meregildo, defendant Melvin Colon moved to suppress evidence seized from his Facebook account pursuant...more