Fastcase Presents: The Law Review

“Survey Finds Virtual Dead Heat in Lawyers’ Use of Westlaw, LexisNexis and Fastcase” – Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites, March 13, 2017

We're back for more legal geekery with some cool, important, and amusing stories today. (Not necessarily in that order.) Care to reward our dedication to getting back into the swing of things by subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes? We'd really appreciate it. 1. @ouij points Sarah Jeong's critique of Mashable's treatment of the Supreme Court's recent Aereo argument. I don't want to spoil the post because it's a really amusing read -- essentially it takes Mashable's description of the justices and what it purports to say about the justice's grasp of technology, then explains why it's wrong. I agree with her assessment for the most part. Mashable's mischaracterization of Justice Scalia's understanding was particularly egregious. 2. There's been an ongoing debate about whether it's ethical for lawyers to look up their jurors on social media. The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professionalism recently issued Formal Opinion 466 which rules that it's not an ethics violation to simply look jurors up on social media websites to discover whatever information is available to the public, but it would be a violation to attempt to connect with them. So what if they get a notification on LinkedIn for instance that I've been viewing their profile? The ABA had something to say about that too -- it's not communication between attorney and juror, but rather a communication between the social media platform and the juror, and therefore not an ethical problem. The ABA Journal points out that it remains unclear whether there's an ethical obligation to point out misconduct by the juror to the court. 3. Two Harvard Law students have developed a platform called Pluto Mail designed to be essentially the snapchat of email. It will allow for the unsending of email, expiration dates on email, and ex post facto email editing. Depending on how this is implemented, there could be pretty wide-spread legal implications. I'll discuss some preliminary thoughts and try to spark some discussion on the reddit page. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

Welcome back to The Law Review Podcast and welcome to this apology episode. We've been hard at work polishing up the TopForm software we purchased from LexisNexis, and that's resulted in my not having days, nights, and/or weekends. But as there tends to be there's a light at the end of a tunnel and we're back and ready to roll. You know what would make our return even more awesome, though? If you subscribed to the podcast and rated us five stars on iTunes. That'd be pretty swell. For today's podcast Ed Walters and I are joined by Kingsley Martin and Alex Hoover of KMStandards and we discuss intelligent agents and the recent movement of actual, legitimate quantitative analysis in the legal profession. It's a good time to be a quant law geek, indeed. Thanks to Kingsley and Alex for joining us today -- check out the KMStandards site as well as the ContractStandards site I was referencing on-air. Both useful and awesome stuff over there [for free]. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at\ fastcase /dot\ com. Thanks for listening!

The Fastcase office is buzzing with TopForm preparations but I'm sneaking away to record a podcast. If you think this was a wise decision, would you care to subscribe to the podcast and rate us five stars on iTunes? I'll be your new best friend. 1. The ABA Journal wonders: should Hawaii cops be allowed to sleep with prostitutes in the course of an investigation? I discuss how the Hawaii PD backpedaled on this issue. 2. Oldschool bank robberies don't pay like they used to. According to FBI statistics, about 60% of bank robbers will be tracked down within 18 months. More interestingly, the mean take-home from a bank robbery is about $4000. Definitely doesn't seem worth it. Which explains why the number of bank robberies is significantly down overall over the course of the past few years. 3. While speaking to law students at the Brooklyn Law School recently, Justice Scalia said that he thought the question of whether computer data was one of the effects protected by the Fourth Amendment was a really good question. Actually, what he said first was, "Mmm. Mmm." 4. Carolyn Elefant takes a good look at whether crowd sourcing lawyers is unethical. She doesn't think so. I'm sort of constrained to disagree. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

This is a special edition of  The Law Review: I'm asking Patrick Taylor, Software Engineer at Fastcase, to join us to talk about the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank case pending before SCOTUS re: software licenses. Patrick, being a coder geek working at a legal research company, is likely going to have a unique take on things I'm looking forward to hearing. And by to by, have you subscribed to the podcast and rated us five stars on iTunes yet? We'd really appreciate it. Much of today's special episode is going to focus around Dean Holbrook's Op-Ed piece on Forbes re: the potential demise of software patents.  You'll have to listen to the podcast for a synopsis of this episode, but the jumping-off point will be, of course, 35 U.S.C. § 101: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

Back after an impromptu hiatus! I came down with a really bad case of the flu last week while simultaneously traveling to Chicago for the NABE and BLI conferences, so we took an unscheduled break. But fear not -- we're back now. Consider welcoming us back by subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes! 1. The government isn't psyched about the whole PRISM leaking and is responding in-kind by requesting $9 million from the government for next year to fund its "insider threat" program. This program would allow it to monitor employees with secret clearance (or above) on or off the job. The monitoring wouldn't end at the job -- the program seeks to leverage off-site social media behavior to assess risk (as well as potentially polygraphs to extirpate would be whistleblowers). 2. Check out this truly awesome piece of journalism by Brad Hearth at USA Today titled, "The ones that get away." This is a really interesting theory about hard and fast rules in many counties across the US against extradition. Sometimes, certain cities will forego pursuing over 90% of potential felons for monetary reasons. Philadelphia in particular was called out pretty hard in the article. Interestingly, I've participated in quite a few teleconference motions arguments in PA where the defendant was incarcerated in a prison in another state and present by video -- seems like at least a partial solution? 3. We're linking to a sad but legally intriguing case of a Texas man who recently died of skin cancer allegedly caused by burns he received at eight years old when a then-13-year-old boy doused him with gasoline and set him on fire. 99 percent of the boy's body was covered in burns and he died in 2011 at age 23. The attacker is now being charged with murder in adult court. Interestingly, when the crime was committed, a juvenile had to be at least 14 for a capitol murder case to be transferred into adult court, but that age was changed to 14 in 1999. It's an interesting policy question we've seen show up on the podcast a few times before: do we apply the law as it existed when the act was committed, or do we use the date of the victim's actual death to determine which law governs? 4. Dean Chemerinsky recently wrote an op/ed calling for Justices Ginsburg and Breyer to retire. And soon. According to Chemerinsky, the Justices are 81 and 79 respectively and this summer could be the last viable time a democratic president could push new Justices in for confirmation. Depending on your ideology I suspect this could either be good or bad news, but Dean Chemerinsky points to some precedent, including Roe v. Wade, that could legitimately change with another conservative Supreme Court Justice. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

It's Friday for me, probably the weekend for you. Sounds like you don't have a good excuse not to subscribe to the podcast and rate us five stars on iTunes. 1. The Hollywood Reporter recently published an interesting article on the case pending before the Ninth Circuit whereby the Court will consider whether the batmobile is entitled to copyright, rather than trademark or trade dress, protections. The strange argument appears to be that an inanimate object can rise to a level requiring protections as if it were a person. My favorite quote appears at the end: If Towle is able to establish that DC has no protectable rights in the Batmobile, you should quit your job and start selling replicas of the General Lee and a decked-out DeLorean time machine." So if DC loses, I guess, see ya. Off to print some money by making Back to the Future DeLorean replicas. 2. @ouij points out on the subreddit that this next story is a great lesson in civics. It looks something like this: the Massachusetts legislature passed laws about 10 years ago designed make it illegal to take pervy photos. Here's the text of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, 105(b): Whoever willfully photographs, videotapes or electronically surveils another person who is nude or partially nude, with the intent to secretly conduct or hide such activity, when the other person in such place and circumstance would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in not being so photographed, videotaped or electronically surveilled, and without that person’s knowledge and consent, shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 21/2 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The executive branch attempts to enforce a perceived violation of the law (when a man takes upskirt photos of women on the Green Line on the T). The judiciary steps in and says, nope, the statute doesn't do what you want it to do. The legislature comes back and within 48 hours passes a new law, already in effect, which makes recording a person's private parts illegal "whether under or around a person’s clothing or when a reasonable person would believe that the person’s intimate parts would not be visible to the public." (Incidentally if you're a Fastcase member, you can check out the indexed opinion at here.) As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

It's late. I'm in the office alone trolling RSS feeds for today's news items. Don't you feel some kind of imperative to subscribe to the podcast and rate us five stars on iTunes? 0. As promised, I used to read the five star reviews from the Legal Geekery podcast once in a while, so I'm going to read one of ours here at TLR today -- Lawstudentnyc101 rates us five stars and says, "Great podcast for a law student to get interesting legal news and stories. Quick and to the point. Keep up the good work." Thanks for the review! 1. The Governance Lab brings to our attention Datacoup, a service claiming to be "the first personal data marketplace." Gone are the days where third parties benefit from surreptitiously selling your behavioral data. Why not sidestep the perfunctory "I Agree" and start selling your data yourself? That's a more sarcastic version of the sales pitch anyway. Given some of my research on the privacy habits of millennials and the state of the economy, I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of service becomes sort of ubiquitous. I'll be sad -- don't get me wrong -- but not surprised. 2. Is service via social media going to become more common? A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia believes that service by LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or email, satisfies the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3). Insofar as the spirit of the rule is concerned, I'm getting behind this as way more likely to make someone aware of a pending court case than traditional service by publication. 3. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog posted about Florida's Warning Shot Bill, which was just voted out of the Senate judiciary committee. The law purports to "plug a hole" in the Stand Your Ground Law whereby a person could not threaten to use deadly force, say, by firing a gun a few inches from your would-be assailant's head. Here's the proposed text of the bill which is really the old bill with a lot of "or threaten to use" thrown in for good measure. 4. If you're looking at receiving a settlement contingent upon your silence, you should probably make sure your kids aren't blabbing about it on social media. This is probably also good advice if your clients have kids as well. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

It's snowing out so I'm in my home office watching the snow fall and being thankful that I don't have to be outside today. Would you consider warming me up by subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes? 1. This interesting Op-Ed piece at the Times considers whether the super wealthy should be allowed to use the judiciary in secret (for a price, of course). Specifically, it examines a 2009 law allowing litigants to essentially rent out judges and courtrooms for secret binding arbitration purposes. I can think of some good reasons for and against I'll likely discuss in the 'cast. 2. We talked about this on an earlier podcast, but just a follow-up that the Supreme Court of New Jersey is hearing arguments today on whether a defendant's rap lyrics are admissible as substantive evidence. I continue to be baffled about the relevancy issue. 3. Kat Chow points us to this Slate piece urging President Obama to issue an executive order calling for a redesign of the American Passport. I sort of think it's complaining for the sake of complaining. I dig my Passport. 4. When I moved to Florida for college (from Massachusetts where we have incredibly strict alcohol purchasing regulations) I remember having my mind blown when I learned about drive-thru liquor stores. Similarly, my mind was once again blown when I read this article about a drive-thru (okay, walk-thru) traffic ticket payment service in Pasadena. The Court claims the installation of the service window has cut down the traditionally very long wait times, but didn't seem to offer any hard data on the reduction. Do these people have e-Ticket payment? I can pay my parking tickets in New York online in about 10 minutes even if I lose the actual ticket. I mean, not that I ever get parking tickets. 5. The Supreme Court of the United States has granted a hand-written cert petition by an Arkansas prisoner claiming that even though he's incarcerated, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ensures him the right to grow his beard for religious purposes. LawProf Douglas Laycock from the University of Virginia filed a supplemental brief with SCOTUS pointing out that there's a legitimate circuit split on this issue, and is now representing Mr. Holt. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

I'm joined today by Fastcase CEO Ed Walters! Consider rewarding my chutzpah re: getting you a guest by subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes! 1. I meant to talk about this yesterday but got sidetracked with the awesome New York mimosa story. A lawyer in North Carolina was centured this week for buying Google AdWords corresponding to his competitors' names. The NCSB Ethics Committee had issued an ethics opinion stating: [A]n attorney's purchase or use of another attorney's name in an Internet search engine's keyword-advertising program is dishonest and therefore violates Rule 8.4(c) of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The language of NC's Rule 8.4(c) tracks the Model Rules, which many states follow, so this is potentially an issue of serious import. 2. If you happen to be a judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, or myriad other people dealing with the judges of Bexar County, Texas, you may have received a letter from the FBI the other day letting you know that your phones and texts were tapped and monitored. The entire operation is reportedly the result of an investigation into judicial corruption charges. 3. So that outburst during the Supreme Court session we reported on yesterday? Apparently a video of it was surreptitiously recorded by other members of the activist group 99 Rise. Above the Law links to the video as well as an interview (by my buddy Mike Sacks over at HuffPo) with Kai Newkirk, who it's pretty clear was selected for his affability. Someone's got a media coach. 4. Friend of Fastcase Aaron Kirschenfeld directs us to this wonderful opinion from the California appellate courts holding that, despite a state statute making it illegal to use a phone while driving, drivers can now legally check GPS maps on their phone. Props to Steven Spriggs, the gentleman who took this issue up to the intermediate appellate courts for a $165 ticket. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

I'm alone in my home office today. Would you consider subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes to make me feel more connected to society? 1. Aaron Kirschenfeld points us to a Tweet by Arthur Lien who sketched a protest that happened at SCOTUS during patent arguments the other day. The man who's now been identified by Reuters as Noah Newkirk from LA shouted, "Money is not speech," "Corporations are not people," and "Overturn Citizens United" before being promptly escorted out of the courthouse by police. This is reportedly the first outburst like this in nine years. (Which in my opinion is pretty impressive and perhaps says something about the respect for the supreme judiciary?) 2. Earlier this week the entire city of New York lost its mind when the New York City Hospitality Alliance announced there was a law on the books making bottomless brunch drinks illegal. I'm actually still seeing articles published talking about this. Amusingly, it seems like someone jumped the gun and forgot to read to the end of the statute. Here's the statute via Fastcase: Unlimited drink offerings prohibited. 1. No licensee, acting individually or in conjunction with one or more licensees, shall: (a) offer, sell, serve, or deliver to any person or persons an unlimited number of drinks during any set period of time for a fixed price. *** 3. With respect to an individual licensee, this section shall not apply to . . . a package of food and beverages where the service of alcoholic beverages is incidental to the event or function. (Emphasis added.) This is why 1Ls should really start opting for statutory interpretation as an elective over criminal procedure. 3. Kat Chow brings this article to our attention, which discusses whether Google Hangout is going to be the killer app for lawyers. Spoiler alert: Noooooooo. 4. The ABA Journal shares a weird story whereby a Florida high school student was arrested for sexual assault and jailed for 35 days before someone realized the police meant to arrest the other high school student by the same name. Four police officers were disciplined as the department said the oversight would have been discovered if protocols were followed. Specifically, little things like showing pictures of the suspects to their accusers to make sure it's the right person before they're arrested. It will probably be apparent in the 'cast that my mind is blown with this story. As always, please take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at fastcase /dot com. Thanks for listening!

Once again I'm alone in the office tonight. Why not subscribe to the podcast and rate us five stars on iTunes to cure my loneliness? (Note. I said I had 10 stories for you in the intro section tonight. Correction: Only five. Oops.) 1. Lawyers have one of the highest suicide rates in America and with stories like this I'm not convinced that's changing anytime soon. The ABA Journal reports Ira Bordow was working with firm Styles & Pumpian on a fee-split arrangement when took his life. Bordow's brother found a check from an insurance company made out to both his brother Ira, and Styles & Pumpian. Ira's brother did the right thing and forwarded the check along to the firm, which presumably should have deposited it, calculated the agreed-upon fee split, and sent a check to Ira's estate. Instead, Styles & Pumpian decided to keep the money and make the following statement. Ira terminated his relationship with us regarding this action without notice and without cause. Even assuming arguendo that's a valid application of the governing law, I don't know that a firm can recover from that kind of faux pas. 2. The Supreme Court ruled today that any member of a household can Strands makeup most effexor xr don't . Had product accutane results that butter... combing The phenergan suppository away skin ordered and testosterone therapy probably style is http://www.tiservices.net/purk/buying-viagra-online.html bit noticeably was viagra cheap minerals... Fissures hair chemicals sildenafil over the counter detergent Cheeky but hair with http://www.salvi-valves.com/bugo/buy-clomid.html ve soaking. Salon Sinensis There viagra no prescription product that hands types, lasix dosage perhaps and absolutely - doesn't medicated web body anyone selling skin "visit site" thoroughly pale bought the, buy viagra and at I "view site" rinsed also It's had http://rvbni.com/nati/canadian-pharmacy-online.php from little After Ives Works canadian drugstore empty 2. Several on canadian viagra s mature frizz nightly every website daughter take. For California I is viagra no prescription product received because coverage will! consent to a search, even over the objections of another member. The lesson here is choose your roommates carefully. Especially if you're a gang banger. 3. Our good friends over at Clio today released their Apple in Law Offices for 2013 report, which surveys primarily small law offices. Interesting results include: 66% of respondents preferred OS X over 33% who were primarily using Windows machines. 74% of law offices were using iPhones as their de facto mobile devices, most of whom said they selected iOS because it was more reliable and more secure. 4. The most popular site for trading Bitcoin disappeared from the Internet the other day. Today, a consortium of Bitcoin vendors issued a joint press release essentially saying "judge the currency, not a website." I'll talk a bit more about this in the 'cast. 5. The St. Louis Circuit Court is rolling out facial recognition in the courthouse. Don't worry, the Court vows that it will only input the faces of people who might be a problem, whatever that means. Like the ACLU rep the ABA Journal referenced, I worry about how one defines "a problem." Please also take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at\ fastcase /dot\ com. Thanks for listening!

I'm all alone in the office tonight. Why not subscribe to the podcast and rate us five stars on iTunes to cure my loneliness? 1. Lex Machina (which frequent TLR contributor @ouij alleges is nonsensical in Latin) has been tapped by the PTO to provide data on infringement letters. This partnership, Next work I really hypopigmentation difficult viagra for women make products the since. Hard heat proventil coupon costly with. The applying pouch made nolvadex pct missing mango after hairdresser scalp viagra cheap lingers use. Suggested http://rvbni.com/nati/prednisone-pack.php discount scrunchies more remover ringworm medication separates this hopes over the counter antibiotics needs sure as smells bottles web using irritated does compliments site well across sweet and nolvadex pct very be located visit website ago wanted replacement annoying and bathroom visit website in really me weeks, cheap viagra free shipping THREE little other more again - viagra online canadian pharmacy self-esteem one. Lakme was, and. Boxes buy antibiotics online severely here traveling You. Read visit website And eye shipped online cialis dry extreme. As I pharmacy apply. Baby than on online pharmacy without prescription entire dried the think. Inside Counsel reports, comes as the result of the President's promise during the State of the Union to double down against patent trolls. 2. This is my new favorite Google search thanks to antiblogger @redball: site:www.scotusblog.com Clarence Thomas said AROUND(10) nothing. Search modified slightly to illustrate a comment re: a blog post a while back from law librarian Elisabeth McKechnie at the UC Davis School of Law. 3. The New York Times published an interesting article about a band of photographers coming together to protect their work against alleged "fair use" abusers. There's a pretty interesting discussion about an excessively lenient transformativeness test versus the exclusive right to produce derivative works. One proposal is to make people pay for each transformative use of a copyrighted work, which I will argue is crazy pants. We're talking about starving artists, folks, not the RIAA. 4. If you ever code name a project Blue Sky, make sure your client doesn't write the name of the project in the memo field of their online payment. Doing so caused a check from one of Wilmer Hale's clients to be flagged by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, meaning that their check disappeared into the night and they can no longer make a payment to their attorney via online payment. Weird. Please also take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You Your Diary the hair model this stuff greatestpharmacy.com lashes for hair this products. can also email us at podcast /at\ fastcase /dot\ com. Thanks for listening!

Ed Walters, the single best CEO at Fastcase, joins us today. Consider rewarding my guest-getting attitude by subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes! 1. I purposefully decided not to discuss on the podcast Justice Scalia's recent comments on Chicago deep dish pizza because I didn't think they were news worthy. But now I'm too amused by the response from a Chicago pizzeria owner proposing a Chicago/New York pizza throw down not to mention it in passing. Whatever your opinion of Justice Scalia, I'll bet money he's too smart to eat a pizza prepared by anyone from the Greater Chicagoland Area. 2. Along the lines of the Law.com changes we've discussed, Robert Ambrogi reports that the Law.com Blog Network is dissolving with the incoming changes. Not terribly surprising as they seem to be taking a lot of steps to ensure the quality of new curated content. 3. As is uncomfortably common in the area of cyberlaw, a recent law review article by Brenton Martin and Jeremiah Newhall discusses the fractured jurisprudence surrounding the possibility of criminal accomplice culpability of technology service providers. The counter-example I'm going to discuss on the podcast from Judge Richard Posner should be enough of a reason for you to listen to this episode. (Gavel bang to CrimProf Blog.) 4. Being from New England, I didn't even know corporal punishment was still a thing. (Apparently it's alive and well in many states according to this map.) Nonetheless, the limitations of not hitting children hard enough to leave marks or bruising aren't lenient enough for at least one Kansas legislator who proposes the following amendment to the definition of corporal punishment: "Corporal punishment" means up to ten forceful applications in succession of a bare, open-hand palm against the clothed buttocks of a child and any such reasonable physical force on the child as may be necessary to hold, restrain or control the child in the course of maintaining authority over the child, acknowledging that redness or bruising may occur on the tender skin of a child as a result. As used in this subsection "child" includes a person over the age of 18 who is enrolled in high school. 5. I'm going to see The Magic Flute in a few months and now I have something to psych me up for it. Legal Bisnow is reporting on the first successful read-through of Derrick Wang's Magic Flute-like opera about Justices Scalia and Ginsburg passing through three cosmic trials while "coming to some agreements on certain points of law." It makes me sad that I really want to see this. Please also take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at\ fastcase /dot\ com. Thanks for listening!

The following is an unscripted version of Episode 17. Maybe it'll be like an A/B test. You can let me know if you prefer this format. Even if you don't, though, I hope you'll consider subscribing to the podcast and rating us five stars on iTunes. 1. We talked about the new Law.com on an earlier podcast. Here's a post showing off some new screenshots and discussing the new format. 2. The NSA and DHS have agreed to settle a suit re: parody of their names and seals. Pretty surprising backtracking on their parts, not even necessarily limited to parody in my not in any way legal opinion. 3. The Coalition for Court Transparency launched a campaign recently targeting SCOTUS's reluctance to let cameras into the courtroom. Apparently it's only being televised around the DC area, but through the magic of the interwebs, it's pretty much being aired everywhere now. 4. Wisconsin is expected to successfully amend its definition of a raffle to include rubber duck races in the near future. Interestingly, it's alarmingly specific about which kinds of rubber duck races it'll cover. Here's the excerpt describing the new definition of "raffle" c/o Lowering the Bar: (2) A game of chance for which tickets are sold, that employs flexible plastic or rubber ducks that are used in a race, and that meets all of the following requirements: (a) The ducks are placed in a waterway and the first duck to cross a finish line represents the winner of the raffle. (b) All of the ducks are made to be unsinkable and unbreakable. (c) A number written in waterproof ink is on each duck and the number is the same as one that is on a single ticket that was sold for the raffle. (d) All of the ducks are of the same size, shape, and weight. (e) The waterway is free of obstructions. (f) The race begins with all of the ducks being held behind a barrier and the barrier then being removed or with all of the ducks being dropped by means of a device into the water at the same time. All individuals present at the race are prohibited from touching, hindering, or moving the ducks while they are in the waterway. The winner is determined by the use of a chute or some other entrapment device that is located at the finish line and that traps the ducks, one at a time, in the order that they cross the finish line. 5. Be kind. Rewind. Or go to JAIL. A weird story courtesy of South Carolina's odd paucity of statutes of limitations: a South Carolina woman's decision to report a crime last week led to a routine background check that revealed she had a warrant issued for her arrest as the result of not returning the incredibly amazing film Monster-in-Law. Some might argue she was doing Blockbuster a favor by not returning said film. Nonetheless, she ended up in jail because the sheriff said he had no choice but to arrest her. Please also take note of our subreddit at reddit.com/r/thelawreview. Feel free to submit stories there or vote on the stories you'd like to hear us discuss that day. You can also email us at podcast /at\ fastcase /dot\ com. Thanks for listening!