Law Blog

Based on some stats compiled by our trusty IT department, we’ve learned that of all of LegalMatch’s city and county pages across the United States, locations in the South, particularly the Southeast, generate the most interest among prospective LegalMatch clients.

For example, LegalMatch’s article on Fayetteville, North Carolina appears to have generated the most interest so far in 2009.

Also extremely popular are articles about lawyers in Bell County, Texas, and Broward County, Florida.

As past blog posts have mentioned, many areas of law that prospective clients are interested in (wrongful termination, bankruptcy, etc.) might be indicative of the current state of the economy, so it is also possible that the geographic regions are also a reflection on the economy.

Common wisdom is that small towns and rural areas have been hardest-hit by the current recession. While a person is not likely to be able to litigate themselves out of poverty, sometimes, when someone has lost their job, or is facing foreclosure on their home, another party has acted wrongfully, and they are entitled to redress.

Another reason why smaller markets in general (not particularly in the South) are a rich source of pageviews might be the fact that there are simply fewer lawyers in those areas than in big cities. For example, if you do an internet search for “New York Lawyers” or “San Francisco Lawyers,” you’re going to get a huge number of results, simply because there are a huge number of lawyers in those cities.

On the other hand, in a small town, with the legal market dominated by small firms and solo practitioners, doing a search for lawyers in those areas tends to bring up a LegalMatch article.

This is good for both lawyers and prospective clients in those areas – prospective clients, when they do a search for lawyers in a small town, rather than finding hundreds of websites for firms that may or may not be taking new cases, they come across the LegalMatch page for that town, where they know that there will be lawyers who have affirmatively indicated that they are taking new cases.

In an interview, the great Bruce Lee once expounded upon the amazing qualities of water.  He viewed its properties as a guiding philosophy to be followed by martial artists looking to improve their fighting abilities.  And he was right, water is pretty impressive.  When it’s a torrent it can tear down a forest, as a stream it can gradually split a mountain, and at the same time we drink it to keep hydrated and stay alive.  But apparently if you drink too much of it you can die from something called water intoxication, which is exactly what happened to a woman 2 years ago.  Remember that case?

Well, the family of the deceased wife looking to win a Nintendo Wii for her kids sued.  Now after two years of litigation, the jury has finally reached a verdict in favor of the aggrieved family and levied a damage award of $16.6 million to be paid by the radio station.

In case you guys have forgotten about this one (and I don’t blame you as I can barely remember whether or not I brushed my teeth this morning) the woman’s name was Jennifer Lea Strange.  She was a 28-year-old mother of three children who entered into a radio contests in California to win the then very elusive Nintendo Wii (which, by the way, is no longer quite as elusive and cheaper to boot).  The contest required contestants to drink large amounts of water and then hold in their urine.  The contestant who could drink the most water while resisting the urge to use the bathroom the longest would win the coveted video game system.  Strange won the contest, but ultimately and unfortunately lost her life in the strange (no pun intended) process.

Now some of you may be wondering why in the hell would anyone subject themselves to this kind of suffer for what is essentially an electronic toy.  Well, regardless of whether or not you have children, I think everyone (except probably my parents) can all understand the very pressing need to get a person we love that “perfect gift.”

More importantly, however, Strange’s case serves as a reminder to corporations, businesses, and people in general everywhere of why you should think twice before committing poorly thought out acts that can lead to serious harm or death.  And that should you decide to go forward with said poorly thought out act, if you’re a radio station have enough sense to stop and heed the deluge of warnings from your listeners.

The sad truth is LegalMatch receives many wrongful death cases every year, cases that could have been easily prevented but for the negligent actions of another party.  Wrongful death cases are not just incredibly costly from an economic standpoint (i.e. lawyers fees and the potential for incredibly large jury awards for compensatory, punitive, and emotional distress damages), but from a purely human perspective, cases of negligence resulting in serious injury or wrongful death means that a person has suffered deeply and permanently.  And that the harm is not only limited to the immediately damaged party, but also that party’s family.  The toll is emotional, physical, and financial.

So what’s the lesson here?  It’s the same one that my dad has been telling me since I was born: Don’t be stupid.

It’s official – we’re now taking our legal cues on privacy from China and South Korea.  Not literally of course; though like every American court we can still look to another country’s legal statutes and cases for inspiration… though that’s going away from the point of my post today.

You remember email, right?  That thing you’ve been using as your main source of written communication since the last decade?  The major form of correspondence that has surpassed old-fashioned snail mail and which is relied upon by everyone from business titans to celebrities, the president, and your aging grandmother (who floods your inbox with those funny grammatically incorrect cat pictures)?  Yeah, that email – it’s no longer protected against searches from the police.

“No, that can’t be right!  Right?  Email?  They are no different than letters you received in the mail; how can they not be afforded the same protection?” Well, apparently if you think like that you’ve been preempted by a federal judge, my friend.

Specifically, this ruling comes down from and Oregon Federal Judge Michael Mosman (I almost typed Michael Madsen; if he gave the ruling I might’ve been less outraged).  Judge Mosman argues that unlike regular snail mail which is handled by postal employees, e-mail should not be afforded the same protection against unlawful searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment because when an email is sent, it goes through various Internet service providers.  By traveling through these different providers, each email leaves a digital image of itself with each ISP.  And apparently this fact is enough to distinguish email from regular land mail because by leaving a digital copy of itself, emails are in essence open to the ISP to read and monitor and therefore people who send emails cannot expect to have the same level of privacy as when one sends a regular piece of mail through the post office.  Judge Mosman’s full opinion can be read here (please note that the link is to a PDF).

Sound mental?  Yeah, well it should.  Judge Mosman seems to hang his ruling on the notion that because emails aren’t sealed in envelopes like a written letters, people should expect it to be read.  Now to be fair, police would still need a warrant to search through your email.  However, they’ll just need to submit the warrant to an ISP that has your emails to get access to them, thereby completely bypassing you and giving you no notice before invading your private emails.

Now on one hand, Judge Mosman’s argument makes some sense.  Junk mail in the form of post cards and brochures are almost never sealed and the courts have generally viewed these as forms of advertisement and therefore not protected under the Fourth Amendment since it’s argued that junk mail is meant to be seen by as many people as possible.  However, this is also where Judge Mosman’s argument breaks down because private emails aren’t advertisements, but are actual private communications between parties.

“But Andrew, what about the whole issue of emails leaving digital copies of themselves on ISPs and not being sealed like normal letters?”  Well let me answer that question, too, and thank you for asking so kindly.  Though emails are not physical sealed, they are often digitally encrypted to prevent prying eyes from seeing its contents.  Therefore, an analogy can be drawn between sealing and encryption since they both show the sender’s intent to keep their communication private.  Furthermore, like postal workers who we trust not to open our mail, similarly we trust our ISPs not to read our emails.

Anyway, all my ranting is meaningless until someone challenges Judge Mosman’s ruling or the legislature passes a law that gives emails the same protection against unlawful searches and seizures that physical mail enjoys.

So get started people, write your senators and congressmen, just don’t email them – for now.

We often hear that victims of violent crime are more likely to know their attackers than to be the victim of a random act of violence. LegalMatch case data, covering intake reports from all 50 states over the past 12 months, appears to bear this out.

According to our case data, the most common responses prospective clients gave when asked about the identity of their attacker was “someone I know” or “a family member”.

This runs contrary to the image that many members of the public have with respect to violent crime; a crazed stranger jumps out of the bushes, assaults their victim, and runs off. While random acts of violence certainly occur, they are comparatively rare, and it seems that many people spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about them, given how unlikely they are to occur to a given person.

This is not to say that people shouldn’t take common-sense precautions to reduce the risk of violent crime committed by strangers. These include minimizing time spent alone, outside, at night. Other measures, such as traveling in groups, and sticking to well-lit areas, are also advisable. It might also be helpful, if you are comfortable doing so, to carry some kind of non-lethal defensive weapon, such as pepper spray (but be sure to check your local laws on this).

However, what might be overlooked are conditions that could lead to the more likely scenario: violent crime committed by acquaintances or family members of the victim. The ways to minimize these risks are not nearly as simple as the ones discussed above.

There aren’t many clear-cut ways to avoid violent crime by acquaintances, unless you want to become a hermit. Since that isn’t an option for most people, the situation is complicated.

Not being in a position to give relationship advice, this should be taken with a grain of salt, but it seems that things such as relationship counseling and getting out of abusive relationships (easier said than done) would be helpful in reducing such incidents. Eliminating violent crime altogether is not possible, but any reduction is a good thing.

It’s a weird thing when you start studying the law.  Once your friends and family find out, they seem to come to you for every single law-related problem that comes up in their lives.

I suppose it’s true for every field of study or vocation.  Doctors probably have their cousins asking them to look at moles and pus-filled gashes.  Astrology professors probably have their aunts pestering them to find Orion’s Belt.  Taxi drivers probably can’t get their siblings to stop using them as a substitute for Google Maps.  The list goes on and on.  And the best part about all of this is that all the people who ask you these questions don’t care whether their question is within your field of specialty.  Resulting in situations like this:

“Hey Phil, what street do I take to get to the Eifel Tower?”

“I don’t know, my taxi only operates in New York.”

Okay, so maybe it’s not as drastic as that, but you get my point.

Anyway, regardless of the absurdity or irrelevance of the question, you always end up answering it to the best of your ability because, hey, what can you do?  They’re your friends and family and you like them (for the most part), which brings me to the point of today’s post.

I was talking to a friend the other day.  Let’s call him Norman because I don’t him to get pissed off at me using his suffering for my work.  Norman is a really nice honest guy.  He’s the type of person to go through his whole life never trying to cause a scene, which is good in some ways, but bad in a lot of others because maintaining that kind of lifestyle often leads to his inability to defend himself.

Anyway, about a couple years ago Norman opened up a small convenience store.  His store was located within a mini-mall in his hometown.  It was a good fit for him because on top of being really nice, Norman is also really laid back and doesn’t like doing strenuous and stressful work.  Before renting out his location, Norman was able to secure the right to be the only purveyor and seller of food in the mini-mall.  The agreement was promised in Norman’s contract with the mini-malls owner.

But last month, Norman neighbor, a Laundromat, put out a soda vending machine in front of his store.  Norman saw this as a violation of the non-compete clause he had in his contract, but when he went to the mini-mall’s owner to tell his neighbor to take the soda machine down, the owner refused.  He claimed that soda is a drink and therefore didn’t count as a type of food so it was perfectly in line with Norman’s contract.  Norman then came to me to see what his chances were to get the soda machine put away.

This situation happens a lot.  Just taking a look at the number of unfair competition cases LegalMatch gets every year is good evidence of the popularity of these types of disputes.  My advice to Norman was the same that anyone knowledgeable in the law would give: it depends.

Basically in most jurisdictions, for non compete clauses to be invalid they have to be overly broad as to be considered unreasonable.  In Norman’s situation, it would seem like his non-compete clause was pretty clear since it outlined a specific limitation that could be reasonably followed (that he’d be the only food store).  And that in my opinion I’d think that he’d have a fairly easy time convincing a judge that drinks can be considered food because it’s something that’s consumed.

But like everything in the law, nothing can be certain.  Because even when all the cards seemed stacked in one direction, a good lawyer can easily make them fall in the other.