Does that include the workman's comp insurance company that decided the lump that appeared on my wrist the day after I had to lift an 200 lb machine with my bent hands was in fact, created by a wrist sprain I had had 12 years before?

Any good recommendations for Question/Answers for COn Law, Crim Law, Civ Pro?

Was looking at Siegels. Thoughts?

Finding old exams is preferable imo

Hey guys I've been wanting to get a legal opinion on whether online poker is legal in my country. I know I should have posted this in the Poker Legislation forum but I kinda thought asking guys with legal knowledge would be better

Anyway here goes...

There has been no case law on this matter and the Legislature certainly did not enact this with online gambling in mind.

I think the issue here is whether my home can be considered a 'common gaming house'

My thoughts:
- A private dwelling does not fall within the the first category of places that amount to a CGH since it is by default not open to the public. However, does the phrase 'may have access' connote that a mere possibility of public access is sufficient? When read in light of the second category ('whether or not...'), I would think not.

- For the second category, one can argue that the home his not KEPT for habitual gaming. The first category is wider and includes places 'kept or used' for gaming. We can thus infer that the second category was meant to have a narrower scope of application.

- Even if this is not the case, the word 'habitual' (which is absent in the first category) is open to argument. Now I know this point doesn't hold much weight since grinding for a couple of hours a day would probably constitute 'habitual gaming'.

- Does the presumption apply to the second category? ie. Is it logical to say that using a place for the purpose of habitual gaming the very first time renders it to be habitual gaming? I'm not entirely sure if the presumption operates in this manner.

Comments guys? Thanks for reading really appreciate it

insurance defense? seriously?

Right now about 40% of my practice is insurance defense, but my experience isn't typical of insurance defense attorneys since I don't work for an "insurance defense firm" (the client I work for is the only one we do insurance defense for) and my adjusters don't bust my balls over billing and what I'm doing. A former associate of my firm actually left because he liked the defense work better than the rest of the work we do (we are mainly a plaintiffs firm), and the stories he tells are crazy. Billing is the main source of hell: the insurance companies have a the ID firms' balls in a vice grip, and the firms pass it on to associates. The detail required for billing is insane. For example, if you spend 4.5 hours looking at documents, on your billing entry you have to list the type of documents, what you were looking, number of pages, and any reason why it took longer than normal. The companies cut hours like mad at their own discretion. For instance, they just assume it takes no more than 2.0 hours to draft an answer, regardless of the case, and won't pay the firm for anything over that. At least one firm I know of won't give their attorneys credit for anything they don't get paid for.

As for the work itself (at least in the construction defect field), it is pretty boring but a great way to bill hours. Depositions often take all day, even for a minor party, due to the fact that most cases have several parties who all have attorneys that want to get on the record. There is a lot of document review, which blows, but again, it's a good way to bill hours.

In sum, if I did all insurance defense work (and got paid what insurance defense attorneys get paid) I would probably hate it, but as it is it is a great way to get billable hours.

The billable hour is a complete joke. I have no idea why non-public companies put up with it.

I agree with almost all of what Hey_Porter said. I'm in the same boat in that ID is a good chunk of my work, but it's not all I do, or all the firm I work for does. I do mainly auto insurance defense, for one major well-known national carrier and a few smaller regional ones. Cases range from minor (<$10k) property damage claims to wrongful death suits with $500k+ at stake. Like I said, if you enjoy litigating, or think you would - it's definitely a good field to get into, and like Hey_P said, an excellent source of billable hours even if it's not your primary area of practice.

Civ Pro - E&E by Glannon is pretty good, unless your prof ends up filling the test with questions about process values and what dangers are inherent in increased scope of summary judgment

Con law- Chemerinsky is the nuts, but it's not really a Q/A book.

Crim- Dunno. I think I'm just gonna read the MPC like twice and hope for a B

To what extent do you think hour cutting is built into the hourly rate?

lol. I had many days at my firm where my daily billable report literally just said "10.5 hours - doc review"

From what I understand, not at all since the insurance companies have complete control over that too. The hourly rate of partners at one of the biggest ID firms in town is less than my hourly rate, and I am two years out of law school.

Yea, this is pretty much what mine look like. The one thing they won't let us do is block bill. Our firm is having to do better with that anyway because a few judges in the federal district court here are getting bitchy when it comes to block billing on fee petitions.

I love reading cases where judges smack down lawyers for juicing bills.

I was reading one case about offer of judgment calculation and Attorney A billed like 10% of total bill and Attorney B billed 90% and the judge was like "I'm sure B thinks very highly of himself, but since A did all of the work at trial, was the only one that actually showed up for hearings, and filed all of the work, B is kidding himself if he thinks I'm giving him that much money"

Best story I've heard locally was in an arbitration involving a commercial lease where damages were less than $30,000. Not sure on the exact details, but the plaintiff landlord was represented by one of the big firms in town and prevailed, but was only awarded damages of $7,000 or so. Defendant had offered $10,000 to settle before arbitration. Plaintiff filed an attorney fee petition for $120,000 dollars, accompanied by a letter stating that the plaintiff knew it was a pretty big fee and that they "would be willing to voluntarily reduce it by 15%."

A friend of mine does contract work for the defendant's attorney and saw the petition, and almost all of the hours were billed by a brand spanking new attorney at her full, exorbitant rate. As of last week defendant was preparing his response; I'll have to follow up on that.

Edit: A google search of "excessive" and "fee petition" leads to some awesome cases with quotes like this:

"The plaintiff's attorneys' second supplemental fee petition is so unreasonable and exorbitant that it shocks the conscience of this court as it did the conscience of the district judge. The record indicates that as many as six lawyers from three different firms billed significant amounts of time in preparing for the short hearing on a simple issue. The time spent ranged from four hours spent by one attorney in proofreading another attorney's work to 138.5 hours expended during approximately a one month period by another attorney. The idea that one associate from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy billed a month's time on this simple motion is frankly unbelievable. It defies reason that a partner of such firm, would spend eleven hours at $245 per hour on the simple matter of the district court's review of a previous bill assessment. If these attorneys did in fact spend the hours they now claim, such time was unreasonable and not justified by the one simple issue presented."

Another good one is one where the prevailing party submitted a fee petition of $530,000 and appealed when it was only granted $20,000. The court of appeals did in fact reverse and remand, albeit with an order to enter judgment denying the fee petition in its entirety.

**** the Supreme Court for handing down two important decisions the semester I'm taking Crim Pro. **** them in their asses.

I know about Gant; what was the other case?

Kelo was argued and decided the semester I took Property. Good times.

My Con Law professor spearheaded Rumsfeld v. FAIR challenging the Solomon Amendment the spring before I took his class. They lose to unanimous decision.

cliff notes of case: fed gov't can withhold funding to schools that dont let military recruiters on campus. law schools didn't want JAG recruiters because of "don't ask, dont tell"

Herring, extending the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule to negligent conduct by administrative police personnel.

Off topic but... to those who have been Summer Associates in large firms in big cities have you been or heard of any summers that were drug tested? Do any firms routinely do this?


Thanks

You're doing it wrong. This is a golden opportunity.

Step 1. Go to Westlaw

Step 2. Find Petitioner & Respondent's briefs

Step 3. Cut and paste relevant parts of table of contents so as to have a skeleton of the competing arguments

Step 4. Fill in skeleton with cases from the briefs or your class outlines

Step 5. ???

Step 6. Profit

Maybe I am just dumb (probably), but how is that better than just going through the casebook's table of contents?

reread the post above yours. if you still don't get it then yep, you're dumb.

lol. i've never heard of it. I don't even think they do any background checks. The bar examiners do that for them if you do become an associate. Might be wrong on that, but I certainly have never heard of drug tests. Most of the time they don't even give competency tests, socialization tests, common sense tests, etc. I'd think they'd start with those before drug tests...