Fashion news: Professional bags for female lawyers

Another great article from the Lawyerist on the delicate "balance between professional, functional, and not too frumpy or too sexy" bag for female lawyers.

 . . . .  (this balance) makes it a challenge to find a briefcase or bag. The recommendations from the lawyers I surveyed were mostly a variation on the traditional briefcase or tote. There were also many suggestions for rolling bags, which are especially helpful if you have to carry a lot of weight and negotiate high heels at the same time.

Free speech ruling at US Supreme Court: anti-President protestors can't claim viewpoint discrimination

Presidential protestors can't claim that Secret Service agents used viewpoint discrimination, and thus caused a violation of free speech.

Article here.(via WSJ Law Blog).

Or, in other words, the safety of the president comes above the free speech rights of those protesting against him (or her), and the agents who are protecting that president are shielded by immunity from a free-speech claim.

2 students sue GVSU over alleged cheating and discrimination

Two students are suing Grand Valley State University, saying they were falsely convicted of academic dishonesty and discriminated against by a professor.

The Grand Rapids Press reports that Erin Jurek and Ashley Short were found guilty of academic dishonesty in the summer of 2013 for allegedly using an unapproved Internet message board and collaborating on a take-home exam for a math class.

Article here. And more fully reported on  here. 

Former inmate gets law degree after settling wrongful conviction suit for $3.4 million

A New York man who was convicted of killing his parents in 1990 achieved two milestones this year: He obtained a nearly $3.4 million settlement in a suit alleging wrongful conviction, and he graduated from law school.

Article here. 

Martin Tankleff will take the bar exam in August and the next month he will become executive director of a group that works to free wrongfully convicted inmates.

“I look forward to being able to work with people who have been wrongfully convicted,” Tankleff said, according to the New York Post account. “I think I understand the system better than anyone else, any lawyer, any judge.”

Should courthouses be "off limits" to immigration authorities?

Rosario Socope, a Guatemalan immigrant in the country illegally, had an unwelcome surprise waiting for her when she attended a pretrial hearing on a felony charge at a courthouse in Brooklyn this month. As she stepped out of the courtroom into a public hallway, she was approached by immigration agents seeking to deport her.

Article here (via WSJ Law Blog). 

Professor sues former student over online comments, claims defamation

Who doesn't hate to be criticized on how they do their job? Professors, however, have a special beef about this, since websites like "ratemyprofessor.com" and others allow students to rank professors.

But one student took it too far. In a civil suit filed in a Wisconsin circuit court, a tenured University of Wisconsin professor says that a former student’s extensive online commentary about her teaching amounts to defamation -- not protected speech. She says the student, after being dismissed from the university, “engaged in an intentional, malicious and unprivileged campaign” throughout 2013 to besmirch her reputation. She says it resulted in “substantial economic, reputational and emotional injuries,” and she’s seeking an unspecified amount in damages.

Article here (via taxprofblog). 

Capital punishment and IQ: what's in a number?

The US Supreme Court held that states can't assign an IQ score to when an intellectually disabled person can be executed.

The states, the five-to-four majority ruled, cannot use a fixed IQ score as the measure of incapacity to be put to death.  “Intellectual incapacity,” the Court said, “is a condition, not a number.”

Article here (from scotusblog).