Out There
Time for a Doughnut
A California man has filed a class action lawsuit against Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, seeking $5 million for false and misleading business practices.
Specifically, he alleges that Krispy Kreme has named some doughnuts – like “Chocolate Iced Raspberry” and “Glazed Blueberry Cake” – to suggest they contain real fruit, but they do not.
“Plaintiff and other consumers purchased the Products, reasonably relying on Defendant’s deceptive representation about the Products, and believing that each of the Products contained its respective Premium Ingredient,” the complaint states.
“Had Plaintiff and other consumers known that the Products did not contain their Premium Ingredients, they would not have purchased the Products or would have paid significantly less for the Products. Therefore, Plaintiff and consumers have suffered injury in fact as a result of Defendant’s deceptive practices.”
Source: Legally Weird
Good Idea
Lawyers Learn to Code
A global law firm called Linklaters has started a pilot program to teach some of its lawyers to learn computer coding to help them “harness new technologies for legal work.”
“We see coding as very useful for lawyers who are involved in technologies such as blockchain, smart contracts, and artificial intelligence,” said a law firm partner who is leading the pilot.
“But, at an even more basic level, it’s also just useful for lawyers to have a grounding in computational logic – it complements all sorts of traditional legal skills.”
Source: Legal Business
Did You Know?
Top Legal Stories of 2016
Jeffrey Toobin, senior legal analyst for CNN and author of numerous best-selling books, listed his “Top Five Legal Stories of 2016” in The New Yorker.
The top story: the issue of police violence against African-Americans, as seen on cell phone video.
“Cell-phone cameras didn’t identify a new problem; they proved the existence of an old one,” he wrote. “But the legal significance of the ubiquity of cell-phone cameras has just begun to become clear.”
Toobin’s other top stories of 2016: Black Lives Matter; Justice Anthony Kennedy as a likely conservative swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court this term; Bill Cosby; and NSA surveillance.
If you want to read the top articles published by the State Bar of Wisconsin in 2016, check out the Dec. 21 issue of WisBar InsideTrack™.
On the Radar
Majority of U.S. Law Students are Women, for the First Time
The New York Times and other media outlets recently reported that women now have the majority at ABA-accredited law schools, for the first time ever.
Annual data released by the ABA showed that 55,766 women are studying for a J.D. degree, compared to 55,059 men. The article also noted that law school enrollment is stabilizing after a 30 percent drop in 2010.
Quotable
“In ten years, law students will watch videos of how we did legal research back in 2016, and they will laugh.”
– Attorney Jeff Bennion in an article titled “How to Future-Proof Your Legal Career.” Writing for Above the Law, Bennion notes that robots are going to revolutionize certain aspects of legal work very soon, and lawyers should get on board.
“Robots are not coming to take our jobs, they are coming to revolutionize our jobs, and we can either get on board or become less relevant,” Bennion wrote. “The bottom line is that a lot of analysis and fact-finding will be done by machines, but the application is going to be done by humans.”
Tech Tip
How to Block Ads on Your Mobile Device
Ads on mobile devices are more and more invasive, often popping up and covering your entire screen. And significantly increasing loading times.
Furthermore, as mobile advertising becomes more predominant, the risk from mobile malvertising (malware from ads) also increases. Infected ads can come from an app, a browser banner, or video ads. For these reasons, whatever your moral standpoint on blocking ads, until advertisers become less invasive and more secure, consider using a mobile ad blocker.
For iOS, Safari now supports browser-based ad blockers like Purify 1Blocker, Crystal, and Adblock Plus. But for my money, I like the simply named AdBlock from FutureMind ($1.99 for iOS).
Adblock works with your Wi-Fi and cellular networks to block ads not just while using browsers, but when using apps. You don’t need to set it up separately, just have it on.
Thankfully, Adblock allows you to whitelist sites that are advertising humanely and safely. I definitely recommend doing this to support the content you enjoy, or over time we may find ourselves with less quality content or more paysites.
For nonrooted Android devices, try Adguard.
Source: Tison Rhine, Practice Management Advisor, State Bar of Wisconsin
