Recently in Training and CLE Category

Whether you're a young associate or a veteran attorney, knowing what you should and shouldn't do at a deposition can be tricky and nerve-racking. Not to mention expensive if you screw up.

After all, it's one of the most important first interactions you'll have with witnesses and opposing counsel. And it's arguably where cases can be won, lost, or settled, depending on the outcome.

That's why whenever you conduct a deposition, you should keep the following things in mind.

With "The Hunger Games" currently tearing up the box office, it's easy to pass the movie off as a simple teenage popcorn thriller. But lawyers can actually learn some choice practice lessons from the film.

The movie takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world and centers around a young girl named Katniss Everdeen. She volunteers to take her sister's place in the annual "Hunger Games," a competition where teenage children fight to the death until only one remains.

Sounds a lot like life as a trial lawyer already, huh? Surprisingly, the film sheds a lot insight on how to deal with opposing counsel.

Some might think he is not qualified to teach legal ethics, but former White House counsel and Watergate lawyer John Dean is doing just that.

Approved to teach a series of Continuing Legal Education courses across the country, Dean is first going to teach Skadden associates what a lawyer should do when his client is engaged in criminal activity.

Though informed of the entire affair only after the Watergate burglars were arrested, John Dean was convicted of obstruction of justice and spent four months in prison, reports The New York Times.

If you've graduated from law school in the last five years, chances are you spent many a class on Facebook. And you can deny it all you want, but we all know that class time was not spent catching up with far-flung friends. Nope. It was spent perfecting the art of Facebook stalking.

As law students, job applicants and now (hopefully) associates, we all took on the role of Facebook stalker. Want to learn about your interviewer? Facebook stalk them. Want to get in good with your professor or partner? They've all got Facebook these days. Want to take down the suck-up stealing all your glory? Take 'em down with Facebook.

It turns out that attorneys can get disbarred from a jurisdiction where they are not even admitted to practice.

Attorney Leonard Kingsley has been disbarred from Delaware and Pennsylvania for helping an accountant prepare estate documents. He is licensed to practice in New Jersey and Pennsylvania but not Delaware, according to the ABA Journal.

As a result, Leonard Kingsley was charged with engaging in and assisting in the unauthorized practice of law and related violations in the state of Delaware.

The Young Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association has a new leader. Elected during the ABA conference in San Francisco, New Jersey attorney David B. Wolfe will serve a one year term as head of the Division.

If one of the benefits of youth is energy, David Wolfe will be a youthful leader in the best sense. In addition to his work as a partner at at Skoloff & Wolfe, P.C. in the firm's real property valuation and litigation departments, Wolf's responsibilities with the ABA include service in the ABA House of Delegates, and a recent appointment to the board of The American Bar Foundation. Wolfe has also served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Judicial Independence and the ABA Commission on Mental Health and Disability Law.

Wherever you may fall in the law school timeline, there is an event to add to your docket. It is the auspicious American Bar Association (ABA) meeting held annually for law practitioners and law students. And get ready to hail the nearest trolley, because the action starts this Thursday in San Francisco.

What will you do when you get there? Fear not, here's a guide to show you what's hot.

Where can you go to view over a million pages of free case law or browse over 600,000 pages of federal and state codes? 

Hint: you're already here.

FindLaw is where the law is when it comes to cases and codes.  And that fits well with law students and associates who find themselves chasing codes and counting cases to find exactly what they are looking for.

Massive stores of relevant law + easy to use searching and browsing make it a bright idea in any light, and a formidable take-off point for your research. 

Summer draws to a close, calling students from their interim routines back to the lecture halls of law school.  And for the associates on the block, the end of summer signals, well...no wearing white to work after Labor Day?  Anyway, September may sound the gong on carefree days of summer, but it also holds the promise of stimulating law events across the country.  Symposia to conferences, legal employment to nutritional law--there is no shortage of subject topics or types of gatherings spanning coast to coast

Here are 4 events to check out in the first part of the month, all offering the incentive of CLE credit:

400,000 volunteer members make the American Bar Association the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world, according to the ABA's website.  So, it's no small matter when the ABA announces the captains that will stand at its helm in the coming years.

D.C.-based attorney, Carolyn Lamm is up first. She began her one-year tenure as ABA President yesterday and will remain in the position until August 2010.  Not her first time in the leadership ring, Lamm served as President of the District of Columbia Bar in 2007 and is a partner with White and Case.  As ABA President Lamm is looking to steer the organization to become better equipped to address big-picture trends for attorneys such as the impact of globalization and technology on attorney regulation and ethics.