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Some people put up a Facebook status update about their cats’ latest hairball. Others use it as a medium to mock the Oakland Raiders’ hilariously inept attempts at locating a starting quarterback. Reed Hastings, of Netflix, used his Facebook account to announce that his company had streamed more than one billion hours worth of video in June 2012, reports the Washington Post.

Within a day, Netflix’s stock price shot up - by more than $11 in a single day, and the SEC shot Hastings down - launching an investigation over whether the Facebook post violated SEC rules regarding distribution of important company information.

Sometimes, a tiny change in perspective can make life easier within a legal department. Little distinctions, like whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, whether a product is a beverage or a diet supplement; those are the differences that can make or break you during bonus season.

So it looks like the lawyers for Monster Energy Drinks are earning whatever bonuses come their way this year.

Eight recent changes at top in-house positions were reported by Inside Counsel. A look at the eight personnel moves may be a bit sobering for many attorneys wanting to know how to become an in-house counsel themselves.

That's because these organizations didn't pluck their new GCs from the law firm ranks (and certainly not from the ranks of recent law school grads); rather, many simply promoted from within the organization or hired an attorney from a very similar organization.

General counsel positions have long been viewed as the Holy Grail for many BigLaw attorneys. But based on a review of these eight GC moves, not that many BigLaw attorneys are transitioning to top in-house jobs.

Law has a reputation as an old boys' club, and by that, people generally mean white men. But minorities are increasing their presence in corporate counsel jobs, according to the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.

The MCCA's annual survey came out recently, and it looked specifically at how many minorities are in general counsel positions at Fortune 500 firms. The numbers are up after a year of no growth, reflecting a general pattern of growth in the number of minority general counsel since 2008, reports MCCA.

That's not to say that the figures have reached anything close to parity yet. The numbers are encouraging but they're still low.

Amazon's newest associate general counsel is also taking on a newly created position in the company's legal team. Nuala O'Connor will oversee privacy at the online retail giant as well as working on compliance.

This new hire makes Amazon one of the last large online companies to hire attorneys focused specifically on privacy. Apple, Google, and Facebook all have some kind of privacy officer on staff.

The fact that Amazon has also fallen in line raises the question of whether privacy counsel is a necessity for any legal department.

The fashion world has been abuzz with the case of Christian Louboutin v. Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) over red soled shoes.

The appellate ruling came out in early September and both sides claimed victory. YSL is now allowed to sell its monochrome shoes that include a red model and Louboutin has received validation that color can sometimes be trademarked in fashion.

But if you're not a fashion enthusiast is the case still relevant?

Well, if your company deals in trademarks at all the decision gives some important clarification to a particular doctrine of trademark law.

Last week, the president of Chick-Fil-A publicly came out with an ant-gay stance saying that his company stood behind the "biblical definition" of the family unit.

And just to show that this was not a random sound bite taken out of context, the company's president, Dan Cathy, then reiterated his stance during an appearance on a popular radio show.

In an effort to mitigate the damage from Cathy's large foot in his mouth, Chick-Fil-A issued a statement via Facebook saying that it would leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government, reports the Huffington Post. If you were Chick-Fil-A's general counsel, is this the action you would have advised to address the inevitable fallout?

Gilead's Truvada has won historic FDA approval as the first drug ever to prevent sexually acquired HIV infection in healthy adults, Reuters reports.

It's a big victory for lawyers who worked to get Gilead's Truvada approved -- though their work is likely far from over.

Monday's FDA approval comes two years after groundbreaking reports that Truvada reduced the risk of HIV infection in the high-risk group of men who have sex with men. A separate study found even better results among heterosexual couples.

But the FDA's approval also comes with some conditions.

You won't find Maio & Cardenas in any law firm directory, because it doesn't exist. Yet the fake law firm, and others like it, collected more than $8 million in legal fees in a fraud linked to a former in-house counsel named Anthony Chiofalo, a lawsuit asserts.

Chiofalo was the in-house legal chief at Tadano America Corp., a hydraulic crane manufacturer based in Houston. Tadano's lawsuit accuses Chiofalo of billing the company for legal services that were never provided, the ABA Journal reports. The payments allegedly went to the fake law firms under Chiofalo's control.

Tadano is now seeking more than $8 million in reimbursement from Chiofalo. If only the company could find him.

The NYC sugary drink ban put in place by Mayor Michael Bloomberg is facing opposition.

With a measure that could affect how many New York businesses sell sugary drinks, counsel for restaurants and industry groups are starting to put their heads together to determine whether they plan to sue.

But they may have a difficult road ahead of them.