Recently in What's New at FindLaw.com Category

When life gets legal, there's FindLaw. We have been saying it for years -- the law really does touch almost every area of your life, even if you don't want it to! Sometimes it is obvious and sometimes it is subtle. And perhaps our latest social network really helps to prove this point....Pinterest!

That's right, FindLaw.com has joined the dynamic Pinterest community to bring our consumer followers both legal and nonlegal tips in an oh-so-pretty fashion. Like all of the networks we join, our goal is to create a legal presence that is both helpful and enjoyable for the users on that network.

Music isn’t just a hobby for FindLaw.com Sr. Writer Corey Licht, the newest member of the Consumer Core Content team. While Licht’s musical creations are a labor of love, it was the intersection of music and technology that brought him to the legal profession in the first place. Licht said he took an interest in the law in the early 2000’s, when Napster and other controversial file-sharing sites came under fire for copyright infringement.

Napster was shut down by court order in 2001, giving rise to legitimate digital music services. Licht, meanwhile, continued to stake out his niche.

“I’ve always been involved in music and writing, so when these new forms of digital distribution became widespread, I became interested in the legal implications of their use,” said Licht, who currently spends much of his free time producing hip-hop music (i.e. “dropping beats”) for Bay Area rappers.

Blame it on television.

For better or for worse, television empowers us to believe that we are knowledgeable and capable. We watch crime dramas, and suddenly we’re experts on forensic evidence. We watch do-it-yourself programs on TLC or HGTV, and we become convinced that we can renovate a home.

But sometimes, it’s best to get a second opinion regarding the reality behind a concept or idea depicted on television. That’s why FindLaw’s new blog series — Legal How-To and Good Wife, Good Law — can help readers distinguish between legal fact and Hollywood fiction.

The law is not carved in stone, but changes with the times. Ideally, it is a reflection of our collective values as interpreted through the Constitution. New laws are passed by legislation and ballot initiatives; old laws are rewritten; and countless laws both new and old are challenged in court. It's this tension and sense of continuous renewal that makes our legal system so dynamic.

FindLaw.com's Learn About the Law section also is in a constant state of refinement. Obviously, our legal content must keep up with changes in the law. But additional consideration must be given to how well our material is presented and how easy it is for our users to find. To this end, we are devoting much of 2013 to combing through our LATL articles and resources in an effort to improve the user experience.

We call it "Project Refine and Shine," or "R&S" for short.

The Learn About the Law (LATL) content team walks a fine line. We take pride in churning out authoritative, up-to-date articles and resources to help you make smart legal decisions, but we're also careful not to jump on the bandwagon just because something is popular at the moment. Our blog team does a bang-up job with breaking legal news, much of it focused on popular culture and current events.

Our corner of FindLaw.com is more like a user manual for all things legal, which is not to say LATL content decisions cannot be informed by the headlines. The key is to spot emerging legal trends and issues that will remain relevant for a while, even as the actual news becomes tomorrow's fish-wrap.

The writers and editors behind FindLaw.com's Learn About the Law (LATL) section -- the best legal information site for people without law degrees -- like to plan ahead. That's one of the reasons we're so darned good, if I may say so myself. But occasionally, despite our best-laid plans (and often at the worst possible time), an emergency project drops in our laps and mass chaos ensues.

Okay, perhaps that is a little dramatic. Actually, we're quite adept at shifting gears and pulling together as a team to accomplish whatever surprise comes our way. In fact, that's when we truly shine.

Take, for instance, the heroic undertaking we dubbed Project Save the Day. Without boring you with the details of why this project suddenly cropped up, failure to execute would have left serious holes in our LATL coverage.

It's that time of the year again. No, we are not talking about Christmas (although wouldn't that be nice ... ) we are talking about Valentine's Day. Love it or hate it, the Hallmark holiday lands right in the middle of a work week and here at FindLaw.com, we will be celebrating on Thursday like most offices probably are -- working with a little extra dose of chocolate.

That's right, our Valentine's Day will look exactly like any other day in our California office with one major exception: people love to bring sweet treats into work to share. Candy hearts, lollipops, chocolates--you name it, we will be eating it here in Sunnyvale. Hopefully, there might be some leftovers for Friday as well.

As we have said numerous times before, our job is to serve you. The law can be quite confusing (sometimes by design), so we here at FindLaw.com work hard to provide you with truly useful legal information written in plain English. After all, you shouldn’t have to speak “legalese” in order to gain an understanding of your rights and obligations under various state and federal laws.

But we don’t simply tell you what we think you need to know. We listen. In fact, some of the most popular articles in our Learn About the Law section are inspired by questions from the general public. Senior Content Specialist Javier Lavagnino refers to user feedback as FindLaw.com’s “on-the-ground connection to the legal needs of our visitors.”

FindLaw.com isn’t just the No. 1 website for legal consumers. We’re also an indispensible go-to resource for practicing lawyers and other legal professionals.

And with good reason, as nearly all of our writers and content producers were once practicing lawyers themselves, not too long ago.

Case in point: Anne O’Donnell, FindLaw’s Senior Writer for Legal Professional content and the latest lawyer to join the FindLaw family.

It doesn’t snow in sunny Silicon Valley (save for an occasional dusting of white on our tallest mountain peaks), but come holiday time, there’s a flurry of activity here at FindLaw.

Like you, we’re all frantically trying to get our work assignments completed before Christmas, along with all of our holiday shopping.

And like you, we’re also setting aside some time to enjoy some holiday cheer with family, friends, and coworkers.