Seeking to add plaintiffs to a class-action lawsuit against a South Carolina car dealership, the now-defendant class-action attorneys tapped into the DMV records via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to locate potential clients. Each was sent a letter with “ADVERTISING MATERIAL” emblazoned across the top.

Unfortunately, one of the recipients also worked at the dealership.

The attorneys defending the dealership filed a class-action lawsuit against the original class-action plaintiffs’ attorneys on behalf of the 34,000 people who received a letter from the firm. The question for the Supreme Court was whether these letters, which arguably fit into the overbroad language of the statute’s “investigation in anticipation of a lawsuit” exception, violate the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.

With Facebook jumping onboard the hashtag fun alongside Twitter, hashtags are now being used on social media more than ever. This means that if your law firm has an account on Twitter or Facebook (ideally, you should be on both and have a website), this will possibly affect the way your content is viewed and used by your clients as well as other Interner viewers and passerbys.

Nowadays, it's not just another regrettable baby name, or a way for people to crack un-funny personal jokes. Hashtags, (that # sign before certain words in online content) are clickable and a very efficient way for many social networking sites to gauge what's trending and then organize content under their respective topics. For example, if a lot of people are tweeting or posting on Facebook about the #TheElection, you can easily find your way to the whole collection of everyone else who's mentioning it as well.

Before you get too pound-sign happy, though, keep in mind that it's not as easy as it looks. Here are some basics rules about hash-tagging that you may want to know first:

“What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.”

You’re damn right, Mr. Markus. Markus, writing for his Southern District of Florida Blog, cracked the story that has made Florida papers and is sure to put a smile on every now-disillusioned American’s face.

Terrance Brown is one of five defendants accused of conspiring to hold up armored trucks in 2010. Prosecutors are using phone records to corroborate a co-conspirator’s testimony about the planning, conspiracy, and execution of the crimes, and to prove that the defendants were near the locations at the time of the robberies.

We all know from law school and having been through the job-search-wringer that your legal resume is often the make-or-break for many folks. But, it doesn't just stop with the candidate -- those of us who are tasked with having to sift through all those resumes and to make judgment calls off one-page (hopefully) documents per person is exhausting, as well.

On top of that, a legal resume is an entirely different monster from other types. There are certain aspects that are perfectly acceptable on a legal resume, but not on a non-legal resume, and vice versa. How do employers at firms begin to even wrap their head around this?

So, if your firm is looking to hire a fresh-faced grad this coming fall or now, here are some legal resume red flags to look out for.

Shared workspaces are becoming increasingly popular and may be better than cubes for law firms, both large and small. For tough economic times, reconfiguring offices into a more shared space seems like a great solution.

But how to share a workspace is a whole other matter, reports Forbes. With sharing comes a fair share of distraction, disruption and compromise. Before you bemoan the death of your corner office, know that there is a way to, as Tim Gunn would say, "make it work."

Here are six tips on how to share a workspace -- without going insane:

Two YouTube fails in one morning? This is further proof of what we advised earlier: tread on social media with caution.

This morning, we saw that a purported law student had posted a self-recorded video of her disgusting racist rant at Dunkin' Donuts employees over a receipt dispute. Now, we have a lawyer who compromised a case, violated multiple rules of professionalism, and revealed a confidential informant, all by posting a video obtained in discovery on YouTube, and per the disciplinary report, on "an internet site known as Facebook." Whatever that is.

What was missing here -- social media savvy, a knowledge of basic ethical obligations, or simple common sense?

When it comes to marketing your law firm, your website is your online presence. Sure, there's social media and other emerging e-trends that need to be recognized, but it all starts (and sometimes, ends) with your website.

But my firm already has a website, you say. But hold on: Is it up-to-date? Is it interactive? Does it feel like it's representing a firm with people who were born after bathing became a social norm? Here are five suggestions on where your website may need to be given a slight (or major, life-changing) facelift:

Chad Ochocinco Johnson, the man with many names and a pending probation violation, just went from a three-month extension of his probation to thirty-day jail sentence, with one swift, and overly-friendly, move, reports the Kansas City Star.

Yep. He (arguably) didn't assault anyone. He didn't get caught with drugs. He didn't do any of the myriad of things that one could do to violate their probation. In fact, what he did to irritate the judge may be a first.

When asked if he was satisfied with the work of his attorney, he responded in a complimentary fashion and then patted his lawyer on the backside, just as nearly all athletes do when a teammate does well.

Most of us, even lawyers, are unfamiliar with the military justice system. So, when soldiers are in need of an outside attorney, they seek out someone with very specialized experience.

Reuters calls Private First Class Bradley Manning’s defense attorney David Coombs a “low-profile” lawyer. That may be true, at least in private practice. To be fair, he has only been a sole practitioner for a little more than a year, which is hardly enough time to raise one’s profile.

Before entering private practice, he spent more than a decade serving in the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps, first as a prosecutor, then as a defense attorney. He also served as a professor at the Judge Advocate General’s School and the Roger Williams School of Law.

Let’s be honest, fun law firm retreats are few and far between. Of the law firms who have retreats at all, many use them as a way to conduct business as usual in a scenic location. Progressive firms, however, are taking advantage of the benefits that authentically “fun” retreats can offer, reports the American Bar Association.

With tighter budgets, relaxation activities are the first to be cut at firms. Cutting back on relaxation, however, might not be the best idea. “Play makes us far better at problem solving,” says Nancy Byerly Jones, a lawyer, mediator and law firm retreat facilitator in North Carolina.

Here are five fun (and affordable!) law firm retreat ideas that might be surprisingly beneficial to your firm: