U.S. District Judge James Browning is a fine fellow.  There are many reasons to say so; but the first is that, though he sits in New Mexico, he was born in the Great State of Texas.  Judge Browning kindly spoke to my E-Discovery class at the law school in September 2012.  I’d sought him out because he’d been ably grappling with e-discovery issues in a case styled S2 v. Micron.  In his remarks to my class, he splendidly recounted some of the challenges faced by judges who ascended to the bench before the Age of Digital Evidence.  Judge Browning has one of those C.V.s that could make any lawyer hate him (e.g., Yale, varsity letterman, Law Review editor-in-chief, Coif, Supreme Court clerk); but he’s a good judge and a nice guy to boot.

I share my admiration of Judge Browning to underscore that I feel a bit of a rat…

If you have been waiting for Microsoft to deliver Word, Excel and PowerPoint to iPad, your wait finally came to an end about a month ago.

From the developer:

There are two scenarios that I have seen where purported debt collectors have threatened people with jail.  One of them is an out and out scam.  The other is just illegal.  The scam is the most common so let’s start there.

• Collector calls and tells you that if you don’t pay a certain bill immediately, the Sheriff is going to come to your house and arrest you.  You have to pay this today.  You are going to be arrested tomorrow.  The only way you can pay this is by electronic funds transfer from your checking account over the phone RIGHT NOW.  You cannot mail in a check — even a certified check sent next day delivery.  Nope.  It must be over the phone, straight from your checking account RIGHT NOW.

When was the last time a legitimate debt collector wouldn’t take a cashier’s check by mail?  They are so interested…

I urge all who are interested in the tragic comedy (soap opera) that envelopes Judge Scheindlin and the Second Circuit to read Professor Anil Kalhan’s terrific essay entitled, Lame Duck Litigation and the City of New York’s “Double Game”  (November 9, 2013) at Dorf on Law.

RGK

By Gregory Haubrich

Attorney at Law

When I ask my clients what their auto insurances coverages are they often tell me they have “full coverage”.  I ask to see their declarations pages, which show what their coverages are and what their premiums are.  They ask me why I am interested in their insurance when it was that other guy’s fault.  They worry that I’m going to make a claim against their insurance that will raise their rates.  Once I look at their declarations sheets I find all-too-often they don’t have useful or well chosen coverage at all.

So, here is a primer on the basic types of coverage you can get, and what they do for you.

Let me start right here with a recommendation: buy UM coverage, and get as much of it as you can get.  It is the most important, cost-effective, and useful type of insurance you can…