By the end of the year, the Lone Star State will have a PACER-like court records system.
The Texas Supreme Court took the next step in expanding re:SearchTX, which grants access to state court records electronically filed anywhere in Texas, so that lawyers can download documents in any case—and so can the general public—at a cost of 10 cents per page up to a $6 maximum per document.
The system has operated since February 2017 with limited access for judges, court clerks and attorneys of record to access documents in their own cases. This new order opens access further to attorneys—they’ll be able to access any case, not just their own—and other registered users who provide personal information like their name, address, phone number and more.
Published on Texas Lawyer on Oct. 4, 2018.
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/2018/10/04/brace-yourselves-pacer-like-systems-are-coming-this-winter/
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Federal Judge: Prosecutor ‘Absurd’ for Using Deportation As Reason for Denying Bond in Criminal Case
A federal judge has called a U.S. prosecutor’s argument absurd and a problem of the government’s own making in a recent ruling that highlights the clash between criminal court processes and the nation’s increasingly controversial immigration policies.
Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin was frustrated by the prosecutor’s reasoning about why Austin should keep a defendant in jail rather than release him on pretrial bond for a felony charge of unlawful reentry. Unlawful re-entry cases have grown increasingly common under the Trump administration as it charges immigrants at the border en masse with the crime, and as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps up undocumented immigrants in raids on employers.
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/2018/09/19/federal-judge-prosecutor-absurd-for-using-deportation-as-reason-for-denying-bond-in-criminal-case/
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An exciting aspect of being general counsel of AdvoCare International Inc. is that Allison Levy occasionally meets celebrity athletes like New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and NASCAR champion Richard Petty.
Meeting athletes who endorse AdvoCare is a nice reward for Levy, who shoulders a big load as the company’s sole lawyer. The Plano-based company develops and markets nutritional supplements for general health, weight management and sports performance, among other products.
Levy supervises three nonlawyer employees in her legal department, but as the company’s only lawyer, she manages a vast range of issues: ensuring the company’s products, marketing and direct-sales business model comply with regulations; overseeing distributors’ compliance with company policies; legal issues with sponsoring sporting events; and managing outside counsel representing AdvoCare in litigation.
“My day can consist of switching gears a dozen times,” she says.
PDF: Texas Lawyer_ Productivity and Performance Allison Levy Helps Ensure AdvoCare Plays By the Rules
Law students were on summer break when outrage erupted nationwide over the Trump administration’s practice of separating immigrant parents and children who crossed the country’s southern border.
But summer didn’t stop Texas immigration law professors from taking action, and in the coming school year, they’re planning opportunities for law students in their schools’ immigration clinics to help reunited families seek asylum or fight deportation.
Law professors all over Texas jumped into action at various levels to help immigrant families the government separated.
Link.
PDF: texas-immigration-law-professors-take-action-to-help-reunite-families-seeking-asylum
As executive director of Step Up to Justice, a Tucson, Arizona-based privately funded legal aid nonprofit, Michele Mirto wields a shoestring budget and just three staff members armed with legal technology. They lead an army of volunteer lawyers in resolving low-income clients’ civil matters—mostly family law but also guardianship, consumer law, bankruptcy, and wills and probate.
Link.
After having her second child, Southern California litigator Erin Giglia worked part-time for law firm Snell & Wilmer, but fellow associate Laurie Rowen had different plans for work when her baby girl was born 16 days after Giglia’s daughter.
Rowen always knew she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, while continuing to do legal work on an extremely part-time basis. It took nearly a year for Giglia to jump on board, but when she did, the pair co-founded Montage Legal Group, a new legal business model especially attractive to women.
Montage and firms like it have proven a good match for all sorts of lawyers who want to set their own work terms, but they have become particularly popular with lawyer moms who want to dramatically reduce their hours after they give birth, but who also want to stay in the legal game. The part-time experience at these kinds of firms also eases the transition back into the profession full time, if they choose to, when their children get older.
Link.