General

The Alexandria, Va., IP firm Oblon Spivak McClelland Maier & Neustadt this week launched TTAB-Rules, a blog designed to track the rules package proposed in January by the USPTO’s Trademark Trial & Appeal Board. The blog will include commentary and updates from lawyers at Oblon and from others outside the firm. The welcome…

From yesterday’s Boston Globe:

“Boston’s lawyers pride themselves on the work they do for free. It’s a way for them to give back, and it’s a major recruiting tool. But as top firms cast an increasingly critical eye on the line between public service and profit, some fear good will could end up

Seventy percent of large companies are so dissatisfied with their primary law firm that they would not recommend it to others, according to a survey of large and Fortune 1,000 companies released this week by The BTI Consulting Group. This deep dip in client satisfaction, reports BTI, promises to drive dollars into the hands…

Tom Goldstein, a lawyer who methodically established himself over less than a decade as a leading Supreme Court advocate, is leaving the firm he founded, Goldstein & Howe, to join Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Law Blog reports. With him will go the popular Supreme Court blog, SCOTUSblog.…

Claiming deceptive Web advertising by LegalMatch, Maine’s Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a nonprofit agency that provides legal services to the poor, has sued the San Francisco business in federal court in Portland.

The suit alleges that when users type “Pine Tree Legal Assistance” in Web search engines, LegalMatch’s advertisements appear in the…

The Boston Globe’s Sacha Pfeiffer tells the story of how Peter D. Enrich, “a mild-mannered, 55-year-old philosophy teacher-turned-law professor,” found himself in the Supreme Court yesterday taking on DaimlerChrysler, the state of Ohio and others: “Professor leads small group in battle with legal giants.”…

Following up on my posts (here and here) yesterday about Fast Mediator using content from other mediation blogs without attribution, the owner of the blog has now removed all unauthorized posts and issued an apology. Golden Media Managing Director Andrew Golden writes, in part:

“I want to be certain that

Your client comes in distraught. The family jewels are missing. This is a case for … the Stolen Jewelry Web Site. I’ll let them explain:

“The Stolen Jewelry Website of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance provides a central clearinghouse for the jewelry industry, law enforcement, insurance personnel and the general public to share information

I’ve written before (here and here) about virtual visitation — allowing divorced parents to visit their children through computer videoconferencing and other electronic means. Here’s a good overview of the topic from AP, via CNN: ‘Virtual’ visits for children of divorce.…

Follow-up to my earlier post, Blog takes others’ posts, without credit, Fast Mediator has now removed the posts copied from other bloggers.…

The bad news is that the inimitable Lisa Stone, originator of Legal Blog Watch, is leaving her lookout to spend more time on her pioneering project, BlogHer, as she explains here.

The good news — for me anyway — is that I’ll be joining Carolyn Elefant to share duties taking…

UPDATE: 3:30 p.m., March 1: Fast Mediator has now taken down the copied material described below, so the links now lead to “404” pages.

The blog Fast Mediator is making no fast friends in the blogosphere. It contains multiple posts taken word-for-word from other people’s blogs, without attribution. Two bloggers, Diane Levin, author…