Legal insights
Analysis from the front lines of IP & technology law.
Our attorneys write about the developments shaping intellectual property—from the PTAB and the Federal Circuit to the practical realities of protecting fast-moving technology.
Sentencing, Appeals, and Post-Conviction Relief: From Verdict to Habeas
A conviction is not the end of a criminal case, and the routes that follow have different names, different deadlines, different standards, and different courts. This article explains how sentencing actually works after the guidelines became advisory, the constitutional rule that facts increasing a maximum must be found by a jury, what the presentence report does and why objections to it matter more than argument, the direct appeal and the preservation rules that determine what can be raised, the difference between an appeal and a collateral attack, ineffective assistance and Brady claims, state post-conviction procedure, federal habeas with its one-year clock and its procedural default doctrine, and compassionate release.
Justiciability Toolkit: Standing Allegations, Rule 12(b)(1) Motions, and Mootness Briefing
This toolkit collects the documents a justiciability practice produces: standing allegations that plead harm rather than violation, the historical analogue paragraph that most complaints omit, facial and factual Rule 12(b)(1) motion outlines, the custodian declaration that converts a pleading argument into an evidentiary one, targeted standing discovery, the class certification brief built on sampling evidence, a covenant not to sue drafted broadly enough to moot a case, and the decision framework defendants should run before filing anything. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on the difference between a facial and a factual attack and what each requires. Adapt everything to the claim, the relief sought, and the procedural posture. The standing allegation templates in particular should be adapted claim by claim rather than used as a block.
Handling a Pet Legal Problem: A Practical Guide
This guide walks through the pet legal problems people actually have, in the order the work happens. It starts with the first forty-eight hours after a bite—for both the owner and the injured person—including the insurance notice that must not be late. It then covers the dangerous dog hearing as a case to be prepared and, better, negotiated before it happens. It covers housing disputes and the difference between a pet and an assistance animal, veterinary problems and the records and second opinion that decide them, buying disputes and the short lemon law windows, boarding and daycare injuries, and the animal seizure bond deadline that forfeits animals more often than any trial does.
Handling a Defective Vehicle or a Dealer Dispute: A Practical Guide
This guide is the action sequence for a car that will not work or a dealer that will not deal fairly. It covers what to do at the very first service visit that decides the case months later, how to look up technical service bulletins and arrive prepared, when and how to send the manufacturer the written notice that most lemon claims fail without, how to revoke acceptance against the dealer instead, how to invoke the holder rule against the lender, what to do the day a dealer calls to say financing fell through, how to cancel the finance office add-ons for a refund, and when small claims beats everything else.
Domain Name Dispute Forum Selection Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the choice among domain name dispute procedures into a sequence of concrete questions and tasks. It starts with emergency triage for phishing and fraud, then fixes the facts that decide every forum: the top-level domain and its governing policy, the dates of the mark and the registration, the remedy the client actually needs, and who and where the registrant is. Separate fit tests cover the UDRP, the Uniform Rapid Suspension System, the major country-code policies, the in personam and in rem actions under the ACPA, and buying the name. A registrant's section covers responding, requesting a reverse domain name hijacking finding, and suing within the UDRP's ten-business-day window. The checklist closes with sequencing rules for combining procedures, a cost and timing table, a decision record, common mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
Animal Law: Pet Ownership, Dangerous Dog Proceedings, and Veterinary Claims
Animal law sits on an uncomfortable premise: the law classifies animals as property, while most owners experience them as family, and nearly every dispute in this area turns on that gap. This article explains dog bite liability in both its strict liability and negligence forms, and what a dangerous dog proceeding actually is—an administrative hearing with real due process rights and a possible destruction order, which owners routinely walk into without counsel. It covers landlord pet policies and how assistance animals differ from pets, homeowners insurance exclusions that leave owners personally exposed, veterinary malpractice and the damages problem that makes those cases hard, and what happens to animals in a divorce, an estate, and a cruelty seizure.
Animal Law Toolkit: Incident Records, Hearing Defense, and Veterinary Claims
Working templates for animal legal problems. It includes a bite incident report and witness statement format, the prompt insurance notice that preserves coverage, and an ordinance review worksheet that extracts the two deadlines that decide a dangerous dog case. It provides a records request, a hearing presentation outline, a temperament evaluation request that tells the behaviorist what the hearing needs, a remediation package index, and a negotiation script for the conversation before the hearing. It also includes a housing accommodation request with provider documentation language, veterinary records and second opinion requests, a licensing board complaint, a footage preservation demand, a lemon law notice, and a pet trust and emergency caregiver plan.
Animal Law Checklist
A working checklist for animal legal problems, organized by the situation you are actually in. It opens with the first forty-eight hours after a bite for both the owner and the injured person, including the insurance notice that must not be late. It covers the dangerous dog hearing as a case to prepare and negotiate before it happens, housing disputes and the accommodation request most people never submit in writing, veterinary problems and the necropsy decision measured in hours, purchase disputes with their short statutory windows, boarding injuries and the footage preservation demand, and the seizure bond deadline that forfeits animals. It closes with the planning that makes all of it easier.
Standing and Justiciability Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Standing is the first question in every federal case and the one most often litigated carelessly. This checklist runs it from both sides: the strategic decision that should precede any challenge, pleading concrete injury with the historical analogue identified, choosing between facial and factual attacks, the narrow discovery that resolves it, deploying it at class certification where it does the most work, and preserving it through appeal. Separate sections cover mootness and voluntary cessation, ripeness, organizational and associational standing, the removal trap, and practice-area-specific problems. It covers injury, traceability, redressability, mootness, ripeness, and the standing of each named plaintiff for each form of relief. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.
Home Improvement Contract and Contractor Dispute Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a home improvement project from screening through final payment and, when necessary, the dispute. It sets out the eight verification steps that prevent most construction disasters, the contract terms to insist on, and the state statutory requirements to read your contract against. It covers the cancellation rights that may still be open because the required notice was never given, the preliminary notices that look like junk mail and identify everyone who can lien your house, and the lien waiver habit that prevents paying twice. It ends with the dispute sequence: the defect notice statute to check before doing anything, the free remedies that come before litigation, and the consumer protection claim that shifts fees.
Expert Deposition Toolkit: Outline Frameworks, Reliance Material Requests, and Rule 26 Protection Maps
This toolkit collects the working documents for expert depositions in federal court, each introduced by its purpose, its owner, and when to use it, and followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing rules and cases. It starts with a Rule 26 protection map that sorts expert materials into protected and discoverable categories under the 2010 amendments, followed by model expert stipulation clauses, a Rule 34 reliance-material request, a Rule 45 subpoena rider, a notice and remote stipulation, and a fee agreement letter under Rule 26(b)(4)(E). The outline frameworks include a report audit chart, a master outline with a time budget, an opinion funnel worksheet organized by Rule 702 element, an assumptions and change-question chart, subject modules for patent royalty and software copyright experts, and an impeachment and learned-treatise script. For the defending side, it provides a preparation session agenda, model assumptions-section language, scripts for objections and instructions not to answer, and an errata and supplementation log. It closes with a post-deposition digest and a Daubert record map that turn the transcript into a motion, followed by answers to common questions, practical takeaways, and related resources.
Professional License Defense Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a licensing matter from the arrival of the board's letter through reinstatement. It is organized as sequences: the first forty-eight hours, records preservation, mapping the parallel proceedings, writing the response, responding to a summary suspension, preparing and trying a hearing, negotiating a resolution around the findings rather than the sanction, self-reporting, complying with probation, and petitioning for reinstatement. The items that most often destroy an otherwise defensible matter are flagged, beginning with the telephone call to the investigator.