This CLE explores the Federal Rules of Evidence applicable to digital evidence. Attendees will learn about relevant case law and how to authenticate or challenge the admission of digital evidence at trial. We will explain how to use digital evidence effectively at trial and how to incorporate it into an overarching story or theory of a case. In Section 1, attorneys will be introduced to the topic and the types of evidence that will be covered in the presentation. Section 2 covers the applicable rules of evidence in the Federal system, particularly rules 901, 801, 803, and 703. Section 3 explores ideas in how to present digital evidence effectively to a judge or jury.

Intimate partner violence (commonly known as domestic violence, but also called family violence or interpersonal violence) is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, economic coercion, financial abuse, or litigation abuse, that perpetrators use against their intimate partners. The violence can happen frequently or only occasionally. Partners may or may not be married, hetero- or same sex couples, living together, separated, or dating. It crosses the boundaries of all ages, socio-economic statuses, religions, races, ethnicities, and nationalities. Because this is a public health issue, this continuing legal education course will assist participants in representing clients that are victims of intimate partner violence, should they want to pursue legal protections, prosecution, or child custody. This course will provide victim-centered and health-informed strategies for all aspects of intimate partner violence cases.

More and more homes contain smart devices: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Nest Thermostat, Smart TVs, Roombas, and more. These devices store all kinds of activities and send that data to the cloud. This CLE explores the types of data available, looks at some cases where that data was used, and discusses the law regarding the collection of this type of data. Section 1 is an introduction to the CLE and covers some definitions relevant for the presentation. In Section 2, explore a variety of cases involving internet of things devices. In Section 3, attorneys will learn how to obtain data from various devices.

e-Discovery has exploded onto the scene of commercial litigation. From its rudimentary beginnings around the start of the 21st Century, it has now become a major component of such litigation. Some have even dubbed it “The Tail that Wags the Dog in Complex Commercial Litigation.” In this Introduction to e-Discovery, attorneys learn e-Discovery from both the vendor’s and the litigator’s perspective. Participants will analyze several cases in which courts have admonished, sanctioned, or ruled harshly against attorneys who have been nonchalant about preserving, collecting, reviewing, or producing e-Discovery.

In this appellate advocacy program, we explore how to prepare and deliver the best appellate oral argument for you, how to be the best advocate you can be, and how to maintain your credibility as an advocate. We address the fundamental appellate advocacy issues involved in appeals. And we focus heavily on principles of advocacy including how to be your authentic self as an advocate and how and why you should not fake it by trying to be someone you are not. We offer useful real world experiences along the way and useful tips and practice pointers so you tread carefully and safely in your appeal.

In this practical webinar, you will learn how to ethically and effectively represent a placing parent in an adoption starting with the initial meeting with the client through the adoptive placement and thereafter. Adoptions are unique with regard to the receipt and sharing of confidential information as well as avoiding conflicts of interest in representation.

Business mergers and acquisitions are complicated transactions for any attorney representing a buyer or seller, but there are special challenges when representing a client who wishes to buy or sell a Web-based business. Unlike their “brick and mortar” counterparts, the assets of a Web-based business are primarily intangible and can easily lose value – or disappear entirely -- when the business changes hands. Making sure that all of the seller’s web domain names (URLs), e-mail and e-commerce accounts, social media pages, and web traffic transfer smoothly to the buyer without interruption requires an in-depth familiarity with Web-based businesses and how they operate. In this fast-paced presentation, hosted by a leading small business attorney, author of “Advising eBusinesses” and nationally syndicated legal columnist who has helped dozens of clients buy and sell Web-based businesses over the past 10 to 15 years, you will learn how to handle the special issues involved in selling and buying such businesses so that your M&A transactions close smoothly, on time, every time.

The purpose of this class is to educate legal professionals on how cell phone forensic evidence is extracted from cell phones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Explanations will be given on what is in accordance with forensic best practices, and how this evidence is properly preserved. In addition, attendees will learn about the fragile nature of digital evidence, and the extent to which this information can be changed if not handled correctly. Attendees will learn the types of evidence that can be recovered from cell phones, including location-based information, messaging application data, voicemails, multimedia such as photos and videos, meta-data, and more. The different forensic artifacts will be explained in detail. Given the rising instances of fake text messages and call spoofing, a section of this class will explain how this is commonly done, even by people with little technical knowledge, and how an investigation is performed todetermine the authenticity of such evidence. Upon completion of this class, attendees will have a working knowledge of how cell phone forensic data collections are performed, the types of forensic artifacts that are recoverable, how data is authenticated, and how such evidence can be used for their purposes when working a case.

Our world is becoming increasingly hyper-connected. The objective of the Internet of things is for everything to communicate and interface with everything. From wearable technology and smart home assistants, to Internet connected medical ingestibles and social credit scores, more data is being collected about us than ever, and this data can and is being used in litigation. This course will explain how this data is collected from the Internet of things devices, and the places that they store data such as the cloud, cell phones, and computers. Cases involving Internet of things devices such as digital pacemakers, fitness wearables, and smart home assistants will be discussed, with an eye to the future of how this data will become more prevalent and pervasive.

Reopening physical workspaces will require both employers and employees to confront new realities and to address both physical and operational changes required by the lingering effects of Covid-19 on the workplace. This program will offer a guideline for assisting both employers and employees to navigate the new post-Covid-19 workplace.

Have you ever felt frustrated by technology? Or, have you ever wondered how to be more productive? Often, you can get more done in less time if you improve your workflow, and if you learn how to use technology more efficiently. Many lawyers and staff struggle with these concepts, in large part because they were never trained how to do the programs their offices rely on. This program, based on presenter Dan Siegel’s popular book, How to Do More in Less Time, demonstrates practical, easy-to-use and implement ways for attorneys and busy professionals to use technology to be more effective – doing so in less time than through traditional methods. The program will explain how to customize and take better advantage of the technology already in use in law offices.

Electronic evidence necessarily touches every case. Even a simple rear end car accident case is going to have potentially relevant electronic evidence on the drivers’ cell phones. Not only is a basic understanding of electronic discovery (eDiscovery) critical for effectively requesting and finding key evidence, but it is also mandated under an attorney’s duty of competence. The nuances of eDiscovery rules may very from state to state, but best practices for dealing with electronically stored information (ESI) are universal. The truth is, the key evidence in most cases is electronic. Finding that piece of evidence requires knowing what to ask for and the right tools to find the needle in the haystack. In this CLE course, attorney and eDiscovery specialist Aaron Cronan will help answer the common questions he encounters while advising litigators who finally decide to go after electronic evidence. He will demystify the seeming incomprehensible process of requesting, compelling, receiving and searching electronic evidence. He will discuss eDiscovery techniques to increase negotiating leverage early in the discovery process, and how to spot and defeat common dilatory tactics. This session will include examples from actual cases and real experiences to illustrate real-world application and raise the level of familiarity and comfort with eDiscovery.

The federal Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (“McKinney-Vento”) guarantees homeless children and youth access to free, appropriate public education and the right to educational continuity and stability. With a global pandemic that has put many students at risk of housing instability and displacement, lawyers can play an important role in addressing their legal needs through McKinney-Vento. States and school districts are required under this federal law to review and revise laws, policies, regulations, and practices that may act as a barrier to the education of homeless children and youth. This course provides an overview of the educational rights of homeless children and youth and how lawyers can help them navigate and enforce these legal rights and ensure compliance of the law. Participants will learn the legal considerations when working with the educational rights of homeless students.

Employers must comply with a litany of federal, state and local laws which govern virtually every aspect of the employer-employee relationship. Most employers wish to communicate the steps they will take to comply with the law in an employee handbook. This crucial document is responsible for distilling a variety of complex and constantly-changing legal topics into one easy-to-read guidebook for employees, and managers. We introduce a variety of concepts which counsel preparing these critical documents should be aware of, and how handbooks can be used as both a sword and a shield later in litigation. In doing so, we highlight a number of hot topics in the employment law space, including teleworking, medical and adult-use cannabis, and paid sick leave laws.

Electronic communications and e-signatures have amplified the speed and number of contracts entered into everyday. The rapid changes in technology have also imposed rapid changes on a legal system that is traditionally slow to adapt - the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act has been implemented in almost every state for close to 20 years, yet many attorneys still insist on printing, signing and scanning signature pages. In this CLE course, attorney and eDiscovery specialist Aaron Cronan will cover some of the most important implications for contract formation and enforcement in the digital age. He will focus on a legislation overview, electronic signatures, Statute of Frauds, UCC, assent of the parties, Browser/Clickwrap, and best practices. This session will include examples and case law from across the county to identity trends and traps.

The purpose of this course is to introduce listeners to the various kinds of litigation that arise under Title VII. We will discuss the background of Title VII and legal developments that have shaped the law into what it is today. We will also discuss the various kinds of claims and the general elements of each claim. Listeners will be left with an understanding of the general framework for Title VII Litigation.

Mental health issues and substance use disorders can impact any law student, attorney or judge regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, orientation of socioeconomic status. But no matter the background, the legal profession seems to suffer in silence. Why? Stigma – the cultural prejudice and discrimination that labels an individual as defective or weak has the power to create a reluctance to speak about the issues and be a barrier to seeking treatment. This program will define the stigma, explain the reasons why stigma is so pervasive in the legal profession, and why it is critical to overcome these beliefs and identify effective means to ameliorate stigma and identify affirming aHtudes for recovery. Throughout the presentation, the speaker will focus on several different “life stages” of an attorney and how stigma affects each group and identify best practices to conquer stigma in the legal community.

Suing an insurance company involves nothing more than a contract case but, then again, is it? There is so much more to know about insurance recovery litigation. How do you understand the issues you need to spot in order to evaluate one of these cases? What do you do when a client walks in with an insurance recovery problem? What are some of the unique problems that arise when your client needs to sue an insurance company, or an insurance company sues your client? In this program, we lay all of this out for you and in a simple and understandable way.

In this IP analysis for transactional lawyers in due diligence or representing small/medium businesses, we look at the major areas of IP law to understand what the IP assets are exactly, how to make sure they are valuable assets and scheduled properly, how to assess if there is potential value that is being missed, and registration regimes for different IP classes to guarantee the most protection. Along the way we offer lots of practice pointers for issue spotting so you do not make mistakes interacting with IP assets, which in many respects differ in basal assumptions about ownership compared to real property assets.

Before the Internet, there was no such thing as cybersquatting. But once the Internet came into existence, domain-name disputes soon followed. Although cybersquatting does not fit into the traditional trademark paradigm, in 1999 Congress passed The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA"), 15 U.S.C. 1125(d), and it became part of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051 et seq., which is the primary federal trademark statute in the United States. The ACPA established a legal recourse for entities who are the victims of others registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name that is confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, an entity's trademark or a person's name. In this "Introduction to Cybersquatting", attorneys learn the origins and history of cybersquatting, as well as the elements of the cause of action. Participants will also analyze several cases in which courts have addressed cybersquatting at various stages of litigation.

This class will explain the evolution of computer forensics into what is now known as digital forensics. As a part of this class, attorneys will learn about the foundations of digital forensics, including how digital evidence should be collected, forensically acquired (copied), preserved, examined, and analyzed. The class then uses numerous case examples to explain different forensic artifacts and how they can be used in cases. Evidence types include metadata, internet history, communication artifacts, searches, multimedia, location evidence, and much more. Actual case examples are utilized to illustrate the usefulness of these forensic artifacts in litigation. Attorneys will also learn the difference between an information technology expert and a digital forensics expert, with case examples illustrating the problematic outcomes of having information technology experts attempting to testify about digital forensics.

Lawyers generate tons of paper. Receiving, reviewing, producing, sharing, filing, and retrieving paper documents has a huge cost to a practice, whether it is a solo or small firm, a large firm, a corporate legal department, or a government or public interest office. Fortunately, lawyers can save time and money by transitioning to a paperless office. In fact, during the pandemic, lawyers quickly realized that if their offices were not digitized – that is, every document scanned and available for viewing online – they were not able to function. This course will take users through the basics of becoming paperless and highlight the benefits of a digitized workflow. You’ve put it off for years. It’s time to learn how reducing the amount of paper in your practice will increase your productivity.

This presentation covers tips and advice for attorneys preparing to represent their clients at mediation. In addition to suggesting best practices in terms of the mechanics of getting ready for a mediation session, the presenter will discuss other factors attorneys should take into consideration including, but not limited to, intangible aspects such as managing clients’ expectations and energy, and the attorneys’ psyche.

It has now been over 18 months since the legal profession was turned upside down with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every area of the law was hit hard. However, the law is not static and despite a pandemic, we adapt and move forward albeit slowly. Indeed, one of the areas which has been brought to the forefront (even on a national level) is landlord-tenant law. Regardless of what side of the coin you are on (landlord or tenant, commercial or residential), major issues have arisen. Thus, the question is despite a pandemic and the somewhat new way of doing things how do we, as practitioners, navigate these uncharted waters? In this course, we will examine the various issues which have presented themselves along with some suggestions for how to deal with them. Of particular interest are many of the moratoriums which have been put in place to purportedly stave off an avalanche of evictions. Presented by Kenneth W. Biedzynski, Esq., this course will canvas and discuss all of the above topics and more.

In this class Monty McIntyre, a seasoned Mediator, Arbitrator, and Referee at ADR Services explains how to effectively prepare for a mediation, how to conduct yourself during the mediation session, and what steps should be taken after the mediation. Your goal as a lawyer should be to give your client the very best opportunity to successfully settle the case during or after the mediation.

Mental health issues and substance use disorders can affect any attorney, in any setting, and at any time. Left untreated, they can destroy careers and lives. This program will discuss where the legal profession currently stands in relation to the substantial challenges presented by untreated mental health issues and substance use disorders and examine the nexus between ethical competence, under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and attorney well-being. This program will educate attendees on how to recognize the signs of an impaired attorney, how to approach the colleague and begin a conversation, and discuss the possible disciplinary and professional liability implications of an impaired attorney’s conduct. In addition, the speaker will present best practices/effective risk management strategies, preventative measures, and proposed policy and well-being initiatives, that attorneys in any practice setting may implement to protect clients, themselves and other firm members as well as save careers.

Non-compete agreements shape the American employment landscape, affecting both employees and employers. Because these agreements prevent an employee from working within a particular industry for a defined time period, courts tend to closely examine these provisions. In recent years, many states have passed legislation to modify non-compete provisions in both employment agreements and business purchase agreements. Some states uphold non-compete agreements only when a legitimate business interest is at stake, while others have banned non-competes altogether. Certain states require employers to provide additional consideration or benefits to an employee to bind them by a non-compete. If employers are to adequately draft non-compete provisions, and if employees are to successfully negotiate such provisions, they must understand how the law is evolving in this area. Kristen Prinz, the Founder and Managing Partner of the Prinz Law Firm, P.C., will discuss best practices for drafting non-compete clauses from an employer’s perspective, and best practices to negotiate and handle non-compete clauses from an employee’s perspective.

From Jones to Riley to Carpenter, the Supreme Court has changed the landscape of 4th and 5th Amendment law in the digital realm. This CLE will explore the effects of these landmark cases and identify areas of further challenges for the defense. Attendees will learn about how courts are applying the 4th and 5th Amendments to new forms of digital evidence and will learn to spot potential Constitutional Issues involving digital devices. Section one will take a look at the three seminal cases from the US Supreme Court dealing with digital evidence: Jones, Riley, and Carpenter. Section two will review cases based on Carpenter, and its impacts on various platforms such as Google and Facebook. Section three covers current case law regarding compelling suspects to turn over passwords or fingerprints to unlock cellphones.

The term “lawyer well-being” may seem like an oxymoron. For a junior lawyer, the demanding hours, the pressures to bill, and the stressful work environments can be overwhelming and often have detrimental effects. It often seems impossible to manage high-levels of stress and combat burnout while at the same time finding time for self-care. This program will educate attendees on the data related to the prevalence of mental health issues and substance use disorders in the profession, particularly in lawyers under 30 years of age or ten years out of law school, and discuss certain indicators of burnout. In addition, the speaker will present best practices/effective strategies and preventative measures that junior lawyers can implement so that they not only thrive, but flourish in any practice setting.

Discover from corporate insider and attorney Douglas Gordon, in a nationally recognized program, the best corporate governance practices for the board of directors of any size corporation, large or small, public or private. Learn why the board of directors is the most powerful force in the corporation and why it should act accordingly. Get the tools the board and individual directors need to do their job such as Mr. Gordon’s exclusive “Ten Commandments for the Board” (as a group) and the “Director Bill of Rights” (for individual directors). If you’ve ever served on a board, would like to serve on a board, or you're an attorney with corporate clients or director clients, or you’re an attorney who would like to have those types of clients, this course is for you.

This course will cover the various ways COVID-19 has impacted employment law. We will also discuss changes in employment law that are likely to develop as the world continues to adjust to COVID-19 and the “new normal.” While COVID-19 has affected almost every part of day to day living in the United States and abroad, the workplace will undoubtedly be a different place due to COVID-19. It is important for attorneys assisting clients with issues related to COVID-19 to understand how the employment law landscape has changed due to COVID-19.

It is not always clear how a deposition or written discovery responses can be used by a party during an evidentiary hearing or trial. The applicable discovery rules provide guidance, but frequently the judge is unsure of what is and is not permissible, and whether the response even needs to be shown to the witness or whether the witness or opposing party is allowed to explain or rebut a discovery response. This presentation will discuss the permissible use of discovery responses and depositions under the applicable rules of civil procedure. Additionally, there will be a discussion of practical considerations for use of the discovery. Finally, this presentation will provide suggestions on methods to make the discovery responses more effective or useful at a hearing or trial.