The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a cigarette maker’s appeal of a $79.5 million award to a smoker’s widow, likely signaling the end of a 10-year legal fight over the large payout.
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(CNN) — Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir asked Arab leaders meeting in Qatar on Monday to strongly reject an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
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Ho hum. Another day, another social media site for the legal community. This time, reports The Shark, it’s Advanced Advocates, which bills itself as the first “worldwide collaborative platform for law students.” Translated into current parlance, that’s “Facebook for law students,” according to Brian Lauter.
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The Employ American Workers Act (EAWA), signed recently by President Barack Obama, puts severe restrictions on potential H-1B employers who have received the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds. The Act makes such employers “H-1B dependent employers”, forcing them to make attestations including efforts to recruit US workers, offering non-discriminating wages to H-1B non-immigrants and US workers, and not causing displacement of US workers.
There is widespread resentment in the H-1B community, both employers and employees, about this issue. We have been asked the question whether such restrictions on recipients of stimulus funds would impact the number of H-1B petitions for the Fiscal Year 2010, the filing for which opens on April 1, 2009. We believe the impact would be minimal for the reason that H-1B workers account for less than one-tenth of one percent of the U.S. workforce including those employed in the banking and financial sectors who are the major beneficiaries of the stimulus package.
H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa classification granted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to foreign nationals to be employed in the U.S. in “specialty occupations” that require a minimum of bachelor’s degree or equivalent. The current worldwide quota of H-1B visas is 65,000 per year. Out of this, 6,800 are reserved for nationals of Singapore and Chile. In addition to this worldwide quota, there is a special quota of 20,000 visas available to holders of advanced degrees from U.S. graduate schools. Further, certain employers in academic and research areas are exempt from this quota. The fiscal year starts on October 1, and petitions can be filed up to six month ahead of the start of employment, so the filing opens on April 1. If enough petitions are received to trigger the 5-business-day filing rule, as happened in 2008, the filing will end on April 7. Otherwise USCIS will continue to accept petitions until the quota is capped.
Last year, 163,000 petitions were filed in the first five days of filing, including 31,200 against the U.S. advanced degree category. As a result, a random lottery was conducted as was done in 2007, to determine the ultimate recipients of the coveted visas.
In the past couple of years, immigration law firms had seen a mad rush leading up to the filing date of April 1. Obviously this year such rush is absent mainly because of the downturn in the economy. So the widespread feeling is that this year there may not be as many petitions filed in the early days of filing as the previous years due to the recession and widespread layoffs. But even if the number of petitions filed is just half of last year’s total, the quota would still get capped. Further, as regards the U.S. advanced degree quota cap, there are thousands of foreign students in the US whose petitions were not picked in the lottery last year. A large percentage of them would be candidates again this time, in addition to those graduated later, putting more demand on that category.
Also, we have seen a sudden spurt in new inquiries in the past week or so. Moreover, most of our H-1B employer clients are looking beyond the current economic downturn. They are confident that things would turn around by the time the employment period of the new H-1Bs starts on October 1, 2009. So we keep urging our clients to file the Fiscal Year 2010 quota-subject H-1B petitions on April 1 or as soon thereafter as possible.
Disclaimer: The information in the above article is of a general nature only and should not be taken as legal advice. Always seek professional legal advice before proceeding with your case.
Copyright: The Law Offices of Morley J. Nair, Inc.
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The creative industries have long been subjected to copycat works and piracy. It is, to a certain extent, an unavoidable pitfall of producing creative products in the age of mass media. However, the current economic crisis has prompted a surge in litigation against unauthorised copying as the film, music and fashion industries fight to protect their products and profits.
The problem is a familiar one to those in the music and film fields. The internet has made piracy virtually impossible to control; any attempts to do so generally prove futile due to the vast and unregulated nature of the web. As a result, film and music businesses have been forced to evolve in unprofitable ways. For some record companies this means giving away music for free; the very product which should be making them money.
Nonetheless, the big players in the industry continue to challenge those that violate their rights wherever it is possible to prove a good case. In recent times, one of the biggest piracy cases of the decade began in Sweden against three men running a filesharing website. As well as facing criminal charges, the men will also fight civil claims from members of the music and film industries. If the claims are successful, those responsible could be liable for up to 13.1 million euros in compensation for loss of profits.
By contrast, the fashion industy has generally adopted a more forgiving attitude towards copying. Creating styles and trends results in an inevitable volume of product emulation which - up until now - has widely been accepted as the nature of the beast. However, the economic downturn has hit profits in the consumer industry hard, and designers are now calling in litigation solicitors to protect their rights and hard won profits.
However, the fight against copiers is unlikely to be an easily won battle. Intellectual Properties laws, including trademarking and copyright, serve the fashion industry only up to a certain extent. Similarly, the registered design system introduced in 2003 offers protection throughout the EU, but still has limited power. The most effecive means for a fashion designer to protect their work is with the two unregistered design rights available in the UK. Nonetheless, because of the difficulty of regualting design, even designs with near identical features may be considered acceptable if their complete look is deemed to ultimately differ.
It will be interesting to see whether this trend for litigation continues when the economy picks up. While it is likely that those in the music and film industries will continue to fight copiers with the same fervour they adopted prior to the recession, the fashion industy may return to their more accepting attitude when profits return to previous levels. In the meantime, litigation solicitors are likely to find themselves to be some of the few who may be able to make a profit in this period of economic difficulty.
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So you got a speeding ticket or another type of traffic ticket and it’s expensive! How about going to traffic school? It can save you quite a bit of cash. Of course, with traffic school, you’ve got to pay with your time instead. Here are some traffic school tips to smoothen the ride. After all, the long-term benefits of choosing traffic school over paying up (and thus admitting guilt) can be substantial…
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Today the number of people performing free public records search or background checks is increasing.
Searching public records has become much easier since the Freedom of Information Act whereby anything that is documented on any person in the US is available to the public.
A public records search is a national search of public records from various sources, including federal, state, and local government agencies.
These public records can cover all aspects of life, for example, from state records, county records, criminal records, business records, court records, marriage records,birth and death records,lost people records, military records, sex offenders records, financial records etc.
Public records requests can be made not only on people, but also on properties. If you’re interested in buying a new home or moving to a new neighborhood, a public records search can tell you all you need to know about property values, property histories and even who your neighbors are.
This information is to be found in the billions of public records databases held across the country and whilst these records are publicly available it can be quite difficult to research and also very time consuming.
For example you would have to go from one site for reverse phone numbers to another site for birth records and another for criminal records.
The solution to this has been found by the creation of websites which have done all this work by getting their information from both public and private services by utilizing a large network of multiple data services.
They have thereby created massive databases which can now be accessed online.
As an example, one of these websites has over 1 billion public records on file.This can also be an obvious all-in-one solution for investigators, law enforcement and so on. However, today ordinary people also feel the need to do background checks themselves from their homes which is private and saves time and money.
Another advantage of using these sites is that you are able to access these records anonymously anytime anywhere. Most of them charge a small one-time fee or small monthly fee for an unlimited access to these organized records. Obviously,the type of searches you are doing will reflect this. For example a one-time check or ancestor research would both require different types of searches.
The first thing to do when you want to access several public records online is to find a reliable site which holds all this information and keeps it constantly updated.
However,there are literally thousands of websites that are based on providing information about people to the public, but a lot of these websites are simply a scam that will take your money without giving you accurate results.
Scam websites could show you some hidden information in the beginning in order to get you to buy their services. This hidden information doesn’t mean that the website that you use is legitimate, so it is always best to take your time and find an honest website that you feel comfortable with.
To find a good website you will want to first check their history and to view some public records sites to make sure that they give you the results that you are looking for.
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However they satisfy their nicotine cravings, tobacco users are facing a big hit as the single largest federal tobacco tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday.
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When William L. Pollak, CEO of legal media giant Incisive Media’s operations in North America, launched Bill’s blog, his thought was that it would be read only by the company’s employees. But he soon realized, as he wrote there recently, that the blog is open to the world. “When we started our blogs, I was under the impression that these were somehow ‘protected’ but, alas, that’s not true,” he explained. “An intrepid Googler can find these words amidst the one trillion pages which the search engine has now indexed.”
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The question is why do we require criminal records? We might just be questioning ourselves this very moment on what the advantages of criminal records are. The main idea here for example is when you just met someone originating from another place. Naturally, you would be thinking and also curious if that person is providing you with the correct information or maybe that person is just lying and insincere. It is the same with the company who are hiring employees. Trust is hard to earn especially when you just meet a person for the first time and you have no information or history about him or her. It is also the same case with couples who are just planning to get married as well they will need to conduct a background search with the assistance of a criminal record.
The above are several examples that illustrate the advantages of criminal records. These people often hire someone else’s services just to know the real background of a particular person they will be tying the knot with. It is not being suspicious or doubtful with them but rather the way being sure especially with the person that you will be spending the rest of your life with. Some of the crimes that are known in criminal records are misdemeanors, sex offenders, Criminal Breach of Trust, kidnapping, murder, robberies, gang fights, fraud, vandalism and others thinking they can escape the long arm of law and justice.
The advantages of criminal records actually go beyond what we are aware of. The law enforcement agencies of various counties and states can utilize information based on these records to locate and capture criminals and fugitives. The public can be educated on the dangers of certain crimes such as rapes and murders and thus, can avoid falling prey to these crimes and criminals. With these information contained in the criminal records accessible from even the Internet, crime rates can be lowered and state as well as national security can be increased.
Friends, relatives and family members of criminals and inmates can utilize information on criminal records to avail the probation, parole or release dates. Since criminal records are considered to be an issue pertaining to security, some basic identifying information is needed such as name, sex and age etc. This can be considered as an advantage of criminal records as it protects the criminal rights while adhering to safety/security issues.
The advantages of criminal records also extend to researchers, students and writers to gather valuable information for their respective fields of expertise. The studies of human behavior can be vital to understand the way criminals’ minds and crime patterns.
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