Monday, January 5, 2015

Accredited Bonding Companies

See - ALPHALIST FOR CIVIL-SPECIAL PROC. AUG. 1, 2014 TO JAN. 31, 2015 - civil_cases.pdf







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Appointments to lower courts in Nov. 2014 - lowercourts-11-28-14.pdf

See - lowercourts-11-28-14.pdf





APPOINTMENTS TO LOWER COURTS IN NOVEMBER 2014. CLICK THE LINK ABOVE.
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Recent administrative orders issued by the Supreme Court

See - Supreme Court of the Philippines





ADMIN ORDER

Administrative Order No. 52-2014
Designated Executive Judges and Vice Executive Judges of their respective stations.



Administrative Order No. 53-2014
Administrative Order No. 54-2014
Administrative Order No. 55-2014
Administrative Order No. 56-2014
Administrative Order No. 57-2014
Administrative Order No. 58-2014
Administrative Order No. 59-2014
Administrative Order No. 60-2014
Administrative Order No. 61-2014
Administrative Order No. 62-2014
Administrative Order No. 63-2014
Administrative Order No. 64-2014
Administrative Order No. 65-2014
Administrative Order No. 66-2014
Administrative Order No. 67-2014
Administrative Order No. 68-2014
Administrative Order No. 69-2014
Administrative Order No. 70-2014
Administrative Order No. 71-2014
Administrative Order No. 72-2014
Administrative Order No. 73-2014
Administrative Order No. 128-2014
Administrative Order No. 129-2014
Administrative Order No. 130-2014
Administrative Order No. 131-2014
Administrative Order No. 132-2014
Administrative Order No. 133-2014
Administrative Order No. 134-2014
Administrative Order No. 135-2014
Administrative Order No. 136-2014
Administrative Order No. 137-2014
Administrative Order No. 138-2014
Administrative Order No. 139-2014
Administrative Order No. 140-2014
Administrative Order No. 141-2014
Administrative Order No. 142-2014
Administrative Order No. 143-2014
Administrative Order No. 144-2014
Administrative Order No. 145-2014
Administrative Order No. 146-2014
Administrative Order No. 147-2014
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Supreme Court decisions for November 2014

See - Supreme Court of the Philippines





JURISPRUDENCE NOVEMBER 2014

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Supreme Court decisions for October 2-14

See - Supreme Court of the Philippines





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Thursday, January 1, 2015

Every Legal App For Android

See - Every Legal App For Android





"x x x.

There are plenty of Android apps for lawyers including apps for case management, billing, trial preparation, and legal research. This list includes every legal app for Android that we could find in the Google Play store.
There are just a few exceptions. This does not include apps that are dead links in the Google Play store. Apps that are mobile versions of legal publications aren’t here either unless they aggregate content in an unusually useful way. Additionally, the Google Play store has a large number of applications that just repackage freely available content such as codes and statutes. Those are not here unless they provide some sort of added value like the ability to annotate.
The table below is searchable, and you can sort by each column. Use the comments to let us know if we missed an app.
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Top 10 Legal Writing Blog Posts of 2014 - Strategist

See - Top 10 Legal Writing Blog Posts of 2014 - Strategist





"x x x.

Throughout 2014, FindLaw's Strategist and Greedy Associates blogs published many notable pieces about legal writing, and how to do it better. Here are the 10 legal writing posts that you liked the most:
10. #DearFindLaw: Legal Writing Checklists; the 3-2-1 Study Method -- This post, geared toward law students, addresses the "3-2-1" method, which you can use to determine when you absolutely, positively have to start cramming for a final exam. The "checklists" part of the post, which is germane to everyone, is about using checklists to make sure you don't forget something when you're writing.
9. #DearFindLaw: Legal Writing Is a Freaking Nightmare -- Should you sweat the Bluebook? Not really. It's pretty opaque, but once you get the basics of citation, it all comes into focus. Plus, how can you become a better writer? (By reading better writing.)
8. 5 Tips for Writing Lawyerly Letters of Recommendation -- If you're tasked with writing a recommendation for a prospective law student or a current law student-slash-job seeker, we have some things you should keep in mind.
7. For Dictionary Day, 7 More Words Only Federal Judges Use -- Want to expand your vocabulary? Read this second part in our ongoing saga of strange words federal judges use. Justice Antonin Scalia and the First Circuit's Judge Bruce Selya are over-represented on this list. The explanations are quite pellucid.
6. Avoid Email Miscommunications, Monitor Your Tone -- You know what you want to say, but another person reading your email might not know. Is there a chance your genuine email could be read in a way that might make you sound snarky? Just give it another read-through to be sure.
5. Is Your Legal Writing Terrible? 3 Points to Ponder -- Do you routinely use awkward, overly wordy phrases when a simple verb would suffice? Do you assume your audience knows something, when you really should be explaining more? Fixing these common habits will go a long way toward turning you into a better writer.
4. The 'F U' Response Letter: 5 Tips for Writing One -- If you're really going to drop an F-bomb in a letter to an opposing party, or any of the other bombs in George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine, there's a way to do it correctly and effectively.
3. Holy Crap: Lawyer's Led Zeppelin Complaint Is a Work of Art -- A complaint claiming that Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page stole "Stairway to Heaven" from nascent rock band Spirit is the old hat; musicians accuse each other stealing all the time. But this complaint! It's a masterwork of font use, incorporating the Led Zeppelin font in just the right mocking way. Plus, it's expertly typeset and laid out.
2. 3 Typography, Layout Rules Every Lawyer Should Know -- People loved reading about layout this year. Hopefully 2015 will be the year of the large, roomy margins that give text room to breathe.
And your favorite legal writing post of 2014?
1. 5 Grammar Mistakes Lawyers Make -- We get it if you're not clear on whether "Internet" should be capitalized or whether you should say "pleaded" or "pled"; different style guides disagree. But the its/it's distinction? That one's a no brainer.
Here's to better legal writing in 2015!
Related Resources:
x x x."
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Can Free Consultations Pay Off for Lawyers? - Strategist

See - Can Free Consultations Pay Off for Lawyers? - Strategist





"x x x.


This Isn't a Free Lunch.Your first thought might be that a potential client is shopping around for freelegal advice at free consultations. And that could very well be the case. After you've played your hand by saying, "Well, I think you should do this or that," the client thanks you and walks away with an hour's worth of free legal advice. You know how you sometimes walk into a store, look around, and leave? It's like that, except the potential client is wasting your money .
Prove Yourself to the Client.
OK, but assuming that the client isn't out to get your expertise for free (and this "if" sort of requires a leap of faith), a free consultation proves to the client that you know what you're doing. Think about it from the client's point of view: He has no idea how good you really are, and he's watched countless lawyer shows about how incompetent lawyers can be.
Take time at the free consultation to dangle a little bit of legal advice in front of a potential client, but not enough that the client can go out on his own (you don't have to go into detail about your strategy).
If Not Free, Maybe Apply It to the Retainer.
A good compromise is to say, "The consultation isn't free, but if you agree to hire me, I'll apply the consultation fee to the retainer," or just waive the consultation time. This gives the potential client an incentive to hire you. It doesn't even have to be in the same appointment: "Take a week, shop around, and if you want to hire me, come back."
It Depends on Your Practice.
If your practice is personal injury, then charging for a consultation is a barrier to entry because all the personal injury attorneys offer free consultations.
On the other hand, if volume isn't a concern, you can distinguish yourself by charging something for a consult. This is a type of "premium pricing" strategy, which uses price as a marketing technique to signal to the potential client, "Hey, this product is better than what everyone else is offering. That's why we're charging more for it."
What's the answer? There is no answer. Choosing to charge for a consultation is one of those things that reasonable people can disagree about. In the end, all that matters is that you think you've made the best decision for you.
Have free consultations paid off for you? Let us know via Twitter (@FindLawLP) orFacebook (FindLaw for Legal Professionals).
Related Resources:
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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Should 'do no harm' be added to lawyer ethics rules? Torture memo shows need for change, op-ed says

See - Should 'do no harm' be added to lawyer ethics rules? Torture memo shows need for change, op-ed says





"x x x.

Legal ethics rules should be changed to make clear that legal approval of torture and other unlawful abuses is not permitted, according to law professor’s op-ed.
Alexa Van Brunt, a Northwestern University law professor and a lawyer for its MacArthur Justice Center, alleges that government lawyers “flouted international law” by condoning harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists.
In a Washington Post column, Brunt calls for “an enhanced ethical regime” in the legal profession, perhaps one that is modeled over the medical profession’s “do no harm” Hippocratic oath.
“In the legal context, this would require the creation of ethical principles that explicitly state that service to the client does not trump duty to the laws and Constitution, and that complicity in acts of torture and other such unlawful abuses would constitute a disciplinary offense—even if done on behalf of the president of the United States,” Brunt writes.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA interrogation program does make clear that some interrogation techniques exceeded those approved by lawyers in the U.S. Justice Department, Brunt says. But waterboarding, sanctioned as lawful by government lawyers, is still torture, Brunt asserts.
“We as a profession must recognize that our current ethical rules are not enough, particularly for those lawyering at the margins,” Brunt writes. “A greater mandate is called for—whoever the client, first, do no harm.”
x x x."
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Extended power of judicial review

See - Between independence and subservience





"x x x.

While intervening in the domain of the Executive and the Legislative branches with consequences akin to that of a bull charging into a china shop, the Court has been aggressively asserting its independence. It has criticized the DBM for limiting the increase in its budget for FY2015. It has refused to release details of the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) to Congress, with one justice even asserting that Congress does not have the power to amend the law creating the fund. The Court has also refused to release the justices’ Statements of Assets Liabilities & Net Worth (SALNs) to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
There are issues of democratic practice embedded in the SC’s power of judicial review which cannot remain within the necessarily secretive confines of court deliberation. The SC can rule that the Executive, together with the Legislative, or separately, are guilty of "grave abuse of discretion." What recourse is available to the Executive and Legislative branches when the SC is guilty of "grave abuse of discretion"? Under the Constitution, and Philippine jurisprudence, none.
Even only in the recent past, there have been SC decisions which have arguably breached the limits of "discretion." In 3 decisions involving the rights and power of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the SC either directly violated the law or stretched the limits of its power. These included allowing the appointment of Renato Corona as Chief Justice at a time when Arroyo was already explicitly prohibited from doing so; preventing the new administration from creating a Truth Commission; and most egregiously, a TRO on a GMA hold departure order which would have allowed Arroyo to leave the country and escape prosecution.
One key principle of democractic practice is "check and balance" between the 3 branches of government. It may be perfectly valid for the Supreme Court to have the power to "check" the other branches, but if neither the legislature nor the Executive has the power to "check" the Supreme Court, there is no "balance." The only powers available to the Executive and Legislative branches against the SC are "disruptive." Cutting the budget of the Supreme Court or worse, impeaching the justices, cannot be organized into the "normal course of [political] events." How did this come to pass?
The 1987 Constitution was written in the immediate aftermath of the Marcos dictatorship. It is only natural that the main thrust of the anti-dictatorship movement – preventing a dictatorship – was the main determinant. One provision, limiting the power of the president to declare martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus has found general acceptance. It is the other provision, giving the SC power to review acts of the legislature and the Executive, which has been problematical.
x x x."
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