The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. The American Civil Liberties Union represents April Redding, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose daughter, Savana Redding, was strip searched by Safford Middle School officials six years ago.
"We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that school officials had no reason to strip search Savana Redding and that the decision to do so was unconstitutional," said Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU who argued the case before the Court. "Today's ruling affirms that schools are not constitutional dead zones. While we are disappointed with the Court's conclusion that the law was not clear before today and therefore school officials were not found liable, at least other students will not have to go through what Savana experienced."
Scott Drake interviews Adam Wolf
Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor for "Slate" writes:
If the Republican attack on Sotomayor is really going to consist of scattershot claims that she is too female and ethnic to be truly fair or impartial, it will be a losing demographic battle. Recall that 67 percent of Hispanics and 58 percent of women voted for Obama in 2008, along with 96 percent of blacks. Folks across the political spectrum may wish that Obama hadn't opened the door to discussions of the complicated connection between experience and judicial "empathy." But now that we are there, it simply has to be a mistake for her opponents to attack Sotomayor as someone who is just too darn human to sit on a court.
Scott talks with Dahlia Lithwick
Hardly a month after a trademark lawsuit filed in the appeals court against Google's keyword sales, another suit has surfaced in Texas. Search engine titan Google is slammed with a new lawsuit for allowing companies to use competitor's trademarks to trigger their pay-per-click ads. Firepond, a software company in Texas, on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in the eastern district of Texas, against Google alleging its AdWords service profits by selling keywords bearing a company's trademark to its competitors.
Firepond, a small software selling company, based in Marshall, Texas, has sued Google, alleging that its AdWords system infringes its trade marks. The plaintiff claims that consumers are “duped into clicking through to a competitor's sponsored link” when they search for Firepond and are served ads for another company.
A corresponding lawsuit involving PC support company Rescuecom was brought back to the forefront in April by an appeals court after initially being dismissed in 2006. If the case gathers enough participants, the suit could cost the search giant dearly.
Scott talks with Eric Goldman. he's an associate professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law and Director of the High Tech Law Institute.
CNBC and Fox Business News financial commentator Jordan Kimmel discusses the AIG bonuses and working with Jim Kramer on CNBC.
Scott Drake and Jordan Kimmel discjuss what it will take to get investors back in the stock market. Consumer and investor confidence are all thats left to jumpstart the economy. They also discuss PBS Frontline's "Meltdown". It chronicles the beginning of the economic collapse and how unsure economic leaders were about not only what to do but what was coming. They also touch on the often misunderstood and shadowy world of credit default swaps.
Could it be? Has the era of greed that began with the election of Ronald Reagan come to an abrupt end? Peter Cohan says, “It appears the seething emotions of greed and envy that come along with bonus time at investment banks will now have fewer dollars attached to them.Talent will now flow to government and academia rather than Wall Street. This could be good for the U.S.!”Cohan says some of the ‘masters of the universe’ in the investment banking industry have seen the value of their stock tumble and many of them are going withoutbonuses this year. For a great discussion on who’s suffering now and what’s coming next to Wall Street Cohan owns a management consulting and venture capital firm and teaches strategy at Babson College. He is a frequent commentator on developments in economics, technology,and finance and has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, CNBC, PBS’s Wall \$treet Week, and New England Cable News (NECN)
Scott Drake talks with Peter Cohan
Today the Legal Broadcast Network rolled out their newest channel, that being The Summit Settlements Channel, the first of several unique or company specific channels and shows that allow settlement and financial professionals to "get in the game" of networking, broadcasting and internet marketing.
You can go check out the brand new channel for Summit by clicking here.
The option to join the site is only open to Summit brokers and staff but you can get an idea of the type of material that Stan Harlan and his brokers will be producing, some of the unique CE presentations that were created at their annual meeting, as well as a glimpse at some of the professional networking options that are available to Summit members.
Obviously, I had a big hand in this as I am both a member of the Summit Settlement general agency and also the chairman of The Legal Broadcast Network, but this is definitely not the last company specific channel we will be rolling out in 2008. What makes it unique in my mind are the following elements.
I'm putting this blog post up to welcome all of the new Summit Settlement brokers and staff to the launch of the Summit Settlements Channel. What you are looking at is a substantial commitment from Stan and Chris Harlan to their brokers and staff to assist you with the development of your own online media and marketing platform.
I know a lot of this will seem strange or even somewhat useless to you, but I encourage you to take the time in your busy schedule to look at the various features.
Each broker has the ability to create a blog, develop a professional profile where clients and prospects can find them, use the radio broadcast studio of The Legal Broadcast Network to develop show and topic ideas, as well as join forums and groups of interest to brokers in the Summit family. There will be monthly and weekly updates from Stan and the LBN studios on how to best utilize this channel as well as tips and ideas on how to expand your marketing efforts. In short you are getting an incredibly powerful platform at no cost to you!
Look it over, contact me if you have questions but be sure to put up a picture and get started. It's a whole new world out there.