This job is so mundane it’s not really practicing law

Do you understand what an irritated contract reviewer could do to you?

Hey, you document reviewers out there—there’s good news and bad news on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog today.  The good news is a New York woman has founded United Contract Attorneys to organize for better working conditions. She has the radical point of view that contract attorneys should be treated as working professionals. The bad news is a contract attorney at Skadden Arps is suing the firm and a legal staffing agency for overtime pay, but he says the document review work he did was so mundane its doesn’t qualify as the practice of law. Ouch.

Didn’t really mean it, just talking

In an article by Dahlia Lithwick, Slate discusses the “reasonable listener” standard presented, but not defined, in the Elonis case where the appellant posted some scary stuff about his ex-wife on Facebook. Or, as Fox News reported, the court “dodged” the free speech issue. And there’s much more in cyberspace about this opinion and the Abercrombie Fitch case.

Never really wanted a beard anyway

This is an April 8 post from On Brief, Iowa’s Appellate Blog but worth reading. The Arkansas shaving case is over. This is the entire post: “ The beard saga brewing in Arkansas prisons may have drawn to a close. As we mentioned a couple months ago, the latest beard case, Deaton v. Arkansas Dep’t of Corrections, was headed for an Eighth Circuit RLUIPA showdown after the Supreme Court’s pro-beard ruling in Holt v. Hobbs. But it looks like Mr. Deaton and the prison officials have decided to let sleeping dogs lie. According to today’s Eighth Circuit decision, Arkansas has changed its grooming policy—presumably in response to Holt—to allow inmates to grow beards of any length. Mr. Deaton, for his part, is going beardless as spring settles in. He recently advised the Eighth Circuit that “he has shaved his beard and has no present intent to re-grow it.” As a result, the Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot.”