Professional Commentary

After months of deliberation and stagnant discussion over adequate government funding measures, on December 27, 2020, Congress signed The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA) into law. The new bill, whose title is as profound and as it is arbitrary sounding, covers 5593 pages and includes $900 billion of pandemic related relief. The House and [...]

In some states, missing a tax payment could cost you your home.   That’s exactly what happened to one family from Easton, Massachusetts. Although brothers Neil and Mark Mucciaccio owned their house outright, they struggled to keep up with rising property taxes when their family experienced several medical and financial hardships. When the brothers failed to [...]

WhatsApp is a free to download cross-platform messaging application which was founded in 2009. In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, which brought WhatsApp under scrutiny for its privacy practices. Facebook faced international backlash for the Cambridge Analytica scandal during the Brexit and 2016 United States Elections. Moreover, in 2018, news reports exposed Facebook’s [...]

Last week, a Travis County judge in Texas ordered that Rosa Jimenez be released from prison because false scientific testimony was used to secure her 2005 conviction for murdering a 21-month-old toddler in her care. The saga of Jimenez’ wrongful conviction highlights several major flaws in our criminal justice system. At her trial, Jimenez was accused [...]

International Arbitration has become a global practice where different legal systems are considered during the proceedings with lawyers, arbitrators, experts and parties from different school of thoughts and with different understanding of applicable ethical rules. Two legal systems, common law and civil law, are usually the most prevalent systems used in international arbitration. The differences [...]

It has been almost 12 years since the civil war in Sri Lanka came to an end after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Since 2009, there has been a concerted effort to hold perpetrators accountable for the mass killings against Tamil citizens, there has also been a governmental committee set [...]

On January 13, 2021, the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility published ABA Opinion 496, “Responding to Online Criticism,” which delineates the ethical restrictions imposed on lawyers who wish to respond to unflattering online reviews. Recognizing the need to adapt to a changing world increasingly characterized by online interactions, the [...]

When the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield in Schrems II, over 5300 American businesses—including Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft—lost their primary mechanism for international data transfers with the European Economic Area (EEA). Since the July 2020 decision, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission have [...]

The year 2021 could mark significant changes, among other things, to an oft argued about and imminently perplexing, sixty-year-old law–The Federal Wire Act (“Wire Act”). The change will likely be driven from the hands of President-elect Joe Biden, and more specifically, with who he selects as Attorney General of the United States. Though Biden largely [...]

Let’s get this out on the table: your President is mentally ill and a possible “dictator to be”. There, I said something no one wants to admit. It is hard to believe, but a minority of Americans allowed this poor devil to be constitutionally elected President of the United States. While the rest of the [...]