For the third consecutive year, Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams has graciously offered to write a few blog posts while he is in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. 

The weather is beautiful in Las Vegas as nearly 150,000 registered attendees flock to the 2013 Consumer Electronic Show. Products and services are displayed over 1.8 million square-feet of floor space at three primary venues: the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center; the Las Vegas Hotel next door (formerly the Hilton); and The Venetian about a mile down the Strip. The show runs through Friday.

Smartphones, tablets, and large TVs dominate 2013 CES. The iPhone remains the standard against which all smartphones are compared. Manufacturers exhibiting at CES are showing thinner and larger smartphones. Tablets are incorporated into ultrabooks and hybrid PCs, with some designs using hinges and others with tablets that snap on and fold over a keyboard. There are cinema-quality flat screens TVs that can be controlled by voice commands and gestures. Manufacturers are still promoting 3D TVs and the high-picture-quality OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TVs.

Samsung is the most prominent exhibitor this year. As the Apple-fighter, Samsung seems to have extra panache this year setting it apart. The Galaxy Note tablet and Galaxy Note II smartphone are attracting lots of attention.

If anyone at CES is missing Apple and Microsoft as exhibitors, I have not noticed. The iLounge area of the show contains hundreds of accessory products for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, demonstrating Apple’s huge impact on the industry.

Microsoft, incidentally, is absent from CES for the first time in 14 years. Its software operates many of the products on display here but its own hardware products, such as the Surface tablet, are not a factor at CES.

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Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

Today we take a trip into foreign relations in the In-House Interrogatory.

The American Bar Association is talking about new rules regarding foreign in-house counsel, Corporate Counsel reports. The association’s commission on ethics has made several proposals.

The first rule would allow judges to let foreign lawyers appear before them in the United States pro hac vice. Another new rule would make it legal for foreign attorneys to take jobs as in-house counsel at an office in the United States as long as they are only working for one company. An additional proposal would let foreign attorneys register as in-house counsel in the country.

So here’s our question for you:

Do you agree with these new proposed rules? Should there be fewer restrictions on foreign general counsels in the United States?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• The Securities and Exchange Commission named a new general counsel.
• In-house attorneys in Great Britain are getting paid less.
• A New York general counsel accused of embezzling $9 million turned himself into police.
• The Air Force created a legal counsel position specifically for sexual assault victims.
• Capital Bank Financial Corp. named a new in-house counsel.
• Anacostia Rail Holdings named a new general counsel.

Follow us on Twitter for In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse

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