April showers are about to bring May flowers, but a Monday always brings you the blog roundup. Here are some tidbits as you prepare to celebrate Law Day:

-A Georgia lawyer traded pills for a peep show with female prison inmates.

-American Lawyer released its list of highest-grossing firms.

-A Washington, D.C., lawyer reached his goal of swimming in 50 states before he turned 50.

-A Duke University School of Law student tried to get an answer to a question on his Constitutional Law exam by posting it on the Internet.

A few bank lawyers in Chicago helped achieve a stay of execution for a cat.

The cat was facing a death sentence, a penalty  Connecticut is set to soon abolish (for people), after its owner stipulated in her will that all her surviving feline friends be euthanized “in a painless, peaceful manner” upon her death.

The owner, Georgia Lee Dvorak, 76, died in December and her estate and 20-year-old will were left in the hands of Fifth Third Bank trust officers. The officers took pity on the kitty and went to court Monday asking that the cat, named Boots, be sent to a no-kill animal shelter.

Apparently Boots has had somewhat of a hard-knock life. Dvorak took her in as a stray about 18 months before she died; Boots’ previous owners “threw her down stairs and kept her in a locked closet for days at a time with no food, water or litter box.”

The bank lawyers argued that since most of Dvorak’s $1.4 million estate was going toward animal charities, she was committed to the love of animals and therefore would not want her cat to die.

A Cook County judge agreed to send Boots to happier hunting grounds here on Earth. The cat will go to a shelter which requested a $2,000 endowment to care for the cat — $1,000 will come from Dvorak’s estate and the other half will come from fees Fifth Third Bank agreed to forego.

The name of the shelter Boots will spend the rest of his mouse-chasing days? Cats are Purrsons Too. Apparently, the court could not agree more.

A Maine lawyer is convinced a former client is a serial killer and is now trying to link him to a series of murders.

Eric B. Cote represented Rory Holland from 2008 to 2009 in a real estate partition action. After Cote and Holland went their separate ways, Holland was convicted of killing brothers Derek and Gage Greene later in 2009.

Afterwards, Cote extensively investigated Holland and dug up old missing persons records trying to connect them to Holland. He is even convinced that one person has been wrongly convicted of a crime Holland committed.

For those of you who have seen “The Lincoln Lawyer” (anyone?) starring the one and only Matthew McConaughey — possibly the most unconvincing lawyer of all time — you know that Cote’s story is almost a scene straight out of the movie.

Just like Cote, McConaughey is representing a client who turns out to be a serial killer and is actually responsible for the murder one of McConaughey’s former clients went to prison for. (Although most of the movie is lots of action and chases and shooting and McConaughey making confused faces as his lawyer character unravels the truth.)

A few weeks ago, a judge said Cote had become “obsessed with the background and history of Mr. Holland.” Cote was then reprimanded by the court for using confidential information he had gained from Holland while representing him in later actions against Holland. (Cote had represented the Greene brothers’ mother, Tammy Cole, in an unlawful death action against Holland.)

While that doesn’t have the same glossy, adrenaline-pumped Hollywood ending, at least Cote seems to have a blemish-free record, with no disciplinary action against him in his 35 years of practicing law.

The same can maybe not be said for McConaughey’s acting track record.

Being a 9-year-old can be tough. Sometimes you have to pick up the toys in your room. Sometimes you have to solve multiplication tables for homework. And sometimes you have to go in for jury duty.

Well, that’s the way it was for Cape Cod third-grader Jacob Clark, who got a summons for jury duty in the mail, even though you are only eligible for jury duty after turning 18.

His first reaction?

“I was like, ‘What’s a jury duty?’” Clark, who lives in Yarmouth, Mass., told the Cape Cod Times.

His second reaction, according to his grandmother, Deborah Clark?

“He said, ‘I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!’” she said.

And who could blame him? So, Clark’s dad called over to the jury commission office to get to the bottom of it. Apparently the state had his birth date wrong. Someone had typed in 1982 instead of 2002.

Speaking of slips in recordkeeping . . .

A Nebraska lawyer practiced law without a license for 12 years before anyone noticed.

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They are calling him a “legal Rambo” and “a Wild West divorce attorney gone rogue.”

A New Mexico lawyer was sentenced to 30 days in prison for breaking into the home of his client’s ex-husband,the Alamogordo Daily News reports. Video surveillance shows the lawyer, Raymond T. Van Arnam, kicking in the rear door of the ex-husband’s home, a move more reminiscent of Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible” than in “A Few Good Men.”

Van Arnam was representing Melissa Stonecipher, who was pregnant at the time, in divorce proceedings from Anthony Stonecipher. Van Arnam and his client decided to break into her ex-husband’s home to retrieve baby furniture and accessories. Little did they know that Anthony Stonecipher had rigged his house with surveillance cameras.

Video surveillance shows Van Arnam letting associates into Anthony Stonecipher’s house and carrying out the items. The video also shows Van Arnum hugging his client for about 30 seconds.

“I was personally angry with what he was doing to my client,” Van Arnam told ABC News. “He was bullying her and dominating her.”

Van Arnam will have to serve 334 days of probation after he gets out of jail and will pay$2,732 in court costs and $5,000 in restitution to Anthony Stonecipher. He will also complete 100 days of community service.

Melissa Stonecipher did not escape unscathed. She pleaded guilty to criminal damage to property of a household member and was was placed under 364 days of supervised probation.

After telling us what was hot at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and giving us a peek at the future of smart TVs, Frank Gorman and Julie Harada of Gorman & Williams now present their Top 10 gadgets from the expo. Our thanks to Gorman, Harada and Mike Yang for providing us with these dispatches.

The Consumer Electronics Show 2012 launched 20,000 new products.  Selecting the top 10 gadgets out of so many products, even discounting the hype, is a very subjective process.  Our 2012 list contains a wide variety of products, although we gave an edge to several that might have a law practice application.

Lytro Light Field Camera This is a simple, auto-mode camera that captures the light field. It allows you to take a picture and focus after the fact using its touch screen. Pictures can also be viewed in 3D. Winner of the Last Gadget Standing competition at CES.

AirStash Wireless Flash Drive and Media Streamer by Maxell This USB drive has wireless capability that allows storing and transfer of documents and photos and streaming of video to an iPhone, iPad or Kindle Fire. A Wi-Fi environment is not needed, and emails are not necessary for file transfers. It also has a built-in rechargeable battery and still plugs into a USB port on a computer.

IdeaPad YOGA by Lenovo A multi-mode, 13.3-inch notebook with a 360-degree flip-and-fold design that allows four separate usage positions — notebook, tablet, stand and tent. It combines the tablet’s ease of use with the functionality of an ultrabook, the latest generation of the laptop. The cool dual-hinge design is patented.

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Maryland attorneys who oppose a proposed requirement that they take continuing legal education courses might find kinship with Louisiana judges.

A proposed resolution in the Louisiana legislature would urge the state Supreme Court to develop a mandatory CLE course on family law for all of the state’s judges. The proposal states that nearly every legislator has received ”numerous phone calls, e-mails, and letters from constituents complaining about judicial application of laws on child custody and child support.”

Louisiana House Concurrrent Resolution No. 79 adds that “great confusion” continues to exist in the state judiciary fully 17 years after the state’s most recent change in child-custody laws and following recent alterations to the state’s child-support guidelines.

“[N]o other area of the law touches … citizens, including the children of our constituents, more intimately, directly, and often painfully, than the law of custody and child support,” the resolution notes. The legislature “desires that all members of the judiciary, not just the family and juvenile court judges, be apprised of the current status of all Louisiana laws, particularly those affecting the children of our state.”

The resolution, which the Louisiana House approved this month, awaits action by the state Senate.

Maryland judges are required to take 10 hours of CLE  courses annually. The state’s top court, the Court of Appeals, has not set a date for voting on a controversial proposal to require that Maryland attorneys also take 10 hours of CLE per year.

Is mandatory CLE for Maryland attorneys a good idea?

From our Generation J.D. blog: Mandatory CLE in Maryland?

Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams is in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. It’s Gorman’s first time at CES since 2007, although he attended for most of the Aughts.

The Baltimore lawyer says he goes “to see and keep up with technology,” which helps in his intellectual property practice. He is also an enthusiastic advocate of courtroom technology.

Gorman has graciously offered to write a few dispatches from Vegas. Today is an overview of CES; Monday he’ll have a look at some of the cool gadgets that are the hallmark of the event.

Gadgets aside, the big-picture story at CES 2011 is the increasing competition among the major players in the industry as they use existing technologies to create new products and services.

CES 2011 is big and sprawling, as in previous years. There are more than 2,700 exhibitors with booths in the Las Vegas Convention Center touting an incredible variety of consumer electronic products and services. There is a full array of conferences, presentations, and keynote speakers. There are thousands of registered attendees. Lots of deals will be made. In short, the excitement in Las Vegas this week is the event itself.

CES this year, however, is not a showcase for breakthrough technologies that permit consumers to do things they could not do before. In previous years, the excitement came from dramatic changes: broadband replaces dial-up; streaming digital content from its source eliminates the need for CDs and DVDs; Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) ends the monopoly of keyboarding and permits consumers to communicate over the Internet by voice; wireless frees consumers from cords.

Instead, CES 2011 is the arena for the competing products that have resulted from high-level market competition in the industry. Software giants Google, Microsoft, Apple are each innovating and maneuvering to gain dominance in markets previously dominated by the others.

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In researching the NFL’s pension plan for today’s Maryland Lawyer cover story, one thing made no sense: If the Retirement Board consists of representatives from the league and the players’ union, why wouldn’t the union people always side with the players against management?

The theory Cy Smith subscribes to is that the NFLPA‘s demographics make it different from other unions. The NFLPA represents only active players, who are typically in their 20s and 30s.

“The NFLPA focuses on interests of current players because they are the bargaining units and they don’t think long-term the way most people in their 20s don’t think long-term,” he says. “If you’re a current player, your focus is going to be on salary.”

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Still wish you were on vacation? Most of your co-workers out for week? Here’s some “work” you can do to pass the time:

• The strange (and sad) story of Ravens rookie Sergio Kindle takes another wrong turn.
• Morris L. Cohen, one of the nation’s leading law librarians, dies at 83. (HT: Above the Law)
• The title says it all: “Male nurse who was a former stripper failed to make out claims that he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.”
• OK, “Matlock” fans, stand up for your show’s egregiously-low ranking. (HT: Volokh Conspiracy)
• It’s still better than a lump of coal, right?