STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — Federal immigration officials say metro Atlanta residents from seven countries are set to become American citizens.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Ana Santiago says metro Atlanta residents from Belize, Colombia, Ghana, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, the Philippines and St. Lucia will be sworn as American citizens Saturday.

Santiago says the 13 candidates for citizenship will be sworn in by regional immigration director Denise Frazier. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. at Stone Mountain Park on Robert E. Lee Boulevard.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Rick Barron will take over next month as Fulton County’s new elections chief, as the department continues to deal with a state investigation into problems at the polls.

Barron, 46, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he wants to make voting more convenient, minimize mishaps and improve transparency. He wants to increase early voting sites from six to as many as 25.

“There are many counties in this state that are the same size or larger than Fulton,” he said, “They manage to serve every voter in the county. If they can do it, then Fulton County can do it as well.”

Barron will begin his new role in June and was previously an elections administrator in Williamson County, Texas. Aside from increasing transparency and making voting more convenient, Barron says he wants to also improve the office’s relationship with the Georgia

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Tanya Windham, the bar’s departing sections coordinator, is presented with flowers.

Rebecca Breyer

Click here for a slide show of photos from the meeting.

Wade Watson III was sworn in as the new president of the Atlanta Bar Association on Wednesday at a time of change for the group.

He becomes the first Atlanta Bar president since the retirement in January of longtime executive director Diane O’Steen, who worked at the bar for 47 years. Watson took the gavel from outgoing president Lynn Roberson at the Atlanta Bar’s annual meeting at the Piedmont Driving Club.

The meeting was the first for O’Steen’s successor, Terri Beck, who previously headed Everybody Wins! Atlanta, a nonprofit promoting literacy for children. The Atlanta Bar’s director of continuing legal education, Mary Lynne McInnis, also retired in January after

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Michael C. Lynch is a partner and litigator at Kelley Drye Warren. He can be reached at mlynch@kelleydrye.com.

A good defendant can be hard to find. This is especially true in the Internet age where wrongdoers hide behind international boundaries, proxy servers in remote locations, and vague online identities. In an era where defendants are able to communicate without revealing their physical location, plaintiffs can be left guessing when trying to effect traditional service of process.

Courts in other common law nations have recognized this shift, and have adjusted to the changing technological realities of international transactions by authorizing service through email, social media, and even text messages.

Courts in the United States, while open to service by email in certain situations, have been hesitant to embrace other forms of service such as Facebook,

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One law school is giving applicants who don’t make the initial admissions cut a second chance to prove they have what it takes. And it’s doing it for free.

The Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law has introduced “Admission Through Performance,” allowing rejected applicants to enroll in a free, four-week course on the Federal Rules of Evidence taught by Duncan faculty. If the applicants do well, they can earn a spot in next year’s 1L class.

“Standardized tests have been difficult for students at all levels of education, including the [Law School Admission Test],” interim dean Parham Williams said. “The mission at LMU and its law school centers on service to underserved populations in Southern Appalachia. The Admission Through Performance is yet another way [the law school] is staying true to its mission.”

Several other law schools offer so-called conditional admission programs.

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Among its many changes, the America Invents Act (AIA) provides several new post-grant procedures for a third party to challenge the validity of an issued U.S. patent. These procedures are intended to provide a more cost-effective and speedier forum than civil litigation, and also provide a potentially lower threshold for invalidating a patent claim.

Though it is unclear how extensively these proceedings will be used, it is conceivable that third parties will find them to be decidedly pro-challenger, and thus a preferred forum to that of the federal courts. To this end, such proceedings could, and likely will, have a direct effect on patent valuation and how firms conduct due diligence.

Under the AIA, the four patent review procedures that a third party may use to challenge the validity of a patent claim include:

• Ex parte re-examination

• Post-grant review (PGR)

• Inter partes

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The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s confirmation of the interim arbitration award and judgment entered in favor of S S Financial Mortgage Corporation arising out of breach of contract and fraud claims against First Option Mortgage LLC concerning the transfer of S S’s president’s interest in a financial company to First Option, holding that interim arbitration awards may be confirmed. The court found that the substantive claims remained to be determined, but absent that determination, the prior agreement between the parties and the arbitrator’s interpretation were final determinations protecting the status quo of the parties in the interim and the arbitrator properly provided a remedy that was based on the essence of the contract. The court also held that First Option failed to carry its burden of establishing by evidence of record that the trial

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Earlier this month the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed—and quickly settled—its first lawsuit accusing an employer of gathering illegal genetic information during a job applicant’s medical exam. The agency followed it up last Thursday by filing its first class action suit against another employer on similar grounds.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act went into effect in 2009, and some individuals have sued companies under it. But not until this month did the government take official action to enforce GINA, as the law is called.

“Employers need to be aware that GINA prohibits requesting family medical history,” said David Lopez, general counsel of the EEOC, in a statement. “When illegal questions are required as part of the hiring process, the EEOC will be vigilant to ensure that no one be denied a job on a prohibited basis.”

In doing so, the EEOC is

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Kevin Leipow says his client required treatment for anxiety and fear after the incident.

Rebecca Breyer

In a case that reads like it came straight out of a Hollywood crime drama, a woman said she and her vehicle were commandeered by law enforcement officers and forced to chase a prisoner escaping on foot who, when finally apprehended, was tossed in her back seat while she cowered behind the wheel. Now the woman is suing the state Department of Corrections over the unusual incident.

Kevin Leipow, one of the attorneys representing 61-year-old Annie Boone, said she initially refused to participate, but the officers—armed Georgia Department of Corrections parole officers who worked at the same facility where Boone was employed—demanded that she pursue the escapee.

“She was saying, ‘No, no, I don’t want to,’ but she

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