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Pace v. CSX Transp., Inc., No. 09-16079, involved a nuisance claim stemming from defendant’s construction and use of a side track adjacent to property owned by plaintiffs. The court affirmed summary judgment for defendant on the ground that the language of 49 U.S.C. section 10501(b) plainly conveyed Congress’s intent to preempt all state law claims pertaining to the operation or construction of a side track. US v. Mills, No. 08-11760, concerned defendants’ appeal from the denial of their motions for reduction of sentence under 18 U....

We previously wrote about a victory by Privacy International who successfully argued in court that the British Intelligence Services was in cahoots with the the United States in sending private citizens’ information through PRISM. That suit spawned the online tool to see whether or not you’d been looked into. Back on this side of the pond, things are not looking all that great, but that probably strikes most people as no surprise....

As any in house counsel knows, in house attorneys are a widely diverse group. You have to wear multiple hats, know different areas of law, and finally, be able to juggle multiple unrelated projects. But the real question is: Do you know the profile of the average in house legal department? Results from Hildebrandt’s 2009 Law Department Survey shed light on the make-up of in house legal departments, and on the demographics of the lawyers working in them....

Ten days ago, we briefed you on the Federal Courts’ plan for the impending shutdown. Thanks to reserve funds from court fees and no-year appropriations, the courts had a plan in place to last ten days, possibly longer if funds could be conserved. The ten days are up, but the funding isn’t. Still, the court system is running on fumes, and those with cases before the court in the next week would be well advised to keep an eye out for closings and reschedulings....

Rolling Stone called Judge Jed S. Rakoff a “legal hero of our time,” but the judge doesn’t come across as a rock ’n roller. With a resume that includes triumphs at Oxford, Harvard, Wall Street, and the United States District Court, Rakoff wears well the garlands of his labors. He spends his time now as an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, contributor to the New York Times and occasional guest jurist for the U....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Gone are the days when employers generally blocked or otherwise prohibited social networking by their employees. Why? The business upside evidently outweighs the potential downside. But still, employees must be informed as to how best to conduct their social networking activities on behalf of their companies. The used to be worries that employees would use social networking for purely personal pursuits, thus resulting in lost productivity....

A client said he was thinking about a divorce, but he wasn’t sure. “I’m confused because I still love my wife,” he told the lawyer. Sensitive to the client’s feelings, the attorney asked what happened to their relationship. The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was when the wife pinned the man against the garage wall with the family car. True story, and yes, the lawyer recommended divorce – and a restraining order....

Sure, a legal career isn’t exactly as treacherous as a job as a mountaineer, deep sea diver, or garbage collector – but that doesn’t mean the legal profession isn’t without its risks. Attorneys have to constantly worry about protecting client confidences, maintaining the integrity of their information, and making sure that all their I’s are crossed and T’s are dotted. Technology has certainly made legal work easier in many ways, but as more and more aspects of a practice are connected, it’s also opened plenty of security risks, threats that can bring down your practice and disrupt your life....

College sports tournaments cost companies money, and March Madness is leading the way. Between office pools, water cooler recaps, and hours spend secretly streaming games feeds, employers bear the brunt of workers’ college athletics obsession. As corporate counsel, it might be a good idea to work with the human resources department to establish sports tournament guidelines for your company that reduce lost revenues and avoid illegal activity. Here are three issues that should factor into your discussions....

What should you look for in a paralegal or legal assistant? We don’t mean “what should you put in the job application.” That’s easy: Writing skills, attention to detail, flexible schedule, and so on. We’re talking about personality traits that an ideal paralegal possesses, things that are essential to him or her. You can only find these types of qualities after an interview, or maybe only after a test run of a few days or weeks, but in the end, a paralegal with these qualities will make your firm run a whole lot smoother:...

You deserve a vacation. You’re a great attorney, you work hard, and you could probably use a break. But you also work hard on your legal marketing. Will taking some time off undo all that hard work? ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ still holds true, but just because you’re out of the office doesn’t mean you have to be out of sight. We have 5 Tips on how to keep your legal marketing going while you’re on vacation so your clients won’t even know you’re gone....

Remember when Commander James Lovell and the Apollo 13 astronauts flew by the moon, watching its dark side pass below and wishing they could have landed? A judge was ready to rule that the software robot has a First Amendment right, but then the humans in the case went and waived it. Mission aborted. Moot Mission Aborted Bates had an Echo in his house, where investigators also found a dead body in his bathtub in 2015....

If you’re one of the millions of people out there with an Android phone, then you may have a problem. Last week, a research paper revealed that Android phones don’t completely erase your personal data when you choose the option to reset your phone. This presents problems for anyone who resells a phone or otherwise erases the data in the belief that their personal data are completely wiped out. Turns out they’re not....

When the going gets tough, the tough call in intellectual property rights specialists. Or something like that… Apple is calling for legal backup in its intellectual property dispute with Nokia. The computer and technology company has hired a team of patent attorneys as well as an in house counsel. Apple’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell, was hired after working for 15 years at Intel. As for outside counsel, Apple’s legal team is being advised by William Lee, who won the Broadcom lawsuit against Qualcomm....

In July of this year, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote found that Apple had conspired, with five U.S. publishers, to fix e-book prices, reports Reuters. The publishers settled before the case went to trial and included among their ranks: Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House. Yesterday, Judge Cote released the much awaited final judgment and order, and Apple’s worst fears were confirmed. Sorry, Apple, you can’t win ’em all....

Last week, Forbes reported that associate attorney is the “unhappiest job in America.” Quelle surprise! According to the article, the happiest little worker bees in America are real estate agents. It seems that real estate agents are “more than satisfied with the control they have over the work they do on a daily basis.” When was the last time you heard an associate describe her job that way? So why don’t you join their ranks?...

I have a pet peeve: I hate it when a website has a really interesting link in a post, something that SCREAMS “Click me! CLICK ME!” like the “Exorcist” girl, and then when I do, it’s a standalone video. A video. A video that I can’t watch in public unless I have headphones, a video that will take a ton of my monthly data allotment on my phone, a video that I can’t watch at work because that would totally be unprofessional....

Do your company’s policies on interoffice relationships effectively protect it from a nepotism or workplace harassment lawsuit? More importantly, how well do employees know and respect those policies? When it comes to the workplace, nepotism and harassment are realities for any sufficiently large company. For example, employees mingle, they go to happy hour, maybe they go on some dates, and maybe those dates turn into a relationship. The love story is cute, but the reality could be a bit problematic for your company....

Gamification. It means taking video game elements and reward mechanics and applying them to non-game activities. It’s been touted as a great way to help you work out, but it is a smart idea to apply it to actual work? Specifically, law? Making non-video game things seem like games is a cottage industry for mobile app-makers. As Lifehacker reported in January, sites like Fitocracy and HabitRPG make your quest to build muscle or lose weight like a real-life video game – which is intended to motivate and incentivize good workout habits....

Heh. Some people actually think “reading the law” instead of going to school is a plausible idea. It’s not, and not just because you’ll fail the bar exam. Speaking of bar exams, ExamSoft is refusing refunds for their failed bar exam software. Also, “It’s murda. Murda.” Which NRA leader was once convicted of murder before an appeals court tossed the confession and the evidence? And on the only serious note: Congress sues Obama....