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The Alabama immigration law, once regarded as the toughest state immigration law in America, is quickly becoming unenforceable. After hearing oral arguments on both the Alabama and Georgia laws last week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined two more sections of the Alabama law on Thursday, reports The Huntsville Times. The latest appellate action on the Alabama immigration law places contract provisions banning residents and state and local governments from entering into contracts with illegal immigrants on hold while the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit consider whether state and federal immigration laws can co-exist....

Obamacare has had its share of opponents from day one, but lately it seems like it’s its own worst enemy. Since its launch, Healthcare.gov has been plagued by technical glitches. What first was deemed “traffic overload,” with 8.6 million people visiting the site in the first 3 days, is now being characterized as a bit more serious, reports Motherboard. Where do we begin? The Healthcare.gov website is the stuff of dreams for tech geeks that live for criticizing just about everything in online fora....

A Hooters lawsuit can’t be forced into arbitration because lawyers for a franchise owner waited too long – more than a year – to try to compel arbitration, a California appellate court has ruled. The class-action suit against Hott Wings Inc., the owner of Hooters franchises in the San Francisco Bay area, will proceed in court, California’s First District Court of Appeal held Feb. 14. The lawsuit was originally filed in May 2009, but Hott Wings’ counsel didn’t move to compel arbitration until September 2010, SF Weekly reports....

It takes a lot more than just lawyers to make a law firm work. From secretaries who keep an office running to paralegals who make sure your filings actually get filed, successful lawyers require a whole team to keep them afloat. (You could, of course, answer your own phones and file your own filings – but you can bill a lot more when you’re spending that time lawyering.) How much do those teams need to make?...

Here’s an interesting statistic: According to a 2013 study by the Open Technology Institute, 75 percent of VCs and 20 percent of venture-backed startups had been affected by patent trolls. In the biotech/pharmacy/medical device industries, only 13 percent were affected. But according to a recent article by Inside Counsel, that may be changing: Patent trolling against the medical device industry is on the rise, spurred in part by the higher royalties, damages awards, and nuisance settlements....

Okay, this decision unfortunately makes a lot of sense. Judge Vincent August Sicari, a part-time municipal judge making $13,000 per year, had a second, more lucrative, and more exciting career: he was a stand-up comedian and actor under the stage name Vincent August. Now, he’ll have to give up the honor of overseeing traffic tickets and disorderly person offenses in favor of reality television and stand-up comedy, reports The Associated Press....

Stormy Daniels isn’t the only pornstar with a lawyer. She may be the most famous pornstar in the legal headlines right now, but there are many lawyers handling cases for adult entertainers everyday. Michael Avenatti is just one solo in the spotlight. Meanwhile, even large law firms are filing lawsuits – thousands of them – for people in porn. So, why? Do This Law With all the attention on the pornstar and the president, it’s easy to forget that the biggest porn cases – on the civil side – have involved copyright and privacy....

This notable fan fiction case has been pending in federal court for about a year. Paramount, which owns the rights to the Star Trek television and movie franchise, sued a small studio for producing a “fan fiction” film called “Axanar” based on the popular sci-fi enterprise. According to the recent settlement, the fan-film producers can finish their movie but cannot make money from it, and the movie can only last a total of 30 minutes....

The Supreme Court reversed a Fifth Circuit decision on Tuesday, ruling unanimously that billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs owed the IRS for his tax-shelter shenanigans. McCombs had attempted to argue that despite him and partner Gary Woods setting up a tax shelter to create financial losses for the Texan pair, neither should be eligible for the 40% penalty leveled at them by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), reports Reuters. So why did SCOTUS think otherwise?...

Charles Malik, a Lebanese philosopher and diplomat, once said, “The fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world.” Female in-house counsel may be doing the same jobs as their male counterparts, but they have to deal with some pretty unique career issues. Even though “Clueless” star Stacey Dash believes the Equal Pay Act has solved the problem of wage inequality, many women still see inequality in pay and a glass ceiling hovering over their heads....

If you have flown out of the country from New York City recently, the government scanned your face and stored it for law enforcement. The same is true for anyone who has flown out of airports in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. It is a pilot program of the Department of Homeland Security, and the authorities are not done. According to news reports, all foreign-bound Americans will be subject to facial recognition scans if the Trump Administration gets its way....

Defendants’ convictions for conspiracy and other crimes related to narcotic distribution is affirmed where: 1) district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a mistrial when a government witness took the witness stand and refused to testify; 2) prosecutor did not commit improper vouching of witness; 3) a defendant’s claim that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction is without merit; 4) there is no Confrontation Clause violation where expert witnesses present their own independent judgments, rather than merely transmitting testimonial hearsay, and are then subject to cross-examination; 5) any error in admitting a defendant’s prior conviction for armed robbery for impeachment purposes was harmless, assuming that the district court erred in admitting the convictions; 6) sentence of a defendant is procedurally and substantively reasonable; and 7) a defendant’s request to remand his case for resentencing in light of Amendment 706 to the Sentencing Guidelines is denied....

The final draft of what has been billed as China’s Anti-Terrorism law will soon become effective starting Jan. 1 of 2016, and it portends some troubling implications for foreign technology companies operating in China. Specific and pointed language contained within several articles of the law has led some to speculate that motives behind the law have less to do with countering “terrorism” as defined by Western norms, and more to do with countering the West itself....

When it comes to technology, new and old, different devices will be helpful for different people. Sure, maybe every lawyer should have a smartphone that syncs their many calendars and has an extensive address book, email capabilities, and even mobile web browsing. But beyond a smartphone, a computer, and a printer, what technology do you actually need? The newest widgets, whatnots, and whiz-bangs, may be fun to play with, or even serve as a status-symbol of sorts, but will any of them actually help you be a better lawyer?...

Though rare, rainbows can actually turn into complete circles. You can’t usually see them because the bottom half of the arc is blocked by the horizon. But if you are in the air or high enough, you may get lucky and catch one. Law firm diversity is like a rainbow, and it’s a beautiful thing. Some law firms are becoming diverse, but more companies want them to be complete. Complete Diversity In an open letter, general counsel and chief legal officers at more than 170 companies said they expect law firms to “reflect the diversity” of the legal community, companies, and customers they serve....

It’s a common truism that a every lawyer should have a mentor. Having someone wiser and more experienced to bounce ideas off of, seek out professional advice, or model your advancement after can help make a career, or at least make one easier. But for in-house counsel, finding a mentor can pose some unique challenges. You may be one of a few lawyers in your department, or you may be working in an isolated industry or location....

Competition for clients is fierce. Whether you’re a solo practitioner or an attorney at a large firm, client retention matters. After all, you didn’t put all that work into marketing, networking and outreach to see your clients poached by competitors. The best clients are your existing clients, so hold onto them tight. Here’s three tips to help you keep clients from being poached by the competition: The best way to avoid losing clients is to make sure that they’re happy....

We’ve previously discussed how to beef up your résumé to go in-house, and how much in-house jobs pay. But those tips won’t help you unless you can find one of those magical in-house listings. So today, we’re helping you out with a list of 5 sites to search for in-house jobs. Association of Corporate Counsel. Let’s start with the job listings from the “global bar assocation” for in-house attorneys. The ACC describes its In-House Jobline as “the premier electronic employment resource for the in-house counsel community....

Valle v. Houston, No. 09-20624, involved an action based on an incident in which decedent was shot and killed by Houston police officers during an incident at his family’s home. The Fifth Circuit affirmed on the grounds that 1) although an officer’s decision to order entry into plaintiffs’ home was arguably the “moving force” behind the constitutional violations that resulted in decedent’s death, because his decision was not a decision by a final policymaker of the City, the City could not be liable; and 2) plaintiffs failed to present sufficient evidence of causation as to the entry of their home....

Apple suffered quite a setback Tuesday, when a federal jury handed down a $532.9 million verdict against it, in favor of patent licensing company Smartflash LLC. Smartflash claimed that Apple’s iTunes software infringed on patents it held relating to downloading files from the Internet. A look at the allegedly (or, I guess, not “allegedly” anymore) infringing patents, however, reveals that the only thing Smartflash patented is more of the same business method patents that the Supreme Court struck down in Alice v....