California

  • March 31, 2025

    Ropes & Gray Guides Commonwealth On $2.7B Sale To LPL

    LPL Financial said Monday it has agreed to acquire Commonwealth Financial Network for approximately $2.7 billion, bringing together two top players in the independent wealth management space.

  • March 31, 2025

    Winston & Strawn Adds Goodwin Transactions Ace In LA

    Winston & Strawn LLP is boosting its transactions team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Goodwin Procter LLP private equity expert as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

  • March 31, 2025

    DOJ Seeking Steep Costs To Make Challengers Think Twice

    The U.S. Department of Justice is quickly implementing President Donald Trump's plan to seek huge sums of money from litigants whose cases impede his agenda but ultimately prove unsuccessful, court records show.

  • March 31, 2025

    Feds Seek 10 Years For Ex-Girardi CFO's 'Brazen' Crimes

    Los Angeles federal prosecutors said Girardi Keese's former head of accounting should spend 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to assisting Tom Girardi in siphoning clients' settlement funds and what the government called a "brazen" side fraud to steal from the firm's operating accounts.

  • March 31, 2025

    Calif. Pot Co. Seeks Receivership, Blames Merger 'Disaster'

    A cannabis producer in California has moved to enter receivership in state court, disclosing more than $173 million in liabilities and saying a 2023 merger with its parent company proved to be a "financial disaster."

  • March 31, 2025

    Disbarred Fraudster Gets 25 Years For $18M Hemp Scam

    A disbarred attorney with a history of investor fraud was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a scheme in which he solicited more than $18 million from investors by claiming to own a hemp farm that didn't exist and overhyping an edibles company.

  • March 31, 2025

    Ex-Workday Atty's Bias Claims Axed, Stock Dispute Kept Alive

    A California federal judge tossed a Black ex-Workday attorney's claims that he endured race and disability bias that culminated in the software vendor sending police to his house to conduct an unnecessary wellness check, but the judge allowed the attorney pursue claims that he was shorted on stock options.

  • March 31, 2025

    Wachtell, S&C Build Mechanics Bank, HomeStreet Merger

    Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz LLP-advised Mechanics Bank on Monday announced plans to merge with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP-led HomeStreet Bank in a deal that will create a combined company with 168 branches and $23 billion in assets.

  • March 31, 2025

    Ex-CardReady CEO Gets 7 Years For Aiding In $19M Scam

    A Manhattan federal judge hit a former credit card processing executive from California with a seven-year prison sentence Monday for scheming to saddle thousands of victims with payments that supported a $19 million Florida-based telemarketing fraud.

  • March 31, 2025

    Perkins Coie DQ'd From Facial Recognition IP Suit

    Perkins Coie LLP has been disqualified from defending Jumio Corp. in a patent infringement lawsuit involving facial recognition technology, with the San Francisco federal judge who signed the order citing the firm's prior general corporate and intellectual property representation of plaintiff FaceTec Inc.

  • March 31, 2025

    Aspiration Partners Hits Ch. 11 After Founder's Fraud Arrest

    Sustainability-focused financial services company Aspiration Partners Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware, less than a month after founder Joseph Sanberg was arrested and hit with federal fraud charges.

  • March 31, 2025

    Paul Hastings Lands Wilson Sonsini Emerging Co. Pro In SF

    Paul Hastings LLP is expanding its corporate team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC emerging companies expert as a partner in its San Francisco office.

  • March 31, 2025

    Justices Reject Gas Price-Fixing Claims Over Trump Oil Pact

    The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to review a bid to revive a proposed class action alleging price-fixing between major oil producers as part of a 2020 deal among Russia, Saudi Arabia and President Donald Trump's administration to cut production.

  • March 31, 2025

    Cleary Gains 5-Atty Latham Team Known For Big IP Wins

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP has welcomed a bi-coastal team of five intellectual property litigators from Latham & Watkins LLP, lauding their history leading "many of the most high-profile and complex patent and trade secrets cases of the last decade" in a statement Monday.

  • March 28, 2025

    Calif. Privacy Action Drives Home Need To Look Under Hood

    California's privacy agency targeted design features and contracting policies that apply to a wide range of companies in its inaugural enforcement strike under the state's data privacy law, signaling a broad regulatory approach that experts say promises to heat up as the agency continues to mature. 

  • March 28, 2025

    Real Estate Recap: Train Domain, FinCEN, Atlanta Data Centers

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including an insider's view of the Union Station takeover in Washington, D.C., the latest game-changing development at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and a BigLaw dealmaker's take on Atlanta's data center boom.

  • March 28, 2025

    Doctor's Counterclaims Cut In 'Groq' TM Feud With Chipmaker

    A Manhattan federal judge says her court can't order the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reject pending trademark applications, turning down counterclaims in a fight between generative artificial intelligence inference chipmaker Groq and a notable New York endocrinologist who changed the name of her company to "Groq Health."

  • March 28, 2025

    Exxon Says It Never Oversold Plastic Recycling Claims

    Exxon Mobil Corp. has urged a California federal court to throw out a lawsuit brought by four environmental groups accusing it of fueling plastic pollution through decades of misleading recycling claims, arguing the case is based on implausible allegations.

  • March 28, 2025

    Ex-Mayor Gets 2 Months In Probe Of Angel Stadium Sale

    Former Anaheim, California, Mayor Harry Sidhu was sentenced Friday in federal court to two months in prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators in connection with a probe over the sale of Angel Stadium to the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.

  • March 28, 2025

    States Urge Justices To Skip Teacher Grants Case

    California, New York and six other states told the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday it doesn't need to weigh in on the validity of a Massachusetts federal judge's order reinstating $250 million in teacher training grants the Trump administration targeted for cuts, noting the dispute will soon be moot.

  • March 28, 2025

    Dr. Martens Maker Moves To Keep Shein TM Fight Alive

    The maker of Dr. Martens shoes said an affiliate of fast-fashion giant Shein shouldn't be able to dodge accusations of selling knockoff products and violating the terms of a previous intellectual property settlement agreement, arguing it has sufficiently laid out its case.

  • March 28, 2025

    GM's Cruise Must Face Trimmed Securities Fraud Suit

    A Michigan federal judge on Friday trimmed a proposed class action alleging General Motors and its self-driving car unit Cruise LLC misrepresented the technological capabilities of its autonomous vehicles, but said the investor plaintiffs plausibly alleged that some Cruise executives made recklessly false statements.

  • March 28, 2025

    Edtech Co. Instructure Faces Parent Suit Over Data Harvesting

    Education technology company Instructure, which claims to offer the nation's second most widely used learning management system, faces a suit brought by parents alleging that the company's "massive data-harvesting apparatus" violates the constitutionally guaranteed privacy rights of school-age children.

  • March 28, 2025

    Anthropic Says Using Books For AI Is 'Quintessential' Fair Use

    Anthropic on Thursday moved to toss a group of journalists and authors' proposed class action accusing the artificial intelligence startup of exploiting their copyrighted work to train its large language model, Claude, telling a California federal court that its use of their works was transformative and thus "quintessential fair use."

  • March 28, 2025

    Google Privacy Fight Raises 'Classic' Trial Issues, Judge Says

    A California federal judge Friday doubted consumers' bid to certify a class of Chrome users in a revived lawsuit accusing Google of surreptitiously collecting their data while also observing that the case raises "classic" trial questions and asking how else Americans could "tell corporations what they believe to be offensive?"

Expert Analysis

  • AG Watch: Texas Is Entering New Privacy Enforcement Era

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    The state of Texas' recent suit against Allstate is the culmination of a long-standing commitment to vigorously enforcing privacy laws in the state, and while still in the early stages, it offers several important insights for companies and privacy practitioners, says Paul Singer at Kelley Drye.

  • IRS Scrutiny May Underlie Move Away From NIL Collectives

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    The University of Colorado's January announcement that it was severing its partnership with a name, image and likeness collective is part of universities' recent push to move NIL activities in-house, seemingly motivated by tax implications and increased scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • 6 Laws Transforming Calif.'s Health Regulatory Framework

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    Attorneys at Hooper Lundy discuss a number of new California laws that raise pressing issues for independent physicians and small practice groups, ranging from the use of artificial intelligence to wage standards for healthcare employees.

  • Opinion

    NCAA Name, Image, Likeness Settlement Is A $2.8B Mistake

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    While the plaintiffs in House v. NCAA might call the proposed settlement on name, image and likeness payments for college athletes a breakthrough, it's a legally dubious Band-Aid that props up a system favoring a select handful of male athletes at the expense of countless others, say attorneys at Clifford Chance.

  • Implications Of Kid Privacy Rule Revamp For Parents, Cos.

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    The Federal Trade Commission's recent amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act will expand protections for children online, meaning parents will have greater control over their children's data and tech companies must potentially change their current privacy practices — or risk noncompliance, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

  • Copyright Ruling Could Extend US Terminations Worldwide

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    If upheld on appeal, Vetter v. Resnik, a recent ruling from a Louisiana federal court, could extend the geographical scope of U.S. copyright termination rights to foreign territories, say attorneys at Manatt.

  • Anticipating Calif. Oversight Of PE Participation In Healthcare

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    A new bill recently introduced in the California Senate revives last year's attempt to increase oversight of healthcare transactions involving private equity groups and hedge funds, meaning that attorneys may soon need to assess the compliance status of existing management relationships and consider modifying contract terms, says Andrew Demetriou at Husch Blackwell.

  • Recent Cases Suggest ESG Means 'Ever-Shifting Guidelines'

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    U.S. courts have recently handed down a number of contradictory decisions on important environmental, social and governance issues, adding to an already complex mix of conflicting political priorities, new laws and changing regulatory guidance — but there are steps that companies can take to minimize risk, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • Pepperdine Case Highlights Shift In Collegiate IP Landscape

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    A complaint filed by Pepperdine University against Netflix and Warner Bros. two weeks ago alleges that a comedy series unlawfully copies the school's trademarks, and the decision could reshape the portrayal of collegiate athletics on screen and the legal tools schools use to defend their emblems, says Mindy Lewis at Michelman & Robinson.

  • What To Know About Insurance Coverage For Greenwashing

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    As the number of public and private lawsuits relating to greenwashing dramatically grows, risk managers of companies making environmental claims should look to several types of insurance for coverage in the event of a suit, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • 7 Tips For Associates To Thrive In Hybrid Work Environments

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    As the vast majority of law firms have embraced some type of hybrid work policy, associates should consider a few strategies to get the most out of both their in-person and remote workdays, says James Argionis at Cozen O’Connor.

  • Series

    Playing Beach Volleyball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My commitment to beach volleyball has become integral to my performance as an attorney, with the sport continually reminding me that teamwork, perseverance, professionalism and stress management are essential to both undertakings, says Amy Drushal at Trenam.

  • Considering The Future Of AI Regulation On Health Sector

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    As Texas looks to become the next state to pass a comprehensive law regulating artificial intelligence, the healthcare industry should consider how AI regulation will continue to evolve in the U.S. and how industry members can keep up with compliance considerations, say attorneys at Kirkland & Ellis.

  • Opinion

    California Climate Lawsuit Bill Is Constitutionally Flawed

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    A bill in the California Legislature that would let victims of climate-related disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires sue oil and gas producers for spreading misinformation about climate change is too vague, retroactive and focused on one industry to survive constitutional scrutiny, says Kyla Christoffersen Powell at the Civil Justice Association of California.

  • How Law Firms Can Counteract The Loneliness Epidemic

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    The legal industry is facing an urgent epidemic of loneliness, affecting lawyer well-being, productivity, retention and profitability, and law firm leaders should take concrete steps to encourage the development of genuine workplace connections, says Michelle Gomez at Littler and Gwen Mellor Romans at Herald Talent.

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