California

  • February 24, 2025

    Lobbyist Abramoff Testifies At Fraud Trial Against Crypto CEO

    Disgraced Washington, D.C., power broker Jack Abramoff told jurors on Monday that he participated in a conspiracy with the founder of an "anti-money laundering" cryptocurrency company accused of bilking investors out of $5 million, testifying remotely due to a recent cancer diagnosis.

  • February 24, 2025

    9th Circ. Mostly Clears The Way For Mont. Logging Project

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday reversed portions of a Montana federal judge's decision to vacate U.S. Forest Service approval of a controversial Black Ram logging project on the Kootenai National Forest, but told the lower court it had to take a closer look at some of the environmentalists' objections.

  • February 24, 2025

    Trump Birthright Citizenship EO Must Stay Paused, States Say

    A coalition of states on Monday urged a Massachusetts federal judge to leave in place his preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship while the government appeals, arguing that the injunction merely maintains a centurylong status quo recognizing those citizenship rights.

  • February 24, 2025

    Union Pacific Says Pedestrian Was In The Wrong In Crash Suit

    Lawyers for a pedestrian allegedly hit by a Union Pacific train told a jury in closing arguments Monday that the engineer wasn't paying enough attention to the tracks ahead, while the rail giant's lawyers said the man should not have been there.

  • February 24, 2025

    'Yellowjackets' Makers Omit Overlaps With Film, Court Told

    Showtime, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and the makers of the TV show "Yellowjackets" use "self-serving descriptions" and "omit similarities" between the show and the 2015 film "Eden" in their bid to toss a suit alleging the hit series ripped off the movie, the filmmakers told a California federal court judge on Monday.

  • February 24, 2025

    Bigelow Says Class Trial Is On 'Road To Nowhere'

    Counsel for R.C. Bigelow Inc. urged a California federal judge Monday to call off an upcoming class action damages trial over the tea-maker's "manufactured in the USA" labels, saying the proceeding would be a "road to nowhere" because of fatally flawed sales data.

  • February 24, 2025

    Baby Bottle Cos. Get Parts Of Microplastics Suit Tossed

    Parents who sued Philips over allegations that microplastics leach from its "BPA free" baby bottles and sippy cups saw their lawsuit partially trimmed, after a California federal judge said that the company's label isn't misleading because it doesn't promise the products are "devoid of all harmful plastic."

  • February 24, 2025

    Unions, Groups Say Fed. Employees '5 Things' Email Illegal

    A group of unions challenging the federal layoff order said the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's controversial request for federal employees to include in a weekly email five things they accomplished flouts federal law, amending their lawsuit in California federal court.

  • February 24, 2025

    Judge Finds No Reason To Recuse From Trans Athlete Case

    A Colorado federal judge refused to step down from a lawsuit seeking to block a transgender woman from competing on a collegiate women's volleyball team, writing in an order Monday that he has given the plaintiffs "free reign" to make their arguments without requiring use of specific pronouns.

  • February 24, 2025

    'Varsity Blues' Suit Against USC An 'Uphill Battle,' Judge Says

    A Los Angeles judge said Monday that while a private equity investor's fraud suit against USC over his prosecution in the "Varsity Blues" case will likely make it past the pleading stage, he will later face an "uphill battle" given how much time has passed since the high-profile college admissions scandal.

  • February 24, 2025

    Filmmaker Seeks New IP Trial Against Shyamalan, Others

    A filmmaker has asked for a new copyright infringement trial against writer-director M. Night Shyamalan and his co-defendants Friday after a jury found that they did not have access to the film she claimed they infringed, arguing that the court failed to answer a crucial question from the jury before the verdict was delivered.

  • February 24, 2025

    Venable Litigator Jumps To Steptoe In California

    Steptoe LLP continues growing its West Coast team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Venable LLP commercial trial lawyer as a partner in its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices.

  • February 24, 2025

    Apple Antitrust Ace Returns To Latham In Bay Area

    Latham & Watkins LLP announced Monday that it has welcomed back an attorney who was working as in-house counsel for Apple to bolster its antitrust and competition practice and enhance its efforts to handle monopolization cases.

  • February 24, 2025

    Ex-Sheppard Mullin Media Atty Joins O'Melveny In Calif.

    An entertainment attorney with expertise representing stakeholders on all sides of deal negotiations has moved his practice recently to O'Melveny & Myers LLP's office in the Los Angeles area after more than six years with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

  • February 24, 2025

    Apple To Invest $500B In US Over 4 Years As Tariffs Mount

    Apple said Monday that it would invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, weeks after President Donald Trump placed a 10% tariff on goods from China, where the company sources components for its products, and threatened tariffs on semiconductors.

  • February 24, 2025

    Museum Cleared To Fire Hurt Worker After 4 Leave Extensions

    A California appeals court declined to revive a former HVAC technician's suit claiming the J. Paul Getty Trust illegally fired him while recovering from an on-the-job leg fracture, saying terminating him instead of granting a fifth request for indefinite medical leave was reasonable.

  • February 24, 2025

    Skadden, Ropes & Gray Advising On 23andMe Buyout Bid

    The CEO of 23andMe has teamed up with private equity firm New Mountain Capital on an offer to purchase and take the genetic testing company private at an equity value of approximately $74.7 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • February 24, 2025

    Calif. City Gets Suit Over Pot License Application Tossed

    A California federal judge has thrown out a retailer's suit that in part alleges the city of Chula Vista ignored a court order and delayed scoring its application for cannabis licenses, saying the complaint fails to establish that the city violated its constitutional rights.

  • February 24, 2025

    Elizabeth Holmes Loses 9th Circ. Appeal Over Theranos Fraud

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday affirmed the criminal fraud convictions of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani along with their respective 11-year and nearly 13-year prison sentences, rejecting arguments that the lower court made multiple evidentiary errors that unfairly swayed jurors.

  • February 24, 2025

    Prior Deal Bars Wage Suit Against Manufacturer, Panel Says

    A California appeals court declined to reinstate a wage and hour suit against a flavor manufacturing company, saying the case is blocked by a prior settlement resolving identical claims against the staffing firm that placed workers with the company.

  • February 22, 2025

    NY Judge Extends Block On DOGE's Treasury Access

    A New York federal judge on Friday barred Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing U.S. Treasury Department data, handing a win to 19 state attorneys general who claimed giving the new entity access to citizens' personal information posed a massive cybersecurity risk.

  • February 21, 2025

    Quinn Emanuel-Backed Clients Join Eaton Fire Litigation Fray

    Southern California Edison on Friday was hit with yet another lawsuit over the destructive Eaton Fire, this time by an Altadena family represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, the largest firm yet to get involved in the litigation.

  • February 21, 2025

    'I Shot Her To Death:' Video Shown Of Judge After Killing Wife

    Prosecutors showed a video to jurors Friday of a California judge at the police station following his arrest for shooting his wife, where he's seen sobbing, cursing and saying, "My son is going to hate me forever, and she's dead. I shot her to death."

  • February 21, 2025

    FTC's Holyoak Has Her Eyes On DeepSeek

    Federal Trade Commission member Melissa Holyoak suggested Friday that DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup whose rise has roiled AI markets, could have competed unfairly if it really trained its model using ChatGPT in violation of OpenAI's policies, as has been suggested.

  • February 21, 2025

    Pepperdine Says Netflix, WB Series Rips Off 'Waves' Athletics

    Netflix and Warner Bros. Entertainment ripped off Pepperdine University's intellectual property, including the colors and branding of its basketball team, to create their forthcoming comedy series "Running Point" and create a false sense of affiliation, the university alleges in a trademark infringement lawsuit filed Thursday in California federal court.

Expert Analysis

  • Challenges Of Insuring An NIL Collective

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    Sarah Abrams at Baleen Specialty examines the emergence of name, image and likeness collectives for student-athletes, the current litigation landscape that has created a favorable environment for these organizations, and considerations for director and officer insurers looking to underwrite NIL collectives.

  • Unpacking State AG Approaches To Digital Asset Enforcement

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    Attorneys at Cozen O'Connor survey recent digital asset enforcement by attorneys general nationwide driven by concerns over regulatory gaps where technological developments and market changes have outpaced legislation.

  • Opinion

    Legal Institutions Must Warn Against Phony Election Suits

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    With two weeks until the election, bar associations and courts have an urgent responsibility to warn lawyers about the consequences of filing unsubstantiated lawsuits claiming election fraud, says Elise Bean at the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy.

  • How Cos. Can Build A Strong In-House Pro Bono Program

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    During this year’s pro bono celebration week, companies should consider some key pointers to grow and maintain a vibrant in-house program for attorneys to provide free legal services for the public good, says Mary Benton at Alston & Bird.

  • Series

    Home Canning Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Making my own pickles and jams requires seeing a process through from start to finish, as does representing clients from the start of a dispute at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board through any appeals to the Federal Circuit, says attorney Kevin McNish.

  • An Update On Legal Issues In The Drone Market

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    Marialuisa Gallozzi and Alex Slawson at Covington examine recent developments in the legal issues surrounding the growing drone market, including possible First Amendment protections, Fourth Amendment surveillance, and litigation involving criminal and civil penalties, evidentiary pursuits, and insurance.

  • A Narrow Window Of Opportunity To Fix Energy Transmission

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    A post-election effort of the coming lame-duck congressional session may be the only possibility to pass bipartisan legislation to solve the national grid's capacity deficiencies, which present the greatest impediment to realizing state and federal energy transition and emissions reduction goals, says David Smith at Manatt.

  • How Project 2025 Could Upend Federal ESG Policies

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    If implemented, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy playbook for a Republican presidential administration, would likely seek to deploy antitrust law to target ESG initiatives, limit pension fund managers' focus to pecuniary factors and spell doom for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate rule, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • E-Signature Best Practices For Employers After Calif. Ruling

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    In Garcia v. Stoneledge Furniture, a California appellate court found an arbitration agreement invalid after an employee raised doubts about the authenticity of its e-signature, underscoring the importance of employers implementing additional measures to verify the authenticity of electronically signed documents, say Ash Bhargava and Reece Bennett at Atkinson Andelson.

  • Patent Lessons From 7 Federal Circuit Reversals In August

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    The Federal Circuit’s seven vacated or reversed cases from August provide helpful clarity on obviousness-type double patenting, written description and indefiniteness, and suggest improved practices for petitioners and patent owners in inter partes review, say Denise De Mory and Li Guo at Bunsow De Mory.

  • Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

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    Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

  • Opinion

    Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code

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    As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

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    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • California's AI Safety Bill Veto: The Path Forward

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's veto of a bill that sought to impose stringent regulations on advanced artificial intelligence model development has sparked a renewed debate on how best to balance innovation with safety in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, say Bobby Malhotra and Carson Swope at Winston & Strawn.

  • A Look At Calif.'s New AI Law For Health Insurers

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    A newly enacted California law prohibits artificial intelligence tools from making medical necessity determinations for healthcare service plans or disability insurers, addressing core questions that have arisen around AI's role in coverage decisions, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

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