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Legal Ethics
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October 15, 2024
Ga. Attorney Publicly Reprimanded For Trust Account Issues
Georgia Supreme Court justices Tuesday accepted an attorney's bid for a public reprimand after the attorney, who was suspended a decade ago after a wire fraud conviction, admitted to violating professional rules on the safekeeping of property.
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October 15, 2024
Disbarment Isn't One Size Fits All For Attys Guilty Of Crimes
Attorney discipline, much like the criminal justice system, is rarely a simple math equation where authorities can plug in a type of wrongdoing and an appropriate punishment is spit out.
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October 11, 2024
Quinn Emanuel Gets Trimmed $92M Fee In ACA Cases
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP will get $92 million in fees from a $3.7 billion win in two class actions against the government over risk corridor payments under the Affordable Care Act, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge ruled Thursday, trimming the firm's renewed $185 million request.
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October 11, 2024
Mich. Atty Can't Escape Voting Machine Possession Trial
A Michigan state judge on Friday said an attorney cannot escape an indictment alleging that she unlawfully accessed voting machines after the 2020 election, rejecting her argument that the charging document should be void because the state law about voting machine possession is too vague.
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October 11, 2024
Boston Bomber Says Judge's Praise For Jury DQs Him
A Massachusetts federal judge's public comments praising the jury that delivered a conviction and death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev disqualify him from reviewing alleged juror misconduct, the defendant's lawyers said in a filing unsealed Friday.
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October 11, 2024
Ex-Girardi Keese CFO Pleads Guilty In Calif. Wire Fraud Cases
Girardi Keese's former Chief Financial Officer Christopher K. Kamon pled guilty Friday in California federal court to two counts of wire fraud, admitting that he conspired with the firm's disgraced co-founder Tom Girardi to steal millions from a client, while also stealing millions from the firm behind Girardi's back.
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October 11, 2024
Mich. Firm's Settlement Dispute Returns To State Court
A Michigan federal judge ruled Friday that an attorney-client fight over how to divide settlement proceeds in a police brutality case belongs in state court, reasoning that the dispute was a matter of contract law over which he could not exercise jurisdiction.
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October 11, 2024
Attys Ordered To Apologize For Neighborhood 'Scream Test'
A Pennsylvania federal judge has ordered attorneys representing a plaintiff in a civil rights suit to go door-to-door and issue written apologies to residents and business owners after subjecting a South Philadelphia neighborhood to a looped recording of a woman screaming as part of an acoustics test last month.
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October 11, 2024
Quinn Emanuel Faces DQ Bid For Musk-Dogecoin Deal Leak
Dogecoin investors want Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP to be disqualified in their case against Elon Musk and Tesla Inc. because the law firm and its attorneys publicly disclosed a confidential settlement offer in the contentious lawsuit.
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October 11, 2024
Fox Rothschild Aims To Exit Malpractice Suit Over Land Row
Fox Rothschild LLP has called on a New Jersey state court to throw out malpractice claims leveled against it by two siblings who accused a lawyer at the firm of bungling a 1984 property deed and 1993 trust belonging to their stepfather, arguing the sisters are trying to improperly hold it responsible for purported, decades-old negligence by other law firms.
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October 11, 2024
Ex-Firm's Role In Amicus Doesn't Force Judge Recusal In NJ
The New Jersey Supreme Court has issued an order spelling out the grounds for a judge's recusal in relation to an amicus group, stating that the involvement of a judge's former law firm in an amicus filing is not grounds alone for disqualification.
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October 11, 2024
Nelson Mullins Can't Beat DQ In Foreign Exchange Fraud Suit
A Florida state appeals court panel unanimously sided with a trial court Friday in deciding that Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP can't represent the defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of duping the plaintiff into doing business with online foreign exchange platform FxWinning Ltd. because the firm previously represented the plaintiff in a "substantially related" suit against the company.
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October 11, 2024
Lin Wood Slams Ga. Atty Fee Statute As Unconstitutional
Retired Georgia attorney L. Lin Wood has doubled down on his argument that a state law violates the state and U.S. constitutions by favoring plaintiffs in awarding attorney fees, urging a Georgia federal judge to let him escape paying his former law partners' fees after they won a $3.75 million defamation verdict.
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October 11, 2024
Indicted NJ Power Broker Says Civil Suit Belongs In Biz Court
Indicted Garden State power broker George E. Norcross III has asked a New Jersey state judge to transfer the civil racketeering suit brought against him and his attorney brother by a Philadelphia developer to the state's complex business litigation program.
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October 10, 2024
Ex-Boxer Slams 'Big Brother' Tactics In $1B Drug Case
The legal team of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic criticized the government's attempt to introduce alleged evidence from a massive state-sponsored hack of a messaging app in their client's $1 billion cocaine trafficking case, saying Thursday the use of the data thwarts constitutional protections and could provide an opening to target other encrypted platforms.
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October 10, 2024
Chutkan OKs Redacted Immunity Evidence In Trump Case
The D.C. federal judge overseeing the case that charges Donald Trump with scheming to subvert the 2020 election results will allow the public disclosure of some evidence related to the issue of his potential immunity, but will give the former president time to challenge the disclosure.
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October 10, 2024
IP Forecast: 5G Patent Case Spells Deja Vu For EDTX
A patent suit against a Chinese phone company will go before a new federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas after the judge scrapped the original $10.6 million verdict against it as excessive. Here's a spotlight on that case — plus all the other major intellectual property matters on deck in the coming week.
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October 10, 2024
Ex-Latham Atty Must Turn Over SEC Whistleblower Docs
A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday ordered a retired Latham & Watkins LLP attorney to hand over communications between himself and two whistleblowers who tipped off the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to an alleged $73 million fraud after one of the whistleblowers dropped his objections to producing the documents.
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October 10, 2024
Paxton Prosecutor Fee Fight Ends With High Court Rejection
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday declined to take up a dispute over how much a special prosecutor appointed to oversee the securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should be paid, ending a fee fight that has stretched on almost as long as the criminal case.
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October 10, 2024
Feds Say Ex-Atty Stole $570K From Disabled Client's Trust
A former attorney in Washington is accused of embezzling more than $570,000 from a client's insurance settlement after she was severely injured in a motorcycle accident, according to a federal indictment that said the victim was forced to sell her home after her trust account was drained.
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October 10, 2024
Gunster Reaches Deal In One Of Two Data Breach Actions
Gunster has struck a settlement agreement in one of the two proposed class actions it faces in Florida federal court over a 2022 data breach, while the plaintiffs in the second case urged the court the same day to reject the law firm's dismissal bid in their suit.
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October 10, 2024
Combs May Face More Charges As Feds Pore Over Evidence
Prosecutors helming the sex trafficking case against Sean "Diddy" Combs told a Manhattan federal judge Thursday they could file more charges against the jailed hip-hop mogul and rejected his accusations of grand jury leaks as "a means to try to exclude a damning piece of evidence."
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October 10, 2024
Houston Firm Says 'Scurrilous' Ex-Atty Not Entitled To Fees
A Houston law firm is urging a state court to dismiss a lawsuit from a disbarred attorney seeking fees for cases he worked on before going to prison for fraud, arguing that paying him the $3.84 million he is asking for would run afoul of ethics rules and a Texas Supreme Court order.
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October 10, 2024
Atty For McElroy Deutsch's Ex-CFO Wants Out Of Theft Case
An attorney representing McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP's former chief financial officer — who is behind bars on charges of stealing from the firm — has asked to be relieved as counsel in the firm's New Jersey suit against the former CFO because he has not paid his legal bills.
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October 10, 2024
Alaska Judge's Misconduct Prompts Bid To Pause Appeal
A former Alaska nurse practitioner convicted of illegally prescribing millions of opioids, wants a stay of her appeal while she seeks a new trial in wake of Judge Joshua Kindred's resignation after he was found to have had an inappropriate relationship with an attorney in the office prosecuting her case.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
DOJ Press Office Is Not Fulfilling Its Stated Mission
The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs’ apparent practice of issuing press releases when someone is indicted or convicted, but not when a defendant prevails, undermines its stated mission to disseminate “current, complete and accurate” information, and has negative real-world ramifications, says Sara Kropf at Kropf Moseley.
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Series
Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.
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Opinion
Litigation Funding Needs Regulating To Meet Ethics Standards
Third-party litigation funding can provide litigants with access to the legal system, but, as recent cases show, the funding agreements carry the potential for exploitation and may conflict with core aspects of the attorney-client relationship, making the need for a balanced regulation self-evident, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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Opinion
Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year
As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.
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Series
Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.
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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.
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What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks
Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.
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For Now, Generative AI Is Risky For Class Action Counsel
Although a recent survey showed most in-house counsel think that their outside counsel should be using generative artificial intelligence "in some way" in class action work, the technology is more a target for class actions than it is a tool to be used in practice at present, says Matthew Allen at Carlton Fields.
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When Your Client Insists On Testifying In A Criminal Case
Speculation that former President Donald Trump could take the stand in any of the four criminal cases he faces serves as a reminder for counsel to consider their ethical obligations when a client insists on testifying, including the attorney’s duty of candor to the court and the depth of their discussions with clients, says Marissa Kingman at Fox Rothschild.
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Why Preemption Args Wouldn't Stall Trump Hush-Money Case
With former President Donald Trump's New York hush-money criminal trial weeks away, some speculate that he may soon move to stay the case on preemption grounds, but under the Anti-Injunction Act and well-settled case law, that motion would likely be quickly denied, says former New York Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg, now at Anderson Kill.
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Litigation Inspiration: A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment
As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.
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Series
Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.
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Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC
The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts
Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.
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7 Common Myths About Lateral Partner Moves
As lateral recruiting remains a key factor for law firm growth, partners considering a lateral move should be aware of a few commonly held myths — some of which contain a kernel of truth, and some of which are flat out wrong, says Dave Maurer at Major Lindsey.