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Legal Ethics
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July 05, 2024
Georgia DAs Say Discipline Panel Already Harming Them
A legal challenge to Georgia's new prosecutor disciplinary panel should move forward now that the panel has been cleared to begin investigating prosecutors, a bipartisan group of district attorneys told a Georgia state court.
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July 05, 2024
Attorney In 'Tears' Admitted To Malpractice, Pa. Suit Claims
A former attorney at Rubin Glickman Steinberg & Gifford was in "tears" when he allegedly admitted to legal malpractice by waiting too long on a Pennsylvania woman's medical malpractice case, the former client claimed in a lawsuit filed against the lawyer and the law firm in state court.
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July 03, 2024
McKinsey Can Exit Rival's Bankruptcy Conflicts RICO Suit
A Manhattan federal judge Wednesday tossed a lawsuit brought by the founder of turnaround consultant AlixPartners accusing rival McKinsey & Co. of intentionally failing to disclose disqualifying conflicts of interest in big bankruptcy cases, saying the founder doesn't have standing to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
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July 03, 2024
Cooley DQ'd From IP Case Over Atty's Past Patent Work
Cooley LLP was disqualified on Wednesday from representing a pharmaceutical customer-support software company against patent infringement claims in Delaware, with the district court citing a Cooley partner's prior work representing the plaintiff and Cooley's refusal to screen its attorney.
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July 03, 2024
Contentious Ala. Gender Care Case Partly Paused
Favoring "judicial efficiency," an Alabama federal court has partially granted the Biden administration's opposed motion to stay a case challenging the state's ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews a similar Tennessee ban, though some briefing, including for summary judgment, was permitted to proceed.
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July 03, 2024
High Court Rulings Thwart Judge Romance Suit, Firm Says
Jackson Walker LLP urged a Texas federal court Wednesday to consider its argument that two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on standing prevent a former shareholder in an engineering company from pursuing a racketeering lawsuit over a bankruptcy judge's concealed romantic relationship with an ex-firm attorney.
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July 03, 2024
Feds Can't Get Atty Communications With NJ Fraudster Yet
A New Jersey federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid from prosecutors to get access to communications between convicted, and later pardoned, fraudster Eliyahu Weinstein and an Israeli attorney who admitted to participating in an alleged Ponzi scheme, ruling it is too early for the court to determine if the information is privileged.
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July 03, 2024
Akerman Beats DQ Bid In Sneaker Product IP Battle
Akerman LLP can't be disqualified from defending a manufacturing company against claims that it stole from a social media influencer it partnered with to sell sneaker care products, a California federal judge has ruled.
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July 03, 2024
4 Mass. Rulings You Might Have Missed In June
Massachusetts state courts last month dealt with thorny contract disputes, mistakenly disclosed emails between a defendant and an attorney, and a company's overtime policy change that may not have been spelled out to workers.
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July 03, 2024
Baldwin Says 1993 Movie Set Death Irrelevant To 'Rust' Case
With his trial scheduled to begin next week, Alec Baldwin's legal team and New Mexico state prosecutors are wrangling over whether jurors in the "Rust" shooting case should hear that the actor knew the dangers of using real guns on film sets, in part due to the well-known on-set shooting death of actor Brandon Lee in 1993.
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July 03, 2024
Mich. Justices Skip Dinsmore Ex-Client's Malpractice Appeal
Michigan's top court won't review a ruling dismissing a cannabis company's lawsuit against Dinsmore & Shohl LLP that alleged the firm reneged on an agreement to help the company apply for a dispensary license hours before the paperwork was due.
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July 03, 2024
Markel Drops Suit Over Law Firm's Malpractice Coverage
A Markel unit told a New York federal court it is dropping its suit against Harris Sliwoski LLP over coverage for malpractice claims lodged against the Seattle-based firm by Haiti after a $31 million judgment entered against the Caribbean country.
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July 03, 2024
Atty's COVID Relief Fraud Case Ends After Diversion Program
A Georgia federal judge has tossed charges against an attorney over a fraudulent scheme involving federal pandemic-relief business loans, granting on Wednesday the government's motion to dismiss after the attorney completed a pretrial diversion program.
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July 03, 2024
Pennsylvania Casino Can't Reopen 'Legal Advice' Battle
Parx Casino can't get a Pennsylvania federal court to reconsider its orders to turn over most of its disputed communications with Eckert Seamans in a lawsuit over whether the law firm put the casino operator's interests ahead of another client that makes gaming machines, the court ruled Wednesday.
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July 03, 2024
NJ Law Firm Founder Alleges Partners Forced Him Out
A New Jersey attorney is accusing the other members of the family law firm he founded of pushing him out due to his old age.
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July 03, 2024
Cyclist's Widow Settles With Atty Who Caused Fatal Crash
A bicyclist's widow has reached a settlement with the attorney whose car fatally crashed into her husband, just a few weeks after a Colorado federal judge allowed her to revise her lawsuit to include punitive damages under state law.
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July 02, 2024
Ozy's Watson Says He's No Fraudster, Judge Accused Of Bias
Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson on Tuesday sought to rebut claims of deceiving financial backers of the media and entertainment company, denying any involvement in a ploy to impersonate a YouTube executive in order to secure funding from Goldman Sachs, while defense counsel continued to accuse the trial judge of bias.
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July 02, 2024
Debevoise Can't Avoid Testifying In Ex-Cognizant Execs' Trial
A New Jersey federal judge denied Tuesday a bid by Debevoise & Plimpton LLP to quash a subpoena seeking testimony from a firm partner for the coming bribery trial of two former Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. executives.
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July 02, 2024
Ex-Senior Apple Atty To Pay SEC $1.1M For Insider Trading
Apple's former director of corporate law must pay $1.1 million to securities regulators stemming from criminal insider trading charges to which he pled guilty in 2022, a New Jersey federal judge said Tuesday, finding that his "egregious" violations warrant the penalty since "his very job" was to ensure compliance with securities laws.
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July 02, 2024
Samsung Says IP Law Firm, Litigation Funder Misused Info
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. says an intellectual property law firm and a Chinese litigation funder used its confidential information without permission to help Staton Techiya LLC assert patent infringement allegations, telling a Texas federal judge that the conduct demonstrated why the court should add the other companies to Samsung's suit.
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July 02, 2024
Wash. Court OKs Anti-Masker's School Recall Sanctions
Washington appellate judges said Tuesday an Evergreen State man waited too long to appeal $30,000 in sanctions and ruled the trial court was justified in pinning most of the blame on him — instead of his attorneys — for filing baseless recall petitions to dissuade school board members from complying with a state COVID-19 mask mandate.
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July 02, 2024
YSL Judge Shares Transcript Of Secret Witness Meeting
The transcript of a secret meeting involving Fulton County prosecutors, a key state's witness and the judge overseeing the Young Slime Life case was released Monday, shortly after it was announced that proceedings in the case would be paused until an outside judge reviews motions for the judge's recusal.
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July 02, 2024
Calif. Atty Facing Disbarment After Admitting To $4.8M Fraud
The California State Bar announced Tuesday that a prominent Golden State family law attorney has agreed to be disbarred after she admitted to misappropriating "virtually the entirety" of a more than $4.8 million client trust account, then attempting to cover up the theft of funds by filing false documents.
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July 02, 2024
'Shark Tank' Sweatshirt Biz Lands Injunction, But No Atty Fees
The startup behind "The Comfy" sweatshirt featured in an episode of "Shark Tank" that won an $18 million verdict against a rival sweatshirt brand has secured an injunction against the competitor, but it has failed to collect nearly $2 million in requested legal fees on account of "quarrelsome conduct on both sides," according to an Arizona federal judge.
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July 02, 2024
Beasley Allen Slams J&J's DQ Bid 'Check-Up' In Talc Tort
The Beasley Allen Law Firm and Johnson & Johnson continue to spar over the firm and attorney Andy Birchfield's role in long-running federal and state mass torts over talcum powder injuries, with the firm calling out J&J on Tuesday for "prodding" the New Jersey courts to boot the lawyers from the litigation.
Expert Analysis
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Perspectives
A Judge's Pitch To Revive The Jury Trial
Ohio state Judge Pierre Bergeron explains how the decline of the jury trial threatens public confidence in the judiciary and even democracy as a whole, and he offers ideas to restore this sacred right.
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How To Recognize And Recover From Lawyer Loneliness
Law can be one of the loneliest professions, but there are practical steps that attorneys and their managers can take to help themselves and their peers improve their emotional health, strengthen their social bonds and protect their performance, says psychologist and attorney Traci Cipriano.
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Noncompetes Hold Atty Privilege Pitfalls For Health Industry
Providers negotiating with medical professionals bound by enforceable restrictive covenants must tread carefully due to not only risk of breaching physicians' covenants but also risk of wrongful conduct that pierces attorney-client privilege, says Scott O'Connell at Holland & Knight.
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Opinion
Litigation Funding Disclosure Should Be Mandatory
Despite the Appellate Rules Committee's recent deferral of the issue of requiring third-party litigation funding disclosure, such a mandate is necessary to ensure the even-handed administration of justice across all cases, says David Levitt at Hinshaw.
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Recalling USWNT's Legal PR Playbook Amid World Cup Bid
As the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team strives to take home another World Cup trophy, their 2022 pay equity settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation serves as a good reminder that winning in the court of public opinion can be more powerful than a victory inside the courtroom, says Hector Valle at Vianovo.
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Opinion
Guardrails Needed Against Politically Motivated Atty Discipline
As illustrated by revelations about disbarred attorney Tom Girardi’s influence, there is a need to revamp attorney discipline to protect the public, but any reforms to misconduct rules must also consider how bar-directed disciplinary hearings are increasingly used as a political weapon, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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Groundbreaking Nev. Law May Alter Insurance Landscape
The Nevada Legislature recently passed a law prohibiting insurers from issuing liability policies with eroding limits provisions that has the potential to create massive shifts in the marketplace — and specifically in areas like professional liability, cyber, and directors and officers insurance, says Will Bennett at Saxe Doernberger.
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Perspectives
Mallory Gives Plaintiffs A Better Shot At Justice
Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern claim it opens the door to litigation tourism, but the ruling simply gives plaintiffs more options — enabling them to seek justice against major corporations in the best possible court, say Rayna Kessler and Ethan Seidenberg at Robins Kaplan.
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Durham Hearing Shows Common Cross-Examination Errors
Trial attorneys can glean several key cross-examination lessons from the mistakes made by several members of the U.S. House of Representatives during a recent hearing on special counsel John Durham’s FBI probe, say Luke Andrews and Asha Laskar at Poole Huffman.
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Opinion
When Corporate Self-Disclosure Threatens Individuals' Rights
The prosecution of former Cognizant executives in New Jersey federal court demonstrates how the U.S. Department of Justice’s corporate enforcement policy can contravene the constitutional rights of individual defendants who are employed by cooperating companies, says Gideon Mark at the University of Maryland.
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Pitfalls Of Attorney AI Use In Brief Prep Has Judges On Alert
Some lawyers are attempting to leverage generative artificial intelligence as a brief drafting tool, which may serve to greatly reduce the burden of motion practice, but several recent cases show that generative AI is not perfect and blind reliance on this tool can be very risky, say Matthew Nigriny and John Gary Maynard at Hunton.
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Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too
While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.
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Tales From The Trenches Of Remote Depositions
As practitioners continue to conduct depositions remotely in the post-pandemic world, these virtual environments are rife with opportunities for improper behavior such as witness coaching, scripted testimony and a general lack of civility — but there are methods to prevent and combat these behaviors, say Jennifer Gibbs and Bennett Moss at Zelle.
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Insurance Coverage For ChatGPT Legal Fiasco: A Hypothetical
William Passannante at Anderson Kill draws on the recent case of an attorney sanctioned by the Southern District of New York for submitting a ChatGPT-authored brief to discuss what the insurance coverage for the attorney's hypothetical claim might look like.
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Level Up Lawyers' Business Development With Gamification
With employee engagement at a 10-year low in the U.S., there are several gamification techniques marketing and business development teams at law firms can use to make generating new clients and matters more appealing to lawyers, says Heather McCullough at Society 54.