Legal Ethics

  • December 06, 2024

    Wash. Judge Rips Attys' 'Expletive-Laden' Calls, 'Petty' Fights

    A federal judge in Washington state this week scolded counsel for both parties in a lawsuit against State Farm Fire & Casualty Company, stating that their barbs in briefs and arguments, expletive-laden phone calls and other behavior will no longer be tolerated.

  • December 06, 2024

    Mandelbaum Barrett Beats DQ Bid Appeal In Pharmacy Fight

    Mandelbaum Barrett PC defeated a disqualification motion Friday in a pharmacy ownership dispute, with a New Jersey state appeals court ruling that a former Mandelbaum Barrett attorney's previous work for the pharmacies was not relevant to the current case.

  • December 06, 2024

    Fox Rothschild Can't Escape Malpractice Suit Over Land Row

    A New Jersey judge on Friday denied Fox Rothschild LLP's bid to exit a malpractice suit in which two sisters alleged that a lawyer now at the firm bungled a 1984 property deed and 1993 trust belonging to their late stepfather, depriving them of a lucrative land parcel, reasoning that disputed facts keep the suit alive.

  • December 06, 2024

    Firm Can't Strike Settlement Talks From Ex-Receptionist's Suit

    Arizona-based personal injury firm Rafi Law Group PLLC's counterclaim against a former receptionist and its motion to strike a portion of her retaliation complaint have both been rejected by a federal judge who said the firm did not sufficiently support its motions.

  • December 06, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs $25K Sanction In Stun Device Design IP Suit

    The Federal Circuit said Friday that a lower court did nothing wrong in ordering stun device maker PS Products Inc. to pay $25,000 as a sanction for filing what the circuit court said was a "nuisance" patent infringement lawsuit against a rival manufacturer.

  • December 06, 2024

    Conn. Panel Pares $150M From $1.44B Alex Jones Verdict

    The Connecticut Appellate Court on Friday sliced $150 million from a $1.44 billion trial court judgment against Infowars host Alex Jones over his claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, holding the state's consumer protection laws did not allow the massacre's survivors to recover for alleged harms connected to Jones' ancillary product sales.

  • December 05, 2024

    Judge Newman Brings Fight To End Her Suspension To DC Circ.

    U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman asked the D.C. Circuit on Thursday to rule that a suspension her colleagues have imposed on her for refusing to participate in an investigation into her fitness to serve as a Federal Circuit judge violates the U.S. Constitution. 

  • December 05, 2024

    Apple To Appeal Epic's Atty-Client Privilege Challenge Win

    Apple and Epic Games told a California federal judge Thursday that they've agreed on a protocol for a special master to re-review 57,000 documents that Apple claims are attorney-client privileged in their antitrust fight, while Apple added that it plans to appeal his finding that its privilege assertions over a sample were overbroad.

  • December 05, 2024

    DOJ Is Eyeing Foreign Patent Litigation Funding, GAO Says

    The U.S. Department of Justice is examining the role foreign countries might be playing in funding patent litigation in the U.S., the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday exploring the benefits and pitfalls of the proliferation of third-party intellectual property litigation financing.

  • December 05, 2024

    Sanctioned VLSI Patent Challenger Must ID Members In Va.

    VLSI Technology LLC won a major victory Thursday in litigation where it's looking for compensation from a mysterious company it claims tried to "extort" it at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with a Virginia federal judge ordering that company to disclose its members.

  • December 05, 2024

    Basketball Fan's Race Bias Suit Tossed Over Delays

    A Colorado federal judge on Wednesday dismissed without prejudice a basketball fan's lawsuit claiming employees of the Denver Nuggets racially profiled him during a game, finding it was the appropriate course after the man's lawyer repeatedly failed to follow through on the case.

  • December 05, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Unlikely To Help Realtek Pursue ITC Sanctions

    A Federal Circuit panel seemed baffled Thursday as a K&L Gates attorney argued that the U.S. International Trade Commission wrongly stopped his client from pursuing sanctions, with the panel repeatedly noting that the semiconductor company wasn't even a party in the import dispute.

  • December 05, 2024

    Ex-Posner Staffer Asks Court To Allow Salary Suit To Proceed

    A former staffer suing retired U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner for $170,000 in back pay has rejected Judge Posner's claim that the suit is untimely, arguing the onetime Seventh Circuit jurist's conduct was so egregious that it's exempt from otherwise relevant statutes of limitations.

  • December 05, 2024

    Colo. Panel Sides With Cannabis Atty In Former Client's Suit

    The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that a cannabis attorney cannot be held liable for a former marijuana cultivator client's business failing when they violated land use rules because the attorney was no longer representing them at the time.

  • December 05, 2024

    Lowenstein Sandler Suit Gets New NJ Judge After DQ Request

    Lowenstein Sandler LLP has persuaded an Essex County Superior Court judge to recuse himself from the firm's $800,000 fee suit against a cannabis dispensary over social connections to the litigants and their counsel and had the case assigned to a new judge this week.

  • December 05, 2024

    Gossip, Not Pregnancy, Got Secretary Fired, Court Told In Ga.

    A Georgia county and the chief judge of its juvenile court are asking a Georgia federal court for an early dismissal of a suit alleging they fired a secretary because she became pregnant, arguing she was instead fired for spreading a false rumor after being reprimanded.

  • December 05, 2024

    Combs Demands Court Inquiry Into Copied Jail Notes

    Sean "Diddy" Combs urged a Manhattan federal judge to hold a special hearing and consider dismissing his sex-trafficking indictment after staff at the Metropolitan Detention Center photographed his allegedly privileged, handwritten notes during a sweep of the prison and sent them to prosecutors, who he says used the information to argue against bail.

  • December 05, 2024

    Smith Gambrell And Data Breach Victims Agree To Suit's End

    International law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP and two data breach victims have agreed to end a proposed class action against the firm in California federal court.

  • December 05, 2024

    Small Mass. Law Firm Settles Ex-Client's Data Breach Case

    A small Massachusetts law firm has settled a proposed class action accusing it of negligence leading to a 2022 data breach, a Boston federal magistrate judge said Thursday.

  • December 04, 2024

    Keesal Young Sued Over Data Breach Affecting 316K People

    Law firm Keesal Young & Logan failed to secure Social Security and passport numbers, medical information and other sensitive personal information of over 316,000 people and waited more than five months to inform potential victims of the data breach, a proposed class action filed Tuesday in California federal court alleges.

  • December 05, 2024

    CORRECTED: No Error In RICO Dismissal, Softek Tells Court

    A computer management company sued by the Modoc Nation in a $14.6 million breach of contract suit has urged an Oklahoma federal judge to deny the tribe's request that he reconsider his opinion tossing racketeering claims against the company. Correction: A previous version of this article's headline mischaracterized the judge's opinion on the RICO claim. The error has been corrected.

  • December 04, 2024

    Live Nation Shields Legal Strategy Emails From DOJ Scrutiny

    A Manhattan federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's bid to see emails between Live Nation Entertainment Inc. lawyers and counsel for arena operator Oak View Group, holding Wednesday that these communications discussed a joint legal strategy for the government's antitrust investigation.

  • December 04, 2024

    $486M Djibouti Award Fight Settled In DC

    A port operator has agreed to end litigation to enforce a $486 million arbitral award issued against Djibouti, several months after the D.C. Circuit ruled that Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP would have to prove it had authority to represent the company.

  • December 04, 2024

    Gorsuch Exits Utah NEPA Suit Amid Flak Over Billionaire Ties

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself from a case involving a controversial railway project Wednesday afternoon, the high court's clerk said, following calls for him to step away from the National Environmental Policy Act dispute in light of his connections to a Colorado billionaire.

  • December 04, 2024

    Rep. Raskin's Judiciary Hopes Rise After Nadler Drops Out

    Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland is one step closer to becoming the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, after New York Rep. Jerry Nadler dropped his bid for the job on Wednesday.

Expert Analysis

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Opinion

    A Tale Of 2 Trump Cases: The Rule Of Law Is A Live Issue

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Trump v. U.S., holding that former President Donald Trump has broad immunity from prosecution, undercuts the rule of law, while the former president’s New York hush money conviction vindicates it in eight key ways, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • After Chevron

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    Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard in June, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 37 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • Series

    Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy considers two recent decisions from the Third and Tenth Circuits, and identifies practice tips around class action settlements and standing in securities litigation.

  • Unpacking The Circuit Split Over A Federal Atty Fee Rule

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    Federal circuit courts that have addressed Rule 41(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are split as to whether attorney fees are included as part of the costs of a previously dismissed action, so practitioners aiming to recover or avoid fees should tailor arguments to the appropriate court, says Joseph Myles and Lionel Lavenue at Finnegan.

  • After A Brief Hiccup, The 'Rocket Docket' Soars Back To No. 1

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    The Eastern District of Virginia’s precipitous 2022 fall from its storied rocket docket status appears to have been a temporary aberration, as recent statistics reveal that the court is once again back on top as the fastest federal civil trial court in the nation, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

  • Recruitment Trends In Emerging Law Firm Frontiers

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    BigLaw firms are facing local recruitment challenges as they increasingly establish offices in cities outside of the major legal hubs, requiring them to weigh various strategies for attracting talent that present different risks and benefits, says Tom Hanlon at Buchanan Law.

  • Series

    Glassblowing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    I never expected that glassblowing would strongly influence my work as an attorney, but it has taught me the importance of building a solid foundation for your work, learning from others and committing to a lifetime of practice, says Margaret House at Kalijarvi Chuzi.

  • Money, Money, Money: Limiting White Collar Wealth Evidence

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    As courts increasingly recognize that allowing unfettered evidence of wealth could prejudice a jury against a defendant, white collar defense counsel should consider several avenues for excluding visual evidence of a lavish lifestyle at trial, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

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