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Legal Ethics
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July 15, 2024
Gray Reed Helped Water Now CEO In Fraud, Investors Say
Investors in the now-defunct water purification company Water Now have added law firm Gray Reed & McGraw LLP and attorney George Diamond to their suit against the company, saying in an amended complaint Monday the firm helped the company's CEO run the business into the ground while enriching himself.
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July 15, 2024
How Baldwin Could Turn The Table On 'Rust' Prosecutors
The sudden dismissal of involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin over withheld evidence has left New Mexico state prosecutors not only with a tattered reputation but also potentially facing both bar discipline and civil litigation by the actor, experts told Law360.
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July 15, 2024
Personal Injury, Med Mal Cases To Watch In 2nd Half Of 2024
A Pennsylvania case over hospitals' liability for not admitting a mental health patient who ended up killing his girlfriend and a Texas high court case over solicitations by personal injury attorneys are among the cases injury and malpractice attorneys will be following in the second half of 2024.
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July 15, 2024
Judge DQ'd From Young Thug's Trial Over Ex Parte Convo
The judge presiding over the Atlanta racketeering trial of rapper Young Thug has been booted from the case over charges that he held a closed-door meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, accusations that ended with the musician's attorney being placed into handcuffs last month.
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July 15, 2024
Girardi Seeks 2-Month Delay For Client Theft Trial, To October
Disgraced lawyer Tom Girardi's defense attorneys want to push back his closely watched wire fraud trial to October from its current August start date, claiming they've been "misled" by "sharp-elbowed" federal prosecutors who have unexpectedly sought to expand the scope of their case against Girardi in recent weeks.
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July 15, 2024
Ex-BigLaw Atty Wants Probation For Campaign Finance Scam
A former BigLaw attorney asked a Massachusetts federal judge to sentence him to probation instead of prison for his campaign finance violation convictions linked to a failed 2018 congressional run, arguing that the conduct wasn't intended for personal enrichment but rather demonstrated his inexperience in campaigning and fundraising.
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July 15, 2024
State Troopers Settle Ford Interceptor Suit After Sanctions
A group of Washington state troopers have settled claims alleging they were "poisoned" by Ford Motor Co.'s Interceptor vehicles, according to a docket note Monday, less than a week after the troopers' attorney failed to show up for a sanctions hearing on missed discovery deadlines.
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July 15, 2024
McElroy Deutsch Fights 'Malicious' Claim In Exec Fraud Case
McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP and its former business development director, who is accused of stealing millions from the firm partially via fraudulent credit card use, are at odds over whether the firm's ex-employee should be allowed to bring a malicious prosecution counterclaim in New Jersey state court.
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July 15, 2024
Mich. Judge Recuses Himself From Ford Engine Fire Suit
A Michigan federal judge has recused himself, without explanation, from overseeing a proposed class action alleging that Ford Motor Co. concealed a defect in some of its engines that caused fires.
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July 15, 2024
11th Circ. Affirms Atty Fee Awards In Nursing Home Ch. 7
The Eleventh Circuit found Monday a bankruptcy court didn't abuse its discretion when it awarded attorney fees to Shumaker Loop & Kendrick LLP, Fox Rothschild and a firm that merged with Venable for representing the Chapter 7 trustee in a nursing home operator's insolvency.
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July 15, 2024
Ex-Client Says Nurick Law Founder Refuted Found Fee Clause
A former Nurick Law Group LLC client said the court shouldn't reverse its decision to keep his malpractice suit against the firm in the Garden State after the discovery of a crucial document, arguing the firm's founder testified the document is not a valid agreement.
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July 15, 2024
Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court
Chancery Court news was full of fees and settlements last week, with three multimillion-dollar deals getting a court OK, and a daylong discussion over a potentially multibillion-dollar fee award for attorneys who got Tesla CEO Elon Musk's astronomical pay package thrown out. The court also banged the gavel in cases involving e-payment venture SwervePay and managed care company Centene Corp., and heard arguments from software company SAP SE and biotech Renmatix Inc.
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July 15, 2024
Quinn Emanuel Barred From Repping X In Scraping Case
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP can no longer represent social media giant X Corp. in the company's lawsuit against Bright Data Ltd., with a California federal judge finding the law firm violated its duty of loyalty to Bright Data after previously representing it in a "substantially related" case.
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July 15, 2024
No Sanctions For Milberg In Visa, Mastercard MDL
A New York federal judge on Friday declined to order sanctions against Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman LLC after the firm admitted to mistakenly registering fraudulent clients in long-running multidistrict litigation that accused Visa and Mastercard of charging improper merchant fees.
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July 15, 2024
Posner Can't Win Most Severe Sanctions In Ex-Staffer's Suit
An Indiana federal judge stopped short of granting the most serious sanctions requested by retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in his defense of a $170,000 breach of contract suit brought by a pro se litigation "expert," including the dismissal of the case and a "significant monetary" penalty.
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July 15, 2024
Dow Chemical Seeks Recusal After Settlement Offer Gaffe
The Dow Chemical Co. asked an Ohio federal judge to recuse himself from a trade secrets suit brought by a Cleveland technology firm accusing it of misappropriating confidential information to recreate the firm's copyrighted software after the tech company showed the court a settlement offer without Dow Chemical's approval.
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July 15, 2024
Trump Classified Docs Case Canned Over Special Counsel Law
A Florida federal judge on Monday tossed the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his allegedly illegal retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, ruling that the appointment of a special prosecutor for the case is unconstitutional.
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July 12, 2024
Law360 Names 2024's Top Attorneys Under 40
Law360 is pleased to announce the Rising Stars of 2024, our list of 158 attorneys under 40 whose legal accomplishments belie their age.
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July 12, 2024
House GOP Wants Push For Special Counsel Tapes Sped Up
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Republicans asked a D.C. federal judge on Friday to order U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over audiotapes of President Joe Biden's and his ghostwriter's interviews with special counsel Robert Hur in Biden's classified documents investigation, saying "the clock on the 118th Congress [is] ticking."
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July 12, 2024
Mississippi Judge Benches Favre's NY Atty In Fraud Suit
A Mississippi judge found Thursday that retired quarterback Brett Favre's New York-based defense attorney in a massive welfare fraud lawsuit routinely violated the state's civil procedure codes and barred him and other non-local counsel from making any more filings.
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July 12, 2024
Texas Assistant DA Blew Whistle A Day Late, Panel Finds
A Texas appeals court tossed a suit filed by a former assistant district attorney who says he was fired for blowing the whistle on alleged kickbacks and other illegal acts by his colleagues, finding in a Friday opinion that the whistleblower filed his complaint one day past the deadline.
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July 12, 2024
Whistleblower's Attys Get $5.9M After Losing $11.5M Fee Ask
A Massachusetts federal judge awarded a whistleblower's counsel $5.9 million in fees plus $651,845 in costs and expenses after slashing their prior "exorbitant" $11.5 million fee request in May in a decade-old False Claims Act lawsuit alleging Fresenius Medical Care billed Medicare for unnecessary hepatitis tests.
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July 12, 2024
Cuomo Beats Retaliation Claims In NY Trooper's Suit
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defeated retaliation claims in a state trooper's lawsuit alleging she was sexually harassed while serving in Cuomo's security detail, after a federal judge said that no employment relationship existed because Cuomo resigned months before his purported threat to seek prosecution of his alleged victims.
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July 12, 2024
Ramey Says 'Any Competent' Atty Wouldn't Seek Sanctions Yet
Ramey LLP, counsel for mobile payment company AuthWallet LLC, has urged a Texas federal judge to reject a bank's attempt to sanction the company's attorney, saying the request is premature since the case doesn't have a prevailing party yet.
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July 12, 2024
Plaintiffs Want Opioid MDL Bellwethers Cut For Lost Emails
Plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation arising from the opioid epidemic again asked an Ohio federal court on Friday to sever two of four bellwethers, accusing pharmacy benefit managers of preferring to "foster a sideshow" to further draw out litigation after learning of deficiencies in evidence preservation by some of the cities and counties that initiated cases.
Expert Analysis
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Don't Forget Alumni Engagement When Merging Law Firms
Neglecting law firm alumni programs after a merger can sever the deep connections attorneys have with their former firms, but by combining good data management and creating new opportunities to reconnect, firms can make every member in their expanded network of colleagues feel valued, say Clare Roath and Erin Warner at Troutman Pepper.
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Without Stronger Due Diligence, Attys Risk AML Regulation
Amid increasing pressure to mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing risks in gatekeeper professions, the legal industry will need to clarify and strengthen existing client due diligence measures — or risk the federal regulation attorneys have long sought to avoid, says Jeremy Glicksman at the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.
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Insureds' Notice Pleading May Be Insufficient In Federal Court
A recent New Jersey federal court ruling in Bauman v. Hanover Insurance held that bare-bones notice pleading was insufficient and dismissed the policyholder's coverage complaint, a reminder that courts may require more than an expression of general disagreement with an insurance company's denial letter to proceed with the case, says Eugene Killian at The Killian Firm.
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Every Lawyer Can Act To Prevent Peer Suicide
Members of the legal industry can help prevent suicide among their colleagues, and better protect their own mental health, by learning the predictors and symptoms of depression among attorneys and knowing when and how to get practical aid to peers in crisis, says Joan Bibelhausen at Minnesota Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.
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Building On Successful Judicial Assignment Reform In Texas
Prompt action by the Judicial Conference could curtail judge shopping and improve the efficiency and procedural fairness of the federal courts by implementing random districtwide assignment of cases, which has recently proven successful in Texas patent litigation, says Dabney Carr at Troutman Pepper.
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Opinion
Ga. Needs To Resolve Cannabis Counsel Confusion
Georgia’s medical cannabis regulator finally adopted rules for low-THC oil last month, but a 2021 ethics ruling prohibits lawyers from advising participants in the state’s legal program and creates a confounding landscape that the state bar and courts must address, say Whitt Steineker and Mason Kruze at Bradley Arant.
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Patent Litigants Should Be Vigilant After Rare Retrial Order
A California federal court's recent unusual order for a new trial for attorney misconduct in Pavemetrics v. Tetra Tech should remind patent litigants to be careful about arguments that frame an infringement case in a way that does not fairly reflect the dispute at hand, say Ranganath Sudarshan and Yuval Mor at Covington.
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DOJ's Compensation Reforms Pit Cos. Against Their Execs
The U.S. Department of Justice’s new policy, incentivizing compliance-focused corporate compensation programs and prompt disclosures of misconduct, will complicate the relationship between companies and their executives, and create potential ethical conflicts for counsel, say Solomon Shinerock and Annika Conrad at Lewis Baach.
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Do Videoconferences Establish Jurisdiction With Defendants?
What it means to have minimum contacts in a foreign jurisdiction is changing as people become more accustomed to meeting via video, and defendants’ participation in videoconferencing may be used as a sword or a shield in courts’ personal jurisdiction analysis, says Patrick Hickey at Moye White.
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Opinion
Humanism Should Replace Formalism In The Courts
The worrying tendency for judges to say "it's just the law talking, not me" in American decision writing has coincided with an historic decline in respect for the courts, but this trend can be reversed if courts develop understandable legal standards and justify them in human terms, says Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher.
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3 Reasons Why Congress Should Stay Out Of NY Trump Probe
Congress members should reconsider their investigation of the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of former President Donald Trump for several key reasons — and if they persist, future congressional leadership should adopt a rule prohibiting this kind of local interference, say Kenyen Brown and Kevin Carroll at Hughes Hubbard.
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Don't Let Client Demands Erode Law Firm Autonomy
As clients increasingly impose requirements for attorney hiring and retention related to diversity and secondment, law firms must remember their ethical duties, as well as broader issues of lawyer development, culture and firm integrity, to maintain their independence while meaningfully responding to social changes, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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Opinion
Federal Judge's Amici Invitation Is A Good Idea, With Caveats
An Arkansas federal judge’s recent order — inviting amicus briefs in every civil case before him — has merit, but its implementation may raise practical questions about the role of junior attorneys, economic considerations and other issues, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation.
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Fox Ex-Producer Case Is A Lesson In Joint Representation
A former Fox News producer's allegations that the network's lawyers pressured her to give misleading testimony in Fox's defamation battle with Dominion Voting Systems should remind lawyers representing a nonparty witness that the rules of joint representation apply, says Jared Marx at HWG.
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Opinion
Stanford Law Protest Highlights Rise Of Incivility In Discourse
The recent Stanford Law School incident, where students disrupted a speech by U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, should be a reminder to teach law students how to be effective advocates without endangering physical and mental health, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada.