Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Massachusetts
-
August 05, 2024
Google Abused Monopoly Over Search Market, Court Finds
A D.C. federal judge ruled on Monday that Google is a monopolist in the general search market and has violated antitrust law by paying billions of dollars to make its search engine the default on devices made by Apple, Samsung and others.
-
August 05, 2024
JetBlue, Spirit Scoff At Flyers' $34M Fee Bid Over Nixed Deal
JetBlue and Spirit said air travelers who challenged their merger shouldn't get a cent of a late and exorbitant request for up to $34 million in attorney fees in a case where they simply "piggybacked" on the U.S. Department of Justice's successful effort to block the deal.
-
August 02, 2024
Dems Launch Bill To Expand Zelle, Venmo Fraud Protections
U.S. Senate and House Democrats on Friday proposed revisions to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act aimed at bolstering protections for consumers who fall victim to scams perpetrated by means such as mobile wallets, payment apps and wire transfers.
-
August 02, 2024
Class Suit Over Changed Music Venue Changes Conn. Forums
A proposed class of ticket buyers who claim to have been shortchanged when an organizer suddenly shortened a three-day Connecticut music festival and moved the event to a much smaller venue have refiled consumer protection, contract and negligence claims in state court Thursday after pulling a short-lived federal complaint.
-
August 02, 2024
How Two Non-Bankruptcy Attys Won A Rare Ch. 7 Jury Trial
A pair of Boston-based attorneys from Davis Malm scored a victory in a rare bankruptcy-related jury trial despite not being bankruptcy practitioners themselves, after a Delaware panel rejected a trustee's bid to recoup $44 million from a former grocery store magnate.
-
August 02, 2024
Industry Backs Commonwealth's Appeal Of SEC's $93M Win
The Financial Services Institute is calling on the First Circuit to overturn the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's $93 million victory against member firm Commonwealth Financial Network, arguing the lower court's disgorgement analysis undermines a U.S. Supreme Court decision and leaves other investment advisers fearing "outsized" enforcement actions.
-
August 02, 2024
Iowa, ND Move For Win In NEPA Rule Fight
States led by Iowa and North Dakota are asking a federal judge to scrap a Council on Environmental Quality rule they say threatens to turn the National Environmental Policy Act into an "action-forcing" process to advance the Biden administration's climate and environmental justice goals.
-
August 02, 2024
Boston Marathon Bomber Wants Trial Judge Off Case
Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wants a different judge to handle his remanded motion to strike two jurors at his sentencing trial over potential bias, his lawyers told the court in a letter Friday.
-
August 02, 2024
Patients Ink $1M Deal To Settle Pharmacy Data-Breach Claims
A home-delivery pharmacy service struck by a data breach in 2021 has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a class action brought by plaintiffs whose personal information was compromised, according to a Friday filing.
-
August 02, 2024
Real Estate Recap: Grants Pass, Population Data, CMBS Risk
Catch up on the past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including city and state reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on homeless encampments, a new proptech venture leveraging population data for investors and developers, and one BigLaw leader's view of which sectors are most sensitive to commercial mortgage-backed securities distress.
-
August 02, 2024
Plumbing Co. Sales Reps Owed OT, 1st Circ. Affirms
A group of more than 600 sales representatives at a Massachusetts-based plumbing and HVAC wholesaler are eligible for overtime pay, the First Circuit concluded on Thursday, affirming a lower court's finding on a Fair Labor Standards Act complaint brought by the government.
-
August 02, 2024
FedEx Drivers Accept $166K Deal To Close Out OT Suit
Two Massachusetts FedEx drivers claiming the logistics giant shorted them on overtime wages accepted an offer to end the litigation in their favor months before trial for $20,000 each, plus $126,000 in attorney fees.
-
August 01, 2024
AI Cos. Say Music Labels' IP Misuse Will Undo Copyright Suits
Two artificial intelligence startups said Thursday that the major record labels' monopolistic hold on the music industry will doom their federal lawsuits claiming the AI companies infringed copyrighted works while training their neural networks to create original music from user prompts.
-
August 01, 2024
GE Retirees Reach Deal To Resolve Pension Benefits Dispute
General Electric retirees announced Thursday they'd struck a deal with their former employer to resolve claims that GE improperly used a company spinoff to renounce responsibility for supplemental pension benefits reserved for senior executives, the plaintiff-side firm that represented the retirees said.
-
August 01, 2024
Prisoner Swap Includes Russian Convicted Of Insider Trading
A Kremlin-linked Russian national serving nine years for the largest insider trading case ever prosecuted in the U.S. was among the 24 people freed Thursday in an elaborate prisoner swap that included American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.
-
August 01, 2024
AbbVie Wants Mass. Biotech Firm To Pay Up For Drug Work
AbbVie Inc. says it's still owed nearly $1 million by a Massachusetts biopharmaceutical company for materials and work it provided as the smaller firm prepared to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of a potential cancer treatment, according to a lawsuit filed in state court.
-
August 01, 2024
Duane Morris Seeks $3.25M Fee For Pirate Treasure Win
Duane Morris LLP attorneys who recently won a Delaware Court of Chancery order unwinding a merger that set up unfair terms for distributions from a sunken pirate ship salvage venture potentially worth $200 million to $1 billion have asked for a $3.25 million fee for their five-year effort.
-
August 01, 2024
White House Defends 6th Circ. Nom Against Tenn. Senator
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved seven judicial nominees on Thursday, including one for the Sixth Circuit under fire from her home-state senators.
-
August 01, 2024
RTX Didn't Tell Jobseekers Of Lie Detector Ban, Suit Says
Raytheon Technologies Corp., now RTX Corporation, failed to advise job applicants that Massachusetts bans the use of lie detector tests in hiring decisions, as required by a nearly 40-year-old law, a proposed class action filed in state court alleges.
-
August 01, 2024
Hub Hires: Harvard, Manatt, Prince Lobel, Flagship
A sweltering July saw its fair share of hot moves across the Boston legal community, with a Boston firm launching a second Bay State office, Harvard hiring a new top attorney, and more.
-
August 01, 2024
Mass. Could Be New Front In The Battle Over Jury Trial Right
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling granting defendants facing administrative civil penalties the right to a jury trial, experts say a similar challenge in Massachusetts is likely, but may not find as receptive a judicial audience.
-
August 01, 2024
Hogan Lovells Recruits Two From Foley Hoag To Health Team
Hogan Lovells said Thursday it has hired two Foley Hoag partners experienced in complex regulatory, legislative and legal policy affecting medical technology and biopharmaceutical companies to join the firm's health practice.
-
July 31, 2024
Trade Secrets Cases To Watch In 2024: A Midyear Report
A Virginia appellate court reversed a historic $2 billion trade secrets verdict in a closely watched case, and the Seventh Circuit emphasized that the federal trade secrets law applies to conduct abroad, expanding the damages landscape. Here are some of the most notable trade secrets cases to watch for the rest of 2024.
-
July 31, 2024
Jury Instruction Error Kills $21M Verdict Over Noncompete
Three former employees of a consulting group who jumped to a competitor in 2016 were let off the hook for a $21 million jury verdict Wednesday by an intermediate Massachusetts appellate court over a prejudicial error in jury instructions.
-
July 31, 2024
4 Mass. Rulings You May Have Missed In July
Massachusetts state court judges refereed a damages dispute between a real estate titan and a Big Four consultant, ruled in favor of allegedly underpaid healthcare workers and untangled a defamation suit over a labor executive's old social media posts, among other notable rulings during the month of July.
Expert Analysis
-
Contract Disputes Recap: Facts Differ But Same Rules Apply
Zachary Jacobson and Sarah Barney at Seyfarth examine two decisions illustrating that reliance on a technicality may not save an otherwise untimely appeal, and that enforcement of commercial terms and conditions under a federal supply schedule contract may be possible.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
CSA Case Could Shift Intrastate Commercial Cannabis
In Canna Provisions v. Merrick Garland, cannabis companies argue that the Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to intrastate commercial cannabis activity; the Massachusetts federal court's eventual decision will be important to the cannabis industry for several reasons, including that the threat of federal enforcement would disappear overnight, says Hilary Bricken at Husch Blackwell.
-
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.
-
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.
-
What FTC's 'Killer Acquisition' Theory Means For Pharma Cos.
The Federal Trade Commission's recent lawsuit to block Sanofi's acquisition of a pharmaceutical treatment developed by Maze Therapeutics builds on previous enforcement actions and could indicate the agency's growing willingness to use its so-called killer acquisition theory against perceived attempts to eliminate nascent competition, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Employer Pointers As Wage And Hour AI Risks Emerge
Following the Biden administration's executive order on artificial intelligence, employers using or considering artificial intelligence tools should carefully assess whether such use could increase their exposure to liability under federal and state wage and hour laws, and be wary of algorithmic discrimination, bias and inaccurate or incomplete reporting, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
-
The Pros And Cons Of Protecting AI As Trade Secrets
Despite regulatory trends toward greater transparency of artificial intelligence models, federal policy acknowledges, and perhaps endorses, trade secret protection for AI information, but there are still hurdles in keeping AI information a secret, say Jennifer Maisel and Andrew Stewart at Rothwell Figg.
-
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.
-
Regulatory Trends Offer 4 Lessons For Debt Relief Providers
A string of enforcement actions, including a New York lawsuit filed last month by seven states and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, underscore the regulatory scrutiny that debt relief and credit repair companies face and offer important lessons on telemarketing and deceptive practices compliance, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.