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Massachusetts
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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July 31, 2024
DraftKings Closes NFT Platform Over 'Legal Developments'
DraftKings has announced that it is shuttering its nonfungible token marketplace due to "recent legal developments," with the decision coming weeks after a Massachusetts federal judge permitted a proposed securities class action involving the marketplace to move forward.
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July 31, 2024
1st Circ. Mostly Backs $5M Award In Biotech Recruiting Spat
The First Circuit left intact the vast majority of a $5 million post-trial award against a life sciences recruiting firm found to have misappropriated trade secrets from a rival involving placements at Takeda and Vedanta Biosciences.
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July 31, 2024
Firms Must Justify $1.4M Fee Bid In State Street Settlement
A Massachusetts federal judge who oversaw a yearslong attorney overbilling scandal and slashed a fee bid in another case over alleged false and misleading statements ordered a pair of firms to tell him why they should get one-third of a $4.3 million settlement with State Street Corp.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
Now More Than Ever, Lawyers Must Exhibit Professionalism
As society becomes increasingly fractured and workplace incivility is on the rise, attorneys must champion professionalism and lead by example, demonstrating how lawyers can respectfully disagree without being disagreeable, says Edward Casmere at Norton Rose.
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A Look At State AGs Supermarket Antitrust Enforcement Push
The ongoing antitrust intervention by state attorneys general in the proposed Kroger and Albertsons merger suggests that states are straying from a Federal Trade Commission follow-on strategy in the supermarket space, which involved joining federal investigations or lawsuits and settling for the same divestment remedies, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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Series
Serving In The National Guard Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My ongoing military experience as a judge advocate general in the National Guard has shaped me as a person and a lawyer, teaching me the importance of embracing confidence, balance and teamwork in both my Army and civilian roles, says Danielle Aymond at Baker Donelson.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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7th Circ Joins Trend Of No CGL Coverage For Structural Flaws
The Seventh Circuit, which recently held potential structural instability did not count as property damage under a construction company's commercial general liability policy, joins a growing consensus that faulty work does not implicate coverage without tangible and present damage to the project, say Sarah Abrams at Baleen Specialty, and Elan Kandel and James Talbert at Bailey Cavalieri.
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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Why High Court Social Media Ruling Will Be Hotly Debated
In deciding the NetChoice cases that challenged Florida and Texas content moderation laws, what the U.S. Supreme Court justices said about social media platforms — and the First Amendment — will have implications and raise questions for nearly all online operators, say Jacob Canter and Joanna Rosen Forster at Crowell & Moring.
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Realtor Settlement May Create New Antitrust Pitfalls
Following a recent antitrust settlement between the National Association of Realtors and home sellers, practices are set to change and the increased competition may benefit both brokers and homebuyers, but the loss of the customary method of buyer broker compensation could lead to new antitrust concerns, says Colin Ahler at Snell & Wilmer.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
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.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
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.
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Series
After Chevron: Various Paths For Labor And Employment Law
Labor and employment law leans heavily on federal agency guidance, so the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to toss out Chevron deference will ripple through this area, with future workplace policies possibly taking shape through strategic litigation, informal guidance, state-level regulation and more, says Alexander MacDonald at Littler.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
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.