Dentons Atty Owed No Duty In $54M Currency Deal, Jury Says

By David Minsky

A Florida state court jury found Thursday that a former Dentons US LLP attorney didn't intentionally make a false statement or commit malpractice in a failed $54 million dollars-to-bolivares currency swap in which a Venezuelan lawyer lost millions of dollars.

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Trump Selects Ex-Fla. AG Pam Bondi As New AG Pick

By Lauren Berg

President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has selected Pam Bondi, a former attorney general of Florida, as his new pick for U.S. attorney general, just hours after former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration amid allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.

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'Where Were You?': Judge Irked By Feds In $2B Fraud Case 

By Hayley Fowler

A North Carolina magistrate judge said Thursday he was "appalled" by a system that left a convicted insurance mogul unable to communicate with his attorneys while he sat in a county jail for nearly a week following his guilty plea to a $2 billion fraud and money laundering scheme.

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11th Circ. Asked To Rethink $100M Credit For John Hancock

By Anna Scott Farrell

The Eleventh Circuit should reverse its decision allowing John Hancock Life Insurance Co. to keep $100 million in foreign tax credits that rightfully belong to the company's investors, trustees of a retirement plan said in arguing that the court overlooked a key U.S. Treasury regulation.

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11th Circ. Says Fla. Law Bars Workers' Comp Suit

By Grace Elletson

The Eleventh Circuit backed the dismissal of a worker's suit claiming a chemical company didn't do enough to shield him from particles that caused a lung condition, ruling that a Florida workers' compensation law blocks him from pursuing the company in court for negligence.

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Gaetz Ends AG Bid, Citing 'Distraction' To Trump Transition

By Phillip Bantz

Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general amid allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.

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Fla. Insurance Broker Pleads Guilty To Defrauding Ga. Bank

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida insurance broker has pled guilty to bank fraud for defrauding a Georgia bank out of $6 million through loans to commercial borrowers for insurance premiums.

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Jamaican Man Gets 7½ Years For Stealing Vehicles, PPP Scam

By Carolina Bolado

A Jamaican businessman previously accused of running a $200 million Ponzi scheme in Jamaica was sentenced Thursday in Florida to seven-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a vehicle theft and resale ring and for fraudulently obtaining $1.85 million from the Paycheck Protection Program.

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Tax Firm Must Disclose Case Info In Malpractice Suit

By Anna Scott Farrell

A tax firm being sued for malpractice and unfair trade practices by former clients can't hide behind a state bar association rule to avoid producing discovery documents it claims are privileged, a Wisconsin federal court ruled Thursday.

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Holtzman Vogel Expands To South Florida With Weil Atty

By Emma Cueto

Washington, D.C.-based firm Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC has added a Miami litigation partner previously at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

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Opinion

Weak Reasoning Underlies Fla. Judge's Bold Qui Tam Ruling

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Mizelle's groundbreaking decision in U.S. ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates LLC, holding that qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act are unconstitutional, relies on weak logic to reach a conclusion that differs from every other court that has ruled on the issue, says Ethan Greenberg at Anderson Kill.

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3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

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How They Won It

How A Purple Jacket Led To A Murder Exoneration And $13M

By Julie Manganis

To win compensation under a Massachusetts state law, lawyers for Michael J. Sullivan, who spent 26 years in prison, were required to prove he was innocent of the 1986 crime for which he was convicted. A couple of lucky breaks helped.

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Interview

High Court Bar's Future: Sullivan & Cromwell's Morgan Ratner

By Jeff Overley

Morgan L. Ratner has emerged as a leader of the U.S. Supreme Court bar's next generation, and she attributes her ascent to brilliant mentors, a laid-back argument style, an aversion to overconfidence and a firm commitment to clear principles in every case — even if that means reluctantly telling the chief justice, as she once did, that a hypothetical cat stuck in a tree shouldn't be saved.

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Trump Sentencing Halted To Weigh President-Elect's Immunity

By Frank G. Runyeon

The New York state judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money trial officially canceled his Nov. 26 sentencing date Friday to weigh the impact of his new status as president-elect, pushing briefing into December.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen cash-strapped Thurrock Borough Council bring a £40 million ($50 million) negligence claim against 23 other local authorities over its solar investments from a not-for-profit local government body, AstraZeneca sue a fire safety company following a blaze at its Cambridge headquarters last year, and a director who was convicted in 2016 for corporate manslaughter face action by Manolete Partners. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Bonus Spotlight

Top Firms Big And Small Join In On Milbank Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

The latest law firms to follow Milbank LLP on 2024 associate bonuses late Thursday and into Friday run the gamut from global giant to boutique, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Andrea Keckley

Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, King & Spalding LLP, Holland & Knight LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP lead this week's list of Law360 legal lions for beating a Pennsylvania state court lawsuit brought against Bayer AG unit Monsanto by a woman who said she got cancer by using the weed killer Roundup.

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Squire Patton Lawyer Dies In Laos Amid Poisoning Reports

By Ashish Sareen

A junior lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs LLP has died in Laos, the law firm confirmed Friday, amid reports in the media that she was the victim of a suspected mass poisoning incident.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Google's chief legal officer has blasted a U.S. Department of Justice proposal to force it to sell its Chrome browser, saying a sale would "break" a range of Google products and be a threat to U.S. tech leadership in the world. And in a close but surprising outcome, California voters have turned down a minimum wage hike for workers.

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Gaetz, Greene Face Atty Fees Bid For $550,000 In Calif. Suit

By Madison Arnold

Progressive groups including the NAACP are seeking more than $550,000 in attorney fees and costs from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Rep. Matt Gaetz after escaping their lawsuit alleging that the organizations conspired to pressure city officials in California to cancel the politicians' rallies.

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Analysis

Bondi Vowed Trump Payback. Ex-Colleagues Aren't Worried.

By Phillip Bantz, Chris Villani and Carolina Bolado

U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is an outspoken ally of President-elect Donald Trump and vowed during the campaign that his "prosecutors will be prosecuted," but people who've worked with her say she's well qualified to serve as the nation's top cop and downplayed concerns that she would politicize the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Brief

Navajo Co. Dismisses Case Alleging Paralegal Took Docs

By Thy Vo

A natural resources company owned by the Navajo Nation has dismissed a lawsuit against a paralegal it accused of failing to turn in her computer for removal of its privileged documents, after the paralegal said she had already arranged to surrender her device before the lawsuit was even filed.

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Senior Dem Asks Schumer For Votes On Circuit Court Picks

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday pushed back against a deal Democrats and Republicans cut earlier this week that obligates Democrats to forgo votes on four appellate picks.

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