Madigan's Law Firm Profits Drove Corrupt Acts, Jury Told

By Celeste Bott

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's ownership interest in his Chicago law firm and his entitlement to 50% of its profits was behind his efforts to extort property tax business from developers who needed approvals from state and local government for their projects, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury Thursday.

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HP Says Ill. Ink Antitrust Claims Fall 'Woefully Short'

By Lauraann Wood

HP urged an Illinois federal judge on Thursday to toss out customers' lawsuit accusing it of anticompetitively blocking them from using third-party ink cartridges in their machines, arguing that they haven't come close to showing how it tied customers' printer purchases to the alleged restriction.

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15 States Reach $7.4B Settlement With Sackler Family

By Spencer Brewer and Frank G. Runyeon

A bipartisan coalition of states on Thursday announced a $7.4 billion settlement in principle with the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma Inc., representing the largest settlement to date with the family accused of contributing significantly to the opioid epidemic.

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Judge Puts 'Unconstitutional' Trump Citizenship Order On Ice

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge paused nationwide enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship on Thursday, calling the order "blatantly unconstitutional" and expressing disdain for attorneys backing the presidential decision while hearing four states' emergency bid for a temporary restraining order.

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11 States Say DOJ Can't Make Them Enforce Deportations

By Madeline Lyskawa

Eleven state attorneys general fired back Thursday at a U.S. Department of Justice memorandum instructing federal prosecutors to take action against states that interfere with the Trump administration's plans to deport unlawfully present immigrants, calling the move unconstitutional. 

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Analysis

Hiring Freeze, Ending Telework Would Devastate USPTO

By Dani Kass

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be uniquely harmed if forced to follow the Trump administration's return to office mandate, given its nearly 30-year history of telework that has led to 96% of its employees being permanently remote.

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Hillrom Rival Must Turn Over Antitrust Litigation Funding Docs

By Gianna Ferrarin

An Illinois federal court has ordered hospital-bed maker Linet to produce certain litigation funding documents in its antitrust suit accusing competitor Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. of trying to monopolize the U.S. market, ruling the documents are relevant to the statute of limitations in the case.

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Turkey Buyers Get Classes Certified For Antitrust Claims

By Matthew Perlman

An Illinois federal court certified two classes of buyers in a case accusing the country's largest turkey processors of working together to reduce supply and increase prices after refusing to exclude analysis from the buyers' experts.

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Jump Trading Says Ex-Worker Stole IP For Blockchain Startup

By Sydney Price

High-frequency trading firm and blockchain technology developer Jump Trading has filed a complaint seeking a preliminary injunction against a former software developer it claims is using Jump Trading's intellectual property to launch a competing project.

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Vape Maker Seeks Exit From Suit Over Delta-9 THC Levels

By Jonathan Capriel

An Illinois-based vape maker urged a federal judge to toss a lawsuit accusing it of fraudulently passing off illicit Delta-9 products as legal Delta-8 ones, saying the suit lacks fundamental details, such as which products were purchased and what laboratory tested them.

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7th Circ. Says Ex-Manager's Noncompete Allowed Clawback

By Patrick Hoff

The Seventh Circuit reopened an auto parts company's lawsuit seeking to recover proceeds a plant manager got from selling shares he was granted, saying Delaware's top court has made clear that a lower court shouldn't have analyzed whether the forfeiture-for-competition provisions of the stock agreements were reasonable.

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UPS Penalty Demonstrates Goodwill Impairment Red Flags

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent $45 million penalty against UPS for withholding reports of goodwill impairment should warn investors to watch for the telltale signs of companies inflating their worth by delaying tests that would reveal similar declines in the value of intangible assets, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

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Series

Coaching Little League Makes Me A Better Lawyer

While coaching poorly played Little League Baseball early in the morning doesn't sound like a good time, I love it — and the experience has taught me valuable lessons about imperfection, compassion and acceptance that have helped me grow as a person and as a lawyer, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.

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Companies Risk White House Wrath By Keeping DEI Programs

By Sarah Jarvis

For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump's anti-DEI agenda.

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Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers

By Alison Knezevich

Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.

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Mass Tort Atty Files Ch. 11 Owing $202M To Litigation Funders

By Hilary Russ

A Houston plaintiffs attorney has filed for personal Chapter 11 protection with more than $202 million of litigation funding liabilities, according to his petition in the Southern District of Texas.

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Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty

By Emily Johnson

The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."

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Boston Firm Says IT Vendor Holding Computers 'Hostage'

By Julie Manganis

Boston-based law firm Melick & Porter LLP says a company it hired to manage its information technology is now holding its computer network and data "hostage" by refusing to cooperate with the transition to a new vendor unless Melick pays it $380,000.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Ridley McGreevy & Winocur PC and King & Spalding LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new Law360 Pulse survey shows that more than 90% of in-house counsel have no regrets about their decisions to join companies. In litigation stemming from Purdue Pharma's sales of OxyContin that fueled the opioid crisis, the Sackler family would lose control of Purdue and pay $6.5 billion in the latest proposed settlement. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Axa Insurance and Admiral face a claim from a former lawyer recently exposed for personal injury fraud, the owner of Reading Football Club sue a prospective buyer and mobile network Lycamobile tackle action by Spanish network Yogio. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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