Ex-Avaya Execs Snag Early Exit From Investor Suits In NC

By Hayley Fowler

Three former executives at telecom giant Avaya Inc. have escaped separate lawsuits in the North Carolina Business Court accusing them of painting an inaccurately rosy picture for investors before finances tanked and the company was forced to declare bankruptcy.

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Voter Claims NC 'Ballot Selfie' Laws Violate Free Speech

By Travis Bland

A North Carolina voter hopes to take down the state's so-called ballot selfie laws, which make it illegal to take a photo with a completed ballot, arguing in a new federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the statutes trample her free speech rights.

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Apache Carry Petition To High Court With A Prayer Journey

By Crystal Owens

Members of an Apache nonprofit fighting to save an Indigenous worship site from destruction are making stops to visit other tribes throughout the country for prayers and support as they deliver a petition to the Supreme Court that seeks to undo a Ninth Circuit ruling and block a mining project.

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Williams-Sonoma Infringes Fabric TMs, Michigan Co. Claims

By Leslie A. Pappas

A supplier of moisture-resistant textiles and fabric treatments sued Williams-Sonoma Inc. in Michigan federal court Thursday, alleging the retailer is infringing three trademarks with its Pottery Barn furniture.

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Ex-Morgan Stanley Representative Concedes SEC Suit

By Sydney Price

A former Morgan Stanley representative who was criminally convicted in a $4.8 million Ponzi scheme has conceded in a suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he agrees with the agency that judgment should be issued against him.

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NC Hot Rod Shop Owner Admits To Not Paying $2M In Taxes

By Katherine Smith

A North Carolina automotive business owner has pled guilty to failing to pay more than $2 million in employment taxes and not filing employment tax returns, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

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Brief

Feds Seize $5M In Crypto 'Pig Butchering' Scams

By Travis Bland

Federal prosecutors in North Carolina snagged nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency that they said on Thursday came from crooks masquerading as lovers, luring starry-eyed paramores into phony investments, in what's known as a "pig butchering" scam.

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Latham-Led Carlyle Scooping Auto Parts Distributor For $1.5B

By Al Barbarino

Advance Auto Parts said Thursday it has struck an agreement to sell Worldpac Inc., an automotive parts wholesale distribution business, to private equity firm Carlyle for $1.5 billion, as the company looks to streamline operations amid declining profits. 

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Notable Q2 Updates In Insurance Class Actions

Mark Johnson and Mathew Drocton at BakerHostetler discuss the muted nature of the property and casualty insurance class action space in the second quarter of the year, with no large waves made in labor depreciation and total-loss vehicle class actions, but a new offensive theory emerging for insurance companies.

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Series

Playing Golf Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Golf can positively affect your personal and professional life well beyond the final putt, and it’s helped enrich my legal practice by improving my ability to build lasting relationships, study and apply the rules, face adversity with grace, and maintain my mental and physical well-being, says Adam Kelly at Venable.

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Client Wants Atty's Wife Held In Contempt In Malpractice Case

By Daniel Ducassi

A couple awarded a $1.2 million default malpractice judgment against their former lawyer have asked a Colorado state judge to hold the attorney's wife in contempt after she said in a deposition she failed to check whether she and her husband had joint bank accounts or to bring documents, as required by a subpoena. 

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Girardi Says High Court Holding Should Gut His Fraud Case

By Craig Clough

Tom Girardi has urged a California federal judge to toss the majority of the wire fraud charges he is facing ahead of closing arguments in his trial, saying a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court case demonstrates he was charged for nothing more than receiving legally required wire transfers.

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Ex-Reed Smith Atty Wants Pay Data In Bias Suit Against Firm

By Jake Maher

A former Reed Smith LLP attorney suing the firm for gender discrimination has told a New Jersey state court that the firm must turn over pay data for nonequity partners stretching back years for her to make her case.

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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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DOJ Sues RealPage For Helping Fix Rental Rates

By Matthew Perlman

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit Friday accusing RealPage of helping residential landlords across the country fix rental prices through the use of its revenue management software.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Fillmore Law Firm LLP, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center and the Business Roundtable lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Texas federal judge blocked a Federal Trade Commission ban on noncompete agreements in employment contracts.

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

By Max Austin

The past week in London has seen Google sue several Russian media outlets in response to challenges to the tech giant's response to international sanctions, easyGroup bring an intellectual property claim against delivery company Easycargo, and e-money business Nyavo challenge action by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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On Final Night Of DNC, Prosecutors Ruled The Stage

By Courtney Bublé

Vice President Kamala Harris invoked her experience as a prosecutor and an attorney general in her speech Thursday night in Chicago accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

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Messner Reeves Commercial Litigator Jumps To Gordon Rees

By Madison Arnold

A former Messner Reeves LLP partner has jumped to Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP in San Diego to bolster its services in product and general liability matters, catastrophic brain injury cases and commercial litigation.

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Ohio Judge Dinged For Public Posts About Guardianship Spat

By Emily Sawicki

The Ohio Supreme Court has publicly reprimanded a probate court judge for allowing staff to make inaccurate comments to the press about a guardianship case and for posting comments about the case on the court's Facebook page, including accusing a man of elder abuse without evidence.

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Client Says Negligence Led To NJ Firm's Ransomware Attack

By Adrian Cruz

A client of The Wacks Law Group LLC hit the New Jersey firm with a proposed class action claiming that its negligence in properly securing its data storage led to the theft of hundreds of clients' personal information in a March cyberattack.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A U.S. court in Texas has agreed with tax company Ryan LLC's general counsel that the Federal Trade Commission's ban on noncompete agreements is illegal. And women still hold fewer than 26% of law firm equity partnerships, according to Law360 Pulse's 2024 Women in Law report.

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NJ Panel Backs Dismissal Of Whistleblower Suit

By James Boyle

A former New Jersey assistant prosecutor did not provide a clear enough link between complaints he filed against his boss and an alleged retaliatory disciplinary action, a New Jersey appellate panel ruled Friday when it dismissed his whistleblower suit.

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Attys Fight Over Fee Award In Conservative Group's IRS Win

By Jared Foretek

A prominent conservative lawyer says like-minded election integrity group True the Vote owes his firm over $500,000 in attorney fees for a suit against the Internal Revenue Service that was settled years ago, telling a D.C. federal judge Friday that it's time for TTV to pay up.

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Georgia Cases To Watch In The Last Half Of 2024

By Kelcey Caulder

The prosecutions of former President Donald Trump and his election interference case codefendants, along with Atlanta rapper Young Thug's bid to have the judge overseeing his racketeering trial removed from the case, will take center stage in Georgia's courts as we enter the second half of 2024.

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ABA Guides Lawyers On Avoiding Criminal Transactions

By Emily Sawicki

Just over a year after the American Bar Association formalized long-standing due diligence rules for attorneys' interactions with clients, an ABA committee on Friday released its first ethics opinion providing guidance on interpreting the rules amendment.

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Brief

2 Veteran Public Defenders Tapped For Mass. Bench

By Julie Manganis

Two longtime public defenders have been nominated as associate justices in Massachusetts state court, Gov. Maura Healey announced Friday.

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LegalShield Used AI To Record Clients, Suit Says

By Nadia Dreid

Online legal service company LegalShield has been letting a call center software company use artificial intelligence to intercept, analyze and record its customer calls and chats, according to a lawsuit recently pulled into California federal court.

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