FirstEnergy Investors Slam Ex-Execs' Info 'Bogeyman' Story

By Katryna Perera

FirstEnergy shareholders have accused two former executives of the energy company of exploiting confidentiality rules by seeking to shield documents relevant to their suit over a stock plummet that followed a massive bribery scheme, telling an Ohio federal judge he should reject the executives' "informational bogeyman" story.

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Ohio City Tax Exemption Isn't Retroactive, Court Affirms

By Jaqueline McCool

An Ohio property in a reinvestment area is not eligible for a city's tax exemption offered to remodeled homes, as the remodel was completed before the property was included in the reinvestment district, an Ohio appellate court affirmed Thursday.   

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Ill. Justices Give Marathon Chance To Avoid $15M Fuel Tax

By Maria Koklanaris

Marathon Petroleum presented enough evidence to rebut claims by officials of an Illinois county that it owed about $15 million in fuel taxes on transactions stemming from cash settlements for delivery contracts, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, reversing an appellate court.

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Sherwin-Williams Wants Pause In NJ Pollution Suit

By George Woolston

Sherwin-Williams asked a New Jersey state court to pause a suit from Garden State regulators over the contamination at one of its former plants, arguing an expert for the state has claimed the cleanup required under a consent decree failed to accurately assess the scope of contamination and that a massive new soil excavation is required.

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Senate Deal Halts 4 Circuit Court Nominations

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats and Republicans cut a deal Wednesday night to advance district court nominees before the year ends, while dropping four circuit court picks from confirmation efforts, Law360 has confirmed.

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Fuel Economy Regs Are Unlawful Path To EVs, 6th Circ. Told

By Linda Chiem

Republican-led states and fuel industry groups have told the Sixth Circuit that the U.S. Department of Transportation overstepped with new vehicle fuel-economy standards that amount to an unlawful electric vehicles mandate, while environmental groups say the standards don't go far enough to meaningfully combat climate change.

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Big Lots Seeks To Include Claims Against Execs In Asset Sale

By Rick Archer

Discount retailer Big Lots on Thursday asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge to approve a $760 million asset sale to a private equity group and override creditor objections to the inclusion of potential litigation claims against company insiders in the package.

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Franchise Group Lenders Want End To Debtor's Ch. 11 Rights

By Jeff Montgomery

Lenders of bankrupt retail-focused holding company Franchise Group Inc., including Pacific Investment Management Co. and private equity firm Irradiant Partners, have urged a Delaware bankruptcy judge to end holdco debtor Chapter 11 exclusivity restrictions, arguing that the move offers the best escape from a near-inescapable "Gordian knot" entangling all their claims.

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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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