Analysis

Here's What Comes Next After Trump's Conviction

By Phillip Bantz

Donald Trump's forthcoming appeal of his historic conviction Thursday in the New York hush money case could include challenges to the state's evidence and jury instructions, but it's unlikely the case will be resolved before Election Day.

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Donald Trump Convicted Of All 34 Counts In NY Trial

By Frank Runyeon, Rachel Scharf, Stewart Bishop and Elliot Weld

Former President Donald Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury Thursday of 34 felonies over a plot to illegally sway the 2016 presidential election in his favor by concealing hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

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What The Trump Verdict Was Like From Inside The Courtroom

By Frank Runyeon, Rachel Scharf and Stewart Bishop

Law360 reporters were providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as a jury found Donald Trump guilty of falsifying business records. Here's a blow-by-blow of the historic verdict.

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Justices Back Ariz. Execution Despite Trial Lawyer's Miscues

By Jeff Overley

Three decades after an Arizona man fatally bludgeoned a friend, a young girl and a grandmother, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ended his efforts to escape execution, finding that a trial lawyer's incomplete illustration of the man's psychologically damaging experiences doesn't merit leniency.

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Menendez's Wife Hires Coburn Greenbaum For Bribery Case

By Carla Baranauckas

Nadine Menendez, wife of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, has hired Coburn Greenbaum & Eisenstein PLLC partner Barry Coburn to defend her in the government's case accusing her and her husband of accepting bribes from three businessmen.

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Musk Won't Appeal Deposition Order In SEC's Twitter Case

By Hailey Konnath

Elon Musk has agreed to waive his right to appeal a California federal judge's order forcing him to testify again in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's suit over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now known as X, according to a stipulation filed Thursday.

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Troutman Pepper Fights Kwok Trustee's $2M Clawback Claim

By Aaron Keller

Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP has defended its legal work for three entities connected to Ho Wan Kwok, saying the Chinese exile and alleged criminal fraudster's Chapter 11 trustee cannot avoid $2 million in payments to the firm because it earned its fees in good faith.

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Ga. Judge Gives Fraudster 'Damn Good' 1-Year Sentence

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia federal judge on Thursday handed down what he called a "pretty damn good" sentence of a year and a day to a man who pled guilty to procuring names and social security numbers that were used in a $9.4 million fraudulent invoice scheme against Amazon.

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Black Business Owners Sue Over Impact Of Transparency Act

By Julie Manganis

The Corporate Transparency Act creates unique burdens on businesses owned by people of color, immigrants and other marginalized groups, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts and several company owners said in the latest legal challenge to the anti-money laundering law.

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Autonomy VP Declines To Take Stand As Fraud Trial Nears End

By Bonnie Eslinger

Testimony wrapped Thursday in a California federal criminal trial over claims that former Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch and finance vice president Stephen Chamberlain duped HP into overpaying billions for the British tech company, as Chamberlain opted not to testify in his own defense after Lynch stepped off the witness stand.

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Exec Found Liable For 'Shadow Trading' Seeks New Trial

By Sarah Jarvis

A former executive of biopharmaceutical company Medivation Inc. whom a jury found liable for using inside information from his company when he purchased stock in a rival pharmaceutical maker has moved for a new trial in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's novel "shadow trading" case.

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Feds Say NC Man Ran $1M Ponzi With 'Tiger-Wolf' Firm

By Emilie Ruscoe

A self-styled trader and his unregistered hedge fund Tiger-Wolf Capital face wire fraud and securities fraud claims brought by North Carolina federal prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over an alleged $1 million scheme that took in over 100 would-be investors.

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Data Co. Exec, Worker Guilty Of Fraud In Mail Scam Case

By Daniel Ducassi

A Colorado federal jury on Thursday convicted two former Epsilon Data Management employees for their roles in selling data to mail scammers who preyed on the elderly and vulnerable.

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Ex-Deutsche Bank Trader Gets 3½ Years For Crypto Scheme

By Emilie Ruscoe

A former Deutsche Bank associate has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison after pleading guilty in September to wire fraud and access device fraud in connection with a $1.5 million cryptocurrency investment scheme, Brooklyn federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

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NC Insurance Mogul Chases Acquittal After Bribery Retrial

By Hayley Fowler

An insurance magnate besieged by litigation and twice convicted on charges of trying to bribe North Carolina's insurance commissioner is looking to undo the latest jury verdict, saying there wasn't enough evidence during the second trial to convict.

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Ex-Air Cargo Exec Who Took $6.7M In Kickbacks Gets 4 Years

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge sentenced a German-born former air cargo executive to four years in prison Thursday for a decadelong course of corruption in which he personally took over $6.7 million in kickbacks, saying the wealthy defendant acted out of "pure greed."

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Ex-BigLaw Atty Fights 10-Year Sentence In OneCoin Case

By Andrea Keckley

A former Locke Lord LLP partner urged the Second Circuit Wednesday to ax his 10-year prison sentence and conviction for laundering around $400 million in proceeds from the global OneCoin cryptocurrency scam, saying the case was contaminated by perjury and errors at the trial court level.

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NJ Atty Gets 5½ Years For $2M Theft, Impersonating Counsel

By Ryan Harroff

A New Jersey federal judge sentenced Garden State attorney James Lisa to 66 months in prison Thursday for bilking clients out of more than $2 million and then impersonating his own defense counsel in the course of pursuing a loan while he was out on pretrial release.

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Conn. Atty Avoids Default In $1.4M Transfer Scam Suit

By Emily Sawicki

A Connecticut attorney has won the right to defend herself against accusations she knowingly participated in an email transfer scam that stole more than $1.4 million from a New Jersey-based real estate development company last year.

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Chicago Kiosk Salesman Gets 1 Year For Filing False Returns

By Anna Scott Farrell

An electronic-sweepstakes kiosk salesman from Chicago was sentenced to a year in prison for filing false tax returns that included more than $500,000 in inflated business expenses, according to Illinois federal court documents.

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Mukasey Frenchman Co-Founder, Ex-DOJ Atty Join Dynamis

By Daniel Connolly

A longtime white collar defense lawyer and a former federal prosecutor have joined new white collar defense firm Dynamis LLP as partners, adding to its lineup of attorneys with expertise in cryptocurrency and other complex financial matters.

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12 Keys To Successful Post-Trial Juror Interviews

Post-trial interviews offer attorneys an avenue to gain valuable insights into juror decision making and get feedback that can inform future litigation strategies, but certain best practices must be followed to get the most out of this research tool, say Alexa Hiley and Brianna Smith at IMS Legal.

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Perspectives

Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys

As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.

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Orrick Leads List Of Top Law Firms For Women, Diversity

By Aebra Coe

Talent strategies firm Seramount released its latest list of the 45 best law firms for women and diversity this week, with the 2024 cohort of winners showing strides over previous years in representation, advancement and benefits for lawyers who are women or from other underrepresented groups.

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Houston Judge's Vast Display Reflects 25 Years On Bench

By Catherine Marfin

Along the hallways leading to U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison's Houston courtroom hang hundreds of notes, photos, thank-you cards and other correspondence, serving as a kind of interactive scrapbook of Judge Ellison's 25 years on the bench.

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Analysis

In Rarity, 1 Party's Judges Gain 100% Control Of Circuit Bench

By Jeff Overley

At the First Circuit, the judges' robes are all black, but the judges are all blue. It's a new and unusual instance of one political party's judicial picks controlling each active seat on a federal appeals court, and the Democratic dominance could prove magnetic for ideologically charged litigation.

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Orrick's $8M Deal To End Data Breach Claims Nears Prelim OK

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Friday that she'll preliminarily approve Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's $8 million deal to end putative class claims over a 2023 data breach that purportedly exposed personal information for 638,000 individuals, but said the "very broad" scope of the settlement's release "raised my eyebrows."

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Smith Gambrell Faces Slimmed Data Breach Suit

By Emily Sawicki

A California federal judge has trimmed the claims a proposed class of data breach victims brought against international law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP, leaving the firm to face claims of negligence, invasion of privacy and violation of the California Unfair Competition Law.

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Analysis

Del. Chancellor Questions 'Rush' To Amend Corporation Law

By Jeff Montgomery

Weeks before the Delaware State Bar Association sent state lawmakers a draft bill explicitly allowing corporations to broadly cede some governance rights to chosen stockholders, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of Delaware Chancery Court made an unprecedented, direct appeal to think twice.

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Trump Condemns NY Trial As Verdict Echoes In DC

By Rachel Scharf

A day after his conviction on 34 felony counts, former president Donald Trump on Friday attacked the Manhattan jury's verdict in a lengthy speech that mischaracterized multiple elements of the case as the decision reverberated through Washington, D.C.

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Trump's New York Prosecutors Called To House Hearing

By Courtney Bublé

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, demanded on Friday that Manhattan prosecutors appear for a hearing on June 13 on the prosecution of former President Donald Trump, who was convicted on Thursday of 34 felonies.

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Disbarring Giuliani Would 'Protect The Public,' DC Panel Says

By Alison Knezevich

A Washington, D.C., attorney ethics panel agreed Friday that Rudy Giuliani's role in former President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn Pennsylvania's presidential election in 2020 amounted to misconduct "of the utmost seriousness," and that disbarring him would "protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession."

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Texas Judge Opts Not To Recuse And Tosses Chamber Suit

By Emily Sawicki

A Texas federal judge has thrown out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's suit seeking to block the Federal Trade Commission from implementing a ban on noncompete clauses because a different plaintiff was first to file, adding he declined to recuse himself because no companies in his stock portfolio were parties in the case.

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Illinois Strengthens Atty Ethics Rules For Harassment, Bias

By Celeste Bott

The Illinois Supreme Court has announced that the state's professional conduct rules for attorneys have been amended to deem the act of engaging in harassment or discrimination as professional misconduct, and not just in the event a court or administrative agency finds that a lawyer violated a law prohibiting such actions.

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DOJ Looks To End A Legacy Of Bias In Sex Assault Cases

By Hannah Albarazi

The U.S. Department of Justice says that legal fallacies and misogynistic stereotypes often lead prosecutors to decline to charge alleged perpetrators of sexual violence, but new guidance from the department is pushing prosecutors to give more credence to victims and see that their claims are more thoroughly investigated.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and attorneys Eugene Volokh and Alan Morrison lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the National Rifle Association can proceed with certain claims in the gun rights group's lawsuit against a former New York state official.

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The Top In-House Hires Of May

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the last full month of spring included high-profile appointments at Southwest, Hormel and UnitedHealth. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from May.

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Off The Bench: NCAA Transfers Freed, Atty Plays Cards Right

By David Steele

In this week's Off the Bench, the NCAA agrees to more historic rule changes while experts examine its post-House settlement future, and a patent lawyer looks back at his transformation into a poker champion.

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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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