Analysis

Executive Privilege Questions Cloud Congressional Probe Prep

By Phillip Bantz

As corporate leaders brace for the possibility of Democrats retaking control of Congress and launching aggressive investigations into the Trump administration's dealings with a vast array of companies, attorneys say a U.S. Justice Department opinion on executive privilege could complicate the probes.

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DOJ Wants To Quash Apple's Look At Fed Phone-Buying

By Matthew Perlman

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a New Jersey federal court to overrule an order in the government's monopolization case giving Apple a look at how the Pentagon, CIA, U.S. Department of State and other agencies purchase smartphones and smartwatches.

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States Press Court To Block DOT's CDL Data Request

By Jared Foretek

A Virginia federal judge on Thursday questioned the Trump administration's claim that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's chief counsel wasn't speaking for the agency itself when she told a nationwide commercial driver database operator to either hand over millions of driver files or see its federal funding slashed.

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SBA Prioritizes Defense-Critical Firms For Assistance Program

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Small Business Administration announced Thursday that the agency will prioritize processing applications by individually owned small businesses operating in defense-critical industries that are looking to participate in the agency's federal contracting assistance program for disadvantaged small businesses. 

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Blank Rome Atty Ouster Can't Be Appealed, Conn. Panel Rules

By Aaron Keller

The former executive director of a Connecticut public housing authority cannot challenge a judge's revocation of his Blank Rome LLP lawyer's case-specific appearance in a $16.2 million loan dispute, a state appeals court has ruled, finding a trial court decision sidelining the attorney was not a final judgment.

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Hospital Says Saul Ewing Atty's 'Revenge' Drove FCA Suit

By Matthew Santoni

A Saul Ewing LLP attorney who quit a Pittsburgh-area hospital's board turned his representation of two whistleblower nurses into an act of "revenge," but failed to make the clients' accusations against their co-workers into a viable False Claims Act suit, the hospital said.

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$270M Medi-Cal False Claims Scheme Nets 30-Year Sentence

By Gina Kim

An Orange County man with multiple prior fraud convictions has been sentenced in California federal court to 30 years in prison for his role in a $270 million Medi-Cal prescription drug scam, which he orchestrated while awaiting sentencing in a separate tax evasion case, prosecutors said. 

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Dompé To Pay $32M Over Foundation Co-Pay Kickback Claims

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. arm of Italian pharmaceutical company Dompé Farmaceutici SpA has agreed to pay $32 million to resolve allegations that it contributed funds to patient assistance foundations to induce purchases of its prescription eye drops Oxervate, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

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24 States Ink Deal With Feds In AmeriCorps Budget Cuts Case

By Rachel Riley

Two dozen states and the District of Columbia have reached a settlement with the Trump administration to stop the federal government from abruptly slashing funding for the national volunteer agency AmeriCorps in the future, the coalition of states announced Thursday.

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Energy Dept. Sued Again Over 'Blue State' Grant Terminations

By Carolyn Muyskens

The U.S. Department of Energy was hit with another complaint alleging it unlawfully canceled grants destined for states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

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US, Ohio Settle 15-Year Dam Mining Dispute

By Isaac Monterose

The federal government and Ohio have decided to settle their more than 15-year legal battle over the state's authorization of coal mining near a federal dam and reservoir.

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Feds' Cut To NY Funding In CDL Fight Justified, 2nd Circ. Told

By Linda Chiem

The Trump administration has told the Second Circuit that it's well within its rights to penalize New York by withholding $74 million in highway funds over the state's failure to revoke commercial driver's licenses that were issued to ineligible foreign drivers.

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Lima Seeks Vacatur Of Toll Road Award In Long-Running Feud

By Caroline Simson

The capital of Peru asked a D.C. federal court Thursday to vacate an arbitral award favoring an embattled contractor in a bitter dispute over a toll highway project, saying the tribunal ignored relevant domestic law and improperly maintained its own jurisdiction.

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GAO Orders New Bid For US Space Force IT Services

By Elaine Briseño

The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that a package of U.S. Space Force IT services was improperly placed under an existing blanket purchase agreement, saying the bulk of new work was outside the scope of the established agreement.

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Ed. Dept. Contractor Wins $3.3M After Minimum Wage Hike

By Ganesh Setty

A U.S. Department of Education contractor providing student loan processing must be compensated nearly $3.3 million for costs incurred from a now-rescinded executive order that increased the minimum wage for federal contractors, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals has ruled.

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Bid Protest Spotlight: GAO Lessons For Small Biz Contractors

In this month's bid protest roundup, Alissandra McCann at MoFo offers small business takeaways from three recent U.S. Government Accountability Office decisions about rule-of-two challenges, joint ventures maintaining service-disabled, veteran-owned small business certifications, and joint venture and teaming arrangement eligibility distinctions.

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5 Practice Tips After DOJ's Healthcare Fraud Declination

In light of the U.S. Department of Justice's decision to not prosecute Campus Eye Management under the agency's new corporate enforcement and voluntary self-disclosure policy, healthcare companies should keep several considerations in mind when weighing their risk and self-disclosure strategy, including the distinctions between reporting to the DOJ versus other government agencies, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

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Series

Juggling And Unicycling Make Me A Better Lawyer

Because I juggle (sometimes with fire) and ride the unicycle, friends and family used to joke that I should join the circus, but I pursued the practice of law instead and learned that my hobbies benefit my profession in several important ways, says Morgan Eddy at Smith Currie.

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Senior Lawyers Survey: Tell Us About Your Career

How are senior lawyers adapting to evolving career paths and emerging technologies? Share your perspective in this five-minute survey.

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Engineering Co. Calls Atty-Ouster Bid Retaliatory In Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

An engineering company urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to reject a bid to remove its lawyer from a wage case, arguing the worker is retaliating because the company tried to disqualify one of his attorneys from a separate case.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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In-House Atty Org. Says Rival Ripped Off Data For AI Tool

By Andrea Keckley

The Association of Corporate Counsel alleges in Delaware federal court that its competitor used the nonprofit's proprietary materials to train its artificial intelligence tool Lloyd and "brazenly promoted its Lloyd product by showing the public that ACC materials could be accessed via Lloyd."

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Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

By Ryan Boysen

Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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Legal Ops Duo Sees AI Driving Department Redesign

By Anna Scott Farrell

Connie Brenton and Jeff Franke consider themselves, and others in the field of legal operations, to be, fundamentally, entrepreneurs. Here, the pair sat down with Law360 Pulse to talk about the state of their field, why legal ops is still misunderstood, and their annual conference, Running Legal Like a Business, which took place this week in Las Vegas.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

AI is driving a significant gap between in-house legal departments' budgets and the cost of their workloads, according to a new study. Speaking of gaps, a new Law360 Pulse report on women in law found that men still make up 71% of law firm equity partners and 63% of nonequity partners. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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Analysis

Midterm Wins Could Help Dems Probe Trump's BigLaw Deals

By Courtney Bublé

If the Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, a big item on their oversight agenda will be to step up ongoing investigations of the deals that nine major law firms cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Personal Injury Firm Beats Atty's Bid For 'Birth Justice' TM

By Adam Lidgett

A former associate at a personal injury and medical malpractice law firm can't register in her own name a trademark for birth-injury legal services that she helped develop before and during her employment with the firm, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled.

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Trial Errors 'Crippled Goldstein's Defense,' 4th Circ. Hears

By Jeff Overley

Appellate luminary Tom Goldstein unveiled a sweeping and forceful critique aimed at erasing his felony fraud convictions, telling the Fourth Circuit that prosecutors were hell-bent on convicting him "no matter the facts or law," disregarded a star witness's "incompetence" and benefited from a trial judge's "inexplicable" rulings.

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Interview

ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

By Allison Grande

With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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Afghan Woman Deported in 1st 'Alien Terrorist' Case

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Trump administration deported an Afghan woman accused of plotting an ISIS-inspired mass shooting in the first case before the previously dormant Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

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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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Attys Must Arbitrate $8 Oil To Fight $625K Sanction: 9th Circ.

By Jeff Overley

Class action lawyers slapped with six-figure sanctions for suing Walmart Inc. based on erroneous purchase information can't yet challenge the discipline, the Ninth Circuit ruled, suggesting they may first need to arbitrate grievances over an $8 bottle of avocado oil.

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Ex-Wash. Bench Officer Censured Over Explicit Texts, Emails

By Ben Adlin

The Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct censured a former Okanogan County Superior Court commissioner Friday, finding that Robert Colbert violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by engaging in what a stipulated agreement describes as "unprofessional, inappropriate communications" with a court employee that involved "sexually explicit language."

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Brief

Colo. Governor Appoints Atty To Denver Court

By Rachel Konieczny

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed Friday an attorney to the Denver District Court, filling the vacancy that will be created by a retirement on the bench.

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