Ex-Fox Rothschild Corporate Chief Accuses Firm Of Age Bias

By Jake Maher

The former head of Fox Rothschild LLP's corporate department sued the firm for age discrimination Wednesday in New Jersey state court, saying it slashed his pay to below that of a first-year associate and then forced him out after nearly 30 years of employment there.

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Mich. Judge Refers Atty To Calif. Bar Over Flint PR Stunt

By Hannah Albarazi

A Michigan federal judge overseeing contaminated drinking water litigation in Flint, Michigan, referred a California attorney to that state's bar on Thursday after the lawyer refused to provide more details, or submit to the court's jurisdiction, over her involvement in an alleged smear campaign targeting a lawyer for Flint children.

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The 'Not-Postings' Of A Delaware Chancery Court Judge

By Leslie A. Pappas

Close observers of Delaware's Court of Chancery have recently gotten a new window into the First State's preeminent court of equity: Delaware Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, one of seven judges on the court's bench, has recently rejoined LinkedIn.

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NYU Law Review Beats Bias Claims Over Diversity Efforts

By Matt Perez

A New York federal court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from a self-described straight white male, first-year law student at New York University claiming the NYU Law Review is discriminatory.

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Calif. Judge Censured For Mid-Trial Text To Prosecutor

By Emily Sawicki

A Los Angeles judge has received a severe public censure for sending a text message to a prosecutor during a murder retrial in order to influence her decision to call a rebuttal witness, then trying to minimize the ex parte communication by making misleading statements after the fact.

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'I Don't Need Help Running The Court,' Judge Chides Attys

By Danielle Ferguson

A Michigan state judge on Thursday appeared frustrated with attorneys for MGM and its former law firm arguing over potential conflicts in an underlying case, telling them to stop avoiding his questions and saying he didn't "need help running the court."

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Atty Who Missed Depo Amid Eclipse Trip Slams AAA's Fee Bid

By Lynn LaRowe

A lawyer sanctioned for missing a client's deposition in Florida when the attorney was viewing the solar eclipse in Arkansas has slammed the AAA organization's related fees request as "hyperinflated" and cited a popular job-hunting website to back up his argument.

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Chief Justice Roberts Declines Senate Democrats Meeting

By Courtney Bublé

Chief Justice John Roberts declined the invitation from two top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the high court's ethics in light of the controversy surrounding the flags flown outside Justice Samuel Alito's homes.

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Regulator Says Attys Hit For AI Use Have Themselves To Blame

By Thy Vo

An attorney for Colorado's ethics watchdog said Thursday that recent disciplinary action against lawyers for filing briefs with fake case citations generated by ChatGPT indicates a "lawyer problem" rather than issues with the technology.

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Colo. Justice Says Outside Watchdog Key For Judicial Ethics

By Daniel Ducassi

A Colorado Supreme Court justice said Thursday that third-party oversight of judges' conduct was crucial to maintaining the public's trust in the legal system, speaking as part of an American Bar Association panel that touched on recent controversies, including those involving U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife.

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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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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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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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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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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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Ex-Chicago Mayor Dodges Atty's Lawsuit Over Zoom Tirade

By Lauren Berg

An Illinois judge tossed a lawsuit brought by a former in-house attorney for the Chicago Park District accusing former Mayor Lori Lightfoot of unleashing a profane tirade laced with crude, insulting and defamatory comments during a Zoom call.

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Judge Rejects 'Audacity' Of Suspended Jurist's Reelection Bid

By Danielle Ferguson

A Michigan state judge said Thursday he was surprised election officials hadn't already disqualified a suspended Detroit judge who had the "audacity" to run again despite being barred from the bench for six years, saying he intended to end her candidacy.

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Ballard Spahr Faces Claim It Fired Worker Over Sick Husband

By James Boyle

A former legal assistant at Ballard Spahr LLP claims the firm fired her in retaliation for using the Family and Medical Leave Act to take time away from work to care for her cancer-stricken husband, according to a complaint filed in Pennsylvania federal court.

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Netflix Fails To Show Inventor, Funder Violated Injunction

By Dani Kass

A California federal judge has said Netflix couldn't prove a Finnish inventor violated an injunction tied to his concealment of certain legal funds, or that a litigation fund manager the inventor worked with needs to face claims tied to that concealment.

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Ga. Lawyer Wants Atty Brother Held In Contempt

By Chart Riggall

One half of a disbanded partnership between two attorney brothers asked a Georgia business judge Thursday to hold his brother in contempt for reportedly refusing to hand over control of their old firm's social media accounts to a court-appointed receiver.

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Morgan & Morgan Settles Ex-Paralegal's FMLA Suit

By Abby Wargo

Morgan & Morgan PA reached a deal with a former paralegal ending her suit accusing the firm of interference and retaliation when she was unlawfully fired, she said, after requesting time off afforded by the Family and Medical Leave Act, the firm told a Florida federal judge Thursday.

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Ga. Aims To Sink Challenge To Prosecutor Discipline Panel

By Madison Arnold

The state of Georgia says a bipartisan group of district attorneys has no standing to pursue its lawsuits against the state and its Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission members, arguing that the injuries that the attorneys claim are just hypothetical.

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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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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

Blockbuster Summer: 10 Big Issues Justices Still Must Decide

By Katie Buehler

As the calendar flips over to June, the U.S. Supreme Court still has heaps of cases to decide on issues ranging from trademark registration rules to judicial deference and presidential immunity. Here, Law360 looks at 10 of the most important topics the court has yet to decide.

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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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