California

  • August 20, 2024

    Feds Launch Probe Into Wi-Fi Technology Imports

    The U.S. International Trade Commission opened an investigation into a domestic semiconductor company's claims that a Chinese rival was selling Wi-Fi technology in the U.S. that infringes on its intellectual property.

  • August 20, 2024

    A Deep Dive Into Law360 Pulse's 2024 Women In Law Report

    The legal industry continues to see incremental gains for female lawyers in private practice in the U.S., according to a Law360 Pulse analysis, with women now representing 40.6% of all attorneys and 51% of all associates.

  • August 20, 2024

    These Firms Have The Most Women In Equity Partnerships

    The legal industry still has a long way to go before it can achieve gender parity at its upper levels. But these law firms are performing better than others in breaking the proverbial glass ceiling that prevents women from attaining leadership roles.

  • August 20, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    A nearly record-breaking attorney fee got the nod in Delaware last week, along with Chancery Court settlements involving an international private jet service and a chain of trampoline parks. New disputes involved a famous burger restaurant chain, a computer-chip maker, a now-defunct genomic science company, and a historic manor house in west London.

  • August 20, 2024

    Clifford Chance 'In Shock' Over Missing Partner

    Clifford Chance said Tuesday that it is "in shock and deeply saddened" that a partner is among six passengers missing from a yacht that was reportedly chartered to celebrate the legal victory of technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

  • August 20, 2024

    IP Duo Join Thompson Hine From Cincinnati Boutique

    Thompson Hine LLP announced Tuesday that a pair of attorneys from intellectual property boutique Wood Herron & Evans joined the firm's office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

  • August 19, 2024

    4 Ex-Girardi Keese Attys Are Federal Targets, Agent Testifies

    At least four former attorneys with the defunct Girardi Keese law firm are under active investigation related to the federal government's California wire fraud case and have received letters informing them they are targets, an IRS criminal investigator disclosed Monday under cross-examination by Tom Girardi's attorney at his criminal trial.

  • August 19, 2024

    Hunter Biden Loses Bid To Duck Tax Case In Calif.

    Hunter Biden cannot escape his criminal tax case set to go to trial next month, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled Monday, saying Biden's latest motion comes too late.

  • August 19, 2024

    Parents Not Bound By Schools' Arbitration Pact, FTC Argues

    The Federal Trade Commission has stepped into a proposed class action accusing education technology company IXL Learning of unlawfully collecting and selling children's personal information, telling a California federal court that the company's agreement with schools to arbitrate disputes doesn't extend to the parents pressing the data privacy suit.

  • August 19, 2024

    Ariz. Sheriff Can't Ax Racial Profiling Injunction, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday kept in place a permanent injunction in a class action alleging the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona racially profiled Latinos for traffic stops under the guise of immigration enforcement, saying the district court was within its powers to assign an independent monitor.

  • August 19, 2024

    T.I. Can't Bar Witness Motivation Questions At Doll IP Retrial

    Rapper T.I. can't block MGA Entertainment from questioning his customer witnesses' motivations to testify at the upcoming intellectual property retrial over the company's L.O.L. Surprise! doll line, and he likewise is barred from raising questions of cultural appropriation in that context, a California federal judge ruled Monday.

  • August 19, 2024

    Mike Lynch, Clifford Chance Pro Among Missing After Yacht Sinks

    Former Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch and a Clifford Chance LLP partner who helped him beat federal fraud charges back in June are among those missing after their chartered luxury yacht sank during a storm off Sicily early Monday during a trip reportedly to celebrate Lynch's legal victory.

  • August 19, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Urged To Review Dish's Fight Over Atty Fee Liability

    A technology industry group on Monday urged the full Federal Circuit to take a look at a precedential panel decision preventing Dish Network LLC from collecting fees directly from a patent litigation company's lawyer, arguing that the ruling "rips a gaping hole" in legal fee jurisprudence that would "immunize" lawyers from ever having to pay attorney fees for filing baseless patent lawsuits.

  • August 19, 2024

    Justices Urged To Refuse Rent-To-Own Co. Fee Suit

    Two consumers suing a rent-to-own furniture store over fees that are allegedly barred under California law urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday not to review a Ninth Circuit decision nixing the company's arbitration bid, arguing that the case is too fact-specific to warrant the court's attention.

  • August 19, 2024

    FERC Can't OK Calif. Hydropower Permit Delays, DC Circ. Told

    A Northern California water district has told the D.C. Circuit that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrongly concluded that the state water board did not waive its Clean Water Act permitting authority with regard to two hydroelectric dam projects, adding that it is not blocked from arguing so. 

  • August 19, 2024

    9th Circ. Partially Revives State Farm Car Value Class Action

    A split Ninth Circuit panel partially revived a class action accusing State Farm of undervaluing policyholders' totaled vehicles when paying out claims, saying Monday that a Washington federal court abused its discretion in decertifying one of two classes based on a previous Ninth Circuit ruling.

  • August 19, 2024

    9th Circ. Told Psilocybin Petition Is Backed By Precedent

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday dissected opposing arguments from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a Seattle doctor over whether there is precedent to allow the dispensing of psilocybin — a psychedelic compound — to treat terminally ill patients.

  • August 19, 2024

    California Rips Challenge To Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation

    California officials have urged a federal judge to toss a lawsuit from trade groups challenging new regulations requiring large commercial truck and bus fleets to start transitioning to electric and be completely zero-emission by 2036 and beyond, saying the mandates haven't even been enforced yet.

  • August 19, 2024

    9th Circ. Agrees Nursing Home Must Pay Fees In COVID Case

    The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a nursing home must pay plaintiffs' legal fees in an appeal over the remand of a suit accusing it of causing two dozen patients' COVID-19 deaths, saying the home knew the court had already issued a precedential ruling on the issue.

  • August 19, 2024

    MOVEit MDL Judge's Call For Order Met With Atty Squabbles

    A federal judge's effort to streamline multidistrict litigation over a 2023 data breach involving Progress Software's MOVEit file transfer tool instead led to a lengthy and contentious joint filing in which the parties accused one another of gamesmanship.

  • August 19, 2024

    Feds Trim Sentencing Request For Atty In Email Fraud Case

    Massachusetts federal prosecutors have shaved 11 months off of a nine-year sentencing request for an Illinois attorney who was convicted of collecting proceeds from an email fraud scheme, after the First Circuit vacated three of the lawyer's six counts on venue grounds.

  • August 19, 2024

    Roku Takes Dispute Over ITC Powers To Supreme Court

    Roku is telling the U.S. Supreme Court that the U.S. International Trade Commission doesn't have the power to ban the import of patent-infringing software if those patents only have a limited connection to products on sale in the market.

  • August 19, 2024

    Gov't, Contractor Urge Against Sanctions Over Doc Dispute

    Both the federal government and a contractor have urged a Court of Federal Claims judge not to sanction the government for the mislabeling of documents in a dispute over a U.S. Air Force construction deal, after the government argued its mistakes were inadvertent.

  • August 19, 2024

    9th Circ. Sends Northrop Pension Disclosure Row To Trial

    The Ninth Circuit revived a class claim Monday from a group of Northrop Grumman retirees who said they were kept in the dark about how much they would get in pension benefits, ruling their allegations that the defense contractor shirked its disclosure duties were filed on time.

  • August 19, 2024

    NCAA Defends $2B NIL Deal Amid Growing Opposition

    The NCAA is pushing back against critics of its more than $2 billion proposed name, image and likeness settlement with college athletes, arguing the deal is the result of "intense and carefully structured negotiations" by competent class counsel, and detractors have baseless objections.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Being An EMT Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While some of my experiences as an emergency medical technician have been unusually painful and searing, the skills I’ve learned — such as triage, empathy and preparedness — are just as useful in my work as a restructuring lawyer, says Marshall Huebner at Davis Polk.

  • 3 Employer Lessons From NLRB's Complaint Against SpaceX

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    Severance agreements traditionally have included nondisparagement and nondisclosure provisions as a matter of course — but a recent National Labor Relations Board complaint against SpaceX underscores the ongoing efforts to narrow severance agreements at the state and federal levels, say attorneys at Williams & Connolly.

  • Lessons On Challenging Class Plaintiffs' Expert Testimony

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    In class actions seeking damages, plaintiffs are increasingly using expert opinions to establish predominance, but several recent rulings from California federal courts shed light on how defendants can respond, say Jennifer Romano and Raija Horstman at Crowell & Moring.

  • Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

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    A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

  • Airlines Must Prepare For State AG Investigations

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    A recent agreement between the U.S. Department of Transportation and 18 states and territories will allow attorneys general to investigate consumer complaints against commercial passenger airlines — so carriers must be ready for heightened scrutiny and possibly inconsistent enforcement, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System

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    As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.

  • Opinion

    Climate Change Shouldn't Be Litigated Under State Laws

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    The U.S. Supreme Court should reverse the Hawaii Supreme Court's October decision in Honolulu v. Sunoco that Hawaii could apply state law to emissions generated outside the state, because it would lead to a barrage of cases seeking to resolve a worldwide problem according to 50 different variations of state law, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

  • Measuring Early Impact Of Rule 702 Changes On Patent Cases

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    Since Federal Rule of Evidence 702 was amended to clarify the standards for admitting expert witness testimony five months ago, emerging trends in patent cases suggest that it may be easier to limit or exclude expert testimony, and hold key practice takeaways for attorneys, say Manuel Velez and Nan Zhang at Mayer Brown.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes

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    Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.

  • What's Notable In JAMS' New Mass Arbitration Rules

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    The Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services’ recently released guidelines, coming on the heels of similar American Arbitration Association amendments, suggests that mass arbitrations will remain an efficient means for consumers to vindicate their rights against companies, say Jonathan Waisnor and Brandon Heitmann at Labaton Keller. 

  • 5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow

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    The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.

  • 'Fat Leonard' Case Shows High Bar For Rescinding Guilty Plea

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    Prosecutors’ recent move in the “Fat Leonard” bribery case, supporting several defendants’ motions to withdraw their guilty pleas, is extremely unusual – and its contrast with other prosecutions demonstrates that the procedural safeguards at plea hearings are far from enough, says Sara Kropf at Kropf Moseley.

  • PE In The Crosshairs Of Public And Private Antitrust Enforcers

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    A series of decisions from a California federal court in the recently settled Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, as well as heightened scrutiny from federal agencies, serve as a reminder that private equity firms may be exposed to liability for alleged anti-competitive conduct by their portfolio companies, say attorneys at Axinn.

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