California

  • October 18, 2024

    Biotech Co. Wins Injunction Against Ex-Worker In Secrets Suit

    Biotech startup Trilobio Inc. won a temporary restraining order against a former employee after a California federal judge concluded the company has a strong likelihood of success on its claims that the worker stole trade secrets to start his own business after being fired for poor performance.

  • October 18, 2024

    Chinese National Admits To Smuggling Semiconductor Tech

    A Chinese national has pled guilty in California federal court to illegally exporting U.S. semiconductor technology to a blacklisted Chinese company, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • October 18, 2024

    Fake 'Hollywood Reporter' Scams Job Seekers, Mass. AG Says

    Scammers posing as the publishers of entertainment industry trade publication The Hollywood Reporter created an impostor website to lure job seekers into a cryptocurrency fraud scheme, the Massachusetts attorney general alleged in a complaint Friday.

  • October 18, 2024

    AGs Slam 4th Circ. Bid To Restore NC Abortion Drug Limits

    In a joint amicus brief to the Fourth Circuit, a coalition of 17 states and the District of Columbia has said the abortion drug mifepristone is a part of women's reproductive healthcare, assailing the "needless" limits that states including North Carolina have sought to impose on the drug's access.

  • October 18, 2024

    Ore. Water Rights Issues Grounded In State Law, 9th Circ. Told

    The Klamath Irrigation District is asking the Ninth Circuit to certify two questions to the Oregon Supreme Court concerning the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's authority to use and control the use of water under Oregon law.

  • October 18, 2024

    SunPower Corp. Gets OK For Chapter 11 Plan

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge Friday approved residential solar technology company SunPower Corp.'s plans to distribute the proceeds of its asset sales to the creditors in its Chapter 11 case after hearing all objections had been resolved or put off.

  • October 18, 2024

    Hogan Lovells Guides Buyer On San Diego Soccer Team Deal

    National Women's Soccer League team the San Diego Wave Fútbol Club has assumed new ownership after Hogan Lovells-advised private equity firm Levine Leichtman Family Office bought the team from previous owner Ron Burkle, advised by Loeb & Loeb LLP, marking the latest in a string of NWSL deals this year.

  • October 18, 2024

    Google Play Store Injunction Paused To Let 9th Circ. Weigh In

    A California federal judge on Friday briefly paused his injunction requiring Google to open up its Play Store to competition while the tech giant seeks an emergency stay of the injunction at the Ninth Circuit, where it's appealing a jury verdict that it illegally monopolized the Android app distribution and payment market.

  • October 18, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Partly Restores Suit Over Utility Line Patent

    The Federal Circuit has revived part of a lawsuit that alleged Metrotech Corp. infringed a competitor's patent covering ways for finding underground utility lines, finding that a lower court needs to take another look at key patent terminology.

  • October 18, 2024

    LA County DA Defends Progressive Policies In Reelection Bid

    George Gascón, the progressive Los Angeles County district attorney who's survived two recall efforts during his first term as top prosecutor, is standing by his reformist policies, which aim to curb mass incarceration and police misconduct, as he fights to keep his seat in November.

  • October 18, 2024

    Class Status Sought For Sex Bias Suit Over Layoffs At X

    A suit alleging X targeted women in layoffs after Elon Musk bought the company should move forward as a class action because hundreds of women were impacted by sexist decision-making, a former employee for the company once known as Twitter argued in California federal court

  • October 18, 2024

    BCLP Corporate Ace Jumps To Barnes & Thornburg In LA

    A longtime Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP attorney has taken his practice to Barnes & Thornburg in Los Angeles, becoming the fourth partner to join its corporate department in just the last month.

  • October 18, 2024

    Western Digital Hit With $315.7M Verdict In Patent Suit

    Western Digital must pay SPEX Technologies nearly $316 million in damages for infringing its patent related to hardware encryption technology in Western Digital's Ultrastar and My Book data storage devices, a California federal jury decided on Friday.

  • October 18, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Baker, Simpson, Ropes

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Lundbeck inks a $2.6 billion cash deal for Longboard, Silver Lake agrees to buy Zuora for $1.7 billion, and PPG and American Industrial Partners reach a $550 million deal.

  • October 18, 2024

    NCAA's $2.78B NIL Deal Still Faces Long Road To Final OK

    The absence of noticeable change to address concerns flagged by a California federal judge about the NCAA's $2.78 billion name, image and likeness compensation settlement made that same judge's preliminary approval of the deal last week surprising, and experts say those same problematic provisions likely will make final approval an uphill battle.

  • October 17, 2024

    Apple's $20M Watch Defect Deal Lacks Info, Judge Says

    A California federal judge has declined to preliminarily approve Apple's $20 million deal to resolve a proposed class action alleging certain Apple Watches have a battery defect that can cause serious injuries, ordering counsel to submit additional information, including details on the lawsuit's maximum value if consumers win at trial.

  • October 17, 2024

    Atty's 'Groundhog Day' Motion Trims Ex-Girardi Client's Suit

    A California state judge on Thursday trimmed a family's $1.8 million malpractice lawsuit against an attorney that represented it in recovering millions lost in Girardi Keese's embezzlement scandal, calling a bid to nix one of the suit's claims a "Groundhog Day" motion because she already granted a similar one from the attorney's firm.

  • October 17, 2024

    Microsoft Fights IP, Antitrust Suit Alleging Cartel With Nvidia

    Microsoft slammed a lawsuit brought by a startup accusing it, Nvidia and a third company of engaging in patent infringement and an illegal buyers' cartel suppressing the price of graphic processing units used in powering artificial intelligence, urging a Texas federal judge Wednesday to deny an injunction bid due to lack of evidence.

  • October 17, 2024

    9th Circ. Upholds Wash. City's Anti-Car Camping Law

    A Ninth Circuit panel has rebuffed a veteran's challenge to a Washington city's ordinance that he says displaced residents living in their vehicles, ruling Oct. 17 that the ordinance does not violate his purported right to intrastate travel, which the judges said may not exist to begin with.

  • October 17, 2024

    Paramount Unlikely To Cut Extortion Claim Over Boxing Match

    A Los Angeles judge appeared skeptical Thursday of Paramount Global's bid to toss allegations that former CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves hired a lawyer to extort an actor out of his finder's fee for the lucrative 2015 boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

  • October 17, 2024

    Split 9th Circ. Says Traffic Delays Didn't Warrant Deportation

    A split Ninth Circuit has overturned the deportation order of a Guatemalan woman who was late to court after two major accidents turned a two-hour drive into a four-hour one, saying the immigration judge who ordered her removed had failed "to consider the totality of the circumstances."

  • October 17, 2024

    Meta Judge Doubts Investor Suit Over Efforts To Protect Kids

    A California federal judge appeared skeptical Thursday of keeping alive an investor's lawsuit claiming Meta Platforms Inc.'s annual proxy statement misled investors about the social media giant's efforts to protect children from sexual predators, telling the investor his economic loss arguments are circular and doubting whether Meta's statements are actionable.

  • October 17, 2024

    GAO Finds VA Rightly Canceled Too-High 'Wander System' Bid

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office backed a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decision rejecting a lone bid that came in at more than double the agency's budget for a wander management system at a medical center in Fresno, California.

  • October 17, 2024

    Atty Who Repped Rodney King To Plead Guilty To Tax Evasion

    An attorney who represented Rodney King in a civil case against the city of Los Angeles after King was severely beaten by police agreed Thursday to plead guilty to tax evasion in return for the government dropping other charges.

  • October 17, 2024

    Jury Says Phillips 66 Owes $605M In Fuel Trade Secrets Fight

    A jury in California state court said Wednesday a retailer of low-carbon fuels is owed $604.9 million after finding that Phillips 66 swiped trade secrets relating to data, such as sales information and pricing methods.

Expert Analysis

  • Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent

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    As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.

  • 9th Circ. Ruling Shows Lies Must Go To Nature Of Bargain

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    The Ninth Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Milheiser decision, vacating six mail fraud convictions, clarifies that the key question in federal fraud cases is not whether lies were told, but what they were told about — thus requiring defense counsel to rethink their strategies, say Charles Kreindler and Krista Landis at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 4 Ways Businesses Can Address Threat Of Mass Arbitration

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    Attorneys at DLA Piper examine the rise of mass arbitration in light of JAMS' new procedures and guidelines, and provide four steps e-commerce businesses can take when revising their dispute resolution provisions to maximize the chances those revisions will be held enforceable.

  • What High Court Ruling Means For Sexual Harassment Claims

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    In its recent Smith v. Spizzirri decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a district court compelling a case to arbitration is obligated to stay the case rather than dismissing it, but this requirement may result in sexual harassment cases not being heard by appellate courts, says Abe Melamed at Signature Resolution.

  • Trademark In Artistic Works 1 Year After Jack Daniel's

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    In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court's Jack Daniel's v. VIP Products ruling, courts have applied Jack Daniel's inconsistently to deny First Amendment protection to artistic works, providing guidance for dismissing trademark claims relating to film and TV titles, say Hardy Ehlers and Neema Sahni at Covington.

  • 9th Circ. Ruling Broadens Sweep Of Securities 'Solicitation'

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    The Ninth Circuit's recent revival of a putative securities fraud class action against Genius Brands for hiring a stock promoter to write favorable articles about it shows that companies should view "solicitation" broadly in considering whether they may have paid someone to urge an investor to purchase a security, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • NCAA Settlement May End The NIL Model As We Know It

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    The recent House v. NCAA settlement in California federal court, in which the NCAA agreed to allow schools to directly pay March Madness television revenue to their athletes, may send outside name, image and likeness collectives in-house, says Mike Ingersoll at Womble Bond.

  • Opinion

    The FTC And DOJ Should Backtrack On RealPage

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    The antitrust agencies ought to reverse course on their enforcement actions against RealPage, which are based on a faulty legal premise, risk further property shortages and threaten the use of algorithms that are central to the U.S. economy, says Thomas Stratmann at George Mason University.

  • How Federal And State Microfiber Pollution Policy Is Evolving

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    Growing efforts to address synthetic microfiber pollution may create compliance and litigation issues for businesses in the textile and apparel industries, so companies should track developing federal and state legislation and regulation in this space, and should consider associated greenwashing risks, says Arie Feltman-Frank at Jenner & Block.

  • Series

    Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge​​​​​​​ at Robinson Bradshaw.

  • Opinion

    It's Time To Defuse The Ticking Time Bomb Of US Landfills

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    After recent fires at landfills in Alabama and California sent toxic fumes into surrounding communities, it is clear that existing penalties for landfill mismanagement are insufficient — so policymakers must enact major changes to the way we dispose of solid waste, says Vineet Dubey at Custodio & Dubey.

  • 5th Circ. Venue-Transfer Cases Highlight Mandamus Limits

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    Three ongoing cases filed within the Fifth Circuit highlight an odd procedural wrinkle that may let district courts defy an appellate writ: orders granting transfer to out-of-circuit districts, but parties opposing intercircuit transfer can work around this hurdle to effective appellate review, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.

  • A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence

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    The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.

  • Calif. Web Tracking Cases Show Courts' Indecision Over CIPA

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    Several hundred cases filed to date, and two recent conflicting rulings, underscore California courts' uncertainty over whether the use of web analytics tools to track users' website interactions can give rise to a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, says Patricia Brum at Snell & Wilmer.

  • To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef

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    To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

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