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Legal Ethics
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January 08, 2025
Madigan Denies Extorting Developers For Law Firm Business
Ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan testified Wednesday that he never wanted a Chicago alderman to leverage his chairmanship of a powerful city council committee to steer business to Madigan's law firm, saying he merely asked for introductions to developers and felt "surprise and concern" when the alderman referenced a quid pro quo deal.
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January 08, 2025
Feds Ask To Release Report On Trump's DC Case, But Not Fla.
Special counsel Jack Smith asked the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday to deny Donald Trump's request to block the publication of a report on the now-abandoned federal election-meddling case against the president-elect in D.C. federal court, but said the Justice Department will hold off on releasing a report regarding the classified-documents case in Florida, where two co-defendants remain under indictment.
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January 08, 2025
Jay-Z Wants Sanctions Against Buzbee In Diddy Rape Suit
Rapper Jay-Z asked Wednesday that Texas attorney Tony Buzbee be sanctioned for filing a lawsuit accusing him and embattled rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs of raping a 13-year-old girl, claiming inconsistencies in the girl's story show Buzbee "knowingly filed a false complaint."
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January 08, 2025
Fla. Atty Can't Beat Contempt Ruling Over Failed Apology
A Florida state appeals panel on Wednesday agreed that an attorney was in indirect criminal contempt when he failed to post an apology on a consumer reporting website as part of a settlement in his former counsel's suit against him over disparaging and allegedly defamatory comments made on the site.
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January 08, 2025
Colo. Criminal Atty Censured For Harassing Comments
A Colorado criminal lawyer has been censured for sexual comments he allegedly made to two female student lawyers working for a local prosecutor.
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January 08, 2025
Judge Laments Atty's $32K Sanctions Saga In Tasty Bias Case
A Pennsylvania judge expressed disappointment Wednesday about the need for a $32,000 sanction against an attorney accused of flouting deadlines in his client's employment discrimination claims against Tasty Baking Co., noting that "it didn't have to be this way."
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January 08, 2025
Ohio Judge's License Reinstated Days After Retirement News
A former Cleveland judge's license to practice was reinstated Wednesday following a one-year suspension on ethics charges stating he pushed plea deals on defendants, made racially insensitive comments to them and ordered excessive contempt sentences for relatively minor infractions, days after the judge announced his retirement.
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January 08, 2025
Arbitrator In Virus Coverage Case Wasn't Biased, Panel Says
A New York state appeals panel affirmed a trial court's decision refusing to disqualify a Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP partner as an arbitrator in proceedings between a Zurich unit and the operator of Saks Fifth Avenue over coverage for COVID-19 losses.
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January 08, 2025
Court Won't Hear Atty's Challenge To Fee Dispute Loss
A Connecticut appeals court has turned away an attorney's challenge to his loss at a trial that pitted him against another lawyer in a dispute over the sharing of settlement funds, finding that Donald M. Brown blew past a deadline to follow a court order.
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January 08, 2025
Feds Want 2 Years In Prison For Atty In Payroll Tax Fraud
A former Ohio attorney who managed his wife's dental practice should spend at least two years in prison for causing $750,000 in federal tax losses and failing to pay employment taxes, prosecutors urged Wednesday, saying he used the business as a personal piggy bank.
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January 08, 2025
Feds Again Deny Leaks In NYC Mayor's Corruption Case
Federal prosecutors again rejected the claim that they had leaked classified information about New York City Mayor Eric Adams' corruption case to the press, telling a judge that they were not the source that allowed the New York Times to identify a grand jury witness and that Adams hadn't shown how he was prejudiced by the disclosure.
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January 08, 2025
Republican AGs Rebuke Proposed ABA Diversity Rule Change
Republican state attorneys general representing 21 states are pushing back against proposed changes to the American Bar Association's diversity and inclusion standards for law schools, cautioning that they run afoul of precedent the U.S. Supreme Court established when it struck down affirmative action in 2023.
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January 08, 2025
Trump Asks Supreme Court To Stop NY Sentencing
Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to halt proceedings in his New York criminal hush money case, including a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday, as the president-elect seeks to throw out the charges and the jury's conviction.
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January 07, 2025
DOJ Watchdog Criticizes Trump Officials For COVID Leaks
The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General has found that senior Justice Department officials under the first Trump administration improperly leaked information about investigations into COVID-19 deaths in states run by Democrats shortly before the 2020 presidential election, according to a report posted Tuesday.
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January 07, 2025
Feds Say Adams' Bid For Indictment Info Would Hinder Probe
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is not entitled to more details about the charges in his corruption and bribery case, including the identities of alleged co-conspirators, federal prosecutors told a Manhattan federal court Monday, arguing that such information would prejudice the ongoing investigation and potentially lead to witness tampering.
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January 07, 2025
Ex-Prosecutor Disbarred For Fabricating Harassing Texts
A former Denver prosecutor will be disbarred after a Colorado disciplinary panel found she fabricated text messages in order to falsely accuse a coworker of sexual harassment.
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January 07, 2025
Judge Sanctions Match For Glitch Ahead Of FTC Ad Trial
A Texas federal judge on Tuesday sanctioned Match Group after the company failed to turn over sensitive emails to the Federal Trade Commission on time in a suit over alleged shady business practices, saying that the mistake was honest, but that the company still had not surrendered the documents in a timely manner.
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January 07, 2025
Ex-Ill. Speaker Madigan Testifies In His Racketeering Trial
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan took the stand in his own defense Tuesday, testifying that he neither traded his public office for private gain nor demanded or accepted anything valuable in exchange for his official action, adding that he was "very angry" to learn that people who he'd recommended for jobs did little to no work.
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January 07, 2025
Calif. Justices Urged To Rescue Malicious Prosecution Claims
A fugitive recovery agent urged the California Supreme Court on Tuesday to revive malicious prosecution claims that a lower court struck under the attorney-malpractice law's one-year statute-of-limitations, arguing that he never had an attorney-client relationship with the defendant and so the two-year statute-of-limitations for tort claims must apply.
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January 07, 2025
Keller Postman Drops Suit Against Jenner & Block, For Now
Keller Postman LLC has dismissed its suit accusing Jenner & Block LLP of using unethical tactics to gain leverage in mass arbitration against the streaming service Tubi but requested the complaint be dismissed without prejudice.
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January 07, 2025
Google Avoids Data Destruction Sanctions In Ad Privacy Suit
A California federal judge has declined to sanction and hold Google in contempt for purportedly intentionally destroying key evidence in a putative class action claiming the company's ad auction practices violate privacy rights, saying the consumers' motion came too late after fact discovery closed.
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January 07, 2025
Biotech Co. Urges NC Panel To Revive Legal Malpractice Suit
A biotech company that lost a $22 million libel suit brought by a pharmaceutical executive has asked a North Carolina appeals panel for another shot at legal malpractice claims against its former legal counsel, arguing that a savings provision expands the statute of repose for the voluntarily dismissed claim to be revived.
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January 07, 2025
Ex-Knick, Ex-MSG Security Head Spar Over Deposition
Former New York Knicks player Charles Oakley and the former chief of security for Madison Square Garden have reached an "impasse" over a subpoena for the ex-chief's documents and deposition in a suit over Oakley's ejection from a February 2017 NBA game.
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January 07, 2025
Law Firm Sought To Collect Expired Debts, 3rd Circ. Told
A New Jersey woman has urged the Third Circuit to revive her proposed class action against Garden State law firm Cohn Lifland Pearlman Herrmann & Knopf LLP over its debt collection practices, arguing a lower court was too loose with its standard for the timeliness of the two lawsuits involved.
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January 07, 2025
Quinn Emanuel Says NAFTA Case Irrelevant In DQ Bid
A Mexican oil company and its subsidiaries cannot add "undisputedly irrelevant" supplementary information about former counsel Quinn Emanuel amid a disqualification bid, the law firm has told a Miami federal court, arguing that the requested documents, including the dismissal of a NAFTA arbitration Quinn Emanuel brought against Mexico, are either unrelated to the underlying litigation or duplicative.
Expert Analysis
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Understanding Discovery Obligations In Era Of Generative AI
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Attorneys and businesses must adapt to the unique discovery challenges presented by generative artificial intelligence, such as chatbot content and prompts, while upholding the principles of fairness, transparency and compliance with legal obligations in federal civil litigation, say attorneys at King & Spalding.
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Asserting 'Presence-Of-Counsel' Defense In Securities Trials
As illustrated by the fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, defense attorneys in securities trials might consider arguing that counsel had some involvement in the conduct at issue — if the more formal advice-of-counsel defense is unavailable and circumstances allow for a privilege waiver, say Joseph Dever and Matthew Elkin at Cozen O'Connor.
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Key Takeaways From DOJ's Recent FARA Advisory Opinions
The U.S. Department of Justice recently published several redacted advisory opinions on the Foreign Agents Registration Act, clarifying its current thinking on when a person or entity is required to register as a foreign agent under the statute, and when they may qualify for an exemption, says Tessa Capeloto at Wiley Rein.
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The Case For Post-Bar Clerk Training Programs At Law Firms
In today's competitive legal hiring market, an intentionally designed training program for law school graduates awaiting bar admission can be an effective way of creating a pipeline of qualified candidates, says Brent Daub at Gilson Daub.
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Attorneys Have An Ethical Duty To Protect The Judiciary
The tenor of public disagreement and debate has become increasingly hostile against judges, and though the legislative branch is trying to ameliorate this safety gap, lawyers have a moral imperative and professional requirement to stand with judges in defusing attacks against them and their rulings, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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AI Can Help Lawyers Overcome The Programming Barrier
Legal professionals without programming expertise can use generative artificial intelligence to harness the power of automation and other technology solutions to streamline their work, without the steep learning curve traditionally associated with coding, says George Zalepa at Greenberg Traurig.
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Preparing Law Students For A New, AI-Assisted Legal World
As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms the legal landscape, law schools must integrate technology and curricula that address AI’s innate challenges — from ethics to data security — to help students stay ahead of the curve, say Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics, Ryan Abbott at JAMS and Karen Silverman at Cantellus Group.
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General Counsel Need Data Literacy To Keep Up With AI
With the rise of accessible and powerful generative artificial intelligence solutions, it is imperative for general counsel to understand the use and application of data for myriad important activities, from evaluating the e-discovery process to monitoring compliance analytics and more, says Colin Levy at Malbek.
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Navigating Discovery Of Generative AI Information
As generative artificial intelligence tools become increasingly ubiquitous, companies must make sure to preserve generative AI data when there is reasonable expectation of litigation, and to include transcripts in litigation hold notices, as they may be relevant to discovery requests, say Nick Peterson and Corey Hauser at Wiley.
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Finding Focus: Strategies For Attorneys With ADHD
Given the prevalence of ADHD among attorneys, it is imperative that the legal community gain a better understanding of how ADHD affects well-being, and that resources and strategies exist for attorneys with this disability to manage their symptoms and achieve success, say Casey Dixon at Dixon Life Coaching and Krista Larson at Stinson.
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Attorneys, Law Schools Must Adapt To New Era Of Evidence
Technological advancements mean more direct evidence is being created than ever before, and attorneys as well as law schools must modify their methods to account for new challenges in how this evidence is collected and used to try cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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1st Tax Easement Convictions Will Likely Embolden DOJ, IRS
After recent convictions in the first criminal tax fraud trial over allegedly abusive syndicated conservation easements, the IRS and U.S. Department of Justice will likely pursue other promoters for similar alleged conspiracies — though one acquittal may help attorneys better evaluate their clients' exposure, say Bill Curtis and Lauren DeSantis-Then at Polsinelli.
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Tips For Litigating Against Pro Se Parties In Complex Disputes
Litigating against self-represented parties in complex cases can pose unique challenges for attorneys, but for the most part, it requires the same skills that are useful in other cases — from documenting everything to understanding one’s ethical duties, says Bryan Ketroser at Alto Litigation.
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Pro Bono Work Is Powerful Self-Help For Attorneys
Oct. 22-28 is Pro Bono Week, serving as a useful reminder that offering free legal help to the public can help attorneys expand their legal toolbox, forge community relationships and create human connections, despite the challenges of this kind of work, says Orlando Lopez at Culhane Meadows.
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Series
Playing In A Rock Cover Band Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Performing in a classic rock cover band has driven me to hone several skills — including focus, organization and networking — that have benefited my professional development, demonstrating that taking time to follow your muse outside of work can be a boon to your career, says Michael Gambro at Cadwalader.