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Legal Ethics
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October 15, 2024
Law Firms Diverge As Anti-ESG Pushback Continues
A continuing onslaught of legislation and litigation opposing corporate environmental, social and governance actions has created a fork in the road for law firms, with some choosing to scale back efforts and others pushing ahead with their internal ESG and diversity, equity and inclusion goals.
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October 15, 2024
The 2024 Law360 Pulse Social Impact Leaders
Check out our Social Impact Leaders ranking, analysis and interactive graphics to see which firms stand out for their engagement with social responsibility and commitment to pro bono service.
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October 15, 2024
Ga. Attorney Publicly Reprimanded For Trust Account Issues
Georgia Supreme Court justices Tuesday accepted an attorney's bid for a public reprimand after the attorney, who was suspended a decade ago after a wire fraud conviction, admitted to violating professional rules on the safekeeping of property.
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October 15, 2024
Disbarment Isn't One Size Fits All For Attys Guilty Of Crimes
Attorney discipline, much like the criminal justice system, is rarely a simple math equation where authorities can plug in a type of wrongdoing and an appropriate punishment is spit out.
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October 11, 2024
Quinn Emanuel Gets Trimmed $92M Fee In ACA Cases
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP will get $92 million in fees from a $3.7 billion win in two class actions against the government over risk corridor payments under the Affordable Care Act, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge ruled Thursday, trimming the firm's renewed $185 million request.
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October 11, 2024
Mich. Atty Can't Escape Voting Machine Possession Trial
A Michigan state judge on Friday said an attorney cannot escape an indictment alleging that she unlawfully accessed voting machines after the 2020 election, rejecting her argument that the charging document should be void because the state law about voting machine possession is too vague.
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October 11, 2024
Boston Bomber Says Judge's Praise For Jury DQs Him
A Massachusetts federal judge's public comments praising the jury that delivered a conviction and death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev disqualify him from reviewing alleged juror misconduct, the defendant's lawyers said in a filing unsealed Friday.
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October 11, 2024
Ex-Girardi Keese CFO Pleads Guilty In Calif. Wire Fraud Cases
Girardi Keese's former Chief Financial Officer Christopher K. Kamon pled guilty Friday in California federal court to two counts of wire fraud, admitting that he conspired with the firm's disgraced co-founder Tom Girardi to steal millions from a client, while also stealing millions from the firm behind Girardi's back.
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October 11, 2024
Mich. Firm's Settlement Dispute Returns To State Court
A Michigan federal judge ruled Friday that an attorney-client fight over how to divide settlement proceeds in a police brutality case belongs in state court, reasoning that the dispute was a matter of contract law over which he could not exercise jurisdiction.
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October 11, 2024
Attys Ordered To Apologize For Neighborhood 'Scream Test'
A Pennsylvania federal judge has ordered attorneys representing a plaintiff in a civil rights suit to go door-to-door and issue written apologies to residents and business owners after subjecting a South Philadelphia neighborhood to a looped recording of a woman screaming as part of an acoustics test last month.
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October 11, 2024
Quinn Emanuel Faces DQ Bid For Musk-Dogecoin Deal Leak
Dogecoin investors want Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP to be disqualified in their case against Elon Musk and Tesla Inc. because the law firm and its attorneys publicly disclosed a confidential settlement offer in the contentious lawsuit.
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October 11, 2024
Fox Rothschild Aims To Exit Malpractice Suit Over Land Row
Fox Rothschild LLP has called on a New Jersey state court to throw out malpractice claims leveled against it by two siblings who accused a lawyer at the firm of bungling a 1984 property deed and 1993 trust belonging to their stepfather, arguing the sisters are trying to improperly hold it responsible for purported, decades-old negligence by other law firms.
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October 11, 2024
Ex-Firm's Role In Amicus Doesn't Force Judge Recusal In NJ
The New Jersey Supreme Court has issued an order spelling out the grounds for a judge's recusal in relation to an amicus group, stating that the involvement of a judge's former law firm in an amicus filing is not grounds alone for disqualification.
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October 11, 2024
Nelson Mullins Can't Beat DQ In Foreign Exchange Fraud Suit
A Florida state appeals court panel unanimously sided with a trial court Friday in deciding that Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP can't represent the defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of duping the plaintiff into doing business with online foreign exchange platform FxWinning Ltd. because the firm previously represented the plaintiff in a "substantially related" suit against the company.
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October 11, 2024
Lin Wood Slams Ga. Atty Fee Statute As Unconstitutional
Retired Georgia attorney L. Lin Wood has doubled down on his argument that a state law violates the state and U.S. constitutions by favoring plaintiffs in awarding attorney fees, urging a Georgia federal judge to let him escape paying his former law partners' fees after they won a $3.75 million defamation verdict.
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October 11, 2024
Indicted NJ Power Broker Says Civil Suit Belongs In Biz Court
Indicted Garden State power broker George E. Norcross III has asked a New Jersey state judge to transfer the civil racketeering suit brought against him and his attorney brother by a Philadelphia developer to the state's complex business litigation program.
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October 10, 2024
Ex-Boxer Slams 'Big Brother' Tactics In $1B Drug Case
The legal team of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic criticized the government's attempt to introduce alleged evidence from a massive state-sponsored hack of a messaging app in their client's $1 billion cocaine trafficking case, saying Thursday the use of the data thwarts constitutional protections and could provide an opening to target other encrypted platforms.
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October 10, 2024
Chutkan OKs Redacted Immunity Evidence In Trump Case
The D.C. federal judge overseeing the case that charges Donald Trump with scheming to subvert the 2020 election results will allow the public disclosure of some evidence related to the issue of his potential immunity, but will give the former president time to challenge the disclosure.
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October 10, 2024
IP Forecast: 5G Patent Case Spells Deja Vu For EDTX
A patent suit against a Chinese phone company will go before a new federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas after the judge scrapped the original $10.6 million verdict against it as excessive. Here's a spotlight on that case — plus all the other major intellectual property matters on deck in the coming week.
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October 10, 2024
Ex-Latham Atty Must Turn Over SEC Whistleblower Docs
A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday ordered a retired Latham & Watkins LLP attorney to hand over communications between himself and two whistleblowers who tipped off the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to an alleged $73 million fraud after one of the whistleblowers dropped his objections to producing the documents.
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October 10, 2024
Paxton Prosecutor Fee Fight Ends With High Court Rejection
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday declined to take up a dispute over how much a special prosecutor appointed to oversee the securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should be paid, ending a fee fight that has stretched on almost as long as the criminal case.
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October 10, 2024
Feds Say Ex-Atty Stole $570K From Disabled Client's Trust
A former attorney in Washington is accused of embezzling more than $570,000 from a client's insurance settlement after she was severely injured in a motorcycle accident, according to a federal indictment that said the victim was forced to sell her home after her trust account was drained.
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October 10, 2024
Gunster Reaches Deal In One Of Two Data Breach Actions
Gunster has struck a settlement agreement in one of the two proposed class actions it faces in Florida federal court over a 2022 data breach, while the plaintiffs in the second case urged the court the same day to reject the law firm's dismissal bid in their suit.
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October 10, 2024
Combs May Face More Charges As Feds Pore Over Evidence
Prosecutors helming the sex trafficking case against Sean "Diddy" Combs told a Manhattan federal judge Thursday they could file more charges against the jailed hip-hop mogul and rejected his accusations of grand jury leaks as "a means to try to exclude a damning piece of evidence."
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October 10, 2024
Houston Firm Says 'Scurrilous' Ex-Atty Not Entitled To Fees
A Houston law firm is urging a state court to dismiss a lawsuit from a disbarred attorney seeking fees for cases he worked on before going to prison for fraud, arguing that paying him the $3.84 million he is asking for would run afoul of ethics rules and a Texas Supreme Court order.
Expert Analysis
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4 Legal Ethics Considerations For The New Year
As attorneys and clients reset for a new year, now is a good time to take a step back and review some core ethical issues that attorneys should keep front of mind in 2024, including approaching generative artificial intelligence with caution and care, and avoiding pitfalls in outside counsel guidelines, say attorneys at HWG.
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What The Law Firm Of The Future Will Look Like
As the legal landscape shifts, it’s become increasingly clear that the BigLaw business model must adapt in four key ways to remain viable, from fostering workplace flexibility to embracing technology, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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4 PR Pointers When Your Case Is In The News
Media coverage of new lawsuits exploded last year, demonstrating why defense attorneys should devise a public relations plan that complements their legal strategy, incorporating several objectives to balance ethical obligations and advocacy, say Nathan Burchfiel at Pinkston and Ryan June at Castañeda + Heidelman.
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Why Fed. Circ. Affirmed Attorney Fee Award In PersonalWeb
A recent Federal Circuit decision to leave a $5.2 million fee award in place in the PersonalWeb patent case underscores district courts' discretion to sanction unreasonable arguments and litigation tactics under the U.S. Code's attorney fee provision, say attorneys at Shearman.
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Law Firm Strategies For Successfully Navigating 2024 Trends
Though law firms face the dual challenge of external and internal pressures as they enter 2024, firms willing to pivot will be able to stand out by adapting to stakeholder needs and reimagining their infrastructure, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Consultants.
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The Most-Read Legal Industry Law360 Guest Articles Of 2023
A range of legal industry topics drew readers' attention in Law360's Expert Analysis section this year, from associate retention strategies to ethical billing practices.
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Attorneys' Busiest Times Can Be Business Opportunities
Attorneys who resolve to grow their revenue and client base in 2024 should be careful not to abandon their goals when they get too busy with client work, because these periods of zero bandwidth can actually be a catalyst for future growth, says Amy Drysdale at Alchemy Consulting.
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In The World Of Legal Ethics, 10 Trends To Note From 2023
Lucian Pera at Adams and Reese and Trisha Rich at Holland & Knight identify the top legal ethics trends from 2023 — including issues related to hot documents, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — that lawyers should be aware of to put their best foot forward.
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Opinion
Animal Rights Are About Saving Nature, And Our Own Future
The climate crisis makes it clear that animal law — conceived of as an ecocentric approach to protecting the most vulnerable nonhumans who depend on the natural environment — is essential to restoring the Earth and safeguarding the future of humanity, says Carter Dillard at the Fair Start Movement.
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The Ethics Of Accepting Advanced Legal Fees In Crypto
State and local bar associations have been weighing in on whether attorneys may accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment in advance of providing legal services, but the answer is frequently a fact-specific inquiry that demands close reading of the rules of professional conduct, say Matthew Feinberg and Jeffrey Cunningham at Goldberg Segalla.
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How Attorneys Can Be More Efficient This Holiday Season
Attorneys should consider a few key tips to speed up their work during the holidays so they can join the festivities — from streamlining the document review process to creating similar folder structures, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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5 Gifts That May Run Afoul Of Government Ethics Rules
As the holiday season ramps up, it’s essential to keep in mind that government officials and employees are all subject to specific gift rules, and related violations can lead to consequences far worse than coal in one’s stocking, say Mark Renaud and Rob Walker at Wiley.
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3 Defense Takeaways From The Bankman-Fried Trial
FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s recent fraud conviction offers several key lessons for future white collar defendants, from the changing nature of cross-examination to the continued risks of taking the stand, say Jonathan Porter and Gregg Sofer at Husch Blackwell.
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Series
Children's Book Writing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Becoming a children's book author has opened doors to incredible new experiences of which I barely dared to dream, but the process has also changed my life by serving as a reminder that strong writing, networking and public speaking skills are hugely beneficial to a legal career, says Shaunna Bailey at Sheppard Mullin.
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How Clients May Use AI To Monitor Attorneys
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Artificial intelligence tools will increasingly enable clients to monitor and evaluate their counsel’s activities, so attorneys must clearly define the terms of engagement and likewise take advantage of the efficiencies offered by AI, says Ronald Levine at Herrick Feinstein.