'Secret Plot' Drove Perella Weinberg Split, Judge Hears

By Frank G. Runyeon

A New York state judge heard dueling claims of deception on Friday as counsel for investment banking firm Perella Weinberg and a group of former partners each accused the other of a "secret plot" that violated their partnership agreement, kicking off a trial centering on a sudden split in the firm a decade ago.

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Anschutz Gets Trade Secrets Trial Delayed Amid Sale Dispute

By Rachel Scharf

A Colorado state judge on Friday delayed an upcoming trial in a trade secrets suit brought by Anschutz Exploration Corp., giving the parties more time to deal with a discovery fight over a recent sale that left the jurist "totally dumbfounded" and "furious" at a Denver oil prospector earlier this week.

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Musk Can't Yet Appeal Twitter Investors' Cert., 9th Circ. Says

By Lauren Berg

The Ninth Circuit on Friday rebuffed Elon Musk's request to immediately appeal a California federal judge's decision to certify a class of thousands of Twitter investors over claims the billionaire businessman fraudulently tweeted about the social media company's alleged bot problem to get out of his $44 billion acquisition.

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9th Circ. Renews Billing Co.'s Suit Against Texas Data Firm

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday partly revived a Washington billing services company's lawsuit over a soured business deal with bankrupt Addison Data Services, finding a bankruptcy settlement agreement and the statute of limitations can't keep the plaintiff from pursuing its breach of fiduciary duty claims.

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Boston Firm Says IT Vendor Holding Computers 'Hostage'

By Julie Manganis

Boston-based law firm Melick & Porter LLP says a company it hired to manage its information technology is now holding its computer network and data "hostage" by refusing to cooperate with the transition to a new vendor unless Melick pays it $380,000.

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Baldoni Rebuts Atty Ethics Claims In 'It Ends With Us' Fight

By Rose Krebs

A lawyer representing Justin Baldoni has told a New York federal judge that statements his counsel has made to the press regarding the actor and director's thorny litigation with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds over the film "It Ends With Us" didn't violate ethical rules or prejudice proceedings.

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Judge To Inspect Winston & Strawn Docs In Malpractice Row

By Catherine Marfin

A Texas state judge said Friday that he plans to personally review more than 100 Winston & Strawn LLP documents to determine whether the firm must turn them over to Houston-based energy companies in connection with their $175 million malpractice suit.

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NJ Judge Rejects Bid For New Trial In Red Roof Inn Deal

By George Woolston

A New Jersey state judge has rejected a bid for a new trial over a deal gone wrong to purchase a Red Roof Inn, ruling two witnesses who asserted their Fifth Amendment rights outside of the jury's presence had no bearing on the jury's verdict.

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11th Circ. Upholds $23M Ruling Against Venezuelan Oil Cos.

By David Minsky

The Eleventh Circuit ruled Friday that two Venezuelan oil companies can't reverse a $23 million judgment over breach of contract for the sale of chemicals, saying they waived challenges to personal jurisdiction at key points in the litigation, and the record shows no genuine factual issues surrounding the broken agreements.

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Capital One Named In Action Over Early-Year Service Outage

By Emilie Ruscoe

Capital One has been hit with a proposed class action in Virginia federal court focused on a January service disruption that allegedly left consumers locked out of its systems.

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Justices Urged To Review Souvenir Store's TM Fraud Case

By Theresa Schliep

A Florida souvenir store chain has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its challenge to a Second Circuit decision foreclosing its arguments that a bankrupt beachwear company fraudulently procured a trademark registration to secure a $3.5 million settlement in yearslong litigation between the competitors.

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Dow Argues Tech Firm's IP Suit Over Software Is Time-Barred

By Corey Rothauser

The Dow Chemical Co. has urged an Ohio federal judge to rule in its favor in a dispute over proprietary polyethylene manufacturing software, arguing that ControlSoft Inc.'s suit ignores their more than 20-year business relationship and that the technology firm waited too long to bring trade secrets and copyright infringement claims.

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Scorned Hot Dog Biz Buyer Urges NC Justices To Revive Suit

By Ryan Harroff

A businessman who claims he was cut out of a deal to buy a chain of Ohio hot dog eateries urged the North Carolina Supreme Court to revive his suit against a man who the businessman said was supposed to be his partner, arguing only a jury can resolve the matter.

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CSU, Mountain West Seek To Escape Suit Over Trans Athlete

By Rae Ann Varona

The California State University system and Mountain West Conference urged a Colorado federal court to free them from a lawsuit challenging a conference policy that allowed a transgender athlete's participation, saying precedent, including from the U.S. Supreme Court, recognized that discrimination based on one's transgender status was impermissible sex discrimination.

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EEOC Disability Bias Suit Tossed Following Nixed Evidence

By Patrick Hoff

A mortgage and financial services company on Friday defeated a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging it unlawfully refused to hire a woman because she took pain medication, after a Washington federal judge ruled midtrial that a key piece of evidence shouldn't have been shown to jurors.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Axa Insurance and Admiral face a claim from a former lawyer recently exposed for personal injury fraud, the owner of Reading Football Club sue a prospective buyer and mobile network Lycamobile tackle action by Spanish network Yogio. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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FTC Report On AI Sector Illuminates Future Enforcement

The Federal Trade Commission's report on cloud service providers and their partnerships with developers of artificial intelligence's large language models suggests that the agency will move to rein in Big Tech with antitrust enforcement to protect startups, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

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Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

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Analysis

Companies Risk White House Wrath By Keeping DEI Programs

By Sarah Jarvis

For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump's anti-DEI agenda.

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Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers

By Alison Knezevich

Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.

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Baker Botts Partners Join Boutique Litigation Firm In DC

By Phillip Bantz

A pair of powerhouse litigators from Baker Botts LLP who scored a nearly billion-dollar verdict in a complex securities fraud case have stepped away from BigLaw to join Washington, D.C.-based boutique litigation firm Bourelly George & Brodey PLLC, launched less than a year ago.

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Mass Tort Atty Files Ch. 11 Owing $202M To Litigation Funders

By Hilary Russ

A Houston plaintiffs attorney has filed for personal Chapter 11 protection with more than $202 million of litigation funding liabilities, according to his petition in the Southern District of Texas.

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Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty

By Emily Johnson

The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."

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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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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Ridley McGreevy & Winocur PC and King & Spalding LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new Law360 Pulse survey shows that more than 90% of in-house counsel have no regrets about their decisions to join companies. In litigation stemming from Purdue Pharma's sales of OxyContin that fueled the opioid crisis, the Sackler family would lose control of Purdue and pay $6.5 billion in the latest proposed settlement. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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