Chancery OKs Atty Exit Over 'Irreparably Broken' Relationship

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday granted a motion allowing counsel for an educational software company co-founder's ex-wife and her affiliated family limited partnership to withdraw from a stockholder dispute involving the educational software company, while giving the partnership two weeks to secure new representation or face default.

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Chancery Asked To OK $7.6M Deal To End $1.5B De-SPAC Row

By Jeff Montgomery

Stockholders of special purpose acquisition company HighCape Capital LP have sought Delaware Court of Chancery approval for a $7.6 million settlement of a class suit accusing company principals of pursuing an overpriced take-public merger of biopharmaceutical tech company Quantum-Si, in litigation complicated by an unusual discovery stumble.

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Chancery Refuses For Now To Make Hecate Pay Lenders $75M

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has denied renewable energy lenders' bid to immediately seize $75 million in disputed settlement proceeds, ruling that although the lenders are likely to succeed on parts of their contract claims, they failed to justify the extraordinary step of a mandatory injunction.

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Hedge Fund Sues In Del. For Share Appraisal Damages

By Jeff Montgomery

A hedge fund managed by Glazer Capital LLC sued for a Delaware Court of Chancery declaratory judgment Thursday seeking an order for immediate payment for shares of media measurement venture Integral Ad Science Corp. in the wake of IAS' acquisition by private equity Novacap in December.

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Judge Seems Poised To Keep Block On Trump Voting Order

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge Thursday appeared to hold fast to her two prior rulings that President Donald Trump lacks authority to change voting laws via an executive order requiring physical documentation of citizenship and voiding mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day.

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Justices Told 'Skinny Label' Case Puts Generic Drugs At Risk

By Ryan Davis

The U.S. government, one named sponsor of the Hatch-Waxman Act, a generic-drug industry group and more have warned the U.S. Supreme Court that a decision that allowed a patent case involving a so-called skinny label to proceed threatens the availability of low-cost generic drugs.

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Fed. Circ. Affirms Chip Patent Claims Are Invalid

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed a Delaware federal judge's decision that a set of patents covering computer chip design were invalid under the so-called Alice test, clearing semiconductor makers Siemens and GlobalFoundries of infringement allegations.

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Health Plans Lack Expert In Avandia MDL, 3rd Circ. Told

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Counsel for GlaxoSmithKline urged a Third Circuit panel on Thursday to undo an order certifying a class of health plans in the multidistrict litigation over the company's alleged deceptive marketing of the diabetes drug Avandia, arguing the plaintiffs didn't have the experts necessary to support their case.

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Delaware Judge Won't Reconsider Burford Arbitration Ruling

By Rose Krebs

A Delaware federal judge has denied German entity Financialright Claims GmbH's bid to reconsider his decision ordering arbitration of a dispute with a Burford Capital affiliate over an allegedly fraudulent arbitration pact, rejecting claims that the ruling was "premised on a clear error of law."

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How Del. High Court's Moelis Reversal Fits Into DExit Debate

By declining to decide the facial validity of the provisions at issue in Moelis & Co. v. West Palm Beach Firefighters Pension Fund, the Delaware Supreme Court's recent reversal of the Court of Chancery's 2024 ruling highlights broader implications for the ongoing debate over whether companies should incorporate elsewhere, say attorneys at Akin.

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What's Next After NLRB Dismissal Of SpaceX Suit

Though the National Labor Relations Board’s recent decision to dismiss its long-running unfair labor practice complaint against SpaceX on jurisdictional grounds temporarily resolves a circuit split over injunctions, constitutional and employee-classification questions remain, say attorneys at Proskauer.

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Series

Playing Piano Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Playing piano and practicing law share many parallels relating to managing complexity: Just as hearing an entire musical passage in my head allows me to reliably deliver the message, thinking about the audience's impression helps me create a legal narrative that keeps the reader engaged, says Michael Shepherd at Fish & Richardson.

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How Epstein Referred Clients To BigLaw Partners In His Orbit

By Aebra Coe

Billionaire and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein always had top lawyers in his orbit. He also had extensive and lasting relationships with several partners at BigLaw firms, files newly released by the Department of Justice show.

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Goldstein Placed Under Home Confinement Until Sentencing

By Jared Foretek

SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein was placed under home confinement by a Maryland federal judge until his sentencing, but will likely be able to keep his $3 million D.C. home after the jury that convicted him separately found there wasn't a clear nexus between the property and his mortgage fraud conviction.

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'One Way Or Another, ICE Will Comply,' Minn. Judge Vows

By Lauren Berg

The Minnesota federal court's chief judge who admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for violating nearly 100 court orders concerning the Trump administration's immigration operations in the state vowed Thursday "to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law," including holding government officials in criminal contempt.

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IRS Broke Law 42K Times By Giving Info To ICE, Judge Says

By Anna Scott Farrell

The federal judge who stopped the Internal Revenue Service from sharing taxpayer addresses with immigration authorities said Thursday that a recent admission by the agency showed that it broke the law more than 42,000 times last summer when it disclosed addresses by relying on a computerized matching system.

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Calif. Atty Agrees To Discipline From State Bar Over AI Errors

By Hailey Konnath

A Los Angeles attorney has agreed to be disciplined for filing appellate briefs rife with artificial intelligence-hallucinated case law quotations, according to a stipulation approved Wednesday by the California State Bar Court, which found that he "recklessly and with gross negligence failed to perform legal services with competence."

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Reed Smith Says Atty Can't Expand Pay Bias Damages Period

By Grace Elletson

Reed Smith LLP is urging a New Jersey state court to rule that an attorney who claimed the firm unlawfully underpaid her cannot expand the time window for which she's seeking damages, arguing a legal doctrine used to revive continuing claims can't be used to collect back pay.

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Feds Seek To Toss DOJ Official's Suit Over Epstein-Talk Firing

By Lynn LaRowe

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a D.C. federal court to ax a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by a former DOJ official who was fired after he was surreptitiously filmed talking about Jeffrey Epstein on what he thought was a date, saying district courts don't have jurisdiction and the matter belongs in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

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Atty Owns 'Sloppy' Incorrect Citations Before Texas Justices

By José Luis Martínez

A Houston attorney told a Texas appellate panel Thursday that incorrect case citations in his brief were "sloppy" and "embarrassing," taking responsibility for errors that included nonexistent cases and inaccurate quotations.

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Brief

Senate Judiciary Advances Illinois US Atty

By Nadia Dreid

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of Gregory Gilmore to be U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois in a quick vote that passed without comment.

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