NC Governor Says $227M Hurricane Relief Bill 'Plays Politics'

By Hayley Fowler

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Tuesday vetoed a Hurricane Helene disaster relief bill in which Republican lawmakers had shoehorned measures to strip his and other Democrat-controlled offices of certain powers, calling it "sham" legislation.

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Chemical Co. Demands Defense Coverage In PFAS Foam MDL

By Hayley Fowler

Specialty chemical company Clariant Corp. is suing five of its insurers in the North Carolina Business Court seeking defense costs in a host of underlying mass tort lawsuits over forever chemicals found in firefighting foam products.

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Bojangles' Restaurants Sued Over Weekslong Cyberattack

By Ryan Harroff

A former employee of Southern-style fast-food chain Bojangles' Restaurants Inc. said the company negligently failed to protect his and his proposed class members' personal information, allowing hackers to access it earlier this year in a cyberattack that lasted for weeks.

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NC Basketball Scout Admits To Role In COVID Funds Scheme

By Ryan Harroff

A North Carolina basketball scout has pled guilty to participating in a COVID-19 relief funds scam that prosecutors say netted him $300,000, the latest of more than 30 guilty pleas from the nationwide scheme to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program.

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BofA Blames ID Fraudsters For Fake Accounts Behind Suit

By Sydney Price

Bank of America told a North Carolina federal court that third-party identity theft is to blame for the alleged fake accounts that prompted proposed class claims, and cited Wells Fargo's escape from a similar suit as a reason to toss the case.

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Split 4th Circ. Won't Review Duke Monopoly Suit Revival

By Dorothy Atkins

A split Fourth Circuit denied on Tuesday an en banc review petition challenging a decision reviving antitrust allegations against Duke Energy, with the majority writing that granting the review would waste judicial resources, and a dissenting judge slamming the majority for purportedly being at odds with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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NIH Beats 4th Circ. Bid To Unmask COVID Researcher

By Yeji Jesse Lee

National Institutes of Health on Tuesday defeated a circuit court appeal by a whistleblower organization which had sought to uncover the identity of a Wuhan University researcher who submitted sequencing data to an open-access NIH archive.

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Brief

4th Circ. Won't Rehear Soldier's Loss In Suit Against Fluor

By Craig Clough

The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday declined to rehear, or rehear en banc, a split panel decision from October in a former Army specialist's suit against defense contractor Fluor Corp. over injuries he sustained in a 2016 suicide bombing in Afghanistan. 

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Series

Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

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Bonus Spotlight

Bonus Season Heats Up As More Firms Match Milbank's Scale

By Xiumei Dong

The 2024 associate bonus season is heating up, with more law firms matching Milbank LLP's year-end and special bonuses and U.K. firms extending the same offering to their U.S.-based attorneys, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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King & Spalding Partner Selected As Trump's Trade Rep

By Hailey Konnath

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that King & Spalding LLP international trade partner Jamieson L. Greer was his pick for U.S. trade representative, noting that Greer played a "key role" in imposing tariffs on China during Trump's first term.

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Texas Atty Sanctioned For Citing Bogus Cases After Using AI

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas lawyer pursuing a wrongful termination lawsuit against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has been sanctioned for submitting a brief that included citations to nonexistent cases generated by an artificial intelligence tool, a Texas federal judge ordered this week.

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Google Search Judge Says AI Will Affect Remedy Phase

By Matthew Perlman

The judge overseeing the government's search monopolization case against Google suggested Tuesday in D.C. federal court that artificial intelligence is shifting the market and will likely play a role in the remedies the court imposes on Google for allegedly violating antitrust law.

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Affinity Bar Groups Decry Colo. No-Poach Restrictions

By Thy Vo

Several attorney groups told Colorado's justices that barring lawyers from recruiting colleagues before officially leaving a firm would take away professional autonomy and harm lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds the most, filing briefs in support of a lawyer's challenge to her contract with a personal injury firm. 

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Fulton County DA Seeks To Reinstate Trump Election Charges

By Emily Johnson

The Fulton County District Attorney's Office told the Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday that six criminal charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others should be reinstated as they have an "abundance" of information to prepare their defense against allegations of trying to subvert the results of the November 2020 election.

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Giuliani's New Atty Faults Previous Counsel As NY Trial Nears

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge declined Tuesday to delay a January trial over whether Rudy Giuliani must turn over his Florida condo and World Series rings to fund a $148 million defamation judgment, after the former New York City mayor's new lawyer criticized outgoing counsel.

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Ex-Faegre Drinker Atty Files Disability Bias Suit

By Andrea Keckley

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP was hit with a disability discrimination lawsuit on Monday by a Denver attorney who says she was pushed out after seeking accommodations for hip problems.

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NJ Equal Pay Law Date Will Guide Atty's Discrimination Suit

By Irene Spezzamonte

Discovery and damages in a former Reed Smith LLP labor and employment attorney's suit claiming gender discrimination will be limited to the effective date of New Jersey equal pay law, a state judge ruled, saying the law doesn't apply retroactively.

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Fla. Bar Alleges Atty Delayed Trial Over His Broken Tooth

By Dorothy Atkins

The Florida Bar has launched a complaint against a criminal attorney in the Florida Supreme Court, accusing him of violating state bar rules by refusing to proceed with a jury trial because he had a broken tooth.

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