Ropes & Gray-Led Vistria Wraps Largest-Ever Fund At $3B

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Middle-market private equity shop The Vistria Group LP, advised by Ropes & Gray LLP, on Thursday said it clinched its largest-ever private equity fund after securing $3 billion of total investor commitments.

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Kirkland Leads Project Liberty's Bid For TikTok As Ban Looms

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Kirkland & Ellis-advised Project Liberty announced Thursday that it has offered to acquire TikTok's U.S. assets, just 10 days before the deadline for the social media platform to divest from its Chinese parent or face a nationwide ban.

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Hochul Floats Curbing Tax Breaks For PE Home Investments

By Paul Williams

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday that she is seeking to curtail certain tax breaks for private equity firms that invest in certain residential properties, saying the policy would make more of the state's housing stock available to individual homebuyers.

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Ropes & Gray Reps Valspring Capital On Debut $255M Fund

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Ropes & Gray LLP-advised healthcare-focused growth equity firm Valspring Capital on Thursday announced that it closed its debut fund, Valspring Capital Fund I, above target after securing $255 million in investor commitments.

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Deals Rumor Mill

AI Startup Anthropic Seeks $60B Valuation, Plus More Rumors

By Tom Zanki

Artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic is seeking $2 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at $60 billion, while fashion giant Shein is now eyeing a mid-2025 initial public offering in London and Constellation Energy is lining up a $30 billion bid to acquire electricity provider Calpine. Here, Law360 breaks down the notable deal rumors from the past week.

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MoFo Taps Goodwin Duo To Grow Exec Comp, Benefits Team

By Andrea Keckley

Morrison Foerster announced Wednesday that it has tapped two former Goodwin Procter LLP partners to expand its executive compensation and benefits group.

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MoFo Investment Funds Ace Jumps To DLA Piper In Palo Alto

By James Mills

DLA Piper is boosting its California investment team, announcing Thursday that it is bringing in a Morrison Foerster LLP fund formation expert as a partner in its Silicon Valley office.

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Impact Of Successful Challenges To SEC's Rulemaking Ability

In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission faced significant legal challenges to its aggressive rulemaking agenda as several of its rules were vacated by the Fifth Circuit, which could hinder the SEC's ability to enact rules extending beyond express statutory authority in the future, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Custodian Selection

Several recent rulings make clear that the proportionality of additional proposed custodians will depend on whether the custodians have unique relevant documents, and producing parties should consider whether information already in the record will show that they have relevant documents that otherwise might not be produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

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As Lawyers Face Wildfire Losses In LA, Firms Step Up To Help

By Jake Maher

Amid the tragedy of losing their homes to the wildfires engulfing Los Angeles, attorneys have found hope in the support of their firms and colleagues.

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US Legal Sector Sheds 1,200 Jobs In December

By Xiumei Dong

After three months of steady recovery, the U.S. legal sector's job growth reversed course in December, with a loss of 1,200 positions, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday.

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Bonus Spotlight

Goodwin Procter Extends Bonus Season With Milbank Match

By Tracey Read

The 2024 bonus season has trickled into January, with Goodwin Procter LLP announcing it will give associates year-end and special bonuses matching those given by other BigLaw firms, Law360 Pulse confirmed Friday.

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Former SDNY US Atty Williams Returns To Paul Weiss

By Anna Sanders

Damian Williams is rejoining Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP after four years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York under President Joe Biden, the firm announced Friday.

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Trump Avoids Jail As Judge Points To Presidential Status

By Frank Runyeon and Stewart Bishop

A New York state judge on Friday spared President-elect Donald Trump any incarceration for his 34-count felony hush money conviction, citing the changed legal landscape, which affords the chief executive with "extraordinary legal protections."

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Feds Want 16 Mos. For Oath Keepers' Atty In Jan. 6 Case

By Lauren Berg

A former attorney for the far-right Oath Keepers group should be sentenced to 16 months in prison for her participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors have told a D.C. federal judge, saying her conduct and lack of remorse warrants a significant sentence.

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Justices Seem Inclined To Uphold TikTok Sale-Or-Ban Law

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court seemed likely Friday to uphold a law requiring TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company over national security concerns or face a nationwide ban, despite some justices expressing concern over the law's impact on the free speech rights of Americans who use the wildly popular social media platform.

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Sen. Durbin Questions Trump AG Nominee's Lobbying

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, pressed federal agencies Friday to provide information on President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general nominee's past role as a foreign lobbyist ahead of her confirmation hearings next week due to concerns about possible conflicts of interest.

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Smith Appeals Injunction On Release Of Trump Report

By Carolina Bolado

Special counsel Jack Smith has notified the Eleventh Circuit that he is appealing a temporary injunction blocking the release of his final report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump for election meddling and retention of classified documents.

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Ga. Law Firm Latest To Fight Corporate Transparency Act

By David Hansen

A federal law designed to combat money laundering violates the U.S. Constitution by forcing lawyers to disregard attorney-client privilege, a Georgia lawyer told a federal court, joining a chorus seeking legal action to stop the law.

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Wright Must Detail $108M Damages Claim Against Accusers

By Aebra Coe

Joshua Wright, a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, must reappear for a deposition to answer previously unanswered questions posed by two women he's suing for defamation on the details of his $108 million damages claim against them, a Virginia judge ruled Friday.

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New York To Administer NCBE's NextGen Bar Exam In 2028

By Matt Perez

New York's highest court has announced the jurisdiction will adopt the Next Generation bar exam developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners beginning July 2028.

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Litigation Funder Forms New Biz To Oversee Group Claims

By Tabitha Burbidge

Litigation funder Asertis confirmed Friday it has joined forces with law firm KP Law PC to create a one-stop shop for managing legal claims through a unique platform that offers funding, litigating and insuring services.

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Colorado Conduct Panel Dings Judges For Disclosure Lapses

By Greg Lamm

A Colorado judicial commission on Friday criticized 48 judges for failing to file state-mandated personal financial disclosure reports in 2023, saying the lapses "cast a shadow" over the state's judiciary but did not warrant public discipline because no judges were dishonest or improperly secretive.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Sive Paget & Riesel PC and Kaplan Martin LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions after the Third Circuit denied an emergency motion for an injunction to halt New York City's highly litigated congestion pricing toll program.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new report from a national group declares that general counsel and their corporate boards face five key dilemmas in 2025, thanks to the nation's chaotic and rapidly changing times. And in sports broadcasting, Disney and two other media companies have settled Fubo's lawsuit against their joint streaming venture, which they agreed to end.

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen legal services group RBG Holdings face a winding-up petition from founder Ian Rosenblatt amid soured talks about the group's leadership, J.P. Morgan file a fresh claim against WeRealize, retailer Asda face an intellectual property claim over a specific type of mandarin and financier Nathaniel Rothschild sue German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst and his investment vehicle Tennor International. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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