California Pulse


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    Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP and Kontnik Cohen LLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court held that cases dismissed voluntarily can later be eligible for special judicial relief and reopening, even if a statute of limitations would typically block the lawsuit.

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    Legal Staffing Co. Bridgeline Solutions Hires COO

    Legal staffing company Bridgeline Solutions has announced the hiring of a former Greenberg Traurig LLP litigator and legal tech business founder as its chief operating officer.

  • Voir Dire: Law360 Pulse's Weekly Quiz

    The legal industry closed out February with another busy week as BigLaw expanded teams and practices. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse's weekly quiz.

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    Why Pro Bono Work Is Essential To Any Attorney's Practice

    Fordham University School of Law’s Dora Galacatos discusses the importance of civil justice work to an attorney’s practice and how law firms can design and implement successful pro bono programs.

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    Littler Taps New Leader For San Francisco Office

    Labor and employment firm Littler Mendelson PC has named a 15-year firm veteran who currently oversees the Irvine, California, and Portland, Oregon, offices to also be the new office managing shareholder in San Francisco.

  • Law Firm Real Estate Report

    Building on a new report showing that leasing activity by the legal sector finally returned to prepandemic levels in 2024, a number of firms around the U.S. got in on the action as they announced new offices or relocations.

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    NetApp Expands CLO's Role To Chief Administrative Officer

    NetApp Inc., a data management and software company, has changed its leadership structure by appointing its legal leader to the newly expanded role of chief administrative officer.

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    O'Melveny Adds Ex-Paul Hastings Private Funds Partner In LA

    O'Melveny & Myers LLP has hired a former Paul Hastings LLP of counsel as a Los Angeles-based partner in its asset management and private equity practice groups, the firm said Thursday.

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    Paul Weiss Revenue Grows By More Than 30%

    Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP reported high double-digit growth in 2024, with revenue increasing by more than 30% amid continued success on both sides of the Atlantic.

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    Former Dechert Litigation Head Joins JAMS In San Francisco

    The alternative dispute resolution service JAMS is expanding its mediation team, announcing Wednesday it has added a retired Dechert LLP head of litigation as a neutral in San Francisco.

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    Law Firm Marketing Budgets Have Fallen Behind Firm Growth

    During a period when many law firms experienced strong revenue and headcount growth, the industry's marketing budgets did not grow at the same pace, according to the results of a survey released Thursday.

  • Calif. Judge Murdered His Wife, DA Tells Jury As Trial Wraps

    California state court judge Jeffrey Ferguson intentionally killed his wife by drunkenly shooting her to death in their home after a heated argument, prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday, while Ferguson's attorney argued that the gun accidentally discharged as the judge tried to set it on a table.

  • Calif. AG's Hiring Of Lieff Cabraser In Climate Suit Challenged

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta improperly hired Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP to assist with the state's climate deception suit against fossil fuel companies when attorneys in his office were capable of handling the litigation, the union representing the public lawyers contended in a newly filed state court complaint.

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    Simpson Thacher Adds Partner From Wilson Sonsini

    Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP has picked up a trial litigator from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC who helped a startup defeat a nearly $460 million trade secrets case over expert testimony involving antibody cancer treatments and secured defense victories in patent cases for companies like Google LLC and HTC Corp.

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    Ballard Spahr Launches AI Tools Led By 'Ask Ellis' Chatbot

    National law firm Ballard Spahr will roll out a custom suite of generative artificial intelligence tools, highlighted by Ask Ellis, a chatbot named after a co-founding attorney of the 140-year-old firm.

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    Brownstein Hyatt Adds Seyfarth Real Estate Pro In LA

    Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP is growing its California team, bringing in a Seyfarth Shaw LLP real estate expert as a shareholder in its Los Angeles office.

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    Wilson Sonsini Adds Employment Litigator In Palo Alto

    Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC has added an employment law expert to its litigation department in Palo Alto, California, who brings with her more than 15 years of BigLaw experience including most recently at O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

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    4 Tips To Hit Billable Hours Out Of The Park This Year

    Early in the year is the best time to start to think about billable hour targets and strategies for how to meet them, according to partners and attorney career coaches. Here are four strategies those experts say will help associates hit a home run this year.

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    Hecker Fink Opens LA Shop With Former Federal Prosecutors

    New York-based litigation boutique Hecker Fink LLP is expanding to the West Coast, bringing in two former federal prosecutors to open a Los Angeles office.

  • Apple Litigation Director Threatened With Sanctions At Hearing

    A California federal judge presiding over a high-stakes evidentiary hearing into whether Apple has complied with her 2021 antitrust injunction threatened to sanction Apple's commercial litigation director Tuesday, telling counsel she has "significant concerns" about Apple's over-designation of attorney-client privilege, saying, "Your client is not entitled to have you engage in unethical conduct."

  • Judge Who Shot Wife Admits Hundreds Of Gun Law Violations

    A California judge accused of killing his wife admitted on the witness stand Tuesday to breaking the law at least hundreds of times by drinking alcohol while carrying a concealed weapon, but insisted her shooting was an accident and denied shedding crocodile tears to gain the jury's sympathy.

  • Jay-Z's Claims Against Buzbee May Get Trimmed, Judge Says

    A California state judge said Tuesday that he's inclined to toss Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's extortion claims against personal injury lawyer Tony Buzbee and some, but not all, of the rapper's defamation allegations stemming from a now-abandoned rape lawsuit.

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    Sidley Brings On Dentons Consumer Safety Pros In Calif.

    Sidley Austin LLP continues expanding its West Coast team, announcing it is adding a pair of Dentons consumer products safety litigators as partners in its San Diego and Los Angeles offices. 

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    Kirkland Regains Top Spot in 2024 Performance Ranking

    Kirkland & Ellis LLP surged back to the top of legal market intelligence provider Leopard Solutions' annual Law Firm Index released on Tuesday with a perfect score for the year, while last year's leader Latham & Watkins LLP slipped to fourth place.

  • Calif. Bar Touts Reduction In Racial Disparity In Atty Discipline

    The State Bar of California has reported what it calls "significant" shifts toward equity in attorney discipline in the five years since a watershed study showed a decades-long trend of disparity, including that Black male attorneys were more than three times as likely to be placed on probation or disbarred compared to their white counterparts.

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Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Ask A Mentor: How Can I Turn Deferral To My Advantage? Author Photo

    Diana Leiden at Winston & Strawn discusses how first-year associates whose law firm start dates have been deferred can use the downtime to hone their skills, help their communities, and focus on returning to BigLaw with valuable contacts and out-of-the-box insights.

  • Resume Gaps Are No Longer Kryptonite To Your Legal Career Author Photo

    Female attorneys and others who pause their careers for a few years will find that gaps in work history are increasingly acceptable among legal employers, meaning with some networking, retraining and a few other strategies, lawyers can successfully reenter the workforce, says Jill Backer at Ave Maria School of Law.

  • Law Firm Guardrails For Responsible Generative AI Use Author Photo

    ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools pose significant risks to the integrity of legal work, but the key for law firms is not to ban these tools, but to implement them responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, say Natalie Pierce and Stephanie Goutos at Gunderson Dettmer.

  • Opinion

    We Must Continue DEI Efforts Despite High Court Headwinds Author Photo

    Though the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down affirmative action in higher education, law firms and their clients must keep up the legal industry’s recent momentum advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession in order to help achieve a just and prosperous society for all, says Angela Winfield at the Law School Admission Council.

  • Law Firms Cannot Ignore Attorneys' Personal Cybersecurity Author Photo

    Law firms that fail to consider their attorneys' online habits away from work are not using their best efforts to protect client information and are simplifying the job of plaintiffs attorneys in the case of a breach, say Mark Hurley and Carmine Cicalese at Digital Privacy and Protection.

  • Why Writing CLE Should Be Mandatory For Lawyers Author Photo

    Though effective writing is foundational to law, no state requires attorneys to take continuing legal education in this skill — something that must change if today's attorneys are to have the communication abilities they need to fulfill their professional and ethical duties to their clients, colleagues and courts, says Diana Simon at the University of Arizona.

  • How To Find Your Inner Calm When Client Obligations Pile Up Author Photo

    In the most stressful times for attorneys, when several transactions for different partners and clients peak at the same time and the phone won’t stop buzzing, incremental lifestyle changes can truly make a difference, says Lindsey Hughes at Haynes Boone.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can I Support Gen Z Attorneys? Author Photo

    Meredith Beuchaw at Lowenstein Sandler discusses how senior attorneys can assist the newest generation of attorneys by championing their pursuit of a healthy work-life balance and providing the hands-on mentorship opportunities they missed out on during the pandemic.

  • Law Firm Cybersecurity Should Not Get Lost In The Cloud Author Photo

    A recent data leak at Proskauer via a cloud data storage platform demonstrates key reasons why law firms must pay attention to data safeguarding, including the increasing frequency of cloud-based data breaches and the consequences of breaking client confidentiality, says Robert Kraczek at One Identity.

  • Advice For Summer Associates Uneasy About Offer Prospects Author Photo

    There are a few communication tips that law students in summer associate programs should consider to put themselves in the best possible position to receive an offer, and firms can also take steps to support those to whom they are unable to make an offer, says Amy Mattock at Georgetown University Law Center.

  • How Law Firms Can Cautiously Wield AI To Streamline Tasks Author Photo

    Many attorneys are going to use artificial intelligence tools whether law firms like it or not, so firms should educate them on AI's benefits, limits and practical uses, such as drafting legal documents, to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving legal market, say Thomas Schultz and Eden Bernstein at Kellogg Hansen.

  • Keys To Managing The Stresses Of Law School Author Photo

    Dealing with the pressures associated with law school can prove difficult for many future lawyers, but there are steps students can take to manage stress — and schools can help too, say Ryan Zajic and Dr. Janani Krishnaswami at UWorld.

  • Can Mandatory CLE Mitigate Implicit Bias's Negative Impacts? Author Photo

    Amid ongoing disagreements on whether states should mandate implicit bias training as part of attorneys' continuing legal education requirements, Stephanie Wilson at Reed Smith looks at how unconscious attitudes or stereotypes adversely affect legal practice, and whether mandatory training programs can help.

  • Ditch The Frills And Start Writing Legal Letters In Plain English Author Photo

    To become more effective advocates, lawyers need to rethink the ridiculous, convoluted language they use in correspondence and write letters in a clear, concise and direct manner, says legal writing instructor Stuart Teicher.

  • Series

    Ask A Mentor: How Can I Negotiate My Separation Agreement? Author Photo

    Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey discusses how a law firm associate can navigate being laid off, what to look for in a separation agreement and why to be upfront about it with prospective employers.

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