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California Pulse
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Husch Blackwell Launches Complex Torts Litigation Unit
Husch Blackwell LLP has launched a platform committed to providing tools to defendant companies facing complex torts litigation, dedicating more than 165 attorneys in over 30 states to the effort, the firm has announced.
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Aligned Data Centers Atty Joins Montera As CLO
Data center company Montera Infrastructure has named a former Aligned Data Centers in-house attorney as its chief legal officer to build its legal department.
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OpenAI Adds ChatGPT Configuration Tuned To Legal Work
Artificial intelligence company OpenAI, following the release of the latest model of its ChatGPT software earlier this month, announced on Thursday a legal-specific configuration to perform legal research, analysis and writing.
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Seyfarth Shaw Adds Veteran Employment Atty In Century City
Seyfarth Shaw announced on Wednesday it has hired the general counsel of The Mancini Foundation, a nonprofit focused on mental health awareness and advocacy, to join the firm's labor & employment practice in Los Angeles.
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Ford Says Quill & Arrow Can't Escape Lemon Law Fee Fight
Ford Motor Co. has told a California federal judge that Quill & Arrow LLP must face claims that it saddled Ford with high-priced legal bills for work purportedly handled by virtual assistants overseas or nonlawyers, saying the personal injury firm's "fraud factory" tactics cannot continue unchecked.
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Brownstein Hyatt Grows In LA With Litigation Hire
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP announced it has hired a California litigation attorney who most recently served as of counsel at Salisian LLP in Los Angeles.
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Apple Backs Its $132K Fee Ask Over 'Bad Faith' Subpoenas
Apple has urged a California federal magistrate judge to grant its $132,700 attorney fee request as a sanction against plaintiff consumers' lead lawyer in antitrust litigation claiming Google muscles out rival search engines, but said Apple's counsel doesn't want to disclose their "highly and competitively sensitive" negotiated legal rates.
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Weil Names New Corporate Leaders After Dept. Chair's Exit
Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP has named two longtime private equity and mergers and acquisitions partners as the next corporate department co-chairs, promising to expand the headcount and breadth of the practice group after the former head left for Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP last week.
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AI Could Help State Courts Run More Efficiently, Panelists Say
Artificial intelligence can help state courts operate more efficiently and ease workload strains by automating repetitive tasks, according to participants in a Wednesday panel discussion organized by the National Center for State Courts.
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Getting To Court Can Pose Barrier To Justice In Rural America
In rural areas of the U.S., many people live great distances from courthouses and other legal services, creating major barriers to accessing justice and taking a toll on residents, lawyers and legal personnel.
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Ogletree Continues West Coast Hires With Jackson Lewis Atty
Labor and employment law firm Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC has landed a seasoned litigator from Jackson Lewis P.C. with extensive experience in ERISA and employment law matters, the firm announced Monday.
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How States' 'Perry Mason Moment' Led To $17B Meta Deal
A recent landmark $17.1 billion settlement with Meta Platforms Inc. may have never happened if it weren't for a quick-thinking trial attorney and his close-knit team of lawyers representing 29 states, who worked together to swiftly shift strategies midtrial.
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Calif. Judge Charged Over Fatal Crash With Bicyclist
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that his office charged Kings County Superior Court Judge Kendra Weber with a misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter, alleging she struck and killed a bicyclist.
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Orrick Hires CFO From Paul Hastings, Tech Leader From KKR
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP announced Tuesday that the firm has two new C-suite executives, both of whom will be based in New York.
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Legal Ops Pay Stagnates As Big Company GCs See Increases
A company's size has always influenced pay for in-house lawyers, but a new study shows a significant difference for general counsel and chief legal officers, with their median base salaries running 90% higher than their counterparts at smaller organizations. Meanwhile, compensation for directors of legal operations was flat.
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Legal Deserts: Millions Across America Struggle To Access Lawyers
Tens of millions of Americans live in towns and counties across the nation with limited or no access to legal services. By one estimate, at least a third of the nation's counties qualify as a 'legal desert,' having only 0.5 to 1 attorney per 1,000 residents. Roughly 24 million Americans reside in these counties.
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California Wildfire Litigator Joins Sterlington From Buchalter
Sterlington PLLC announced Monday that an experienced litigation attorney with a niche practice focusing on matters related to wildfires has joined the New York-based firm from Buchalter PC and will work remotely from Sacramento, California.
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What Happens When The Only Lawyer In Town Retires?
Many rural attorneys, often the only lawyer in town, work until they die or simply close their practices when they retire. But small to mid-sized firms looking to expand into rural markets could help to make succession planning a real possibility for these solo practitioners.
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First-Gen Students Pressured By Earlier BigLaw Recruiting
Students who are the first in their families to attend law school have been thrown a new challenge at the beginning of their legal journeys, as BigLaw accelerates their recruitment timelines.
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The 2026 Summer Associate Experience: AI Led The Way
Summer associate programs give law students an up-close look at changes unfolding in the legal industry, and a new Law360 Pulse survey found artificial intelligence use and pay have reached new heights.
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What Summer Associates Learned From Working At Firms
From learning how to come back from mistakes to cross-team collaboration, this year's summer associates came away with lessons that will help them succeed in their future careers. Here's what they want law students to know as they begin their own journeys.
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Sullivan & Cromwell Adding Kirkland Private Equity M&A Attys
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP announced Tuesday that four private equity mergers and acquisitions attorneys are moving to the firm from Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
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Man Cops To Bombing Calif. Courthouse Over Gun Seizure
A California man pled guilty on Monday to setting off a bomb at a Santa Barbara County courthouse in 2024 as retaliation for law enforcement officers taking away his firearms.
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Disney Taps Warner Bros. Atty As Corp. Transactions Lead
Disney has expanded its corporate transactions legal team with the addition of Warner Bros. Discovery's senior vice president of business and legal affairs, according to an internal memo.
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State Farm Attorney Sanctioned $999.99 For AI Hallucinations
An attorney for State Farm who filed several motions citing nonexistent cases and fabricated quotes generated by AI software must pay a $999.99 sanction, a Los Angeles judge ruled, an amount one cent below the threshold that would have triggered a mandatory notice to the State Bar of California under state law.
Expert Analysis
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5 Ways Law Firms Can Build Lasting AI Visibility
As generative artificial intelligence tools become embedded across the entire digital ecosystem, law firm leaders can build an enduring footprint with five factors that ensure their firms remain visible no matter how underlying models evolve, says Melanie Trudeau at Reputation Ink.
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Nonequity Partner Boom Forces Lawyers To Pick A Lane
With firms increasingly offering the nonequity partnership tier, the position can become either a parking spot to help build a book of business or a permanent landing zone, and for those who want to become equity partners, business development matters more than ever, says Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.
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Series
RFP Reset: Focus On Execution, Not Just Expertise
Law firms that treat responses to requests for proposal as concrete evidence of staffing, budgeting, communication and project management discipline will be better positioned to win business from legal departments than firms that tout generic credentials alone, says LaResa Young at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
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3 Ways Firm Leaders Can Nurture AI Fluency
Lawyers can’t develop artificial intelligence fluency from continuing legal education courses, webinars or email updates, so firm leaders must foster conditions that are conducive to attorney learning if they want AI investments to deliver their promised return, says Adrienne Prentice at Keep Company.
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The GC's 1st 90 Days: How To Build Trust With The CEO
During the early days in the general counsel role, establishing a CEO relationship that holds under pressure is dependent on earning access, communicating in business terms and advising candidly — all before a crisis arises, says Chaka Patterson, former general counsel at Adtalem Global Education.
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Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Harness Client Trust
Clients stay with counsel not simply because their lawyers follow the rules, but because they feel safe, respected and heard, making trust essential to business development, especially in high-stakes matters where reputational risk runs high, says Derrelle Janey at Olshan Frome.
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Series
Legal Tech Talks: Summize GC On Operating Strategically
Lexi Lutz, general counsel of Summize, discusses how legal tech can make lawyers more proactive and less tied up in repetitive process work, so that they can spend more time acting as real business partners.
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How Associates Can Use AI To Gain A Biz Development Edge
Junior lawyers can harness artificial intelligence to identify where they are gaining traction with clients and build a data-driven business development foundation long before conversations about partnership track begin, says Tigist Kassahun at Vinson & Elkins.
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Law Firm AI Rollouts Depend On Buy-In, Not Bigger Budgets
Recent research demonstrates that the organizational qualities that make for a good associate experience, like strong leadership, are also strengths that prove critical to successful artificial intelligence implementation, say Cait Evans at Chambers and Partners, and Vivek Mohan and Meredith Williams-Range at Gibson Dunn.
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Trump's EO Puts AI Agent Governance On GC Agenda
Section 4 of President Donald Trump's executive order promoting the advancement of artificial intelligence innovation and security establishes a federal baseline around AI agents, so general counsel cannot wait for enforcement to define the standard, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.
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Series
RFP Reset: Standardize Pricing Requests
To keep up with rising legal costs amid an industry overhaul fueled by artificial intelligence, legal departments can make outside counsel requests for proposal more defensible and cost-effective by making pricing requests uniform, requiring comparable fee templates and evaluating staffing assumptions, says Colin Levy at Malbek.
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Making Legal Cents: Create Marketing Clients Find Useful
The law firm marketing efforts with the best return on investment are things that actively provide value to potential clients: practical business guidance, uncluttered proposals that anticipate their questions and opportunities to participate in curated industry conversations, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Strategic Consulting.
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Law Firm Leaders Should Adopt Founding Fathers' Bold Ideas
To ensure continued success, law firm leaders helming their firms through the legal industry revolution should take inspiration from the Founding Fathers' bold decisions, such as James Madison's abandonment of the Articles of Confederation and George Washington's trust in junior officers', says Samuel Pond at Pond Lehocky.
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The AI Ownership Question Firms Can't Afford To Skip
The artificial intelligence conversation among law firm leaders has advanced from adoption to governance and business impact, but it hasn’t resolved who maintains ownership and operational responsibility, which should be determined by the range of functions that AI touches, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate.
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Series
Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Practice AuthenticityAttorneys who demonstrate who they truly are and what they stand for by sharing the human impact of their results, earning the media's trust by providing accessible analysis, and providing hands-on aid to their communities can build stronger reputations than any advertising budget can buy, says Ray DeLorenzi at RebuttalPR.