California Pulse


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    Dorsey & Whitney's New Head Kicks Off Role With Momentum

    Peter Nelson, who was recently chosen as Dorsey & Whitney’s new managing partner, joined Law360 Pulse for a conversation about how to build on the firm’s growth of the last several years and what challenges he sees on the horizon.

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    Conn. Insurance Firm Goes Global With New UK Partnership

    The Connecticut-based Saxe Doernberger & Vita PC has launched a new partnership with a firm in the United Kingdom as the approximately 50-attorney insurance boutique explores how to grow its profile in the increasingly global world of policyholder representation.

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    Procopio Expands In San Diego With Bankruptcy Specialist

    Procopio Cory Hargreaves & Savitch LLP is expanding its team, bringing in a Henderson Caverly & Pum LLP bankruptcy pro as a partner in its San Diego office.

  • Girardi's Son-In-Law Was No 'Babe In The Woods,' Feds Say

    The Chicago federal judge presiding over a summer client theft trial against Girardi Keese founder Tom Girardi's son-in-law should not limit the government's case based on positions it took during Girardi's California trial because its positions are consistent, and the cases are charged differently, prosecutors argued Wednesday.

  • Ex-Atty's Cooperation Deal OK'd In Calif. Debt Firm's Ch. 11

    A California bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved a deal allowing a disbarred attorney accused of operating a fraudulent debt relief law firm to admit wrongdoing and provide information about the firm's collapse to a court-appointed trustee in an effort to recoup money for creditors.

  • SF Law Firms' Ex-CFO Gets 3 Years For Embezzling $1.3M

    A former chief financial officer of two San Francisco law firms was sentenced to just over three years in prison Wednesday for stealing more than $1.3 million from the firms and others, after one firm's founder said the defendant appeared to enjoy "stabbing us all in the back."

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    Ford Hits Calif. Firms With RICO Suit Over Lemon Law Billing

    The Ford Motor Co. sued several California-based law firms and lawyers in Los Angeles federal court Wednesday, accusing them of conspiring to overcharge clients and defraud major automotive manufacturers by more than $100 million by submitting falsely inflated time sheets in thousands of consumer protection cases.

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    Sheppard Mullin Lands Alston & Bird, Dechert Attys

    Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP has brought on a former Alston & Bird LLP partner in its Dallas office and a former Dechert LLP partner in its San Francisco office, strengthening the firm's finance and bankruptcy practice and business trial practice.

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    MoFo's San Diego Office Marks 25 Years With Renovated Digs

    Law360 Pulse caught up with Morrison Foerster LLP's San Diego office managing partner Julie Park to discuss the firm's 25th anniversary in the city and its newly renovated office space there.

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    2025 Law Firm Leasing Begins Strong, Report Shows

    U.S. law firms are on pace to surpass 2024's record-setting leasing activity, ending the first quarter of 2025 with 3.4 million square feet of new or renewed leases throughout the country, according to newly released data.

  • Music Co. Rips Apple's Sanctions Bid Over App Store Ouster

    Musi Inc. and its counsel at Winston & Strawn LLP have urged a California federal judge to reject Apple's request for sanctions over accusations Musi made "false and misleading allegations" in a lawsuit over Apple's decision to boot the music streaming service from the App Store for intellectual property infringement.

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    Disbarred Atty Turns Informant In Debt Firm Bankruptcy Battle

    Two years after his debt relief law firm collapsed amid allegations he stole approximately $250 million from clients and investors, disbarred California attorney Tony Diab recently began telling a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee everything he did — and where the money went. The trustee has used this information to file dozens of lawsuits. But can Diab be trusted?

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    Cooley Corporate Pro Rejoins Wilson Sonsini in Silicon Valley

    Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC is growing its corporate team, announcing Tuesday a mergers and acquisitions expert most recently at Cooley LLP is returning to the firm as a partner in its Silicon Valley office.

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    Berkshire Hathaway RE Affiliate GC To Lead Pacific Sotheby's

    Pacific Sotheby's International Realty, a luxury brokerage firm in the Southern California market, has found its new president in the former general counsel for San Diego-based Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties.

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    Insurers Say Legal Malpractice Costs Keep Outpacing Inflation

    The frequency at which major law firms faced malpractice claims held relatively steady in 2024, but payouts on claims continued to boom at a rate outpacing general inflation, according to this year's legal professional liability insurance survey, with nearly half of insurers surveyed reporting having paid at least one claim over $150 million.

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    Paul Hastings Gains Finance Pro From Latham In California

    Paul Hastings LLP announced Tuesday that it has expanded its global finance practice with a partner in Southern California who came aboard from Latham & Watkins LLP.

  • Amazon Asks 9th Circ. To Flip 'Inadvertent' Discovery Ruling

    Amazon asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse a Washington federal court's ruling that refused its bid to claw back documents inadvertently produced in proposed antitrust class actions, saying companies need to be able to fix mistakes made when designating privileged documents.

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    FisherBroyles Brings On Mintz Patent Pro In LA

    FisherBroyles LLP is expanding its West Coast team, announcing Monday that it is has added a Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC patent prosecutor as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

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    Hanson Bridgett Expands To Fresno With Ex-Littler Leader

    California firm Hanson Bridgett LLP has brought on a former office managing shareholder for employment firm Littler Mendelson PC — Hanson Bridgett's first attorney in Fresno, where it plans to open its seventh office this year.

  • Polsinelli Lands Latham Real Estate Pro In Los Angeles

    In response to growing client demand, Polsinelli PC has added a former Latham & Watkins LLP partner with decades of experience to its real estate practice in Los Angeles, the firm announced Monday.

  • Avenatti Rips 'Draconian' Bid To Add 13 Years To Sentence

    Former high-profile attorney Michael Avenatti asked a California federal judge to reject the government's request to tack on more than 13 years to his prison term, saying such a "draconian" result would conflict with a Ninth Circuit ruling wiping out a previous sentence in the fraud case.

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    Kirkland Hires Former TPG Counsel As PE Real Estate Partner

    Kirkland & Ellis LLP said that private equity real estate attorney Yaman Shukairy has rejoined the firm as a partner after serving as general counsel for the private equity firm TPG Real Estate Partners for nearly a decade.

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    Many Law Firms 'Soul Searching' About Their AI Goals

    While recent reports show that law firm adoption of artificial intelligence tools is jumping, many firms haven't reached the stage where they are measuring gains from their AI investments yet, according to current and former law firm leaders and consultants.

  • 9th Circ. Mulls DOJ Shield Of Jones Day VW Documents

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday questioned whether it could force the U.S. Department of Justice to hand over confidential Volkswagen documents it obtained through a grand jury subpoena that were part of Jones Day's internal investigation into the automaker's 2015 emissions-cheating scandal.

  • Anthropic's AI-Hallucinated Errors Taint Filing, Publishers Say

    Music publishers suing Anthropic for copyright infringement accused the artificial intelligence company on Friday of downplaying the seriousness of errors in a filing caused by Anthropic's own Claude AI tool, saying the company's counsel violated a judge's standing order and arguing that the filing at issue should be tossed.

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Expert Analysis

  • How Generative AI's Growing Memory Affects Lawyers Author Photo

    A new ChatGPT feature that can remember user information across different conversations has broad implications for attorneys, whose most pressing questions for the AI tool are usually based on specific, and large, datasets, says legal tech adviser Eric Wall.

  • A Model For Optimal Legal Tech Investment Strategy Author Photo

    Legal organizations struggling to work out the right technology investment strategy may benefit from using a matrix for legal department efficiency that is based on an understanding of where workloads belong, according to the basic functions and priorities of a corporate legal team, says Sylvain Magdinier at Integreon.

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    My Nonpracticing Law Job: Recruiter Author Photo

    Self-proclaimed "Lawyer Doula" Danielle Thompson at Major Lindsey shares how she went from Columbia Law School graduate and BigLaw employment associate to a career in legal recruiting — and discovered a passion for advocacy along the way.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Do I Balance Social Activism With My Job? Author Photo

    Corporate attorneys pursuing social justice causes outside of work should consider eight guidelines for finding equilibrium between their beliefs and their professional duties and reputation, say Diedrick Graham, Debra Friedman and Simeon Brier at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Personality Tests And Machine Learning Applications In Law Author Photo

    Mateusz Kulesza at McDonnell Boehnen looks at potential applications of personality testing based on machine learning techniques for law firms, and the implications this shift could have for lawyers, firms and judges, including how it could make the work of judges and other legal decision-makers much more difficult.

  • AI Is Reshaping Lawyering: What To Expect In 2024 Author Photo

    The future of lawyering is not about the wholesale replacement of attorneys by artificial intelligence, but as AI handles more of the routine legal work, the role of lawyers will evolve to be more strategic, requiring the development of competencies beyond traditional legal skills, says Colin Levy at Malbek.

  • Embrace Active Voice In Legal Writing — In Most Cases Author Photo

    Legal writers should strive to craft sentences in the active voice to promote brevity and avoid ambiguities that can spark litigation, but writing in the passive voice is sometimes appropriate — when it's a moral choice and not a grammatical failure, says Diana Simon at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can I Help Associates Turn Down Work? Author Photo

    Marina Portnova at Lowenstein Sandler discusses what partners can do to aid their associates in setting work-life boundaries, especially around after-hours assignment availability.

  • How AI Legal Research Tools Are Shifting Law Firm Processes Author Photo

    Although artificial intelligence-powered legal research is ushering in a new era of legal practice that augments human expertise with data-driven insights, it is not without challenges involving privacy, ethics and more, so legal professionals should take steps to ensure AI becomes a reliable partner rather than a source of disruption, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • Data Source Proliferation Is A Growing E-Discovery Challenge Author Photo

    With the increased usage of collaboration apps and generative artificial intelligence solutions, it's not only important for e-discovery teams to be able to account for hundreds of existing data types today, but they should also be able to add support for new data types quickly — even on the fly if needed, says Oliver Silva at Casepoint.

  • Bracing For A Generative AI Revolution In Law Author Photo

    With many legal professionals starting to explore practical uses of generative artificial intelligence in areas such as research, discovery and legal document development, the fundamental principle of human oversight cannot be underscored enough for it to be successful, say Ty Dedmon at Bradley Arant and Paige Hunt at Lighthouse.

  • Why I Use ChatGPT To Tell Me Things I Already Know Author Photo

    The legal profession is among the most hesitant to adopt ChatGPT because of its proclivity to provide false information as if it were true, but in a wide variety of situations, lawyers can still be aided by information that is only in the right ballpark, says Robert Plotkin at Blueshift IP.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can I Use Social Media Responsibly? Author Photo

    Leah Kelman at Herrick Feinstein discusses the importance of reasoned judgment and thoughtful process when it comes to newly admitted attorneys' social media use.

  • Yada, Yada, Yada: The Magic Of 3 In Legal Writing Author Photo

    Attorneys should take a cue from U.S. Supreme Court justices and boil their arguments down to three points in their legal briefs and oral advocacy, as the number three is significant in the way we process information, says Diana Simon at University of Arizona.

  • How Firms Can Stop Playing Whack-A-Mole With Data Security Author Photo

    In order to achieve a robust client data protection posture, law firms should focus on adopting a risk-based approach to security, which can be done by assessing gaps, using that data to gain leadership buy-in for the needed changes, and adopting a dynamic and layered approach, says John Smith at Conversant Group.

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