California Pulse

  • 2 Roundup MDL Cases Axed After Plaintiffs Fail To Act

    A California federal judge presiding over multidistrict personal injury litigation related to the Monsanto herbicide Roundup has ended two of the numerous cases, with one tossed for failure to prosecute and the second ending in an early win for Monsanto after the plaintiff failed to file a response, amid ongoing concerns that plaintiffs' attorneys are overtaxed.

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    Calif. Pick Defends Articles On Biological Sex, Judge Diversity

    A state judge nominated to serve on the U.S. Northern District of California bench fended off questions from Republicans about articles she wrote in recent years regarding biological sex and diversity in the judiciary.

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    Ex-Maryland Insurance Commissioner Rejoins DLA Piper

    Former Maryland Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Birrane has rejoined DLA Piper to lead the firm's U.S. insurance regulatory practice.

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    This GC Believes In A 'Cross-Functional' Approach For Attys

    Law360 Pulse caught up with the newly minted general counsel at Benson Hill, who has degrees in industrial engineering, law and business — all of which, he said, impact how he views issues and have shaped the attorney he is today.

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    Fennemore Craig Launches Remote Work Program

    Fennemore Craig PC announced on Tuesday a new remote work program called Fennemore Forward, along with the hiring of a Taylor English Duma LLP remote programming director to lead the initiative.

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    McDermott Lands 22-Year Latham Securities Litigator In LA

    McDermott Will & Emery has brought in the global co-chair of Latham & Watkins LLP's securities litigation and professional liability practice group to join its Los Angeles office.

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    Small And Midsize Firms Plan To Invest In AI, Meritas Reports

    A majority of responding small and midsize business law firms within the international legal network Meritas are planning to invest more in technology in the next five years, according to a survey published Tuesday.

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    Alston & Bird Brings In Sidley Trio To Launch New Offices

    Alston & Bird LLP announced on Tuesday that it has opened two new offices in Chicago and Century City with the addition of three lateral partners from Sidley Austin LLP, a move the firm said will strengthen its corporate, healthcare and real estate practices.

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    Sidley Brings On Tech, M&A Atty From Goodwin In San Diego

    Sidley Austin LLP has brought on a former Goodwin Procter LLP partner in San Diego, strengthening the firm's mergers and acquisitions and emerging companies and venture capital practices.

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    Michael Best Expands To Calif. With VC Law Firm Addition

    Michael Best & Friedrich LLP announced Tuesday that it opened its first West Coast office after its decision to expand to California through a merger with Los Angeles-based venture capital law firm O&A PC.

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    Buchalter Debuts Immigration Group, Adds 2 Karr Tuttle Attys

    Buchalter PC has hired two attorneys for its Seattle office to complement its new immigration practice group.

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    Weil Opening Shops In Calif. With Latham Private Equity Pros

    Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP announced Tuesday that it has launched an office in Los Angeles and will soon open in San Francisco with a pair of private equity partners who both came aboard from Latham & Watkins LLP.

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    Crowell & Moring Adds 'Swiss Army Knife' Atty In Calif.

    Crowell & Moring LLP grew in San Francisco this week, announcing Tuesday that it has added a former state prosecutor and e-commerce in-house counsel who has a reputation as a "Swiss Army knife style of lawyer."

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    Polsinelli Adds Prominent Employment Attys To Calif. Offices

    Polsinelli LLP has added a pair of experienced labor and employment attorneys to its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, bolstering the firm's wage-and-hour and general employment practice in the Golden State, according to an announcement made Monday.

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    Lowenstein Sandler Adds Admin, Tech Leaders To C-Suite

    Lowenstein Sandler LLP announced Monday that it has added two new members to its senior management team, with the firm saying its new chief administrative officer and chief innovation and information officer are part of the New Jersey firm's efforts to build its brand nationally.

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    O'Melveny Names New Leaders, Combines Practice Groups

    O'Melveny & Myers LLP announced several new leadership appointments Monday, along with the launch of a combined securities litigation and financial services practice group.

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    Leech Tishman Adds Trusts & Estates Atty In Los Angeles

    Leech Tishman announced Monday that an experienced trusts and estates attorney who last practiced at a California boutique has joined the firm's Los Angeles office as a partner.

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    Frost Brown Adds Former Solo Land Use Atty In Calif.

    Frost Brown Todd LLP has brought on a former solo practitioner and veteran California attorney with expertise in the state's environmental quality act in the firm's San Francisco office, the firm announced Monday.

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    3 Things That Have Surprised Firm Leaders So Far In 2024

    Law firm leaders approached 2024 with caution as economic and political uncertainties loomed large. Yet, the first half of the year still brought unanticipated developments, with artificial intelligence continuing its rapid proliferation and a competitive lateral hiring market among the surprises that unfolded.

  • Feds Slam Girardi's 'Last Ditch Effort' To Block Evidence

    Prosecutors urged a California federal judge Friday to reject Tom Girardi's bid to suppress evidence collected without a search warrant from his law firm's bankruptcy trustee, arguing that the trustee had control of the firm's books and records and had the power to voluntarily produce the documents for the disgraced attorney's wire fraud case.

  • How Reshaped Circuit Courts Are Faring At The High Court

    Seminal rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court's latest term will reshape many facets of American society in the coming years. Already, however, the rulings offer glimpses of how the justices view specific circuit courts, which have themselves been reshaped by an abundance of new judges.

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    Breaking Down The Vote: The High Court Term In Review

    The U.S. Supreme Court's lethargic pace of decision-making this term left the justices to issue a slew of highly anticipated and controversial rulings during the term's final week — rulings that put the court's ideological divisions on vivid display. Here, Law360 takes a data dive into the numbers behind this court term.

  • High Court Flexes Muscle To Limit Administrative State

    The U.S. Supreme Court's dismantling of a 40-year-old judicial deference doctrine, coupled with rulings stripping federal agencies of certain enforcement powers and exposing them to additional litigation, has established the October 2023 term as likely the most consequential in administrative law history.

  • The Sharpest Dissents From The Supreme Court Term

    The U.S. Supreme Court's session ended with a series of blockbuster cases that granted the president broad immunity, changed federal gun policy and kneecapped administrative agencies. And many of the biggest decisions fell along partisan lines.

  • 5 Moments That Shaped The Supreme Court's Jan. 6 Decision

    When the high court limited the scope of a federal obstruction statute used to charge hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol, the justices did not vote along ideological lines. In a year marked by 6-3 splits, what accounts for the departure? Here are some moments from oral arguments that may have swayed the justices.

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Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • 5 Life Lessons From Making Partner As A Solo Parent Author Photo

    Laranda Walker at Susman Godfrey, who was raising two small children and working her way to partner when she suddenly lost her husband, shares what fighting to keep her career on track taught her about accepting help, balancing work and family, and discovering new reserves of inner strength.

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