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California Pulse
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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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Apple, Deere Stand Up For Diversity At Annual Meetings
The pro- and anti-diversity corporate battles are heating up this week, as Apple Inc. shareholders on Tuesday rejected a proposal to abolish its inclusion and diversity program, while Deere & Co. has managed to convince pro-diversity investors to trust it and withdraw their proposal.
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Law Firms Walk DEI Tightrope Amid Political Pressure
Law firms that once led the charge on diversity initiatives now find themselves walking a tightrope, balancing their long-standing commitments to diversity with shifting corporate priorities and political pressure stemming from the Trump administration's efforts to curtail such programs.
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Law Firm Leasing Reaches Highest Level Since Before COVID
Law firms in the United States have broken through years of pandemic-related uncertainty about market conditions and the need for office space to record the highest volume of lease activity in more than five years, according to newly released data.
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Girard Sharp Adds Atty From Lieff Cabraser In San Francisco
The former leader of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP's fertility practice has joined Girard Sharp as a partner in San Francisco, according to a Tuesday announcement.
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Duane Morris Adds Former Federal Prosecutors In NY, Calif.
Duane Morris LLP has expanded its trial practice group with a pair of former federal prosecutors coming aboard in San Francisco and New York.
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'It Was An Accident': Judge Denies Shooting Wife On Purpose
A California judge who shot his wife to death in their living room following an argument took the stand in his murder trial Monday, fighting hard to maintain his composure while explaining to jurors that his Glock discharged accidentally when he tried to set it down on the coffee table.
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Venable Litigator Jumps To Steptoe In California
Steptoe LLP continues growing its West Coast team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Venable LLP commercial trial lawyer as a partner in its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices.
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Apple Antitrust Ace Returns To Latham In Bay Area
Latham & Watkins LLP announced Monday that it has welcomed back an attorney who was working as in-house counsel for Apple to bolster its antitrust and competition practice and enhance its efforts to handle monopolization cases.
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Ex-Sheppard Mullin Media Atty Joins O'Melveny In Calif.
An entertainment attorney with expertise representing stakeholders on all sides of deal negotiations has moved his practice recently to O'Melveny & Myers LLP's office in the Los Angeles area after more than six years with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.
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ABA Suspends Law School DEI Standards Until Summer
The American Bar Association has announced that it is holding off on enforcing its diversity and inclusion standards for law schools in light of recent executive orders by the new presidential administration.
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Squire Patton Boggs Promotes 17 To Partnership
Squire Patton Boggs LLP said Monday it has elevated 17 of its lawyers to partnership and three to principal across 13 of the firm's global offices.
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Former Top San Francisco Judge Joins Signature Resolution
Signature Resolution, the Southern California-based alternative dispute resolution service, is expanding its services in Northern California, announcing the opening of a San Francisco office and bringing in a former San Francisco Superior Court presiding judge as one of its neutrals.
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Quinn Emanuel-Backed Clients Join Eaton Fire Litigation Fray
Southern California Edison on Friday was hit with yet another lawsuit over the destructive Eaton Fire, this time by an Altadena family represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, the largest firm yet to get involved in the litigation.
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'I Shot Her To Death:' Video Shown Of Judge After Killing Wife
Prosecutors showed a video to jurors Friday of a California judge at the police station following his arrest for shooting his wife, where he's seen sobbing, cursing and saying, "My son is going to hate me forever, and she's dead. I shot her to death."
Expert Analysis
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DoNotPay Cases Underscore Hurdles For AI-Fueled Legal Help
Recent legal challenges against DoNotPay’s "robot lawyer” application highlight pressing questions about the degree to which artificial intelligence can be used for legal tasks while remaining on the right side of both consumer protection laws and prohibitions against the unauthorized practice of law, says Kristen Niven at Frankfurt Kurnit.
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For The Future Of Legal Practice, Let's Learn From The Past
At some level, every practicing lawyer is experiencing the ever-increasing speed of change — and while some practice management processes have gotten more efficient, other things about the legal profession were better before supposed improvements were made, says Jay Silberblatt, president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
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Why All Law Firms Should Foster Psychological Capital
Law firms will be able to reap great long-term benefits if they adopt strategies to nurture four critical components of their employees' psychological wellness and performance — hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, says Dennis Stolle at the American Psychological Association.
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A GC's Guide To Litigation, Inspired By Sun Tzu's 'Art Of War'
With caseloads and spending increasing, in-house counsel might find themselves called to opine on the risks and benefits of litigation more often, and they should look at five Sun Tzu maxims from the ancient Chinese classic "The Art of War" to inform their approach to any suit, says Jeff Golimowski at Womble Bond.
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Mentorship Is Key To Diversity In The Legal Industry
Not only can effective mentorship have a profound impact on women and people of color entering the legal field, but it also benefits mentors and the legal profession as a whole, creating a true win-win situation for all involved, says Natasha Cortes at Grossman Roth.
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ChatGPT Is A Cool Trick, But AI Won't Replace Lawyers
Generative AI applications like ChatGPT are unlikely to ever replace attorneys for a variety of practical reasons — but given their practice-enhancing capabilities, lawyers who fail to leverage these tools may be rendered obsolete, says Eran Kahana at Maslon.
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Pro Bono Work Is Valuable In IP And Continued Learning
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's recent elimination of a rule that partially counted pro bono work toward continuing legal education highlights the importance of volunteer work in intellectual property practice and its ties to CLE, and puts a valuable tool for hands-on attorney education in the hands of the states, say Lisa Holubar and Ariel Katz at Irwin.
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Increasing Public Access To Legal Services: A Practical Plan
Recommendations recently issued by a special committee of the Florida Bar represent a realistic, pragmatic approach to increasing the accessibility and affordability of legal services, at a time when the disconnect between the legal profession and the public at large has widened considerably, says Gary Lesser, president of the Florida Bar.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Do I Relay Shortcomings To Associates?
Michael Cohen at Duane Morris discusses the best ways to articulate how an associate is not meeting expectations, and why documentation of performance management is crucial for their growth and protecting the firm from discrimination suits.
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10 Principles For Effective Partner Reward Systems
Several forces are reshaping partners’ expectations about profit-sharing, and as compensation structures evolve in response, firms should keep certain fundamentals in mind to build a successful partner reward system, say Michael Roch at MHPR Advisors and Ray D'Cruz at Performance Leader.
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Why Interdisciplinarity Is Key To Designing The Future Of Law
The legal profession faces challenges that urgently demand new solutions, and lawyers and firms can address this by leaning on other industries that have more experience practicing, teaching and incorporating innovation into their core business and service models, says Jennifer Leonard at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Incorporating ADA Guidance Into Lawyer Wellness Movement
The Americans with Disabilities Act and rules of professional conduct may help the legal profession promote lawyer well-being by focusing on mental conditions' actual impact, rather than on associated stereotypes, says Alex Long at the University of Tennessee College of Law.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can New Partners Generate Business?
Christine Wong at MoFo discusses how newly elected partners can prioritize business development by creating a strategic plan with the firm's marketing team and strengthening relationships with professional and personal networks.
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9 Writing Tips From The Justices' Opinions Last Term
Hidden in the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions from the last term are each justice’s talents for crafting choice turns of phrase, highlighting best practices for attorneys to jump-start their own writing, says Ross Guberman at BriefCatch.
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What Web3 Means For Lawyers' Ethical Duties
As law firms embrace Web3 technologies by accepting cryptocurrency as payment for legal fees, investing in metaverse departments and more, lawyers should remember their ethical duties to warn clients of the benefits and risks of technology in a murky regulatory environment, says Heidi Frostestad Kuehl at Northern Illinois University College of Law.