Smollett Atty Says Attackers' Defamation Suit Must Fail

By Celeste Bott

An attorney who represented "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett asked an Illinois federal judge Wednesday to end claims that she defamed two brothers accused of attacking Smollett by suggesting they wore "whiteface," arguing it was an unimportant detail that meshed with their own descriptions.

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Burger King Franchisee Seeks BIPA Coverage Quick Win

By Elizabeth Daley

A Burger King franchisee asked an Illinois federal court to rule that due to precedent and policy ambiguities, its umbrella insurer must defend it in a class action claiming it violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act by nonconsensually collecting fingerprint data.

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Citgo Retirees Win Class Cert. In Mortality Table Data Suit

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Thursday conditionally granted class certification to Citgo retirees accusing the fuel company of shortchanging retirees by using outdated metrics to calculate early retirement payouts, but said the class definition must be narrowed further.

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FTC Can't Make Albertsons, Kroger Produce Divestiture Docs

By Ali Sullivan

An administrative law judge on Thursday denied the Federal Trade Commission's "premature" bid to compel Kroger and Albertsons to fork over documents related to negotiations for the companies' expanded divestiture plan amid the commission's in-house challenge to the grocers' merger.

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Weighted Baby Swaddle 'Inherently Dangerous,' Suit Alleges

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts company has been hit with a proposed class action over its allegedly "inherently dangerous" weighted baby blankets and swaddling wraps, a product category suspected in multiple infant deaths and under investigation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

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Analysis

Alito Flag Report Fuels Ethics Debate, But Likely No Recusal

By Katie Buehler

Responses to a report that an upside-down American flag flew outside U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home following the 2020 presidential election broke along partisan lines Friday, with conservatives decrying it as a smear campaign and liberals calling for his recusal from pending election-related cases and for general court ethics reform.

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Analysis

Trump's Potential Witness Could Be Defense 'Dynamite'

By Phillip Bantz

As Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan nears its end, experts say criminal defense attorney Robert Costello, who once advised the former president's ex-fixer and key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, has surfaced as a potentially bombshell witness for the defense.

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Menendez Bribery Trial: 5 Things To Know About Week 1

By Carla Baranauckas

Explosive opening statements, closed-door jury questioning and an FBI agent's recount of the moment he found a treasure trove of gold bars and cash highlighted the first week of trial in the government's second corruption case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

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Ga. Judge In 2020 Election Cases To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, who has presided over high-profile cases involving the 2020 election, voting rights and abortion, will take senior status on Jan. 1, 2025, according to an update Friday.

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AG Garland Held In Contempt By House Committees

By Courtney Bublé

Two House committees voted late Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for not turning over audio recordings of the president and his ghostwriter speaking with special counsel Robert Hur for his investigation into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

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Ex-Baltimore State's Atty Says 20-Month Sentence Too Harsh

By Emily Sawicki

Former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has asked a federal judge to cut down prosecutors' requested 20-month prison sentence after she was convicted of abusing a COVID-19-era program to obtain money from a retirement fund and conning a lender to obtain a vacation home, arguing the proposal "stray[s] from the reality of this case."

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'We Feel It': NJ Ranks 2nd In Ch. 11 Cases, Chief Judge Says

By George Woolston

New Jersey federal courts saw the second most Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the nation over the last year, Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb of the District of New Jersey said on Friday.

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NJ Courts Chief Warns Plan To Pick Appeals Bench A 'Mistake'

By George Woolston

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court on Friday defended how the state judiciary assigns appeals court judges, criticizing a proposal to move the power to appoint appellate judges from the chief justice to the state Senate and the governor's office.

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1st Circ. Rejects Ex-Immigration Judges' Bid For Asylum Redo

By Elliot Weld

The First Circuit's full bench refused to reopen a Salvadoran woman's case seeking asylum, despite former immigration judges weighing in to say that the judge who denied her asylum didn't follow a legal requirement to ensure her record was complete.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Haynes and Boone LLP and Lubin & Enoch PC lead this week's edition of Law360's Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously determined that federal courts do not have discretion to toss a case once it's decided that the claims belong in arbitration.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The SEC adopted cybersecurity rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised, and lawyers said SPACs won't get sought-after relief from a new 1% tax on stock buybacks under a recent Treasury Department proposal. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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