BigLaw’s brass ring has grown more elusive in recent years, Law360 data shows, and experts say a number of potentially market-changing forces may be at work.
Andrews Kurth Kenyon saw a more than 12 percent drop in headcount in the year before its February merger with Hunton & Williams — a story experts expect to become familiar for regional firms in Texas.
Lathrop Gage lost more than 15 percent of its attorneys in 2017. Can a new managing partner help bolster its headcount?
De-equitized partners. Contracting offices. Declining headcount. The leaders of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan say it’s all part of the plan — a plan that’s already paying dividends.
Medical debt collector Medicredit Inc. agreed to pay $5 million to resolve allegations by a certified class of 11,000 consumers that it violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act by not notifying them that their calls were being recorded, according to a federal court filing on Monday.
A California federal judge on Monday said he’s likely to grant Big Lots Stores’ bid to toss a certified class of 29,000 workers’ claim they’re owed wages for locking up after clocking out, saying the average time of three minutes is too short to merit consideration.
On the heels of a North Carolina federal judge’s decision to certify a class action accusing Duke University of mismanaging its retirement plan, Emory University employees who say their school violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in the same way asked a Georgia federal judge Friday to grant them class status, too.
Attorneys for a class of investors in Energy Transfer Equity LP told a Delaware state court judge Monday that a $1 billion equity distribution from the company to its partners was not authorized by the company’s governance documents.
Goldman Sachs asked the Second Circuit Friday to review a New York federal judge’s partial class certification of female associates and executives who accuse the banking giant of systematic gender bias, saying it turned a U.S. Supreme Court decision “on its head."
Automakers Hyundai and Kia were hit with a putative class action in Illinois federal court on Monday alleging their cars were equipped with "defective" engines that turned oil to sludge, eventually causing the Theta II engines to completely fail.
A California federal judge on Monday granted class certification to a group of Illinois Facebook users who say the social media giant unlawfully scanned images of their faces as part of its Tag Suggestions feature, finding individualized evidence was unnecessary to establish the alleged statutory violations that aggrieved class members.
One of the NFL concussion settlement's lead attorneys, Chris Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP, on Friday accused Locks Law Firm, which is seeking more authority in its administration, of "Monday morning quarterbacking” by raising meritless complaints that are already being dealt with or are simply at odds with its terms.
An Alabama federal judge on Monday found that the plaintiffs in an antitrust multidistrict litigation against Blue Cross Blue Shield can’t declare facts about Blue Cross subsidiary Anthem undisputed based on the ruling that sunk last year’s $54 million Cigna Corp.-Anthem merger.
A Willis Group shareholder Friday asked to be let out of a suit claiming its CEO and the CEO of Towers Watson & Co made a deal to drive down Towers' share value ahead of the companies’ $18 billion merger, with the shareholder saying its CEO didn’t have the power to make such a deal.
The National Football League told a Pennsylvania federal judge during oral arguments Monday that a string of collective bargaining agreements preempted claims being brought by players who opted out of a bottomless settlement deal aimed at resolving litigation over head injuries.
Employees of rail equipment suppliers Knorr-Bremse and Wabtec have filed suit in Pennsylvania federal court over an alleged long-running agreement between the rivals not to poach each other’s workers, after the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the companies earlier this month.
A Sixth Circuit panel ruled Monday that a proposed class action against current and former employees of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality over the Flint lead-tainted water crisis belongs in the Michigan Court of Claims.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and two private operators of a handful of convenience stories escaped a proposed class action brought by a customer alleging they printed too much customer credit card information on receipts, after a Missouri federal judge found Friday the customer didn’t show an actual injury.
Roadrunner Intermodal Services LLC and other trucking companies have agreed to pay $9.2 million to end claims in California federal court from a putative class of truck drivers who say they were wrongly classified as independent contractors, the drivers said in a motion for preliminary approval Friday.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday backed Sterling Jewelers in its workers’ Second Circuit appeal of a ruling that booted 70,000 women from a class arbitration, saying they shouldn’t be dragged into a gender discrimination case they didn’t ask to join.
Despite the current momentum of federal deregulation, state agencies are buttressing consumer protections and ensuring there is no lapse in enforcement. State attorneys general are leading a charge into the perceived vacuum where federal agencies have retreated. The decentralization of oversight demands a more strategic, proactive approach to compliance, says Ashley Taylor of Troutman Sanders LLP.
For decades, plaintiffs who brought class actions in California could immediately appeal orders denying class certification under the “death knell” doctrine. But the growing number of representative claims under the Private Attorneys General Act have led to a recent reassessment of this decades-old rule in cases where plaintiffs allege both class and PAGA representative claims, say Felix Shafir and John Querio of Horvitz & Levy LLP.
The past month has illustrated that while the opioid epidemic has worsened, solutions to the crisis have begun to emerge. However, all solutions are destined to be very expensive, raising several questions about the cost, says Adam Fleischer of BatesCarey LLP.
The Seventh Circuit recently held that implied preemption of a failure-to-warn claim under Pliva v. Mensing depends on the nature of the drug’s approval process. If a drug is approved through an ANDA, or abbreviated new drug application — as opposed to an NDA, or new drug application — federal regulation of drug labeling preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims, says Steven Boranian of Reed Smith LLP.
Proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 23, which governs class actions, are set to take effect on Dec. 1, 2018, pending approval. The amendments would significantly alter class action litigation procedure from notice to settlement, says Niki Mendoza of Garden City Group LLC.
Slack-fill claims by consumers who are repeat purchasers cannot — or at least should not — succeed. A Missouri federal court's recent decision in Bratton v. The Hershey Company helps illustrate why, say attorneys with Faegre Baker Daniels.
If an employee asserts representative claims seeking civil penalties from his employer under California’s Private Attorneys General Act, are they arbitrable by agreement of the parties? Courts should adopt a unified approach to this question and allow representative PAGA claims to be arbitrated, so long as they are not outright waived, say M.C. Sungaila and Marco Pulido of Haynes and Boone LLP.
The insurance coverage litigation arising from the settlement of the shareholder claims filed in connection with Dole Food’s 2013 going-private transaction continues to grind on, and the latest ruling could be helpful for companies seeking to argue that Delaware law should govern the interpretation of their insurance policies, says Kevin LaCroix of RT ProExec.
Despite the 2016 dismissal of federal human rights cases against food companies in California, a similar class action — Tomasella v. Hershey Co. — was recently filed in Massachusetts federal court, and it’s one that companies in the sector should watch closely, says Markus Funk of Perkins Coie LLP.
The Colorado Supreme Court's recent decision in Hernandez v. Ray Domenico Farms is notable because it clarifies for employers (including multijurisdictional employers) and employees alike that unpaid wage claims under Colorado law have the same statute of limitations as claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, say attorneys with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP.