Legal Ethics

  • September 04, 2026

    Retired Partner Stole $348K From Firm, Ill. Watchdog Alleges

    The since-retired name partner of a suburban Chicago law firm is accused of using the firm's operating account to pay for nearly $350,000 in personal expenses including Disney World vacations, liquor and axe throwing, according to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

  • September 03, 2026

    MDL Attys Want Special Master To Vet Meta Privilege Claims

    Personal injury plaintiffs' counsel asked a California federal judge Wednesday to appoint a special master to review Meta's attorney-client privilege designations in social media addiction multidistrict litigation, arguing that Meta can't be trusted to review them in light of the judge's recent rulings that certain Meta trial-exhibit redactions were "entirely inappropriate."

  • September 03, 2026

    Dutch Software Co. Asks Justices To Halt TM Trial

    A Dutch software company has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause a rapidly approaching trial in a trademark dispute with an American rival while it petitions for review of an injunction and contempt order that it said threaten to taint the entire proceedings.

  • September 03, 2026

    Leon Black Says 'Intrusive' Epstein Subpoenas Are Invalid

    Rather than appear for a deposition about his connection to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black sued the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and its chairman in Washington, D.C., federal court Thursday, saying subpoenas seeking private nondisclosure agreements exceed the committee's authority.

  • September 03, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Judge's Post-Decision Recusal Won't Lead To Redo

    U.S. Circuit Judge Richard G. Taranto's decision to recuse himself from a case based on newly inherited Amazon stock is not enough to justify reconsidering the opinion he'd already issued, the Federal Circuit has ruled.

  • September 03, 2026

    NJ Judge Strikes Experts In Faegre Drinker Malpractice Suit

    A New Jersey state judge has struck the expert reports in a legal malpractice suit against Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, barring the experts from testifying unless the Sept. 14 trial over a real estate deal gone awry is postponed.

  • September 03, 2026

    Ga. City, Ex-Court Admin To Mediate Retaliation Dispute

    A federal judge has stayed a former court administrator's suit alleging the city of East Point, Georgia, fired her for complaining about a city council member's attempt to have a relative's court fine withdrawn, saying the parties intend to mediate.

  • September 03, 2026

    Federal Judge Warns Threats Imperil Judicial Independence

    U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida told Law360 that judges and members of the bar need to educate the public on the judiciary's important role in American democracy to combat increasing threats, speaking following the release of two reports this week that warn of safety concerns for judges and that defiance of court orders is undermining the federal judiciary's independence.

  • September 03, 2026

    Law Firm, Closing Agents Faulted For Not Flagging Fraud

    A Pittsburgh-area real estate settlement company wrongfully released the money from a divorcing couple's property sale to a fraudster, and the law firm that was supposed to get the money didn't notice until nearly a month later, the couple claim in a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania state court.

  • September 03, 2026

    Pirro Urges House Ethics Panel To Refer Crime Claims To DOJ

    U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro has told the House Ethics Committee that as cases involving criminal misconduct come before it, her office should be involved too.

  • September 03, 2026

    Whistleblower Says She Wasn't Going Around Hospital Attys

    Attorneys representing a western Pennsylvania hospital misconstrued a conversation a whistleblower nurse had with another employee, the nurse told a Pennsylvania federal court on Wednesday in opposing the hospital's motion for a protective order preventing her from speaking with her co-workers about the lawsuit.

  • September 03, 2026

    Philly Firm Says Recent Discovery Dooms Uber's RICO Suit

    Philadelphia personal injury firm Simon & Simon PC has asked a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss Uber's complaint accusing it of orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to inflate settlements, claiming it learned through discovery that the company has not been damaged by the payouts.

  • September 03, 2026

    Fox Rothschild Says Adult Day Care Suit Rehashes Claims

    Fox Rothschild LLP is urging a New Jersey state court to toss claims against the firm and one of its attorneys in a complaint related to the firm's prosecution of a fraudulent loan lawsuit that led to a $65,000 sanction against the firm.

  • September 03, 2026

    Husch Blackwell Gets Early Win In Ex-Partner's 401(k) Suit

    A Missouri federal court granted Husch Blackwell LLP an early win over a former employee's proposed class action alleging the firm illegally withheld retirement contributions and mismanaged its employee 401(k) plan, finding the ex-partner couldn't prove violations of federal benefits law.

  • September 03, 2026

    Ex-IRL App CEO Says Prosecutors Ignored Ethics Breaches

    The co-founder of defunct social app IRL is fighting fraud charges by claiming that the U.S. attorney's office prosecuting him is conflicted because an attorney who formerly defended IRL in an SEC investigation and is now with the office pushed for him to be charged — and he is disputing prosecutors' denial of impropriety. 

  • September 03, 2026

    Former Girardi Keese CFO Drops Appeal Of 5-Year Fraud Term

    The Seventh Circuit has granted onetime Girardi Keese financial chief Christopher Kamon's request to drop the appeal he lodged fighting an Illinois federal judge's order adding five concurrent years onto the 10 he is already serving for his role helping Tom Girardi, the head of the firm, steal millions from plane crash clients who settled cases in Chicago.

  • September 03, 2026

    Boutique Firms Emerge As Trump Admin's 'Achilles' Heel'

    Less fearful of retribution than some of their BigLaw counterparts, small law firms are taking on an outsize role handling cases seen as adversarial to the Trump administration.

  • September 02, 2026

    Walmart Says IP Suit Docs Can't Be Used In Malpractice Case

    Walmart has asked an Arkansas federal court to order food tech startup Zest Labs to comply with a protective order from the parties' settled trade secret dispute and block it from disclosing Walmart's confidential information in Zest's malpractice suit against its former attorneys.

  • September 02, 2026

    House Rejects Amendment To Fix Court At 9 Justices

    The House failed to pass a proposed constitutional amendment on Wednesday that would keep the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices at nine.

  • September 02, 2026

    Dems Call Subpoenas' Secrecy Request 'Abuse Of Authority'

    Democratic lawmakers Sen. Ron Wyden, Ore., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Wash., have called for an investigation into subpoenas issued from federal law enforcement to private companies that contain nondisclosure provisions and carry threats of legal consequences for noncompliance.

  • September 02, 2026

    Conn. Firm Sued Over $718K Personal Injury Settlement

    Connecticut law firm Weber & Rubano LLC has sued successor counsel at another firm, The Quinn Law Firm LLC, in state court, claiming it is owed a nearly $41,000 cut of a $717,500 personal injury settlement it helped procure.

  • September 02, 2026

    GOP Reps Question Georgia Judge's 'Lenient Punishment'

    Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee have demanded answers from the federal judiciary after a Georgia federal judge was privately reprimanded for lying about having sex in her chambers and attending a political event.

  • September 02, 2026

    ABA Outlines Attys' Duties To Clients With Intellectual Limits

    Attorneys have the same obligations to clients with decision-making limitations, should abide by those clients' decisions regarding their representation and must work to maintain an ordinary client-lawyer relationship as much as possible, the American Bar Association said in an opinion released Wednesday.

  • September 02, 2026

    Hall Booth Can't Pause NC Malpractice Claims, Court Told

    A court-appointed receiver has blasted Hall Booth Smith PC's bid in the North Carolina state appeals court to pause legal malpractice claims against the firm related to a wrongful conviction judgment, calling the move "nothing but a collateral attack" in state court on a federal order appointing the receiver.

  • September 02, 2026

    JPMorgan Seeks Stay Of $20M Javice, Amar Fee Order

    JPMorgan Chase & Co. urged the Delaware Chancery Court on Wednesday to pause enforcement of an order requiring it to advance more than $20 million in disputed legal fees to convicted Frank founder Charlie Javice and former executive Olivier Amar, arguing the bank could permanently lose the money before it gets a chance to challenge the ruling.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Judges On AI: Examining Administrative, Organizational Uses

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    U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas examines how artificial intelligence could transform a court's ability to deal with administrative work and organize materials when preparing for hearings or drafting opinions, thereby affording judges more time to resolve contested issues.

  • Series

    Being A Singer Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Before law school, I spent seven years trying to make it as a professional singer in Los Angeles, and nearly everything I learned about preparation, humility, confidence and more has followed me into my legal practice, says Jessica Caterina at Moses & Singer.

  • JPMorgan Ruling Shows Courts' Limited Role In Fee Fights

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    The Delaware Chancery Court's recent decision that JPMorgan Chase must cover more than $21 million in disputed legal fees for two former executives of the startup Frank illustrates the reality that companies, not the courts, are responsible for ongoing supervision of legal spending, says Theodore Edelman at GCE Advisors.

  • Series

    Being A Magician Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I've developed as a lifelong magician have translated directly into tangible benefits in the courtroom because performing magic and trying cases both live at the intersection of psychology, storytelling, timing and disciplined rehearsal, says Mark Dombroff at Fox Rothschild.

  • Series

    Bass Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Landing a trophy striped bass and closing a big deal both require cultivating the patience to finesse — not force — your way to desired outcomes, changing course when your old approach isn’t working and learning from the ones that got away, says Jon Ruiss at Alston & Bird.

  • Roundup

    The Most Talked-About Supreme Court Decisions Of 2026

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    This term, 11 U.S. Supreme Court decisions quickly became hot topics among Law360's guest writers.

  • 'Tiger King' Funeral Clip Ruling Offers Fair Use Road Map

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    The Tenth Circuit's decision in Whyte Monkee v. Netflix that the streaming service's use of another party's funeral footage in the docuseries "Tiger King" constituted fair use lays out a framework for producers to apply the four statutory fair use factors to their own projects, says Frank D’Angelo at Loeb & Loeb.

  • Series

    Choral Singing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Singing in the New York City Bar Chorus — a hobby partly inspired by the late U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, who infused my clerkship year with opera music — has improved my legal career by refining my abilities to listen, exude confidence and develop emotional intelligence, says Bonnie Baker at Friedman Kaplan.

  • Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

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    As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

  • Leveraging AI In MDL Discovery And Case Management

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    Generative and agentic artificial intelligence tools can help teams organize and digest the vast volume of documents inherent to multidistrict litigation, but workflows must be designed to maximize the tools' strengths and maintain human control of key operational and ethical factors, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Series

    Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

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    Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

  • Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

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    An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

  • Opinion

    State Courts Must Be Gatekeepers Of Expert Testimony

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    Based on my experience in the state judiciary, emulating federal courts' role as gatekeepers of expert witness testimony would help state court judges maintain the appearance of impartiality and assist juries, thus enhancing the overall confidence people have in their justice system, says Lorie Gildea at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Series

    Moshing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Entering a mosh pit is much like entering the practice of law — it is difficult, you have to know both the written and unwritten rules, and conduct yourself according to the expectations of each community, says Christopher Deubert at Constangy Brooks.

  • Why Highly Specialized Experts May Risk Exclusion At Trial

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    Expert witnesses with highly specific areas of focus may be vulnerable to exclusion in court, making it important for attorneys to check how potential witnesses' qualifications can be bolstered by their publications and other professional activities, say Evan Weisberg and Christopher Cunio at Hunton, and Kevin Cahill at FTI Consulting.

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