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Legal Ethics
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April 17, 2024
Discovery Sanction Too Severe In $1M Vape Case, Panel Says
An Illinois appeals court has found that a default judgment granted against a vape shop accused of causing a customer's burn injuries, which led to a $1 million bench verdict, was too severe of a sanction for defense counsel's failure to timely comply with certain discovery requests.
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April 17, 2024
Mintz Sues Parking Meter Co. Over $4.3M IP Legal Bill
Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC sued parking meter provider Duncan Parking Technologies Inc. and its parent company, CivicSmart Inc., in Massachusetts federal court Tuesday, accusing its former clients of owing $4.3 million in unpaid legal fees and interest for representing CivicSmart in a since-settled patent litigation.
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April 17, 2024
Menendez Trial Date In Limbo Over Pact On Atty's Testimony
A co-defendant's reticence has stalled an agreement on the scope of a Gibbons PC attorney's testimony in the bribery case of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and two New Jersey businessmen, leaving the much-litigated trial date of May 6 in limbo.
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April 17, 2024
Ex-Trump Atty: Colo. Discipline Claims Barred By Prior Case
Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis has told a Colorado disciplinary judge that the state can't bring a pair of new claims against her for criminal conduct and dishonesty related to her guilty plea in Georgia, arguing that the state could have investigated those issues in an earlier case but did not.
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April 17, 2024
Ga. High Court Urged To Broaden Atty Malpractice Time Limit
Counsel for an Atlanta restaurateur urged the Supreme Court of Georgia on Wednesday to revive a malpractice claim against his former lawyer by allowing for a more expansive statute of limitations when breach of contract claims enter the mix.
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April 17, 2024
SpaceX's NLRB Suit Stays In Calif. After 5th Circ. Deadlock
SpaceX's challenge to the National Labor Relations Board's constitutionality will be heard in California federal court after the full Fifth Circuit deadlocked Wednesday on the company's bid for review of a panel decision letting the suit's transfer from Texas stand.
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April 17, 2024
Bankman-Fried Appeal May Cite Unusual Preview Testimony
Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal of his conviction and 25-year prison sentence may cite a "rather unprecedented" trial procedure in which the FTX founder gave provisional testimony before officially taking the witness stand last year, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.
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April 17, 2024
Managing Partner Pilfered Exiting Atty's Gmail, Regulator Says
The managing partner of a six-attorney Hartford, Connecticut, personal injury and employment law firm threatened to gin up a criminal probe and ordered downloads from the personal Gmail account of a departing attorney, according to a post-trial brief by disciplinary authorities seeking the partner's one-year suspension.
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April 17, 2024
GOP Sens. Raise Ethical Concerns Over 6th Circ. Nominee
Republicans went after a nominee for the Sixth Circuit during a hearing on Wednesday over allegations that he has behaved unethically as a prosecuting attorney, and that the White House picked him through a "backroom deal."
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April 17, 2024
Colo. Judge Slams Attys For Petty 'Squabbles' In Patent Fight
A Colorado federal judge on Wednesday roundly rebuked lawyers fighting over patents for oil and gas equipment for filing "needless" motions that seemed to reflect their "interpersonal squabbles" rather than the interests of their clients, and threatened to sanction the attorneys if they ever drag the court into another petty fight.
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April 17, 2024
Acclaimed Legal Scholar Earns ABA Ethics Award
The American Bar Association on Wednesday announced that this year's recipient of its Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award will be Susan Fortney, a Texas A&M University School of Law professor and ethics expert whose research has earned her international recognition.
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April 17, 2024
Ga. DAs Revive Legal Fight Over Prosecutor Watchdog
A bipartisan group of Georgia district attorneys has brought a fresh legal challenge to the state's new Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission, calling the body unconstitutional in a new lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court on Tuesday.
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April 17, 2024
'Fat Leonard' Prosecutors Say 5 More Plea Deals Tainted
Federal prosecutors in San Diego have agreed to let several former U.S. Navy officers withdraw their felony pleas in the "Fat Leonard" bribery scandal, citing "serious" lapses that wiped out other convictions in the high-profile case.
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April 17, 2024
Ga. Justices To Examine 'Actual Malice' In Atty's Libel Case
The Supreme Court of Georgia has agreed to take up a contentious defamation case, pitting an orthopedic surgeon against a defense attorney known for criticizing "litigation networks" of plaintiffs attorneys and doctors, that could determine how difficult it is to sue attorneys accused of bad-mouthing third parties to other attorneys.
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April 17, 2024
Financial Planner Gets Prison For Tax Shelter Fraud Scheme
A Cleveland financial planner who colluded with a Florida attorney to promote an illegal tax scheme using fake charitable donations to score deductions for his company's high-income clients was sentenced Tuesday to 20 months in prison for his part in the fraud.
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April 16, 2024
Ex-Calif. Bar Exec Denies Expensing Trip As Ethics Trial Starts
Former California State Bar executive Joseph Dunn took the stand Tuesday on the first day of his disciplinary trial over claims he lied about bar funds used for a trip to Mongolia in 2014, maintaining he never sought reimbursement for expenses incurred in Mongolia other than his phones' roaming charges.
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April 16, 2024
Nothing 'Sinister' About Attys, Broker's Tax Plan, NC Jury Told
Two St. Louis attorneys and a North Carolina insurance agent on Tuesday tried to poke holes in an undercover IRS agent's investigation of what the government has characterized as a criminal tax avoidance scheme, which defense counsel sought to paint for the jury as a legal interpretation of federal tax law.
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April 16, 2024
Winston & Strawn Settles Brief-Plagiarizing Allegations
A Tuesday filing indicated that Winston & Strawn LLP has managed to settle copyright infringement allegations coming from a boutique intellectual property firm that went to a federal court in Manhattan to accuse the BigLaw firm of copying a motion-to-dismiss filing "nearly verbatim."
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April 16, 2024
Appeals Court Won't Block 3M 'Fishing Expedition' Deposition
A state appeals court on Tuesday declined to halt a presuit deposition requested by 3M Co. against a Texas attorney to investigate claims that the lawyer was aware of false statements his co-counsel made in a coal-related lung disease suit out of Kentucky.
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April 16, 2024
NJ Hospital GC Emails Doom $24M Verdict For Surgeons
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated a $24.3 million award to a group of neurosurgeons on their claim that a hospital didn't operate in good faith, finding the trial court's admission of emails from the hospital's general counsel and remarks made during closing arguments deprived the hospital of a fair trial.
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April 16, 2024
Ousted Fla. Atty To Seek Reelection Amid DeSantis Fight
Suspended Florida state attorney Andrew Warren announced Tuesday he's running for reelection as the top prosecutor in Hillsborough County, while he pursues an ongoing federal lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis over his suspension.
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April 16, 2024
Feds Want To Boot Gibbons Atty From Menendez Bribery Case
Prosecutors plan to call a Gibbons PC attorney as a witness during the bribery trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and want him disqualified from representing another defendant in the case, they told a New York federal judge Tuesday.
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April 16, 2024
Meet The Atty For An Ex-Union Leader Facing His 3rd Trial
The only thing standing between ex-Philly union leader John Dougherty and a third conviction is attorney Greg Pagano, and he feels confident going into the next trial that things will be different.
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April 16, 2024
Atty Fights $268K Sanction Over Fake Newspaper Filing
A Seattle attorney ordered to pay $268,000 after being accused of filing a fake newspaper called the "The Saudi Sun" as a court exhibit wants the Ninth Circuit to overturn the sanction, arguing that it resulted from judicial misconduct and corruption.
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April 16, 2024
Ga. Justices Nix Backdated Discipline For Atty In Forgery Case
The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously denied an attorney's request for a retroactive suspension for forging a court order for his client, ruling that it would be "inappropriate" if he resumed practicing law while in the process of a pretrial diversion program to have his felony forgery case dismissed.
Expert Analysis
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Series
My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned To Argue Open-Mindedly
Queens College President Frank Wu reflects on how Yale Kamisar’s teaching and guidance at the University of Michigan Law School emphasized a capacity to engage with alternative worldviews and the importance of the ability to argue for both sides of a debate.
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ABA's No-Contact Rule Advice Raises Questions For Lawyers
The American Bar Association's ethics committee recently issued two opinions concerning the no-contact rule — one creates an intuitive and practical default for electronic communications, while the other sets a potential trap for pro se lawyers, say Lauren Snyder and Deepika Ravi at HWG.
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4 Key Skills For An Effective Attorney Coaching Conversation
As BigLaw firms are increasingly offering internal coaching as one of many talent strategies to stem ongoing lawyer attrition, Stacey Schwartz at Katten discusses how coaches can help attorneys achieve their goals.
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Perspectives
How Civilian Attorneys Can Help Veterans
With legal aid topping the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' annual list of unmet needs of veterans facing housing insecurity, nonmilitary volunteer attorneys can provide some of the most effective legal services to military and veteran clients, say Anna Richardson at Veterans Legal Services and Nicholas Hasenfus at Holland & Knight.
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Series
My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned That Culture Shapes Law
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York considers how a class with Jerry Cohen at Harvard Law helped him understand culture and history’s influence on jurisprudence, and how even seemingly settled law can evolve — all while espousing a more humanistic approach to teaching that restored Judge Rakoff's pride in being a lawyer.
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9 Legal Ethics Considerations In Natural Disaster Preparation
Since natural disasters like Hurricane Ian do not relieve lawyers of their ethical obligations to clients, law firms should focus their preparedness efforts on specific areas crucial to continuity of representation and ethics compliance, like business and communications contingency planning, record redundancy and more, says Mark Hinderks at Stinson.
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Series
My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned To Put Law Into Practice
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins looks back at how Judge Charles Spurlock's trial advocacy class at Northeastern University School of Law challenged her to apply what she had already learned about civil and criminal procedure, evidence and criminal law to solving real-world problems.
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What To Consider When Leaving BigLaw To Go Solo
Attorneys contemplating leaving their once-ideal job in BigLaw to start their own business should take certain concrete steps before they depart, such as saving money and drafting a business plan, and prepare for some common challenges, says Claudia Springer at Novo Advisors.
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Series
My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned Education Never Ends
D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel reflects on what made Bernard Meltzer a brilliant teacher and one of his favorite professors at the University of Chicago Law School, and how Meltzer’s teachings extended well past graduation and guided Judge Tatel through some complicated opinions.
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Opinion
New-Parent Attorneys Need Automatic Litigation Stays
To facilitate parental leave for solo practitioners and small-firm attorneys excluded from the Family and Medical Leave Act's protections, the American Bar Association should amend its rules to implement automatic litigation stays for attorneys welcoming a new child, says attorney Gabriel Levy.
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Associate Skills That Impress Firms In A Cooling Job Market
With the lateral hiring market calming down and law firms no longer overlooking resume deficiencies when evaluating candidates, associates at all levels should be cognizant of the skills and attributes that make them marketable to prospective employers, says J.B. Pullias at VOYlegal.
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Weighing Advice-Of-Counsel Defense If Trump Is Charged
If former President Donald Trump faces criminal charges stemming from the storage of government documents at Mar-a-Lago or efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, he could theoretically avoid conviction by claiming he relied on his lawyers’ advice — but for practical reasons, he's unlikely to use this defense, say Barbara Gillers and Stephen Gillers at New York University School of Law.
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High Court Could Resolve Thorny Atty-Client Privilege Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted review in a federal grand jury proceeding that presents a rare opportunity to clarify — and possibly significantly expand — the scope of the attorney-client privilege for complex mixed-purpose communications with counsel, says David Greenwald at Jenner & Block.
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How Much Information Should Cos. Share With Auditors?
Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cases highlight the challenges that companies face in determining how much information about regulatory investigations should be shared with auditors, as the risk of waiving protections must be balanced against transparent communication, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
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Minn.'s New Common Interest Doctrine: A Primer
In its recent ruling in Energy Policy Advocates v. Ellison, the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted the common interest doctrine, extending confidentiality to communications between an attorney and client that include a third party — but successful use of the doctrine will require care, preparation and attention to detail, says George Singer at Ballard Spahr.