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Legal Ethics
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May 22, 2025
US Trustee, Jackson Walker Might Mediate Fee Case
The U.S. Trustee's Office and Jackson Walker LLP told a Texas federal judge Thursday they are open to mediating the watchdog's bid to have the law firm forfeit fees from more than 30 cases overseen by a former bankruptcy judge who was romantically involved with a onetime firm partner.
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May 21, 2025
Tribes Push To Preserve Challenges To Okla. Prosecutions
The Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations are dialing up their opposition to two Oklahoma district attorneys' attempts to prosecute tribal citizens for crimes committed in Indian Country, telling a federal court that prior case law makes it "readily apparent" that these state actions can't stand.
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May 21, 2025
Judge Warns Attys Using AI To 'Advocate — Not Hallucinate'
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday sanctioned two attorneys in a shipping contract dispute for filing a brief that included a nonexistent case citation added by artificial intelligence, warning lawyers that they must "carefully evaluate, elucidate and advocate — not hallucinate" in their legal briefs.
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May 21, 2025
Ga. Judge Tells Ethics Panel No Harm Meant In Family Cases
An Atlanta trial judge facing allegations that she intervened on behalf of her uncle in a legal proceeding and had a woman locked in a cell during her parents' divorce hearing took the stand Wednesday before Georgia's judicial watchdog, saying she would have done things differently in hindsight.
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May 21, 2025
Army Contract Protest Dismissed Over Filing Violations
Multiple missed filing deadlines and public filings containing confidential information, despite repeated warnings, provided grounds to dismiss a Virginia company's challenge of a U.S. Army contract award for information technology services, a Court of Federal Claims Judge said Wednesday.
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May 21, 2025
Atty's Silence Dooms FMLA Claims Against Va. City
A Virginia city is off the hook in an attorney's lawsuit claiming he was fired after requesting leave to care for his mother, a federal court ruled Wednesday, finding the attorney's failure to respond to the city's filings requires his claims be dismissed.
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May 21, 2025
Atty, Firm Sanctioned For Losing Info In RICO, Defamation Suits
An Alabama federal judge granted Drummond Co. Inc.'s request for sanctions over missing emails and other information in litigation accusing Conrad & Scherer LLP and one of its former managing partners of defamation and RICO violations.
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May 21, 2025
Girardi's Son-In-Law Was No 'Babe In The Woods,' Feds Say
The Chicago federal judge presiding over a summer client theft trial against Girardi Keese founder Tom Girardi's son-in-law should not limit the government's case based on positions it took during Girardi's California trial because its positions are consistent, and the cases are charged differently, prosecutors argued Wednesday.
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May 21, 2025
Ex-Atty's Cooperation Deal OK'd In Calif. Debt Firm's Ch. 11
A California bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved a deal allowing a disbarred attorney accused of operating a fraudulent debt relief law firm to admit wrongdoing and provide information about the firm's collapse to a court-appointed trustee in an effort to recoup money for creditors.
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May 21, 2025
Solvay Wants Sanctions For 3 Firms Over Confidential Info
Lawyers at three plaintiffs law firms were hit Wednesday with a bid for sanctions by a polymer company that claims the attorneys used confidential discovery in federal multidistrict litigation in New Jersey to file a new action.
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May 21, 2025
SF Law Firms' Ex-CFO Gets 3 Years For Embezzling $1.3M
A former chief financial officer of two San Francisco law firms was sentenced to just over three years in prison Wednesday for stealing more than $1.3 million from the firms and others, after one firm's founder said the defendant appeared to enjoy "stabbing us all in the back."
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May 21, 2025
Ford Hits Calif. Firms With RICO Suit Over Lemon Law Billing
The Ford Motor Co. sued several California-based law firms and lawyers in Los Angeles federal court Wednesday, accusing them of conspiring to overcharge clients and defraud major automotive manufacturers by more than $100 million by submitting falsely inflated time sheets in thousands of consumer protection cases.
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May 21, 2025
Ex-Atty For Slain Journalist Khashoggi Admits Tax Crime
An attorney who once represented the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi pled guilty to filing a false tax return, admitting that he withheld $355,000 from the Internal Revenue Service.
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May 21, 2025
Distiller Says Ex-Partner, Attys Used RICO Suit To Ruin Him
A Pennsylvania distiller claims his erstwhile partner in Pittsburgh's Kingfly Spirits launched years of litigation against him designed to ruin his reputation and career, saying in a complaint of his own that the ex-collaborator texted him "game on" before beginning his abusive legal campaign.
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May 21, 2025
Apple Lets Fortnite Back In App Store As Appeal Pends
Apple has allowed Epic Games to put its popular Fortnite video game back in the App Store, while the sides await a ruling on Apple's bid to pause an injunction mandating additional changes to its policies issued after the court found it had violated a previous order.
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May 21, 2025
Appliance Co. Says Sanctions Bid Unjust After EEOC Missteps
An appliance retailer has told a Colorado federal judge that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shouldn't be granted sanctions over unredacted medical records that were publicly filed, arguing that the agency has repeatedly made the same mistake in the disability bias lawsuit.
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May 21, 2025
Apologetic NJ Atty Gets 21 Months For $350K COVID Fraud
A New Jersey attorney sentenced to 21 months in federal prison on Wednesday for claiming he was a business in order to receive nearly $350,000 earmarked for small businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic apologized to the court for the "embarrassment" he caused to the legal profession.
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May 21, 2025
Atty Has Bail Revoked For Continuing Embezzlement After Arrest
A Massachusetts magistrate judge on Wednesday revoked bail for an attorney who pled guilty to embezzling more than $3 million from several companies and two family members with special needs and dementia, after prosecutors said he was still siphoning funds from victims' accounts after being charged.
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May 21, 2025
Feds Say Atty Behind Embassy Attack Can't Avoid Restitution
A Florida attorney who claimed he was unable to pay restitution for felony convictions after he detonated explosives in San Antonio and outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., cannot avoid the $325,000 bill, federal prosecutors told a D.C. federal court.
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May 21, 2025
Fla. Atty Says NC Bar Has No Power To Discipline Him
A Florida attorney facing claims he filed a baseless suit to collect attorney fees for his former firm from a pair of intellectually disabled brothers whom his ex-partner defrauded told the North Carolina state appeals court that the state bar has no jurisdiction to bring an enforcement action against him.
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May 21, 2025
Conn. Public Defender Watchdog Wants Chief's Firing Upheld
Connecticut's Public Defender Services Commission said in a state court brief that it was "significant misconduct," not racial bias, that caused it to fire the chief public defender, arguing the June 2024 firing came after a litany of complaints and a lengthy pattern of wrongdoing.
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May 20, 2025
Subpoena For Alleged Trans Care Must Stand, Texas Says
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday pressed the state to explain why the principle of sovereign immunity should stop patients who potentially received gender affirming care from trying to block a subpoena, saying during oral arguments a challenge to a subpoena seems to fall outside sovereign immunity.
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May 20, 2025
Mass. Atty Admits Stealing From Relatives With Special Needs
A Massachusetts attorney Monday pled guilty to embezzling more than $3 million from several companies for which he was working as a bookkeeper as well as from two family members with special needs and dementia, according to a plea agreement filed in Bay State federal court.
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May 20, 2025
Dem Lawmakers Reintroduce Supreme Court Ethics Bill
Two Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday reintroduced bills in the House and Senate that would require the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a binding ethics code and create new recusal and disclosure standards for the nine justices.
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May 20, 2025
DOJ Watchdog Asked To Probe AG's Trump Media Stock Sales
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday urged the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi's sale of millions of dollars' worth of shares in Trump Media just ahead of the stock market plunging.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code
As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan
Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.
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State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape
Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.
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8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney
A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.
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Opinion
This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process
In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Series
Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers
Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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Revisiting The Crime-Fraud Exception After Key Trump Cases
Evidence issues in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and classified documents cases involving former President Donald Trump offer an opportunity to restudy elements and implications of the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine, noting the courts' careful scrutiny of these matters, say Robert Hoff and Paul Tuchmann at Wiggin and Dana.
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Series
Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.
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Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Opinion
AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys
The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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Series
Round-Canopy Parachuting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Similar to the practice of law, jumping from an in-flight airplane with nothing but training and a few yards of parachute silk is a demanding and stressful endeavor, and the experience has bolstered my legal practice by enhancing my focus, teamwork skills and sense of perspective, says Thomas Salerno at Stinson.
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Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners
Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.
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Considering Possible PR Risks Of Certain Legal Tactics
Disney and American Airlines recently abandoned certain litigation tactics in two lawsuits after fierce public backlash, illustrating why corporate counsel should consider the reputational implications of any legal strategy and partner with their communications teams to preempt public relations concerns, says Chris Gidez at G7 Reputation Advisory.
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It's No Longer Enough For Firms To Be Trusted Advisers
Amid fierce competition for business, the transactional “trusted adviser” paradigm from which most firms operate is no longer sufficient — they should instead aim to become trusted partners with their most valuable clients, says Stuart Maister at Strategic Narrative.