Business of Law

May 12, 2025
'Stop Talking,' DC Judge Tells Atty For Ashli Babbitt Estate

Counsel for the estate of Ashli Babbitt received a dressing down Monday from the D.C. federal judge overseeing the wrongful death suit against the government after repeatedly interrupting her during a hearing over another attorney's claim that he's owed a slice of the settlement pie.
May 12, 2025
DC Judge Grapples With Jurisdiction In ABA Grant Row

A D.C. federal judge wrestled with his court's jurisdiction Monday as the American Bar Association sought a court order reviving terminated federal grant funding for its Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence.
May 12, 2025
DC Judge Declines To Block IRS From Sharing Info With ICE

A D.C. federal judge rejected Monday a trio of immigration advocacy groups' request to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing with immigration enforcement agencies the names and addresses of people suspected of being in the country illegally.
May 12, 2025
Judiciary To Face House Members With $9.4B Budget Request

Top judiciary officials will make the case this week that they need $9.4 billion in discretionary spending for fiscal 2026, a 9.3% increase over fiscal 2025, in order to rectify past funding shortfalls and meet increasing challenges with judicial threats, among other things.
May 12, 2025
BigLaw Student Fellowship Faces Discrimination Charge

A new legal advocacy organization alleged that a decades-old program that partners with dozens of BigLaw firms to support incoming law students is racially discriminatory.
May 12, 2025
Will Justices Finally Rein In Universal Injunctions?

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to address for the first time Thursday the propriety of universal injunctions, a tool federal judges have increasingly used to broadly halt presidential orders and policy initiatives, and whose validity has haunted the high court's merits and emergency dockets for more than a decade.
May 12, 2025
Cadwalader Drops Data Breach Coverage Suit Against Lloyd's

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP and a Lloyd's of London syndicate it sued seeking coverage for litigation stemming from a 2022 data breach have agreed to end their dispute in North Carolina's business court with prejudice, according to a joint stipulation from the parties.
May 12, 2025
Texas Judge Suspended Over Vote Harvesting Indictment

A Texas county judge was suspended without pay Monday by the state's judicial disciplinary body in connection with a felony indictment charging her with taking part in a vote harvesting scheme related to the 2022 election.
May 12, 2025
Attys Say Avvo Scraped Bar Data To Sell Marketing Services

A new class action filed Friday in Washington federal court accuses online legal service provider Avvo Inc. of misappropriating the identities of over 1 million attorneys to promote its legal marketing tools and referral services.
May 12, 2025
Copyright Office Director Latest To Get Axed By Trump

The Trump administration has fired the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, shortly after the office issued a report raising questions about the legality of using copyrighted material to train generative artificial-intelligence models and two days after the White House ousted the leader of the Library of Congress.
May 09, 2025
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.
May 09, 2025
Calif. Judge Blocks Trump's Gov't Reorganization, Job Cuts

A California federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked federal agencies and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from carrying out President Donald Trump's directive to reduce the government workforce, saying the president doesn't have the constitutional or statutory authority "to reorganize the executive branch."
May 09, 2025
Calif. Bar Seeks Provisional Licenses And More For Exam Snafu

California Bar trustees voted on Friday to ask the state Supreme Court to grant provisional licenses to the hundreds of applicants who did not pass the tumultuous February bar exam, which was rife with technical, proctoring and procedural issues.
May 09, 2025
From Fox News To DOJ: This Is The Next Interim DC US Atty

Former Fox News host and judge Jeanine Pirro will soon take the helm of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia after more than a decade at the network where she was a figure in high-profile defamation cases.
May 09, 2025
Immigrants Find Workers' Rights Behind Bars

Immigration detainees are bringing about a sea change in workers’ rights behind bars, chipping away at the assumption that people in civil detention or in prison fall outside the reach of minimum wage laws and protections against forced labor.
May 09, 2025
Working While Caged: The Fight To End Forced Prison Labor

Inmates battling wildfires are just the tip of the iceberg in a largely invisible workforce of more than 800,000 people who work for meager pay while incarcerated. Civil rights lawyers, advocates and some elected officials are pushing to change the legal framework that enables prison labor practices, which many trace back to American slavery and the 13th Amendment.
May 09, 2025
Sandy Hook Families Want Alex Jones To Pay Up Amid Appeal

A Connecticut appeals court should not extend a stay on the enforcement of a $1.3 billion judgment against bankrupt Infowars host Alex Jones while he brings his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims said in opposition to his pending motion, arguing that his newly raised constitutional claims are late and meritless.
May 09, 2025
Souter's Clerks Remember Him As Humble, Kind And Caring

Former clerks of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter are heartbroken over the death of a man many of them remember more for his conscientiousness, humility, kindness and disdain for the spotlight than for his undeniable brilliance as a jurist.
May 09, 2025
More BigLaw Partners Back Jenner & Block In EO Suit

The number of BigLaw partners publicly backing litigation against the federal government over executive orders targeting firms continues to grow, as a group representing more than 800 partners and members of major U.S. law firms has filed an amicus brief in support of Jenner & Block.
May 09, 2025
GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

Stories in corporate legal news in the past week include a Fifth Circuit order affirming in part and reversing in part a Texas federal court's decision in a wrongful termination suit against Southwest Airlines, in which in-house attorneys were ordered to undergo "religious liberty training."
May 09, 2025
Hiker And 'Raconteur': Atty Recalls 50-Year Bond With Souter

Behind a towering legal legacy was a man who loved to hike mountains, could recall details of things he read decades ago and was always there for those he cared about, a New Hampshire attorney said as he reflected on a lifelong friendship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
May 09, 2025
Nonprofits Urge More Money For Judge Security Amid Threats

Good government groups on Friday urged lawmakers to increase judicial security funding amid a wave of violent threats against judges, and to reject proposals that "undercut the judiciary's independence" like stripping judges of contempt powers and the ability to issue national injunctions.
May 09, 2025
A Look At David Souter's Most Significant Opinions

The retired Justice David Souter defied simple definition, viewed as a staunch conservative until he co-wrote an opinion upholding abortion rights in 1992. He did not hew to partisan lines, but reshaped the civil litigation landscape and took an unexpected stand in an extraordinarily close presidential election.
May 09, 2025
Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

Winston & Strawn LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Jones Day lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after an Illinois federal judge held in a bellwether case in multidistrict litigation that Abbott Laboratories isn't liable for the death of a baby who consumed Similac baby formula.
May 09, 2025
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

This past week in London has seen a subsidiary of State Street Corp. sue British sports betting giant Entain, Manolete Partners and HSBC tackle action just weeks after signing a £17 million revolving credit facility agreement, and a commercial fraud claim launched by EFG Bank against Mirabaud & CIE.

Expert Analysis

New Strategies For Enhancing Firm Culture

How can law firms work toward retaining legal talent and meeting business goals? This year, Law360 guest commentary dove into tips like embracing cognitive diversity and conducting so-called stay interviews.
The Latest Legal Writing Tips

In 2024, Law360 guest experts provided advice for improving many kinds of legal writing — explaining how attorneys can use syllogistic reasoning, emulate master chefs, and clean up drafts produced by generative artificial intelligence tools.
2024 Pointers On Persuading Jurors

In a year where nuclear verdicts continued to proliferate, Law360 guest commentary focused on how trial attorneys can better select and connect with jurors, offering strategies for identifying anti-corporate sentiments and tactics to land one’s closing argument.
Associate Issues In The 2024 Spotlight

Law360 guest writers provided insights on a range of issues affecting associates this year, from the challenges of training new lawyers in the era of artificial intelligence, to nonfinancial factors that junior attorneys should consider before accepting a job offer.
ESG And DEI: The Top Guest Articles Of 2024

In their commentary on ESG and DEI topics this year, Law360 guest authors discussed Project 2025’s potential impact, the rise of greenwashing litigation, strategies for fostering employee retention amid a shaky regulatory landscape, and more.
Election Impact: The Top Guest Articles Of 2024

Donald Trump's election win initiated a deluge of predictions for the incoming administration, with Law360 guest writers covering key policy areas such as immigration, tax, energy, labor and competition, plus potential congressional themes and investigations.
Cybersecurity: The Top Guest Articles Of 2024

From the CrowdStrike failure to the plethora of new and sometimes tricky regulatory requirements, to early decisions interpreting cyberinsurance coverage, guest authors broke down the implications of the biggest cybersecurity developments this year.
AI Questions: The Top Guest Articles Of 2024

As the legal discourse surrounding artificial intelligence shifted from theoretical to concrete this year, guest commentary focused on the proliferation of new AI-related litigation, enforcement actions and best practices, while tracking the judiciary’s experimentation with generative AI.
Noncompetes: The Top Guest Articles Of 2024

Employee noncompete issues took center stage this year, as Law360 guest writers covered everything from state-level enforceability trends and alternative methods for protecting business interests, to a National Labor Relations Board ruling and the Federal Trade Commission’s attempted ban.
The Most-Read IP Law360 Guest Articles Of 2024

Double-patenting was one of the top intellectual property topics tackled in Law360’s Expert Analysis section this year, along with the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence, case distribution in the Western District of Texas, and more.
The Most-Read Securities Law360 Guest Articles Of 2024

This year, popular securities guest article topics included controversial Delaware court decisions and their legislative aftermath, as well as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s focus on emerging industries amid struggles to implement its rulemaking agenda.
The Most-Read Access To Justice Guest Articles Of 2024

Law360 guest commentary addressed several emerging access to justice issues this year, including growing case backlogs, a dearth of legal services in rural communities and amendments to long-standing sentencing policies.
The Most-Read Employment Law360 Guest Articles Of 2024

Readers were drawn to employment law commentary on a range of 2024 developments, including the U.S. Supreme Court's Title VII ruling, impactful activity from the National Labor Relations Board, and state legislation targeting employee noncompete agreements.
The Most-Read Law360 UK Guest Articles Of 2024

The start of a generational shift in U.K. employment law under Labour, a ruling on artificial intelligence-driven credit scores and strategic law firm expansion were among the hot topics U.K. Expert Analysis articles explored this year.
Reviewing 2024's Crucial Patent Law Developments

As 2024 draws to a close, significant rulings and policies aimed at modernizing long-standing legal practices or addressing emerging challenges have reached patent law, says Michael Ellenberger at Rothwell Figg.