Business of Law
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June 8, 2017
Justices’ Financial Disclosures Show More Stock Selloffs
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito, the only U.S. Supreme Court members that hold stock in individual public companies, continued to sell off those securities last year, according to a watchdog group’s analysis Thursday of newly released financial disclosures.
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June 8, 2017
Law360's Weekly Verdict: Legal Lions & Lambs
Jenner & Block LLP landed on top of this week’s legal lions list for a win at the U.S. Supreme Court limiting SEC disgorgement orders, while King & Spalding LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP were dealt a blow when a New York bankruptcy judge cleared the way for millions of product liability claims to proceed against their client, General Motors.
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June 8, 2017
Sidley Litigation Chief Leaves To Run Legal Aid Nonprofit
The Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago on Thursday announced that a Sidley Austin LLP partner and Chicago litigation chief will be joining the organization as executive director.
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June 8, 2017
Senate Panel OKs Noel Francisco For Solicitor General Post
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved two of President Donald Trump’s nominees for top spots in his administration: Noel Francisco, who was tapped to be the U.S. solicitor general, and Steven Engel, who was chosen to lead the Office of Legal Counsel.
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June 8, 2017
LexisNexis Picks Up San Francisco Startup Ravel Law
LexisNexis Legal & Professional has agreed to acquire Ravel Law, a venture-backed legal research and analytics firm that has developed artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies that enable attorneys to quickly and efficiently mine and glean insight from court documents, the companies said Thursday.
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June 8, 2017
Atty Charged With Wife's Murder Tried To Sway Case, Says DA
An Atlanta attorney pled not guilty at an arraignment hearing on Tuesday to the charge of murdering his wife, while also fielding accusations that he was trying to sway witnesses and a judge via telephone calls from jail.
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June 8, 2017
How 3M And Sears Are Slashing Their Law Firm Rosters
Across the corporate world, legal departments have been striving to shrink their panel of go-to outside law firms and reduce their legal spend. Here, operations professionals from 3M and Sears explain the steps they’ve taken to downsize their law firm rosters.
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June 7, 2017
Meet Trump's Picks For The Federal Appellate Bench
President Donald Trump’s judicial nominations on Wednesday brought three federal appeals candidates into the spotlight, including a member of the president’s shortlist for the U.S. Supreme Court, a judge who oversaw a massive challenge to the Clean Water Act, and one of the lawyers behind the high court’s limitation of laches as an intellectual property defense.
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June 7, 2017
Del. Senate Confirms Supreme Court Nominee Gary Traynor
Delaware Supreme Court nominee Gary F. Traynor won swift and unanimous state Senate confirmation Wednesday after a short series of questions on a long and relatively winding legal career.
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June 7, 2017
Trump Taps 11 For Federal Bench In Bid To Reshape Courts
President Donald Trump announced his latest batch of picks for the federal bench Wednesday, including three for appellate courts.
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June 7, 2017
Fla. Federal Court District To See Its 4th Bench Vacancy
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard will take senior status on July 1, creating a fourth vacancy on the already short-staffed bench of the Southern District of Florida, the clerk's office confirmed Wednesday.
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June 7, 2017
#AppellateTwitter Becomes Internet Hotspot For Legal Nerds
A spur-of-the-moment tweet from a Texas appellate lawyer a year ago spawned a hashtag that has turned into a vibrant corner of the internet responsible for connecting the country’s appellate lawyers, birthing deep friendships and leading to real-life benefits like case referrals.
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June 7, 2017
Jurors' Anti-Attorney Bias Is More Paranoia Than Fact
Anti-lawyer bias lurks in the hearts of jurors, so attorneys should think twice before defending a legal malpractice suit all the way to trial, right? Not so fast. While it’s axiomatic among many practitioners that jurors aren’t inclined to give them a fair shake, experts say that anxiety is often overblown, or simply wrong-headed.
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June 7, 2017
Plaintiffs Bar Perspective: Motley Rice's Donald Migliori
Wait for the overzealous defense lawyer to sell a fact that is easily disproven. That’s how you get a jury to stop listening to the defense of the case, says Donald Migliori of Motley Rice LLC.
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June 7, 2017
King & Spalding Partner Named As New FBI Chief
President Donald Trump said via Twitter Wednesday that he will nominate King & Spalding LLP partner Christopher A. Wray, a former Bush administration lawyer who later represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the Bridgegate scandal, to become the next director of the FBI after firing former director James Comey in a high-profile episode nearly a month ago.
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June 6, 2017
Latham ‘Hoodwinked’ IP Suit Judge, Calif. High Court Told
Two ex-Flir Systems executives urged the California Supreme Court Tuesday to revive their malicious prosecution claims against Latham & Watkins LLP for bringing a trade secrets suit in bad faith, arguing Latham’s initial success “hoodwinking” a lower court judge can’t now preclude suing the firm.
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June 6, 2017
Davis Polk Partner In Calif. Hit By Train, Killed
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP partner and head of its India practice Kirtee Kapoor died on Monday after reportedly being struck by a train in a Northern California town near Menlo Park.
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June 6, 2017
Chadbourne Still Stalling On Discovery, Female Lawyers Say
Chadbourne & Parke LLP is stonewalling on discovery in a $100 million proposed gender bias class action until the firm’s bid to toss the case plays out, the female attorneys behind the suit told a New York federal court Monday.
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June 6, 2017
Fla. Bar Urges 3-Judge Panels For County Court Appeals
The Florida Bar urged the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to adopt rules requiring that appeals from county courts be heard by three-judge panels, a change some justices said could strain resources in small counties.
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June 6, 2017
3 Tips For Finding The Right Fee Arrangement
Finding a value-based fee arrangement that works for both law firm and client can be tricky, but the process can be simplified by balancing the complexity of the work with client expectations, according to a Monday presentation at the ACC Legal Operations conference in Chicago.
DLA Piper Hit As Global Hack Shuts Down Networks
Dentons' Low-Tech Email Breach Shows Firms' Vulnerability
Justice Sotomayor On The Power Of Dissent
Justice Sotomayor On Working A Room And The Post-Scalia Void
DLA Piper Hit As Global Hack Shuts Down Networks
Global law firm DLA Piper was among the several international companies and agencies hit with a ransomware attack that spread across Europe and the U.S., taking down many of the firm's phone and email systems Tuesday.
Dentons' Low-Tech Email Breach Shows Firms' Vulnerability
The arrest Thursday of a former Dentons litigation associate for allegedly trying to extort firm partners using information taken from a superior's email account cast a spotlight on how even the most robust cybersecurity measures can fall short if basic good practices are not maintained.
Justice Sotomayor On The Power Of Dissent
Justice Sonia Sotomayor discusses her views on writing dissents and the change she hopes they inspire in the law, in the second of two articles based on an exclusive interview with the 111th justice.
Justice Sotomayor On Working A Room And The Post-Scalia Void
Justice Sonia Sotomayor discusses the one thing she hates seeing at oral arguments, why diversity matters on the federal bench, and her habit of embracing audience members at live talks, in the first of two articles based on an exclusive interview with the 111th justice.
Editor's Picks
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The Law360 400
The Law360 400 features the largest U.S.-based law firms and vereins with a U.S. component, as measured by domestic attorney headcount.
Expert Analysis
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Series
My Strangest Day In Court: When The Witness Attacked
Focused on my final argument notes, I nonetheless noticed a pause in the cross-examination of my client. Then I saw a flutter of activity out of the corner of my right eye, recalls James Brosnahan of Morrison & Foerster LLP.
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Lawyers In Flow: Get Out Of Your Head And Into Your Case
If Time Magazine is correct in that being a lawyer is one of the five worst high-paying jobs, it may be time for the legal profession to pull one from the playbook of musicians and professional athletes and seek to enter a state of “flow,” says Jennifer Gibbs of Zelle LLP.
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Satire
A Law Firm Ranking Model By 'Fake News & Distorted Reports'
Suffering from law firm ranking fatigue? Bewildered by the methodologies? If so, you're in good company. Alan Morrison, associate dean for public interest and public service law at George Washington University Law School, wonders just how far law firm ranking efforts may go.
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Opinion
Calif. Nearer To Needed Mediation Reform
Recently proposed reforms to California's mediation confidentiality laws increase consumer protection and promote the rule of law, while protecting the effectiveness of mediation. However, one additional dimension of reform is needed to ensure fair trials, says Jeff Kichaven of Jeff Kichaven Commercial Mediation.
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A Jury Consultant Reviews 'You, The Jury'
Following the premiere on Friday of a new Fox unscripted series, “You, The Jury” — in which millions of home viewers voted on the verdict in a murder trial — jury consultant Roy Futterman reviews the episode and considers how this show might affect actual jurors.
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Crowdfunding For Legal Cases: 5 Trends Reshaping Justice
Most people have never had an opportunity to personally take part in a legal case that directly challenges laws or policies they don’t agree with. Now that crowdfunding is available for legal cases, people can engage directly with legal change in the community and be a check on the powerful, says Julia Salasky, CEO of CrowdJustice.
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Opinion
ABA Needs A New Model Legal Ethics Rule
Perhaps lost in the presidential post-election tumult was a report issued in late 2016 by an international body evaluating U.S. compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards. Considering repeated criticisms of the legal profession, the American Bar Association should seriously consider a new model legal ethics rule, says Kevin Shepherd of Venable LLP.
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What Does Lateral Partner Success Look Like?
In the final segment of his series on lateral recruitment, Howard Flack, a partner of Volta Talent Strategies LLC and former leader of the lateral partner recruiting team at Hogan Lovells, shares a number of factors law firms should consider when measuring lateral hire success.
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Opinion
Gorsuch, Roe And 'Superprecedent'
The Senate must now make a decision that holds the potential of striking at the essence of what it means to live in a free nation of laws, where each of us has the right to define who we love, who we are, and the very purpose of our lives — and it must do so without the benefit of essential information, says Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
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Are Lateral Recruitment Opportunities Shaping Your Strategy?
In the second installment of this series on lateral recruiting, Howard Flack of Volta Talent Strategies LLC challenges law firms to ask themselves whether business strategies are determining lateral hires — or vice versa.