GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

This week's edition of GC Cheat Sheet explores which top legal officers take home the most money and why. And the general counsel of SolarWinds Corp. can finally leave its data breach regulatory problems behind after the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its unprecedented case against the company and its chief information security officer.

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Google Calls Rumble's Judge Recusal Bid 'Cynical Maneuver'

By Rae Ann Varona

Google argued Friday that a California federal judge need not recuse himself from YouTube rival Rumble's antitrust suit despite his friendship with Google's top in-house litigation chief, saying Rumble's push for the recusal was a "cynical maneuver" for its Ninth Circuit appeal of a summary judgment loss.

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Ex-Google CEO Accused Of Sex Assault, Cyberstalking

By Hailey Konnath

A woman who says she dated former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has accused him of sexually assaulting her, stealing her businesses and surveilling her devices via a "backdoor" he built with Google engineers to covertly spy on employees, according to a complaint she's trying to file in California state court.

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Florida Sues ISS, Glass Lewis Over ESG Advice

By Jessica Corso

The state of Florida is suing Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co. LLC, alleging that the proxy advisory firms are abusing their dominant place in the market by promoting ideological and environmental causes "at the expense of traditional metrics of financial growth."

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Ex-DOGE Atty Tapped As GC Of Elon Musk's AI Startup

By Gina Kim

James Burnham has been named general counsel for Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup company, xAI, after spending six months working as the top legal officer for the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: States Amp Up Worker Advocacy Units

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on why some Democratic states are bolstering workers' rights units to defend against wage theft under Trump's presidency, how a forthcoming Eleventh Circuit ruling could clarify disparate impact legal standards and how a recent Third Circuit ruling highlights the drawn-out efficacy of National Labor Relations Board rulings. 

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PBMs Say Gov't Benefits From Drug Rebates FTC Condemns

By Matthew Perlman

Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx have been given permission to seek documents they say will show the government benefits from the same type of prescription drug rebating activity that's being targeted by the Federal Trade Commission's insulin pricing case.

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Analysis

IP Notebook: Kahwa Mix-Up, WallStreetBets, Hotel California

By Ivan Moreno

This round of Law360's look at emerging copyright and trademark issues includes a Federal Circuit case over an obscure tea drink and a nod to the Eagles' "Hotel California" in a precedential decision that is a primer on having an actual intent to use a trademark.

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Veolia Inks $3B US Waste Deal As Enviri Preps GC-Led Spinoff

By Al Barbarino

France's Veolia Environnement SA will buy Clean Earth from Philadelphia-based Enviri Corp. for $3.04 billion in cash, in a deal that will double Veolia's U.S. hazardous waste operations and create an Enviri spinoff headed by Enviri's general counsel, the companies said Friday.

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Roundup

Real Estate Recap: REIT Reporting, Defining Water

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including reactions from real estate attorneys in two areas primed for deregulation.

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Writers Accuse Databricks Of Deposition Misconduct In AI Suit

By Ivan Moreno

Writers suing Databricks for allegedly using their copyrighted works for artificial intelligence training have urged a California federal judge to order defense attorneys to stop coaching witnesses during depositions, with defense counsel countering that the court should bar plaintiffs from asking "personally invasive and harassing" questions.

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OpenAI Tells 9th Circ. TM Injunction Is 'Based On Guesses'

By Dorothy Atkins

OpenAI Inc. urged the Ninth Circuit on Friday to scrap a preliminary injunction won by IYO Inc. which blocks OpenAI from using the trademark associated with acquired competitor IO Products Inc., arguing there is no evidence that IYO faces irreparable harm and the injunction is "based on guesses" about OpenAI's future products.

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Lemon Law Attys Urge Court To Kill Ford's 'Chilling' RICO Suit

By Craig Clough

Attorneys representing three lemon law firms urged a California federal judge Friday to dismiss a racketeering suit Ford Motor Co. brought against them alleging they engaged in fraudulent billing practices, with one saying the "chilling" litigation could open every lawsuit to similar claims.

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Full 6th Circ. Won't Rehear FirstEnergy Investors' Appeal

By Katryna Perera

The Sixth Circuit on Friday denied a request for a rehearing en banc of a ruling blocking FirstEnergy investors from accessing documents prepared by BigLaw firms investigating the company's $1 billion bribery scandal, after previously denying a panel rehearing and a motion for clarification on the ruling.

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Big 12 Atty Joins Southeastern Conf. As Legal Chief

By Christine DeRosa

A longtime attorney for the Big 12 collegiate athletic conference has jumped to the Southeastern Conference to serve as its new legal leader.

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DLA Piper Adds Fenwick Emerging Growth, VC Expert In LA

By James Mills

DLA Piper is boosting its corporate team, bringing in a Fenwick & West LLP venture capital ace as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

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Wells Process Reforms Serve SEC Chair's Transparency Goals

Enforcement policy changes U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins recently set forth will help fulfill his stated goal of making Division of Enforcement investigations more fair and transparent by changing the Wells process to provide recipients earlier consultations with SEC staff, greater evidence access and more time to file responses, say attorneys at Dechert.

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From Bank Loans To Private Credit: Tips For Making The Shift

The relationship between private credit and syndicated bank deals will evolve as the private market continues to grow, introducing new challenges for borrowers comparing financing options, particularly pertaining to loan documentation and working capital, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

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Opinion

Despite Deputy AG Remarks, DOJ Can't Sideline DC Bar

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent suggestion that the D.C. Bar would be prevented from reviewing misconduct complaints about U.S. Department of Justice attorneys runs contrary to federal statutes, local rules and decades of case law, and sends the troubling message that federal prosecutors are subject to different rules, say attorneys at HWG.

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Bonus Spotlight

Texas Boutique Giving Associates Bonuses Of Up To $135K

By Tracey Read

Texas complex commercial litigation boutique Vartabedian Hester & Haynes LLP announced Friday that it will reward associates with additional year-end bonuses of up to $135,000 by Dec. 31, while more firms said they'd match or exceed the prevailing BigLaw scale.

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Atty Had 6 AI Tools Check Each Other, Yet Fakes Still Cited

By Andrea Keckley

A California federal judge has sanctioned a solo practitioner representing the plaintiffs in a proposed wage and hour class action against clothing brand Vuori Inc. after he admitted to using about a half-dozen artificial intelligence tools to prepare a motion.

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Fenwick & West Must Face New Claims In FTX Crypto MDL

By Madison Arnold

A Florida federal judge signed off on a bid to file new claims against Fenwick & West LLP by victims of the infamous FTX Trading Ltd. cryptocurrency scam after they argued that new information had emerged about the firm's alleged role in the trading platform's collapse.

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Ex-Gordon Rees Atty Reprimanded For Mistakes Blamed On AI

By Rose Krebs

An Alabama bankruptcy judge won't sanction Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLC for a filing submitted by one of its former lawyers that contained mistakes blamed on artificial intelligence, but has reprimanded the attorney and ordered her to notify her clients about the reprimand.

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Worker Says Morgan & Morgan Fired Her Over Fraud Concern

By Irene Spezzamonte

Injury law firm Morgan & Morgan PA fired a case manager after she voiced a concern about fraudulent client hospital records she said the firm gave to opposing counsel to snag more favorable settlements and failed to pay overtime, according to a suit in California state court.

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Tort Report: Ga. Injury Suits Surge Ahead Of Tort Reform

By Y. Peter Kang

Word of a big surge in Georgia injury lawsuits ahead of tort reform legislation and a $66 million Atlanta nightclub shooting judgment lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Ex-US Trustee Director's Firing Appeal Tossed, For Now

By Clara Geoghegan

The former head of the U.S. Department of Justice's bankruptcy watchdog program had her appeal challenging her abrupt firing dismissed, at least for now, while a federal agency mulls questions around executive power in separate cases.

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DOJ Will Speed Some Classified Discovery In Bolton Case

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors agreed Friday to accelerate their classified discovery timeline in the prosecution of John Bolton, as a Maryland federal judge pressed them to move faster.

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Ga. Justices Spell Out How Atty Ads Can Be Misleading

By Emily Johnson

The Georgia Supreme Court has updated the State Bar of Georgia's rule that prohibits attorneys from misleading the public in advertising their services, defining how lawyers' messaging in ads could run afoul of the state's rule and possibly lead to disbarment.

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DC Judge Backs Local Grand Jury's Federal Indictment Power

By Jared Foretek

Following a D.C. federal judge's Thursday ruling that the city's unique legal structure allows prosecutors to bring indictments from local grand juries to federal court, a District of Columbia man on Friday asked the court to stay the ruling for five business days.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Clyde & Co. face a claim from Yorkshire firm GWB Harthills, a property developer previously investigated over suspected bribery and corruption sue the general counsel and solicitor to HM Revenue and Customs, and sportswear giant Gymshark bring an intellectual property claim against its co-founder's rival company, AYBL. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick PLLC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a D.C. federal judge rejected a Federal Trade Commission suit accusing Meta Platforms of illegally monopolizing social media through its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

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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.

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