Lawyer Accused Of Bribing DEA Agent Cuts Deal To End Case

By Pete Brush

A Florida criminal defense attorney accused of bribing a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent for law enforcement tips entered into an agreement Thursday with Manhattan federal prosecutors that will see charges against him dropped in a year.

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Ill. High Court Says Murder Case Can't Be Given To New Judge

By Parker Quinlan

A divided Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that appeals courts in the state are not allowed under the high court's rules to send cases back to trial with instructions to reassign the case to a new judge without proving either bias or prejudice from the prior judge.

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Philly Must Pay $3M To Man Police Shot, Framed For Rape

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The city of Philadelphia must pay $3 million to Termaine Hicks, a man who claimed he was wrongfully incarcerated after police shot and allegedly framed him for a 2001 rape while he attempted to help the victim lying on the ground in South Philadelphia, according to a federal judge's Thursday ruling.

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Flawed Jury Verdict Negates Rape Conviction In Mass.

By Elizabeth Daley

A man sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape during a home invasion robbery must be retried for the attack or sentenced for the lesser crime of rape because the jury didn't specify which theory it adopted in convicting him, Massachusetts' highest court said Thursday.

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LA Atty Convicted Of Laundering $2.1M From Swiss Oil Co.

By Craig Clough

A Los Angeles federal jury on Thursday found a divorce and immigration attorney guilty of money laundering, tax evasion and obstruction of justice related to a $2.1 million payment he received from a Swiss oil company while working in a government position in Nigeria that prosecutors allege was a bribe.

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Compliance Atty Who Duped Lender Wants New Trial

By Emily Sawicki

A compliance lawyer convicted of pilfering from a $20 million line of credit that a subsidiary of Emigrant Bank extended to his tax-lien business has asked a Manhattan federal judge to order a new trial, arguing that prosecutors' evidence is insufficient and that the charges were "multiplicitous," in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

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Baltimore Med Mal Atty Appeals $25M Extortion Conviction

By Parker Quinlan

A medical malpractice attorney in Baltimore who was convicted in federal court in April of attempting to extort $25 million from the University of Maryland Medical System has asked the Fourth Circuit to review his conviction, saying he was unfit to represent himself at trial.

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Wash. Sen. Opposes Full-Term Role For State's New US Atty

By Courtney Bublé

The newly installed interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington at this juncture has not been nominated for the full-term role, but one of the state's Democratic senators is already vowing to prevent his confirmation.

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Ga.'s Chief Justice Warns Of AI's Risks To Trial Evidence

By Emily Johnson

As generative artificial intelligence tools have become widely accessible, Georgia's chief justice said Thursday he's worried about how the technology can be used to manipulate and distort evidence presented in court and what the judiciary can do to prevent that. 

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9th Circ. Qualified Immunity Ruling May Limit Phone Searches

Though the Ninth Circuit affirmed police officers’ qualified immunity claims in Olson v. County of Grant earlier this year, it also established important Fourth Amendment precedent on the use of cellphone extractions that will apply more broadly in criminal investigations and prosecutions, say attorneys at The Norton Law Firm.

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Law360 Pulse Exclusive: The Billable Hour

In this package, Law360 Pulse explores the demand for rainmakers, the continued increase of hourly rates and whether artificial intelligence will finally kill the billable hour. For all Law360 readers, click to access a sample story: Why This Small-Firm Lawyer Charges $3,000 Per Hour.

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JAG Corps Sent To DC To Fill 'Critical Vacancies'

By Courtney Bublé

Military attorneys are being sent to prosecute crimes in Washington, D.C., as the Trump administration seeks to beef up prosecutions in the nation's capital as part of the federal surge of law enforcement.

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Q&A

'Be Careful,' New Mich. Chief Judge Tells Attys When Using AI

By Danielle Ferguson

Just weeks into the job, the new chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan is navigating challenges like an uptick in cases and the need for another magistrate judge, and has a word of warning for attorneys using artificial intelligence in their practice.

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Analysis

M&A Attys Hand Tasks To 'Machines' In Careful Embrace Of AI

By Al Barbarino

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a back-office tool in mergers and acquisitions legal work, but is increasingly embedded in core deal processes that help attorneys manage due diligence, draft agreements and assess risk.

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DOJ Targets BigLaw, Big Tech For Antitrust 'Gamesmanship'

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice's top antitrust official singled out technology platforms and the BigLaw attorneys who represent them Friday for "gamesmanship" by hiding key information from merger and conduct investigators, and announced a special task force "to tackle abuses that arise in our investigations."

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Fifth Circuit vacated a pair of Biden-era regulations aimed at bolstering transparency in the short-selling market.

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Panel Nixes Buzbee Win Against Atty Who Aided Campaign

By Madison Arnold

A Texas state appeals court has reversed a $765,000 summary judgment awarded to personal injury lawyer Tony Buzbee in a dispute with an attorney who said she was never paid for her contributions to his 2019 Houston mayoral campaign.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Is AI killing the billable hour — here's what general counsel need to know about how the use of artificial intelligence is affecting law firms' billing model. Anthropic has agreed to a deal to end copyright suits brought by authors who said their works were illegally used to train the company's large language model. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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DOJ Swears In 3 New Board Of Immigration Appeals Members

By Britain Eakin

The Executive Office for Immigration Review announced Friday that three new Board of Immigration Appeals members — Sheila E. Gallow, Marcos Gemoets and Kathleen K. Volkert — were sworn in during a ceremony on Thursday.

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Colorado Law Firm Faces Class Action Over Data Breach

By Zach Dupont

A Colorado law firm was hit with a proposed class action in federal court after a Utah woman claimed that the firm didn't take ample measures to protect the personal information of more than 5,000 people, which was stolen in a data breach earlier this year.

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Scores On July Bar Exam Rise Amid Dip In Test Takers

By Tracey Read

The number of examinees passing the multistate bar exam in July continued to gain momentum, with near record highs seen this summer over the past 12 years, according to an announcement from the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

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Exclusive

'I'm Flabbergasted': Fla. Atty's Accusers Rip Bar For Inaction

By Phillip Bantz

More than a year after it began receiving complaints that a Florida lawyer was ghosting clients, the state bar has yet to take action — highlighting what experts call a slow-moving process that can fail to keep pace with expansive alleged frauds.

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Law360 Names Attys Who Moved Up The Firm Ranks In Q2

A promotion to partner or election to practice group chair means a slew of new responsibilities and also lots of well-deserved recognition. Law360 reveals the list of attorneys whose commitment to legal excellence earned them highly coveted spots in the law firm leadership ranks. Find out if your old legal friends — or rivals — moved up in the second quarter of the year.

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Hub Hires: Prince Lobel, Rubin And Rudman, Weil

By Chris Villani

The dog days of summer did little to slow the churn in the Boston legal market. Prince Lobel added a veteran cybersecurity lawyer, Rubin and Rudman made a pair of partner hires, and Weil added more attorneys from Latham.

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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 Prosecco DOC Consortium bring an intellectual property claim against a distributor, the Serious Fraud Office bring a civil recovery claim against the ex-wife of a solicitor jailed over a £19.5 million fraud scheme, and law firm Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen LLP sue its former client, the bankrupt Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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Split Fed. Circ. Backs Limits On Presidential Tariff Powers

By Hailey Konnath

The Federal Circuit held Friday that President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs were improperly imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which it said makes no mention of "tariff," "duties" or "tax."

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