'Extraordinary Circumstances': Elon Musk Faces USAID Depo

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Maryland federal judge on Wednesday said billionaire Elon Musk must testify in litigation filed by U.S. Agency for International Development employees claiming he illegally dismantled the foreign aid agency while head of the advisory organization known as the Department of Government Efficiency, saying "extraordinary circumstances justify the deposition."

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SPEX Urges Fed. Circ. To Revert Slashed $1 IP Win To $553M

By Dani Kass

SPEX Technologies Inc. is asking the Federal Circuit to reinstate the $553 million award it had won against Western Digital for patent infringement, after a California federal judge lowered it to a single dollar.

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DC Circ. Preserves Secrecy Of DOJ's Gag Orders On Google

By Allison Grande

The D.C. Circuit has rejected a nonprofit group's push to unmask applications filed by the U.S. Department of Justice that blocked Google from informing one of its email subscribers about a subpoena for some of his account data, agreeing with the lower court that the records were shielded by grand jury secrecy rules.

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USPTO's Squires Sees TMs As Key Tool Against AI Deepfakes

By Ivan Moreno

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires pitched trademarks as one of the most practical tools for combating artificial intelligence deepfakes, saying during a Wednesday webinar that name, image and likeness rights are "where the puck is going," peppering his remarks with pop culture references and sports metaphors.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Cybersecurity & Privacy Group Of The Year: Covington

By Sarah Martinson

Covington & Burling LLP helped Papa John's and Bloomingdale's win circuit court appeals in privacy class actions, helped Delta Air Lines defeat a class action over the sharing of consumer data, and assisted Lowe's and Novartis AG with billion-dollar deals — earning a spot among the 2025 Law360 Cybersecurity & Privacy Groups of the Year.

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US To Work With Mexico, Others On Trade Of Critical Minerals

By Dylan Moroses

U.S. officials will coordinate efforts with Mexico, the European Union and Japan to secure critical minerals and develop trade policies around those resources, according to announcements Wednesday by the U.S. Trade Representative's Office.

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Developing Nations See Tax Data Swaps Lacking Reciprocity

By Kevin Pinner

Developing countries' requests for taxpayer information are often denied by other countries even as the resource-strapped nations have invested resources in fulfilling incoming requests, government officials said Wednesday.

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Calif. Court Revives Walmart Worker's Background Check Suit

By Gina Kim

California appellate justices Wednesday revived a Walmart employee's lawsuit alleging the retailer added extraneous consumer reporting agencies in a background check notice during her hiring process, finding she has standing since Walmart obscured the specific agency that provided the report and the ways she could contact the agency to fix errors.

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HPE Backs DOJ Bid For Final Merger Deal Approval

By Bryan Koenig

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has endorsed the Justice Department's bid for final approval of a controversial settlement permitting the $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks, telling a California federal judge that Democratic state attorneys general have nothing but "vague and inaccurate accusations" that the deal was improper.

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Ex-Pentagon GC Joins Bradley Arant's National Security Team

By Jack Rodgers

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has hired the former legal adviser to the National Security Council, who is joining the team in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., to work with the firm's Government Enforcement & Investigations and Defense & National Security teams, the firm announced Tuesday.

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Anticipating The SEC's Cybersecurity Focus After SolarWinds

While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent voluntary dismissal of its enforcement action against SolarWinds Corp. and its chief information security officer marks a significant victory for the defendants, it does not mean the SEC is done bringing cybersecurity cases, say attorneys at MoFo.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Resilience

Resilience is a skill acquired through daily practices that focus on learning from missteps, recovering quickly without internalizing defeat and moving forward with intention, says Nicholas Meza at Quarles & Brady.

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Paul Weiss' Karp Steps Back After Epstein Email Revelations

By Hailey Konnath and Aebra Coe

Longtime Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP chair Brad S. Karp has resigned from his leadership role, the firm announced Wednesday, a move that comes after the U.S. Department of Justice released numerous emails between Karp and Jeffrey Epstein.

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Baker McKenzie To Downsize Business Professional Jobs

By Tracey Read

Baker McKenzie, which has a legal services hub in Tampa, Florida, is in the process of downsizing business professionals' jobs, a firm spokesperson confirmed to Law360 Pulse on Wednesday.

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Ex-DLA Piper Partner Aims To Toss Claim He Raped Associate

By Jack Karp

Allegations that an ex-DLA Piper partner raped a former Boston-based associate in Delaware in 2022 should be tossed since the Massachusetts state court the case was filed in has no jurisdiction over the Delaware claim, according to the accused former partner.

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Goldstein Accountant Admits Tax Return Errors

By Jared Foretek

A star government witness and the top outside accountant for SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein and his law firm admitted to making mistakes on Goldstein's tax returns and offering the grand jury erroneous testimony, under cross-examination in the U.S. Supreme Court lawyer's tax fraud trial Wednesday.

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Analysis

Clemency Was 'Broken' Long Before Trump. Can It Be Fixed?

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump has transformed what has historically been a bureaucratic process for seeking federal pardons and commutations into a more freewheeling affair with few clear rules — and no easy solutions for reform, experts say.

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Wachtel Missry Settles Liability In $26M Atty Malpractice Case

By Emily Sawicki

A dispute over who is liable for a former Wachtel Missry LLP partner's alleged exploitation of an elderly client has been settled on the eve of trial, while the Brooklyn federal judge declined to consider recusing himself despite "inadvertently" meeting with the firm's founding partner before the matter was fully put to rest.

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Ex-Fox News Host Decries Judge Pick's Arbitration Stance

By Courtney Buble

Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News anchor and a leading advocate for ending forced arbitration of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, has come out against a federal judicial nominee for Louisiana for her past comments on the issue.

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Trump Bid To Move NY Appeal Faces 'Fatal' Error, Judge Says

By Frank G. Runyeon

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday repeatedly aired doubts that President Donald Trump can upend the pending New York state appeal of his hush-money conviction by moving the case to federal court.

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