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California Pulse
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Squire Patton Lands Ex-Perkins Coie LA Head In Duo Pickup
Squire Patton Boggs said Monday that it has bolstered its global labor and employment practice by adding two attorneys from Perkins Coie LLP, including its former Los Angeles office leader.
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Law Firm Data Breaches Hit New High As Threats Escalate
Despite years of warnings and heavy cybersecurity spending, law firms remain prime targets for cybercriminals, with breaches hitting record highs in 2024, according to a Law360 Pulse analysis that found even top firms struggling to contain the fallout.
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Longtime Loeb & Loeb Corporate Atty Joins Raines Feldman
Raines Feldman Littrell LLP announced that an experienced attorney who's spent over 25 years working on a wide range of corporate and restructuring matters has joined the firm's Los Angeles office as a partner from Loeb & Loeb LLP.
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Simpson Thacher Mourns Chair, Pioneering Dealmaker Beattie
Richard "Dick" Beattie, the senior chairman of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP whose pioneering deal work helped cement private equity's place in mergers and acquisitions, died on Friday at 86, the firm announced.
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Early Support Key To Fixing Legal Profession's Diversity Gap
A lack of early support and systemic barriers continue to block underrepresented students from entering the legal profession, attorneys and legal educators warned at a Friday panel, calling for expanded investment in pipeline programs despite recent legal challenges to diversity initiatives.
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Baker McKenzie Names Int'l Trade Chief As Global Chair
Baker McKenzie said Monday that it has elected the head of its international trade practice to become its new global chair.
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LA Complex Civil Litigation Judge Joins JAMS As Mediator
JAMS has welcomed a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to its roster who spent more than three decades on the bench, where he presided over individual matters, as well as complex civil litigation from mass torts, labor, toxic contamination and insurance disputes.
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Buchalter Lands Duane Morris Securities Litigator In SF
Buchalter PC is expanding its litigation team, bringing in a Duane Morris LLP securities litigation ace as a shareholder in its San Francisco office.
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Flaws Remain In Bar Fitness Queries, Summit Panelists Say
Many current state bar character and fitness tests fail to identify bad actors, and at the same time, certain aspects of the queries can hurt efforts to increase diversity in the profession, according to panelists at the American Bar Association's 2025 Virtual Equity Summit on Friday.
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Calif. Bar Hires Investigator To Review Exam Snafu
The State Bar of California's board of trustees voted to approve a $185,000 contract with a nonprofit to review "exam scoring irregularities and testing accommodations" from its fraught February 2025 bar exam.
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Legal Sector Jobs Ticked Up In May Amid Uncertain Economy
The U.S. legal industry added 1,100 jobs in May, holding steady in the midst of economic uncertainty, according to preliminary data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week
The University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and attorney Edward Gilbert lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Sixth Circuit's ruling that plaintiffs claiming anti-heterosexual workplace discrimination need to provide extra "background circumstances" evidence.
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Expert Witness Biz Says Ex-Worker Stole Trade Secrets
Litili, a company that connects expert witnesses to attorneys working on civil cases, has brought a lawsuit in California state court against its former account representative, alleging she took the firm's confidential proprietary business information and used it in her new role at a competing business.
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Calif. Panel Remands Fee Claims Over Evidence Exclusion
A California trial court erred when it blocked any reference to underlying legal malpractice allegations in a trial for recovery of fees brought by a San Francisco lawyer against his former clients, according to a Golden State appeals panel, which found the malpractice claims, though "effectively abandoned," had not reached final judgment on the merits.
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Why Guided Talks Are Key To Retaining Women Attys
At an American Bar Association summit session on inclusive workplace practices on Thursday, one panelist noted that one of the ABA's recent recommendations is to engage in guided conversations throughout law firms and across the legal profession. But what exactly is a guided conversation?
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Greenberg Traurig Adds Perkins Coie Tech Transactions Pro
Greenberg Traurig LLP is expanding its technology team, bringing in a Perkins Coie LLP transactions whiz as a shareholder in its San Diego office.
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Voir Dire: Law360 Pulse's Weekly Quiz
The legal industry began June with another action-packed week as BigLaw firms expanded their presence and offerings. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse’s weekly quiz.
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Pillsbury Brings On Buchalter IP Co-Leader In San Diego
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP is boosting its intellectual property team, announcing Thursday it is bringing on the former co-chair of Buchalter PC's intellectual property practice as a partner in its San Diego office.
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Which GCs Sold Stock In May? Intuit, Microsoft, Loar Holdings
Microsoft's Brad Smith may not carry the title anymore, but he is still the company's top lawyer, and he cashed in $35.3 million worth of company stock in May. Other big law department winners last month were Intuit's Kerry McLean with $12.18 million and Loar Holdings Inc.'s Michael Manella with $12 million.
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Boom In Nonequity Partner Tiers Test Law Firms' 'Discipline'
As nonequity partnership tiers expand across U.S. law firms, experts warn that the model, while effective for retaining talent and controlling costs, demands disciplined management oversight to avoid becoming a liability.
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After Strong 2024 Growth, US Firms Face Looming Uncertainty
Domestic lawyer headcount growth among the 400 largest law firms in the U.S. picked up speed in 2024, rising 3.1% on average and outpacing growth the previous year, but experts say the winds that bolstered that expansion may have shifted as a result of macroeconomic uncertainty.
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The Law360 400: Tracking The Largest US Law Firms
Many of the largest law firms in the U.S. had a strong year in 2024. And as demand for their services ticked upward they invested in bench strength, boosting the number of lawyers available to assist clients, our latest ranking of the largest U.S. law firms shows.
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Davis Wright Adds Coblentz Patch Wine Industry Expert In SF
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is expanding its food and beverage team, bringing in a Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP transactional attorney specializing in the wine and hospitality industry as a partner in its San Francisco office.
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Taylor Duma Chair On Firm's Future After Leaders' Departures
Following a string of departures from the firm now known as Taylor Duma LLP — most notably a former name partner and a onetime managing partner — founding partner and Chairman Marc A. Taylor said the midsize law firm has a plan to grow in a more efficient and agile manner.
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Weil Lands DLA Piper Entertainment And Sports Ace In LA
Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP is expanding its transactional team in California, announcing Wednesday that it is bringing in a DLA Piper entertainment, sports and media dealmaker as a partner in its Los Angeles office.
Expert Analysis
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Making Legal Cents: How To Adapt As Clients Tighten Budgets
Amid a dip in corporate legal spending and client pushback on bills, Shireen Hilal at Maior Consultants highlights specific in-house counsel frustrations and explains how firms can provide customized legal advice with costs that are supported by undeniable value.
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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.
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General Counsel And Legal Ops Must Work Together
It is critical for general counsel to ensure that a legal operations leader is viewed not only as a peer, but as a strategic leader for the organization, and there are several actionable ways general counsel can not only become more involved, but help champion legal operations teams and set them up for success, says Mary O'Carroll at Ironclad.
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How Generative AI's Growing Memory Affects Lawyers
A new ChatGPT feature that can remember user information across different conversations has broad implications for attorneys, whose most pressing questions for the AI tool are usually based on specific, and large, datasets, says legal tech adviser Eric Wall.
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A Model For Optimal Legal Tech Investment Strategy
Legal organizations struggling to work out the right technology investment strategy may benefit from using a matrix for legal department efficiency that is based on an understanding of where workloads belong, according to the basic functions and priorities of a corporate legal team, says Sylvain Magdinier at Integreon.
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Series
My Nonpracticing Law Job: Recruiter
Self-proclaimed "Lawyer Doula" Danielle Thompson at Major Lindsey shares how she went from Columbia Law School graduate and BigLaw employment associate to a career in legal recruiting — and discovered a passion for advocacy along the way.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Do I Balance Social Activism With My Job?
Corporate attorneys pursuing social justice causes outside of work should consider eight guidelines for finding equilibrium between their beliefs and their professional duties and reputation, say Diedrick Graham, Debra Friedman and Simeon Brier at Cozen O'Connor.
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Personality Tests And Machine Learning Applications In Law
Mateusz Kulesza at McDonnell Boehnen looks at potential applications of personality testing based on machine learning techniques for law firms, and the implications this shift could have for lawyers, firms and judges, including how it could make the work of judges and other legal decision-makers much more difficult.
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AI Is Reshaping Lawyering: What To Expect In 2024
The future of lawyering is not about the wholesale replacement of attorneys by artificial intelligence, but as AI handles more of the routine legal work, the role of lawyers will evolve to be more strategic, requiring the development of competencies beyond traditional legal skills, says Colin Levy at Malbek.
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Embrace Active Voice In Legal Writing — In Most Cases
Legal writers should strive to craft sentences in the active voice to promote brevity and avoid ambiguities that can spark litigation, but writing in the passive voice is sometimes appropriate — when it's a moral choice and not a grammatical failure, says Diana Simon at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Help Associates Turn Down Work?
Marina Portnova at Lowenstein Sandler discusses what partners can do to aid their associates in setting work-life boundaries, especially around after-hours assignment availability.
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How AI Legal Research Tools Are Shifting Law Firm Processes
Although artificial intelligence-powered legal research is ushering in a new era of legal practice that augments human expertise with data-driven insights, it is not without challenges involving privacy, ethics and more, so legal professionals should take steps to ensure AI becomes a reliable partner rather than a source of disruption, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.
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Data Source Proliferation Is A Growing E-Discovery Challenge
With the increased usage of collaboration apps and generative artificial intelligence solutions, it's not only important for e-discovery teams to be able to account for hundreds of existing data types today, but they should also be able to add support for new data types quickly — even on the fly if needed, says Oliver Silva at Casepoint.
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Bracing For A Generative AI Revolution In Law
With many legal professionals starting to explore practical uses of generative artificial intelligence in areas such as research, discovery and legal document development, the fundamental principle of human oversight cannot be underscored enough for it to be successful, say Ty Dedmon at Bradley Arant and Paige Hunt at Lighthouse.
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Why I Use ChatGPT To Tell Me Things I Already Know
The legal profession is among the most hesitant to adopt ChatGPT because of its proclivity to provide false information as if it were true, but in a wide variety of situations, lawyers can still be aided by information that is only in the right ballpark, says Robert Plotkin at Blueshift IP.