California Pulse


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    California Wildfire Litigator Joins Sterlington From Buchalter

    Sterlington PLLC announced Monday that an experienced litigation attorney with a niche practice focusing on matters related to wildfires has joined the New York-based firm from Buchalter PC and will work remotely from Sacramento, California.

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    What Happens When The Only Lawyer In Town Retires?

    Many rural attorneys, often the only lawyer in town, work until they die or simply close their practices when they retire. But small to mid-sized firms looking to expand into rural markets could help to make succession planning a real possibility for these solo practitioners.

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    First-Gen Students Pressured By Earlier BigLaw Recruiting

    Students who are the first in their families to attend law school have been thrown a new challenge at the beginning of their legal journeys, as BigLaw accelerates their recruitment timelines.

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    What Summer Associates Learned From Working At Firms

    From learning how to come back from mistakes to cross-team collaboration, this year's summer associates came away with lessons that will help them succeed in their future careers. Here's what they want law students to know as they begin their own journeys.

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    The 2026 Summer Associate Experience: AI Led The Way

    Summer associate programs give law students an up-close look at changes unfolding in the legal industry, and a new Law360 Pulse survey found artificial intelligence use and pay have reached new heights.

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    Sullivan & Cromwell Adding Kirkland Private Equity M&A Attys

    Sullivan & Cromwell LLP announced Tuesday that four private equity mergers and acquisitions attorneys are moving to the firm from Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

  • Man Cops To Bombing Calif. Courthouse Over Gun Seizure

    A California man pled guilty on Monday to setting off a bomb at a Santa Barbara County courthouse in 2024 as retaliation for law enforcement officers taking away his firearms.

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    Disney Taps Warner Bros. Atty As Corp. Transactions Lead

    Disney has expanded its corporate transactions legal team with the addition of Warner Bros. Discovery's senior vice president of business and legal affairs, according to an internal memo.

  • State Farm Attorney Sanctioned $999.99 For AI Hallucinations

    An attorney for State Farm who filed several motions citing nonexistent cases and fabricated quotes generated by AI software must pay a $999.99 sanction, a Los Angeles judge ruled, an amount one cent below the threshold that would have triggered a mandatory notice to the State Bar of California under state law.

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    One County, One Lawyer: Legal Deserts Take A Human Toll

    Divorce is often hard, but it is harder still when there’s just one lawyer in town. The story of one divorcing couple in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula illustrates the financial costs and emotional pain of living in a legal desert, and it helps explain why lawyer shortages are spreading throughout rural America. This story introduces Law360 Pulse’s special series on legal deserts.

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    Morgan & Morgan Plans $1B In AI Spending, Unveils Platform

    Personal injury firm Morgan & Morgan formally announced Monday that it has been running a proprietary artificial intelligence platform over the past few years while also committing to spend at least $1 billion on AI and technology improvements over the next decade.

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    K&L Gates Hires 6-Atty Pillsbury Team In California, Texas

    K&L Gates LLP announced Monday that it recently added six attorneys from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP to bolster its corporate, intellectual property, litigation, and labor and employment practices.

  • Jackson Lewis Removes Ex-Atty's Bias Suit To Federal Court

    Jackson Lewis PC has moved a former associate's suit accusing the firm of refusing to accommodate her temporary work restrictions following her medical leave to California federal court, saying state court wasn't the right venue for dispute.

  • Attys Must Arbitrate $8 Oil To Fight $625K Sanction: 9th Circ.

    Class action lawyers slapped with six-figure sanctions for suing Walmart Inc. based on erroneous purchase information can't yet challenge the discipline, the Ninth Circuit ruled, suggesting they may first need to arbitrate grievances over an $8 bottle of avocado oil.

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    ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

    With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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    2 Former BigLaw Attys Open SF Litigation Boutique

    Two former partners at Greenberg Traurig LLP and Levin Law PA have launched a new boutique focusing on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and cybersecurity in the San Francisco Bay area, they announced this week.

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    Anti-Trans Care Push Continues Despite Big Proxy Losses

    While conservative investor groups filed at least six shareholder proposals focused on transgender care coverage for minors during the 2025-2026 proxy season, all have been overwhelmingly defeated — with the most recent coming this week at Nike Inc.

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    Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

    Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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    Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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    Law Firm Leasing Marks Record In Second Quarter Of 2026

    The second quarter of 2026 was a record quarterly high for law firm leasing, with 7.3 million square feet of office space leased from April to June in the U.S. legal sector, according to a new report from commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

  • Voir Dire: Law360 Pulse's Weekly Quiz

    The legal industry had another busy week as Law360 released new diversity data exploring the representation of women and people of color at U.S. law firms. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse's weekly quiz.

  • Jay-Z Can't Undo Buzbee's Win In Rapper's Defamation Suit

    A California state appeals court has refused to revive claims that Texas attorney Tony Buzbee defamed and extorted music superstar Jay-Z by roping him into a sexual abuse suit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, saying the case was properly thrown out under California's free speech statute.

  • Ex-Immigration Judge Sues For Retaliatory Termination

    A former immigration judge in California has sued Attorney General Todd Blanche, claiming she was fired after raising concerns about a spring 2025 directive ordering her and her colleagues to grant every motion to change venue filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement trial attorneys.

  • DOJ Urges High Court To Revisit 9th Circ.'s Bar Of Nev. US Atty

    The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit a recent Ninth Circuit ruling disqualifying the Trump administration's top federal prosecutor in Nevada, calling it a decision that imposes "ongoing confusion" in the executive branch.

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    Legal Network TerraLex Names Norton Rose Exec As CEO

    Florida-based legal network TerraLex has tapped a former executive at Norton Rose Fulbright to serve as the company's CEO.

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Expert Analysis

  • An After-Placement Plan Maximizes Legal Content's Potential Author Photo

    Before landing a published quote, feature or interview, law firms should articulate the content’s purpose and develop a strategic plan for repurposing it to ensure they’re aligning public relations efforts with measurable business outcomes, says John Hellerman at Hellerman Communications.

  • Ask A Mentor: How Should I Coordinate Pro Bono Projects? Author Photo

    Julie LaEace at Perkins Coie offers tips for attorneys acting as pro bono coordinators, including how to choose appropriate projects, how to encourage participation and why it is important to keep in touch with legal aid partner organizations.

  • 6 Strategies For Navigating Legal Leadership Transitions Author Photo

    Amid uncertainty in the legal job market, attorneys who are considering a transition to a leadership role must fundamentally reimagine their approach to value creation and develop a new set of skills, say Stacy Bratcher at Cottage Health and Michael Watkins at Genesis Advisers.

  • The Augmented Lawyer: Crafting Responsible AI Policies Author Photo

    As the legal industry increasingly looks to impose responsive guardrails for artificial intelligence use, firms and organizations’ internal use policies, outside counsel guidelines and vendor contracts can address confidentiality and data retention concerns in several ways, say attorneys at KXT Law.

  • 6 Ways To Build Pro Bono Culture If You Lack Dedicated Staff Author Photo

    Firms can develop a strong pro bono culture without hiring dedicated professionals through strategies like demonstrating active involvement by leadership, tailoring volunteer tasks to individual professional development needs and building trusted partnerships within the legal aid community, says Stacy Zinken at Paladin.

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    Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Extend Your Content's Life Author Photo

    Attorneys often limit the impact of their thought leadership by letting their content languish after initial publication, but through four easy strategies for retooling existing content, they can maximize its reach and further their business development goals, says Jillian McKenna at Verrill Dana.

  • Why Law Firm Leaders Should Care About Student Debt Crisis Author Photo

    ​​​​​​​As the student debt crisis evolves under changing federal policies, firms that proactively address the burden will have significant advantages in recruiting and retaining the best young lawyers, says Brian Kabateck at Kabateck.

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    Talking Mental Health: Encouraging New Attys To Find Joy Author Photo

    Rudene Haynes at Hunton discusses her experiences as a hiring partner, common sources of stress that newer attorneys face and steps that law firms can take to protect their attorneys' mental health and encourage personal life fulfillment.

  • Fla. Bar's Cyber Incident Response Plan Sets Precedent Author Photo

    The incident response plan developed by the Florida Bar's cybersecurity and privacy committee might not seem all that consequential, but it's a long overdue framework that could go a long way toward protecting the highly sensitive data law firms handle — and could even set a model for other professional organizations to follow, says Chris Boehm at Zero Networks.

  • Why Attorneys Should Write About Justices' Minority Opinions Author Photo

    Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s searing dissents this past term serve as a reminder for attorneys to analyze U.S. Supreme Court minority opinions in their thought leadership for three key reasons, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.

  • 3 Business Development Lessons From Mozart's 'Magic Flute' Author Photo

    Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” offers a useful framework for attorneys to build relationships and develop new business, inspired by Prince Tamino’s curiosity, courage and consistency, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.

  • 5 Ways Legal Teams Can Use KPIs To Quantify Their Value Author Photo

    As in-house legal departments are increasingly expected to do more with less, developing a thoughtful framework to measure key performance indicators can help them both maximize and demonstrate their contribution to business success, say co-founders at New Era ADR.

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    Defining The Culture For A Legal Nonprofit Author Photo

    We co-founded The International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators to connect leading trial lawyers, litigation experts and academics, and our experience has shown that embracing opportunity, responding fearlessly to market realities, and relentlessly defining the organization’s culture have all been integral to success, say Stéphane Bonifassi, Lincoln Caylor and Elizabeth Ortega.

  • 5 Emerging Themes Shaping Lateral Partner Moves This Year Author Photo

    A few key trends have arisen in partners’ lateral movements in the first half of 2025, reflecting a legal market defined by macroeconomic uncertainty, shifts in firm structures and rising scrutiny of firm affiliations, say legal recruiters at Macrae.

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    Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Be A Mentor Or Mentee Author Photo

    Mentorship is a powerful tool for business development when both mentors and mentees approach their relationships with strategic purpose, ensuring professional success while supporting broader business goals, say Angela Liu at Dechert and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.

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