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This was another action-packed week for the legal industry as BigLaw made new hires across offices and practices. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse's weekly quiz.
A Houston-based law firm doesn't have to turn over financial documents to a litigation funder that has alleged the firm failed to pay back a more than $2 million debt, but it does have to continue litigating the underlying matter, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
A Colorado appellate court Thursday partially reversed a lower court decision awarding roughly $3.1 million to a Denver firm for its work on behalf of Elijah McClain's family in connection with a $15 million federal litigation settlement, ruling that the firm is only entitled to about $1.4 million.
An appeal of a contempt-of-court order by NFL-player-turned-lawyer Walter Bernard is moot because the underlying dispute over unpaid rent has been settled and Bernard has been released from jail, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled.
A solo practitioner in Greenwich, Connecticut, denied blame on Thursday for having "concocted" an unflattering New York Post article that said a Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP partner and his wife were squatting in a Connecticut mansion during a heated legal battle with their landlord.
The son of music industry figure Solomon "Kal" Rudman has asked a New Jersey federal judge to toss a claim that he filed baseless counterclaims in state court against a South Florida attorney, arguing that the attorney's removal as an executor of Rudman's estate was not due to the son's counterclaims.
A California state appeals court has revived an Orange County attorney's defamation suit over comments made in a YouTube video regarding her father's affiliation with the Vietnamese Communist party.
The increasing visibility of whistleblowers and a growing array of government incentives designed to bring them forward are fueling growth for the legal industry as new practices focused on alleged corporate fraud and misconduct have set up shop in recent months.
More than half of recent law school graduates are choosing jobs at law firms, an uptick from recent years, and some students and administrators say there’s a simple reason: mounting student loan debt.
Derek Loeser's path to becoming one of the country's sharpest litigators, winning major cases against large corporations including Facebook and Wells Fargo, may very well have started at his family's dinner table when he was young.
Chamberlain Hrdlicka White Williams & Aughtry PC has rehired one of its former tax attorneys, who joins the firm in Atlanta after working at a tax law-focused boutique, the firm announced Wednesday.
Delaware-headquartered Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico LLC has promoted an administrator to chief operating officer so he can take on additional duties to help steer the firm's strategic vision moving forward.
Washington's high court has declined to hear a personal injury lawyer's challenge to his old firm's fee-splitting agreement, letting stand a state appellate court's ruling that the contract had "clear and unequivocal language" compelling him to pass on half the fees he earned from the firm's former clients after his departure.
It is in the best interest of clients for their legal counsel to avoid sharing information related to representation while seeking advice in an online listserv forum, if the comments or questions could be connected to a client's identity, according to American Bar Association guidance published Wednesday.
A Michigan attorney will spend more time in prison than planned after failing to keep up his side of a plea agreement he made with the state attorney general when he admitted to stealing more than $140,000 from an elderly client.
In light of its recent bankruptcy filing, a Texas federal judge has paused class claims against a beleaguered Texas law firm accused of misconduct in soliciting clients in hurricane-related property damage cases, but the case remains active against a legal funding outfit and other defendants.
A disbarred Pennsylvania attorney has been sentenced to 30 days to a year in prison after pleading guilty on Friday for having presented fake court documents to clients with forged signatures, including those of judges, and misrepresenting the status of their cases.
An American Bar Association commission will issue a report and recommendations by August on the practice of requiring would-be lawyers to disclose and discuss their experiences of sexual violence during the attorney licensure process.
New Jersey regional firm Hyland Levin Shapiro LLP leveled up its real estate practice this week with the hire of a Ballard Spahr LLP attorney of more than five years, bringing significant experience in commercial real estate in and out of the law.
A semester off from Harvard University in the late 1980s meant for reflection instead turned into a pivotal moment in Kelly Dermody's life, settling the roots for her successful career during which she has become a lighthouse for employment and discrimination cases.
The law schools at Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia are renowned for effectively serving as training grounds for BigLaw. But while they may consistently send the most graduates, other law schools are sending a higher percentage of their grads to larger firms.
Despite a growing interest in alternative career paths, most law students still gravitate towards joining private law firms, according to the American Bar Association's latest data. Find out which schools came out on top for job placements in BigLaw, federal and state court clerkships, public interest and more.
Want to know which schools are sending the highest percentage of graduates to BigLaw? How big a slice are landing those prized clerkships in federal or state courts? Explore the ins and outs of law school graduate placement in our interactive graphic.
A Texas federal judge has partially dismissed a Houston-based personal injury outfit's claims against a legal referral service it accuses of buying internet keywords that infringe the firm's trademarks in a "click-to-call" scheme meant to steal clients and business from the firm, finding some of the allegations were "conclusory" and that others were unsupported by the facts.
A North Carolina state appeals court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's denial of a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by Raleigh-based law firm Wilson Ratledge PLLC, agreeing the fee dispute with two Florida-based companies falls under the state court's jurisdiction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Use Social Media Responsibly?Leah Kelman at Herrick Feinstein discusses the importance of reasoned judgment and thoughtful process when it comes to newly admitted attorneys' social media use.
Attorneys should take a cue from U.S. Supreme Court justices and boil their arguments down to three points in their legal briefs and oral advocacy, as the number three is significant in the way we process information, says Diana Simon at University of Arizona.
In order to achieve a robust client data protection posture, law firms should focus on adopting a risk-based approach to security, which can be done by assessing gaps, using that data to gain leadership buy-in for the needed changes, and adopting a dynamic and layered approach, says John Smith at Conversant Group.
Laranda Walker at Susman Godfrey, who was raising two small children and working her way to partner when she suddenly lost her husband, shares what fighting to keep her career on track taught her about accepting help, balancing work and family, and discovering new reserves of inner strength.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Turn Deferral To My Advantage?Diana Leiden at Winston & Strawn discusses how first-year associates whose law firm start dates have been deferred can use the downtime to hone their skills, help their communities, and focus on returning to BigLaw with valuable contacts and out-of-the-box insights.
Female attorneys and others who pause their careers for a few years will find that gaps in work history are increasingly acceptable among legal employers, meaning with some networking, retraining and a few other strategies, lawyers can successfully reenter the workforce, says Jill Backer at Ave Maria School of Law.
ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools pose significant risks to the integrity of legal work, but the key for law firms is not to ban these tools, but to implement them responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, say Natalie Pierce and Stephanie Goutos at Gunderson Dettmer.
Opinion
We Must Continue DEI Efforts Despite High Court HeadwindsThough the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down affirmative action in higher education, law firms and their clients must keep up the legal industry’s recent momentum advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession in order to help achieve a just and prosperous society for all, says Angela Winfield at the Law School Admission Council.
Law firms that fail to consider their attorneys' online habits away from work are not using their best efforts to protect client information and are simplifying the job of plaintiffs attorneys in the case of a breach, say Mark Hurley and Carmine Cicalese at Digital Privacy and Protection.