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Legal Ethics
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January 24, 2025
Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty
The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."
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January 24, 2025
Ex-Seton Hall President Says Moving Suit Was Right Call
Seton Hall University's former president urged a New Jersey state judge on Thursday to stand by her decision to move his whistleblower suit against the school from Essex County to Hudson County in the face of a reconsideration bid from the university and an attorney at the center of the dispute.
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January 24, 2025
Baldoni Rebuts Atty Ethics Claims In 'It Ends With Us' Fight
A lawyer representing Justin Baldoni has told a New York federal judge that statements his counsel has made to the press regarding the actor and director's thorny litigation with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds over the film "It Ends With Us" didn't violate ethical rules or prejudice proceedings.
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January 24, 2025
Judge To Inspect Winston & Strawn Docs In Malpractice Row
A Texas state judge said Friday that he plans to personally review more than 100 Winston & Strawn LLP documents to determine whether the firm must turn them over to Houston-based energy companies in connection with their $175 million malpractice suit.
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January 24, 2025
Sierra Leone Must Face Jenner & Block's $8M Fee Suit
A District of Columbia federal judge denied Sierra Leone's bid to escape a lawsuit alleging it owes Jenner & Block LLP $8 million in fees, saying the nation's arguments that it is immune from the litigation is belied by a contract term that specifically gave U.S. courts jurisdiction over disputes.
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January 23, 2025
Buzbee Says Jay-Z Is Who Should Be Sanctioned In Diddy Suit
Texas attorney Tony Buzbee tore into rapper Jay-Z's request that Buzbee be sanctioned for filing a suit accusing Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs of raping a 13-year-old, arguing that Jay-Z is merely trying to intimidate the accuser and that if anyone should be sanctioned, it's Jay-Z.
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January 23, 2025
Atty Hit With TCPA Class Action Over Camp Lejeune Calls
A North Carolina plaintiffs firm was hit with a proposed class action accusing it of making unsolicited calls to a number on the National Do Not Call Registry in an effort to secure a client in the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune toxic drinking water case — at least the fourth firm to face similar claims.
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January 23, 2025
Netflix, Litigation Funder Fight Over Docs In Subpoena Row
Intellectual property strategy service AiPi LLC says it has been abiding by an order to produce documents relating to patent litigation against Netflix, while the streaming giant says "AiPi's attempt to appear reasonable is contrivance."
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January 23, 2025
AI Chatbot Co. CEO, Atty Spouse Indicted On $60M Fraud
Federal prosecutors in California arrested the former CEO of an artificial intelligence company Thursday alongside his lawyer wife, accusing the duo of a $60 million fraud scheme in which they allegedly lied to investors about the company's financial state and diverted funds to pay for their wedding.
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January 23, 2025
Madigan's Law Firm Profits Drove Corrupt Acts, Jury Told
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's ownership interest in his Chicago law firm and his entitlement to 50% of its profits was behind his efforts to extort property tax business from developers who needed approvals from state and local government for their projects, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury Thursday.
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January 23, 2025
Combs Lodges $50M Suit Over Supposed Sex Assault Tapes
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a $50 million defamation suit in New York federal court on Wednesday accusing a grand jury witness, a lawyer and Nexstar Media Inc. of spreading falsities about nonexistent videos that purportedly depict the indicted hip-hop mogul sexually assaulting intoxicated celebrities and minors.
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January 23, 2025
GenapSys Says Paul Hastings Can't Keep Privileged Docs
GenapSys is pushing back on Paul Hastings LLP's bid to force it to turn over documents that it had inadvertently released during discovery in a legal malpractice suit alleging that the law firm improperly drafted board documents that led to the "demise and liquidation" of the genetic-sequencing company.
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January 23, 2025
9th Circ. Nixes Attys' Challenge To Arizona Victim Contact Law
A Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday rejected a group of lawyers' constitutional challenge to an Arizona law that requires defense attorneys and their teams to initiate contact with victims through the prosecutor's office.
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January 23, 2025
Conflict Limits 1 Lawyer On Javice Team As Trial Date Slips
A lawyer defending Charlie Javice on charges she swindled JPMorgan Chase into paying $175 million for a financial aid startup she founded will be limited in representing her, a Manhattan federal judge said Thursday, before pushing trial back a week.
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January 23, 2025
Colo. Panel Says Atty-Witness Rule Isn't Limited To Jury Trials
A Colorado professional rule banning attorneys from advocating at trials where they are a "necessary witness" isn't limited to jury trials, a state appeals court ruled Thursday, affirming the disqualification of a lawyer who sought to represent a cannabis business that he once co-owned with his wife.
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January 23, 2025
Texas Atty Ethics Commission Drops Suit Against AG Paxton
The Texas bar's Commission for Lawyer Discipline has dropped its ethics complaint against Attorney General Ken Paxton over a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in other states, saying the case should end in light of a recent Texas Supreme Court decision nixing a similar case against his first assistant.
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January 23, 2025
Conn. Atty Suspended For 5 Years Over Estate Case Failures
A Connecticut attorney with an already extensive disciplinary history has been suspended from the practice of law for five years for failing to file a case in probate court on behalf of his clients and for losing or misplacing the last will and testament of his clients' relative.
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January 23, 2025
Colo. Tenants, Eviction Law Firm Resolve Fee Suits
Colorado tenants and Tschetter Sulzer PC have settled two class actions accusing the eviction law firm of illegally charging attorney fees before their eviction proceedings concluded, more than a year after the firm settled a separate proposed class action that alleged deceptive debt collection.
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January 22, 2025
Chutkan Says Trump's Pardon Can't 'Whitewash' Jan. 6 Terror
President Donald Trump's pardon of defendants accused of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol "cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake," U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan wrote Wednesday in an order dismissing one such case.
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January 22, 2025
'Unicorn Prosecution' Could Upend Legal Practice, Court Told
Brown & Connery LLP partner William Tambussi told a New Jersey state judge Wednesday that the entire practice of law in the Garden State rests on his impending decision on the charges against him in the state's sweeping racketeering case targeting power broker George E. Norcross III, arguing that a lawyer has never been prosecuted for routine legal work.
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January 22, 2025
Fla. Court Proposes $19M In Damages In Spinal Products Suit
A Florida federal judge has recommended that the principal of spine medical equipment companies pay $19.3 million in damages after allegedly breaching an agreement and forming a direct competitor to a business he previously contracted with for exclusive distribution of its products.
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January 22, 2025
Attorneys Botched Arbitration Win, Texas Property Cos. Claim
A group of property owners in Texas told a Harris County judge a law firm and five attorneys helped them secure a $1.7 million arbitration award but never took action when the award misidentified their names, making them unable to collect.
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January 22, 2025
Drug Co. Wants To Keep Judge On Alopecia IP Case
The developer behind an Eli Lilly & Co. alopecia drug has called allegations the company's lawyers deliberately hired a New Jersey federal judge's former law clerk both "low and baseless" and a "transparent attempt to remove the judge who decided against it."
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January 22, 2025
Reed Smith Rips Claim Firm Is 'Causing Chaos' In $102M Suit
Reed Smith fought back Tuesday against allegations by the purported new owners of Eletson Holdings that the BigLaw firm is "causing chaos" by refusing to withdraw as counsel of record in $102 million breach-of-contract litigation, arguing that ownership of the international shipping group is "hotly contested" and being litigated in multiple jurisdictions.
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January 22, 2025
Madigan Used ComEd As 'Personal Piggy Bank,' Jurors Told
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his devoted surrogate Michael McClain conspired to enhance and preserve Madigan's power and line his pockets, both by steering business to the ex-speaker's law firm and rewarding his political allies with do-nothing jobs, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
Expert Analysis
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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Opinion
A Tale Of 2 Trump Cases: The Rule Of Law Is A Live Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Trump v. U.S., holding that former President Donald Trump has broad immunity from prosecution, undercuts the rule of law, while the former president’s New York hush money conviction vindicates it in eight key ways, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.
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3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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After Chevron
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard in June, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 37 different rulemaking and litigation areas.
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Opinion
Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem
The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.
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Series
Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer
The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy considers two recent decisions from the Third and Tenth Circuits, and identifies practice tips around class action settlements and standing in securities litigation.
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Unpacking The Circuit Split Over A Federal Atty Fee Rule
Federal circuit courts that have addressed Rule 41(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are split as to whether attorney fees are included as part of the costs of a previously dismissed action, so practitioners aiming to recover or avoid fees should tailor arguments to the appropriate court, says Joseph Myles and Lionel Lavenue at Finnegan.