Analysis

Why There's No Mistrial Yet In 'Messed Up' Young Thug Case

By Kelcey Caulder

Legal experts told Law360 that concerns about sunk cost and the possibility of defendants claiming double jeopardy may be the reasons why Young Thug's long and troubled racketeering trial has continued in Georgia despite more than 40 mistrial motions filed by defendants arguing prosecutorial misconduct and judicial bias.

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Ex-Judge Jones Says Judicial Acts Bar Atty Romance Claims

By Alex Wittenberg

Former bankruptcy judge David R. Jones said judicial immunity bars claims over his undisclosed romantic relationship with a former Jackson Walker LLP attorney because the purported harm to the onetime head of a now-shuttered barge company stemmed from official acts.

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Holtec Sues Former GC Over Alleged Embezzlement Scheme

By Madison Arnold

Energy technology company Holtec International has launched a New Jersey state lawsuit accusing its former general counsel and others of taking part in an embezzlement scheme to dupe the company into paying more than $700,000 to an entity they owned.

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Mondelez, BCLP Ink $750K Deal To End Data Breach Suits

By Lauren Berg

Mondelez Global LLC workers on Friday asked an Illinois federal judge to greenlight a $750,000 settlement that would resolve proposed data privacy class actions against their employer and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP stemming from a 2023 data breach.

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Arnold & Itkin's Zeta DQ Bid 'Disappointing,' Ex-Clerk Testifies

By Catherine Marfin

A Harris County judge began mulling Arnold & Itkin LLP's bid to disqualify Transocean's counsel from Hurricane Zeta litigation after a marathon hearing Friday that included testimony from a former Arnold & Itkin law clerk-turned-defense-lawyer who said she watched the contentious proceeding with "bitter amusement" and "disappointment."

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Colo. Attys May Release Files Without Waiving Lien On Clients

By Emily Sawicki

A Colorado appellate panel has found that attorneys who hold liens on documents due to unpaid client bills will not waive their rights to enforcement if they release certain files, issuing a precedential opinion designed to help trial courts determine when such liens are enforceable and when they might be lifted.

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Analysis

Election Litigation Looms Over New Supreme Court Term

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court justices return to the bench Monday for a new term, even as the dust continues to settle from the shifts in administrative law and foundational changes to presidential immunity that headlined their last sitting. But experts say any hope that this term may be calmer is wishful thinking, in large part due to all-but-certain litigation over the presidential election.

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Top 5 Supreme Court Cases To Watch This Fall

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear several cases in its October 2024 term that could further refine the new administrative law landscape, establish constitutional rights to gender-affirming care for transgender minors and affect how the federal government regulates water, air and weapons. Here, Law360 looks at five of the most important cases on the Supreme Court's docket so far.

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Up First At High Court: Civil Rights, Ghost Guns, Atty Fees

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes Monday to start a brand-new term, with the justices first hearing arguments related to prerequisites for litigating federal rights in state courts, ghost gun regulations, and whether a death row inmate is entitled to a new trial after a state admits that prosecutorial misconduct might have led to his conviction.

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Oversight Dems Probe Chief Justice On Jan. 6 Case Handling

By Courtney Bublé

Two House Democrats on the oversight committee questioned U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Friday on recent reporting he replaced Justice Samuel Alito as the author of a decision on a Jan. 6 case after the public learned the latter justice's wife flew flags at their homes with ties to the "Stop the Steal" movement.

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Justices Accept Ex-Chicago Alderman's False Statement Case

By Celeste Bott

The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it would review the conviction of an ex-Burke Warren MacKay & Serritella PC attorney and former Chicago alderman under a federal statute that prohibits making false statements to influence certain financial institutions.

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Atty Who Defied License Ban Asks Court To Rethink Jail Time

By Carolina Bolado

A disbarred attorney asked the Florida Supreme Court on Friday to reconsider its decision to send him to jail for 60 days for allegedly repeatedly practicing law without a license, including continuing to market himself as a licensed attorney.

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Panel Agrees Atty 'Acted Incompetently' In Filing Slipup

By Brian Steele

Connecticut's Statewide Grievance Committee had clear and convincing evidence that civil litigation attorney John W. Mills of Mills & Cahill LLC acted incompetently in failing to name his client's business as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against her accountant's estate or provide proof of her individual damages, a state appellate panel ruled Friday.

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RI Atty Faces Discipline For Unauthorized Practice In Conn.

By Christine DeRosa

An attorney from Rhode Island is facing possible disciplinary action in Connecticut after she represented a client in a juvenile court matter in the Constitution State without being licensed to practice in the state.

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NJ Court Removes Judge Who Admitted Sex Harassment

By Carla Baranauckas

The New Jersey Supreme Court has removed a municipal judge and barred him from holding judicial office in the state again after accusations that he sexually harassed female court staff members after becoming drunk at an office party.

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Fed. Circ. Topples Verdict In Tire Design IP Litigation

By Andrew Karpan

The Federal Circuit on Friday determined that a federal court in Chicago had it wrong about what kind of conduct in litigation is granted "absolute litigation privilege," upending a multimillion-dollar jury verdict on liability over language in settlement agreements in a dispute over tire designs.

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Retired Judge Says Unpaid Services Suit's Claims 'Untimely'

By Rose Krebs

Retired U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner asked an Indiana federal court on Friday to grant him a summary judgment win in litigation alleging he stiffed a man out of a six-figure salary after hiring him to run a now-defunct pro bono legal services organization, saying the suit's claims are "untimely."

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Circle K Avoids Trial, Settles Suit Over Gas Pump Death

By Carolina Bolado

The family of a woman who was killed at a Circle K gas pump that caught fire has settled its claims against the convenience store and gas station company and its attorneys on the eve of trial, an attorney confirmed Friday.

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Epic Doubts Apple's Privilege Assertions In Antitrust Fight

By Dorothy Atkins

Epic Games told a California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in its antitrust compliance fight with Apple on Friday that it's concerned Apple has wrongly asserted privilege in more than half the documents it has declined to produce, while adding "we don't want to spend months here duking this out."

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Attys Tried To Coerce Client For Larger Fee, Texas Court Rules

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas appeals court found that two attorneys tried to finagle a higher fee out of their client by threatening her with a lawsuit if she didn't fork over a larger amount than was specified in their contract, with the three-judge panel overruling all the attorneys' issues.

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EB-5 Partner Accuses NC Atty Of Aiding Investor Coup

By Alyssa Aquino

A company created to protect an investment project supporting green card applications for Chinese nationals accused a North Carolina attorney in state court of helping shareholders try to place the company into receivership and take control of a $30 million fund.

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Genasys Seeks Sanctions For Destroyed Evidence In IP Case

By Ivan Moreno

Genasys Inc. has asked a California federal court to issue terminating sanctions against two former employees for allegedly destroying evidence in a case where the long-range acoustic device company is accusing them of stealing trade secrets to form a competing business.

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Fla. Firm Wins Wage Dispute After Paralegal Abandons Suit

By Emmy Freedman

A federal judge threw out a paralegal's lawsuit alleging that a West Palm Beach, Florida, law firm underpaid her and then retaliated against her by cutting her hours when she complained, saying she has refused to continue to participate in the litigation.

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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

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Bonus Spotlight

Texas Boutique Tops Cravath As Compensation Season Starts

By Anna Sanders

Texas healthcare boutique Gjerset & Lorenz LLP is surpassing the prevailing associate salary scale that Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP set last year by as much as $40,000, according to a report.

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Ex-Mayer Brown Chair Helman Recalled As Steadfast Leader

By Andrea Keckley

Former Mayer Brown chair Bob Helman, who stepped up to lead his firm through a fraught juncture in the 1980s during his decades in Chicago's legal community, has died at 90 years old, the firm said Friday.

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Massachusetts' Chief Federal Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of Massachusetts has notified President Joe Biden he will take senior status on July 31, 2025, the court announced Monday.

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9th Circ. Nixes Judicial Complaint Over Atty 'Disbar' Threat

By James Mills

The Ninth Circuit has rejected a judicial misconduct complaint against a judge who allegedly suggested that he could "disbar" a lawyer.

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6 High Court Cases To Watch For Trial Attorneys

By Cara Salvatore

As the U.S. Supreme Court lifts the curtain on a new term, the justices are slated to consider a variety of cases impacting the work of trial litigators, including a death penalty case over a state-disavowed conviction, the boundaries of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and corporate veil piercing.

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Analysis

Sparring With Adams, Feds Shadowbox The Supreme Court

By Chris Villani and Phillip Bantz

The corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams may be the next front in an ongoing clash between federal prosecutors' desire to police official misconduct and a line of U.S. Supreme Court cases holding that alleged graft does not always amount to a federal crime.

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Analysis

State Courts Splitting Over Future Of Climate Change Suits

By Keith Goldberg

Recent decisions on whether climate change suits brought by state and local governments against fossil fuel companies can go forward are exposing splits between state courts over whether they can impose liability for pollution that originates beyond their borders, legal experts say.

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New Bill Would Enact 'Commonsense' Litigation Disclosures

By Courtney Bublé

A top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee announced Monday he introduced legislation to require the disclosure of parties receiving payments in civil lawsuits, a phenomenon known as "third-party litigation financing," in order to prevent abuses in the legal system.

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Court Punts Case Over Trump's 'Eating The Dogs' Comments

By Ryan Harroff

An Ohio county prosecutor is better suited than a court to decide if criminal charges are warranted against Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance for allegedly fueling harassment, including bomb threats, against Haitian migrants, an Ohio court has ruled.

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