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Legal Ethics
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July 31, 2025
1st Circ. Denies Marathon Bomber's Bid To DQ Trial Judge
The First Circuit on Thursday denied a request by convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to have the judge who presided over his 2015 trial removed from conducting a probe into whether some of the jurors who sentenced him to death were biased.
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July 31, 2025
Conn. Atty Pins Failed Redaction On Tech In Gunmaker Suit
A third party's ability to bypass redactions and view protected documents was due to a software issue, a Connecticut civil litigator has told a federal judge, urging the court not to authorize sanctions for what he said was a "good faith" effort at redacting filings amid his dueling lawsuits with gunmaker Sig Sauer.
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July 31, 2025
MSG Makes Play For $1.5M Fees In Oakley Dispute
Madison Square Garden is seeking $1.5 million in attorney fees from former New York Knicks player Charles Oakley, laying out the efforts it took to uncover Oakley's efforts to destroy text messages connected with his long-running assault and battery suit against the arena.
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July 31, 2025
Baldwin Eyes Deal Over Failed 'Rust' Trial With Suit Dormant
Alec Baldwin's lawsuit in New Mexico state court against prosecutors and others involved in his botched involuntary manslaughter case in the "Rust" film shooting has been temporarily thrown out, but the actor-producer's attorneys said Thursday that they've been in settlement discussions and will move to reinstate the suit if the talks fail.
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July 30, 2025
US Atty Swap Was 'Calculated' To Evade Senate, NJ Court Told
The reappointment of Alina Habba from interim to acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey was an unconstitutional maneuver "calculated to bypass Senate confirmation," a defendant seeking dismissal of his drug trafficking indictment told a federal judge Wednesday, while prosecutors opposed the motion as a "dispute over titles, not authority."
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July 30, 2025
2nd Circ. Backs Live Well Founder's Bond Fraud Convictions
The Second Circuit affirmed convictions for Live Well's founder for inducing lenders to extend credit by jacking up bond valuations to increase its debt and borrow against it, ruling Wednesday jurors had enough evidence to determine he misrepresented the value of collateral to secure loans and did so with fraudulent intent.
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July 30, 2025
Walmart Hoverboard Fire, Injury Case Ends After AI Scandal
A Wyoming family of five that sued Walmart after a hoverboard they bought exploded, destroying their home and causing serious burns, has agreed to permanently end litigation in a case marred by plaintiffs counsel getting caught pushing case law "hallucinated" by artificial intelligence.
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July 30, 2025
High Court Urged To Review Ineffective-Counsel Case
A man who threatened to sue his civil lawyer for malpractice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his case and find that such a situation creates an automatic conflict of interest when the same lawyer was also defending him in a criminal case.
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July 30, 2025
11th Circ. Revives Ga. Atty's Race Bias Suit Against State Bar
The Eleventh Circuit has revived a Georgia attorney's suit accusing the state's bar association of racial bias, finding that a district court wrongly dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
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July 30, 2025
TMX Customers Seek Final OK Of $42M Data Breach Suit Deal
Customers of the title loan and payday lender TMX Finance have asked a Georgia federal judge to grant final approval of their $42 million settlement of claims arising from a data breach that affected an estimated 4.8 million people.
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July 30, 2025
Calif. Sens. Slam Trump's US Atty 'Hijacking' To Keep LA Ally
California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff issued a statement Wednesday condemning the Trump administration's decision to "circumvent the law" and appoint Bill Essayli as acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, in a move echoing the recent appointment of Alina Habba as acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
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July 30, 2025
Insurer Atty 'Error' Dooms Arbitration Bid In Fla. Injury Suit
A Florida appellate court on Wednesday agreed with a trial court that a West Palm Beach prep school has abandoned its right to arbitrate cheerleading injury claims brought by a student by filing a response to the complaint, rejecting the school's argument that its insurer-provided lawyer was unauthorized to represent it.
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July 30, 2025
Black Atty Alleges McDermott Fired Her Because Of Her Race
McDermott Will & Emery LLP failed to address racist comments made during a diversity presentation, kept Black attorneys out of leadership and fired a Black associate who complained that she was repeatedly sidelined because of her race, the former employee alleged Wednesday in Illinois federal court.
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July 30, 2025
Workday Wants Firm DQ'd Over Privileged Info In Atty's Suit
Attorneys at Webb Law Group APC should be disqualified from representing an ex-Workday Inc. attorney in his bias suit against the company and should face sanctions for their "egregious behavior" in disclosing privileged information in a publicly filed document, Workday told a California federal magistrate judge.
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July 30, 2025
DC Judge Demands More Details On Atty's Fake Citations
In a minute order entered Wednesday, the Washington, D.C., federal judge presiding over a former executive's qui tam False Claims Act suit against a government contractor ordered plaintiff's counsel to provide more information on how nine citation errors came to be included in a motion last week, calling explanations to date "wholly inadequate."
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July 30, 2025
NJ Judge Accused Of Berating Truant Teens Called One 'Vile'
A New Jersey municipal court judge is accused of berating children in truancy hearings, threatening their families with deportation, and questioning their immigration status in open court — actions the state's judicial watchdog said violated multiple canons of judicial conduct.
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July 30, 2025
Family In Row With McCarter & English Wants $4.6M Set-Aside
A deceased Connecticut shopping mall developer's family members want McCarter & English LLP and the estate of Laurence Rubinow, a lawyer with connections to the firm, to set aside $4.6 million in case they prevail in a lawsuit alleging mismanagement of the developer's estate and trust.
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July 30, 2025
2nd Circ. Hands Clerk Another Shot At Free Speech Firing Suit
A Second Circuit panel reinstated a suit Wednesday from a court clerk who claimed she was fired for aiding an investigation into an ethics complaint against her former boss, ruling the lower court incorrectly found that her duties as a government worker shielded her from constitutional protection.
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July 30, 2025
Atty Sues Leech Tishman Over Referral Amid Girardi Scandal
An attorney at Hunt Ortmann Palffy Nieves Darling & Mah Inc. has sued Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman in California state court for allegedly refusing to pay her a $300,000 referral fee after she convinced her CEO father to hire the firm to represent him.
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July 30, 2025
Ga. Law Firm Fights Bid To Keep Fee Fight Out Of Arbitration
Georgia law firm Herman Jones LLP has pushed back on a former client's claim that it waived arbitration in a dispute over unpaid legal fees, arguing the trial court should not have had to rule on a free speech motion before sending the case to arbitration.
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July 29, 2025
Jackson Walker Gets Another Deal On Judge-Romance Claims
Jackson Walker LLP has reached another settlement with former bankruptcy clients to resolve fee disputes related to the concealed romance of a former partner with the firm and former Texas bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, according to a motion filed Tuesday in Texas federal court.
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July 29, 2025
Miss. AG Says Judge's TRO Over State DEI Ban Full Of Errors
Mississippi's attorney general wants a federal judge to explain "indisputable factual inaccuracies" in his decision pausing enforcement of a state law prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion in public schools, saying Monday that the judge's original order contained nonexistent allegations, wrongly identified plaintiffs and defendants, and quoted terms that don't appear in the legislative text.
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July 29, 2025
Conn. Prosecutors' Misstatements Doom Murder Conviction
A Connecticut man who confessed to killing his apartment superintendent will get a second murder trial after the state's top court ruled in a split opinion Tuesday that prosecutors misstated the law about the defense's central theory during closing arguments and rebuttal.
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July 29, 2025
Posner Wage Theft Claims Should Be Revived, 7th Circ. Told
A former staffer for retired U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner has asked the Seventh Circuit to review federal court rulings in his loss of wage theft claims against the ex-judge, arguing an Indiana federal judge permitted a botched discovery process and prematurely dismissed claims while fact issues remained.
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July 29, 2025
Senate Confirms DOJ Official Emil Bove To 3rd Circ.
The Senate voted 50-49 on Tuesday night to confirm Emil Bove, one of President Donald Trump's former attorneys and a top official at the U.S. Department of Justice, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Expert Analysis
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How Methods Are Evolving In Textualist Interpretations
Textualists at the U.S. Supreme Court are increasingly considering new methods such as corpus linguistics and surveys to evaluate what a statute's text communicates to an ordinary reader, while lower courts even mull large language models like ChatGPT as supplements, says Kevin Tobia at Georgetown Law.
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Why Attorneys Should Consider Community Leadership Roles
Volunteering and nonprofit board service are complementary to, but distinct from, traditional pro bono work, and taking on these community leadership roles can produce dividends for lawyers, their firms and the nonprofit causes they support, says Katie Beacham at Kilpatrick.
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Firms Must Offer A Trifecta Of Services In Post-Chevron World
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision overturning Chevron deference, law firms will need to integrate litigation, lobbying and communications functions to keep up with the ramifications of the ruling and provide adequate counsel quickly, says Neil Hare at Dentons.
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5 Tips To Succeed In A Master Of Laws Program And Beyond
As lawyers and recent law school graduates begin their Master of Laws coursework across the country, they should keep a few pointers in mind to get the most out of their programs and kick-start successful careers in their practice areas, says Kelley Miller at Reed Smith.
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Series
Being An Opera Singer Made Me A Better Lawyer
My journey from the stage to the courtroom has shown that the skills I honed as an opera singer – punctuality, memorization, creativity and more – have all played a vital role in my success as an attorney, says Gerard D'Emilio at GableGotwals.
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How Law Firms Can Avoid 'Collaboration Drag'
Law firm decision making can be stifled by “collaboration drag” — characterized by too many pointless meetings, too much peer feedback and too little dissent — but a few strategies can help stakeholders improve decision-making processes and build consensus, says Steve Groom at Miles Mediation.
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Opinion
Litigation Funding Disclosure Key To Open, Impartial Process
Blanket investor and funding agreement disclosures should be required in all civil cases where the investor has a financial interest in the outcome in order to address issues ranging from potential conflicts of interest to national security concerns, says Bob Goodlatte, former U.S. House Representative for Virginia.
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The Ethics of Using Generative AI In Environmental Law
The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools is challenging environmental lawyers, consultants and government agencies to determine when and how these tools can be responsibly, ethically and productively integrated into their practices to streamline research, predictive analytics and regulatory compliance, say Ahlia Bethea and Pamela Esterman at Sive Paget.
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What NFL Draft Picks Have In Common With Lateral Law Hires
Nearly half of law firm lateral hires leave within a few years — a failure rate that is strikingly similar to the performance of NFL quarterbacks drafted in the first round — in part because evaluators focus too heavily on quantifiable metrics and not enough on a prospect's character traits, says Howard Rosenberg at Baretz+Brunelle.
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Replacing The Stigma Of Menopause With Law Firm Support
A large proportion of the workforce is forced to pull the brakes on their career aspirations because of the taboo surrounding menopause and a lack of consistent support, but law firms can initiate the cultural shift needed by formulating thoughtful workplace policies, says Barbara Hamilton-Bruce at Simmons & Simmons.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: August Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy considers certification cases touching on classwide evidence of injury from debt collection practices, defining coupon settlements under the Class Action Fairness Act, proper approaches for evaluating attorney fee awards in class action settlements, and more.
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Planning Law Firm Content Calendars: What, When, Where
During the slower month of August, law firms should begin working on their 2025 content calendars, planning out a content creation and distribution framework that aligns with the firm’s objectives and maintains audience engagement throughout the year, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.
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Crypto Gatekeepers May Be The Next Front Of Enforcement
Lawyers and other professionals who advise cryptocurrency companies should beware regulators' increasing focus on gatekeeper accountability, and should take several measures to fulfill their ethical and legal obligations, including implementing a robust vetting mechanism when representing crypto clients, say Temidayo Aganga-Williams and Xinchen Li at Selendy Gay.
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Series
Playing Golf Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Golf can positively affect your personal and professional life well beyond the final putt, and it’s helped enrich my legal practice by improving my ability to build lasting relationships, study and apply the rules, face adversity with grace, and maintain my mental and physical well-being, says Adam Kelly at Venable.
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Law Firms Should Move From Reactive To Proactive Marketing
Most law firm marketing and business development teams operate in silos, leading to an ad hoc, reactive approach, but shifting to a culture of proactive planning — beginning with comprehensive campaigns — can help firms effectively execute their broader business strategy, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.