Legal Ethics

  • May 26, 2026

    SPLC Says DOJ Indictment Is Baseless 'Retributive Campaign'

    The Southern Poverty Law Center on Tuesday asked an Alabama federal court to throw out the Trump administration's indictment claiming it paid extremist group informants to "stoke racial hatred," arguing that it's a "top-down, retributive campaign" that constitutes vindictive prosecution.

  • May 26, 2026

    NY Lawyer Gets A Year After $20M Emigrant Bank Fraud Trial

    A compliance lawyer convicted at trial for allegedly conning an Emigrant Bank unit out of $20 million by lying about his investment firm's tax lien collateral was sentenced Tuesday in Manhattan federal court to a year and a day in prison for what prosecutors say was a straight-up scheme to steal from a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-insured bank. 

  • May 26, 2026

    Judge Says Ex-City Prosecutor's Bias Suit Should Be Tossed

    A Texas federal judge recommended Tuesday that a bias and retaliation suit against the city of Corpus Christi by a former assistant city attorney be tossed because he failed to show that comparable workers were treated better or that the city's performance-based reasons for firing him were false.

  • May 26, 2026

    Houston Firm Wired Cali Man's $1.3M To Criminals, Per Suit

    A California man and a real estate company told a Texas federal judge that a Houston-based law firm improperly distributed money meant to pay off a loan to criminal elements, saying Tuesday that the law firm owes $1.3 million.

  • May 26, 2026

    3rd Circ. Disapproves Of Judge's Quips In Fatal Crash Case

    The Third Circuit on Tuesday scolded a Pennsylvania federal judge for his "inappropriate attempted witticisms" while presiding over a lawsuit in which a parent blamed transportation companies for the deaths of his two children in a highway collision, saying the judge's "ill-conceived attempts at levity" in a fatal injury case could be misinterpreted by the public.

  • May 26, 2026

    Schools Fight New Lead Counsel, Cert. In Aid-Fixing Suit

    Five private universities that have yet to settle with students over the alleged fixing of financial aid offerings argued Tuesday that an Illinois federal judge should deny them class certification rather than allow them to tap different lead counsel after misrepresentations regarding one firm's purportedly contingent casework have come to light.

  • May 26, 2026

    Trump Wants Magistrate Judge Off $10B Defamation Suit

    President Donald Trump wants a Florida federal magistrate judge to recuse herself from overseeing discovery in his $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC because she previously represented a U.K.-based company Trump sued over the dissemination of the Steele dossier, a controversial intelligence document claiming Trump had ties to Russia.

  • May 26, 2026

    Copyright Suits Against Jan. 6 Attys Won't Be Tossed

    Attorneys who represented Jan. 6 defendants will have to face a consultant's claims that they copied her jury-attitude report without permission after a D.C. federal judge rejected their arguments that their conduct fell under fair use and the public's right to access court records.

  • May 26, 2026

    Fenwick Reaches $54M Deal To Exit FTX Litigation

    Fenwick & West LLP will pay $54 million to resolve claims from spurned FTX Trading Ltd. investors, according to a new set of settlements that will also end investors' disputes with the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange's former auditor and a former NBA star who promoted the platform.

  • May 26, 2026

    Wiley Hit With Proposed Class Action Over Data Breach

    Wiley Rein LLP has been hit with a proposed class action accusing the Washington, D.C., firm of negligence after the firm said a group that may be affiliated with the Chinese government accessed emails of firm personnel.

  • May 26, 2026

    NY Murder Conviction Stands Despite 'Blah Blah' Transcript

    New York's highest court has affirmed the murder conviction of a man who, along with his wife, killed a neighbor, finding on Tuesday that though his trial transcript was "utterly inexcusable" — frequently containing "blah blah blah," "omitted" or "undecipherable characters instead of the words actually spoken" — it was sufficiently reconstructed.

  • May 26, 2026

    Fla. Panel Orders Atty To Explain AI Citations In Roofing Case

    A Florida state appeals court has thrown out a breach of contract dispute following the parties' agreement to dismiss it, but ordered an attorney representing a roofing company to explain why he shouldn't be penalized after his brief apparently contained artificial-intelligence-generated legal citations.

  • May 26, 2026

    Beasley Allen Fails To Overturn J&J Talc Disqualification

    A New Jersey federal judge affirmed the Beasley Allen Law Firm's disqualification from multidistrict litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder on Tuesday, determining that the firm has failed to provide a valid reason to back its attempt at a stay and temporary reinstatement into the matter.

  • May 26, 2026

    Mintz Gets Patent Malpractice Suit Sent From Texas To Mass.

    A former Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC client's professional negligence suit against the firm over its handling of a patent case belongs in Massachusetts rather than Texas federal court, according to a Tuesday order.

  • May 26, 2026

    Justices To Consider Taking Judge Newman Case On June 11

    The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take up U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman's petition seeking to overturn her suspension from the Federal Circuit on June 11, according to a notice posted Tuesday.

  • May 26, 2026

    Diversion Plan Ordered For Pa. Judge With 'Book of Grudges'

    A Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, magisterial judge has entered a judicial diversion program to resolve a disciplinary investigation into reports that she kept a "book of grudges" with detailed and profane personal complaints about people she encountered in her courtroom.

  • May 26, 2026

    DHS Pauses ICE Home Entries Under Administrative Warrants

    Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a Democratic senator earlier this month he's paused immigration agents' use of administrative warrants to enter private property, but has not officially revoked the controversial policy issued last year.

  • May 26, 2026

    Pirro, Blanche Fight DQ Bid In Attempted Assassination Case

    U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche are fighting a bid from the California man accused of an attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner to disqualify them from handling the case.

  • May 26, 2026

    2nd Circ. Eyes Bail For Bribe Case Cooperator: 'Why Not?'

    A Second Circuit judge on Tuesday questioned a Manhattan federal judge's decision to deny bail to prolific cooperator Jona Rechnitz while he appeals a five-month sentence for facilitating bribery inside the New York Police Department and in a law enforcement union, saying the lower court appeared "annoyed" when bail was mentioned.

  • May 22, 2026

    Law360 Reveals Titans Of The Plaintiffs Bar

    This past year, 10 lawyers across the country at plaintiffs' firms big and small helped secure millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts for their clients, going up against powerful defendants like Google, Monsanto and the Trump administration, earning the attorneys recognition as Law360's Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar for 2026.

  • May 22, 2026

    PFAS Judge Wary Of Bid To Sanction Town For 'About-Face'

    A Montana federal judge on Friday seemed slightly reluctant to sanction Connecticut municipalities for moving firefighter turnout gear PFAS claims to his jurisdiction after roughly two years of litigation on the East Coast, suggesting the process of shipping purchaser claims across the nation is typical when complex cases arise.

  • May 22, 2026

    Attys Hijacked 1,000 Storm Cases In 'Shakedown,' Suit Says

    Two Louisiana law firms and a group of politically connected attorneys engaged in a "shakedown" to steal about 1,000 cases filed by hurricane survivors who had hired and built cases with a different firm, alleged a RICO suit filed Thursday in Houston federal court.

  • May 22, 2026

    Mich. Panel Upholds $20M Verdict Despite Improper Closing

    The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed a $20.6 million verdict for a man who was severely injured when a van struck him while he was snow-blowing his driveway, ruling that the defense could not challenge plaintiff counsel's inflammatory closing arguments because it failed to object at trial.

  • May 22, 2026

    Ala. Atty Suspended Over 'Atrocious' Bid To Cover Up AI Use

    A federal judge has suspended an attorney from practicing in the Northern District of Alabama after the attorney deleted his ChatGPT account in a bid to cover up his use of the chatbot to write an erroneous brief, saying the court never imagined having to deal with such "atrocious conduct."

  • May 22, 2026

    Ga. Panel Rejects 'Disingenuous' Bid To Dodge Settlement

    A Georgia appellate panel has backed a trial court's decision to enforce a separation settlement between a metro Atlanta city and its former city manager, ruling that he could not escape his attorney's clear-cut acceptance of the city's offer when she wrote that "we have a deal."

Expert Analysis

  • Tax Teams Get No Bright-Line Rule From AI Privilege Cases

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    Three recent appellate decisions that considered artificial intelligence in the context of attorney-client privilege protections illustrate that taxpayers and tax practitioners alike must consider the pertinent facts on a case-by-case basis, with particular attention to confidentiality, disclosure risk and system design, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • How Anthropic's Mythos May Upend Defense Cyber Rules

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    Anthropic’s recent announcement that Claude Mythos, an AI general-purpose language model, could soon enable virtually anyone to exploit vulnerabilities in major web browsers and operating systems marks an imminent increase in threat levels that current defense cybersecurity regulations were not designed to navigate, say attorneys at Fluet.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • What Jury Holdouts Can Teach Trial Lawyers About Strategy

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    Though a hung jury can be a disappointment, a psychological understanding of jury holdouts can help trial lawyers shape their damages arguments and understand leadership and group composition as a function of jury selection, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

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    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • 4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

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    Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

  • Heppner Ruling Left AI Privilege Risk For Lawyers Unresolved

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    While a New York federal judge’s recent ruling in U.S. v. Heppner resolved a privilege question surrounding client-side artificial intelligence use, it did not address how to mitigate the risks that can arise when confidential information enters the operative context of an AI system used by an attorney, says Jianfei Chen at Quarles & Brady​​​​​​​.

  • The Ethics And Practicalities Of Representing AI Agents

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    With autonomous artificial intelligence agents now able to take action without explicit instructions from — or the awareness of — their human owners, the bar must confront whether existing frameworks like informed consent and client privilege will be sufficient on the day an AI agent calls seeking counsel, say attorneys at Morrison Cohen.

  • Series

    Speed Jigsaw Puzzling Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My passion for speed puzzling — I can complete a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in under 50 minutes — has sharpened my legal skills in more ways than one, with both disciplines requiring patience, precision and the ability to keep the bigger picture in mind while working through the details, says Tazia Statucki at Proskauer.

  • 2 AI Snafus Show Why Attys Can't Outsource Judgment

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    The recent incident involving Sullivan & Cromwell where citations in a filed motion were fabricated by artificial intelligence, as well as a punitive ruling from the Sixth Circuit in U.S. v. Farris, demonstrate that the obligation to supervise AI has belonged and always will belong to lawyers, says John Powell at the Kentucky School Boards Association.

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