Legal Ethics

  • May 04, 2026

    Bondi Spurs Ethics Doubts By Using DOJ Official As Counsel

    Harmeet Dhillon, an official with the U.S. Department of Justice, is representing former Attorney General Pam Bondi in proceedings before the House oversight committee, which Democrats on the panel say raises ethical quandaries.

  • May 01, 2026

    Don't 'Throw' Young Attys Under Bus, Judge Warns Musk Atty

    The California federal judge presiding over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion criticized Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff on Friday for eliciting "waste of time" trial testimony into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition bid, warning Toberoff he "shouldn't throw young lawyers under the bus" by not quickly acknowledging his role.

  • May 01, 2026

    Winery's Ex-Lawyer Has No Rights To Wine Brand, Judge Says

    A California federal judge has entered judgment in a battle between a Napa Valley winery and an attorney who had worked with it, ruling that the attorney had no rights to the trademark on the high-end RBS wine brand.

  • May 01, 2026

    Insurer Sanctioned For 'Willful' Discovery Defiance

    A Washington federal court on Friday said it would hold an auto insurer liable for bad faith, negligent claim handling, and violations of the state's Consumer Protection Act and Insurance Fair Conduct Act after the carrier willfully violated prior production orders in a dispute over underinsured motorist benefits.

  • May 01, 2026

    California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

    The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

  • May 01, 2026

    Mich. Judge Faces Warrant After Crashing Into Bus, DUI Arrest

    A Michigan judge accused of drunken driving after crashing into a bus last month is facing criminal charges after a county prosecutor's office on Friday referred a criminal warrant request to the state's Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council for transfer outside the county where the judge presides.

  • May 01, 2026

    Whistleblower Says DOJ Rushed SPLC Indictment

    A whistleblower has come forward to say a top U.S. Department of Justice official ordered prosecutors in Alabama to "rush" the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center despite concerns about the viability of the case, according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

  • May 01, 2026

    Texas Panel Finds No Shield For Paralegal From Stalking Suit

    A Texas appeals court has refused to throw out a suit from an attorney alleging a paralegal stalked, harassed and threatened her, finding that the paralegal's statements and communications aren't shielded by the Texas Citizens Participation Act.

  • May 01, 2026

    'No Easy Task': Atty Seeks Fees For Ending Practice Limit Law

    A New Jersey attorney and his law firm told a state judge on Friday that they should be awarded counsel fees after they successfully challenged the constitutionality of a state law provision that penalizes attorneys who specialize in debt adjustment for representing debtors.

  • May 01, 2026

    Judge Wants DOJ Answers On Timeline Of Fulton Ballot Raid

    A Georgia federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to disclose more details about the timeline leading up to its January raid seizing ballots from Fulton County as he continues to weigh whether to force the government to return the hundreds of boxes of election materials.

  • April 30, 2026

    OpenAI Judge Pauses Trial To Probe Musk Attys On $97B Bid

    A California federal jury trial over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion paused on a precarious note Thursday after Musk's legal team failed to object to a document during Musk's cross-examination, and inadvertently opened the door to wide-ranging and potentially damaging evidence into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition proposal.

  • April 30, 2026

    Mass. AG, Auditor Brace For High-Stakes Constitutional Clash

    A closely watched separation-of-powers test is playing out in Massachusetts, where the Bay State auditor will argue to the state's top court in a hearing next week that the attorney general is stonewalling her from conducting a voter-approved audit of the state legislature.

  • April 30, 2026

    Texas Panel Reopens Malpractice Suit Over 'Death Penalty'

    A Texas appeals court on Thursday revived a couple's legal malpractice suit accusing their former personal injury attorney of letting their car accident claims die, finding the trial court wrongly used a death penalty discovery sanction to exclude all the couple's evidence before trial.

  • April 30, 2026

    Texas Court Rules Atty Can't Dodge Billionaire's Fraud Claims

    A Texas appeals court kept intact a suit brought by the billionaire co-founder of Rackspace Technology Inc. alleging his former attorney aided his wife in a "contentious" divorce, saying Thursday that the attorney can't use the state's anti-SLAPP law to evade the suit.

  • April 30, 2026

    Ga. Panel Scraps Sanctions Over Special Master's Unpaid Bill

    A Georgia appellate panel threw out Thursday a contempt order entered against plaintiffs suing a host of chemical companies for toxic tort claims after they failed to pay a special master's legal fees, ruling that a trial court wrongly disregarded their protests that they couldn't afford his services.

  • April 30, 2026

    Jones Day Beats Sanctions Bid In $2M Fee Dispute

    An Illinois state judge has ruled that Jones Day can pursue punitive damages on several of its claims in a lawsuit alleging a former client made a series of unlawful transactions to avoid paying over $2 million in legal fees, and also denied sanctions sought by the ex-client against the firm.

  • April 30, 2026

    Cannabis Dispute Ends With Plaintiff Co. Facing $1.34M Default

    A California state court snuffed out a Los Angeles cannabis company's fraud lawsuit against its investors and landlords, which were accused of stealing $40 million and wrecking its cannabis license, opening the door for the ex-business partners to score a $1.34 million default judgment.

  • April 30, 2026

    'Christian Witch' Says Jenner & Block Must Face Vax Bias Suit

    A former Jenner & Block LLP employee told an Illinois federal judge that she didn't need to disclose that she's a "Christian witch" in order to seek an exemption to the law firm's COVID-19 vaccine requirement, urging the court to reject her ex-employer's bid to toss the case.

  • April 30, 2026

    Ex-Shareholders, Reed Smith Seek End To Eletson Suit

    Former shareholders of Eletson Holdings on Thursday joined with their ex-Eletson counsel at Reed Smith to ask a New York bankruptcy judge to dismiss a suit claiming they had schemed to seize control of Eletson assets in defiance of the company's Chapter 11 plan.

  • April 30, 2026

    Netflix's 'Tiger King' Funeral Clip Was Fair Use, 10th Circ. Says

    The Tenth Circuit on Thursday said Netflix Inc. made fair use of a minutelong funeral clip in its popular "Tiger King" docuseries, holding in a precedential opinion that the streaming platform's use of the footage was "significantly transformative," departing from its earlier ruling that reached the opposite conclusion.

  • April 30, 2026

    Ex-Husch Blackwell Partner Urges Discovery In ERISA Dispute

    A former Husch Blackwell LLP partner has urged a Missouri federal court to ignore the firm's request for summary judgment in a dispute over employee retirement benefits, arguing discovery should proceed in the proposed class action.

  • April 30, 2026

    Ga. Lawyer Says Fraud Coverage Ruling Misread State Law

    A Georgia attorney on Wednesday urged a federal judge to undo a recent ruling declaring his professional liability insurer doesn't owe him coverage in an underlying lawsuit alleging the lawyer schemed with a client to enrich themselves, arguing the court erred by finding his alleged conduct didn't fall under the policy.

  • April 30, 2026

    NC Biz Court Bulletin: Corporate Raid, MV Realty Settlement

    A major case settled in the North Carolina Business Court in April as new lawsuits emerged, including a complaint by health information technology company IQVIA Holdings Inc. accusing its former top brass of orchestrating a corporate raid and defecting to a competitor. In case you missed this story and others, here are the highlights.

  • April 30, 2026

    J&J Says Ill. Ruling Backs Beasley Allen's DQ From Talc Suits

    Johnson & Johnson told a New Jersey federal court that a recent ruling in Illinois backs the Beasley Allen Law Firm's disqualification from multidistrict litigation over its talcum powder.

  • April 30, 2026

    5th Circ. Tosses FCA Suit Against IT Firm Over Visa Fraud

    The Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a man's claims that an India-based information technology and professional services firm violated the False Claims Act via fraudulent visa applications and improper tax withholding, finding no specific payment obligations under the FCA itself.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Teaching Logic Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Teaching middle and high school students the skills to untangle complicated arguments and identify faulty reasoning has made me reacquaint myself with the defined structure of thought, reminding me why logic should remain foundational in the practice of law, says Tom Barrow at Woods Rogers.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Resilience

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    Resilience is a skill acquired through daily practices that focus on learning from missteps, recovering quickly without internalizing defeat and moving forward with intention, says Nicholas Meza at Quarles & Brady.

  • NYC Bar Opinion Warns Attys On Use Of AI Recording Tools

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    Attorneys who use artificial intelligence tools to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with clients should heed the New York City Bar Association’s recent opinion addressing the legal and ethical risks posed by such tools, and follow several best practices to avoid violating the Rules of Professional Conduct, say attorneys at Smith Gambrell.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Dispatches From Utah's Newest Court

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    While a robust body of law hasn't yet developed since the Utah Business and Chancery Court's founding in October 2024, the number of cases filed there has recently picked up, and its existence illustrates Utah's desire to be top of mind for businesses across the country, says Evan Strassberg at Michael Best.

  • 4 Quick Emotional Resets For Lawyers With Conflict Fatigue

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    Though the emotional wear and tear of legal work can trap attorneys in conflict fatigue — leaving them unable to shake off tense interactions or return to a calm baseline — simple therapeutic techniques for resetting the nervous system can help break the cycle, says Chantel Cohen at CWC Coaching & Therapy.

  • Series

    Playing Tennis Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    An instinct to turn pain into purpose meant frequent trips to the tennis court, where learning to move ahead one point at a time was a lesson that also applied to the steep learning curve of patent prosecution law, says Daniel Henry at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Judicial Use Informs Guardrails

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    U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado discusses why having a sense of how generative AI tools behave, where they add value, where they introduce risk and how they are reshaping the practice of law is key for today's judges.

  • Presidential Pardon Brokering Can Create Risks For Attys

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    The emergence of an apparent “pardon shopping” marketplace, in which attorneys treat presidential pardons as a market product, may invite investigative scrutiny of counsel and potential criminal charges grounded in bribery, wire fraud and other statutes, says David Klasing at The Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: 5 Tips From Ex-SEC Unit Chief

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    My move to private practice has reaffirmed my belief in the value of adaptability, collaboration and strategic thinking — qualities that are essential not only for successful client outcomes, but also for sustained professional satisfaction, says Dabney O’Riordan at Fried Frank.

  • Prisoners' Access To Health Info Should Have No Bars

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    To safeguard against unnecessary deaths in custody, courts and policymakers should clarify that incarcerated individuals’ constitutional right to medical care also includes access to sufficient information about their medical conditions, lifting current restrictions that can lead to crucial information being withheld, says Jaehyun Oh at Jacob Fuchsberg Law.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: How To Start A Law Firm

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    Launching and sustaining a law firm requires skills most law schools don't teach, but every lawyer should understand a few core principles that can make the leap calculated rather than reckless, says Sam Katz at Athlaw.

  • Series

    Hosting Exchange Students Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Opening my home to foreign exchange students makes me a better lawyer not just because prioritizing visiting high schoolers forces me to hone my organization and time management skills but also because sharing the study-abroad experience with newcomers and locals reconnects me to my community, says Alison Lippa at Nicolaides Fink.

  • How A 1947 Tugboat Ruling May Shape Work Product In AI Era

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    Rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence test work-product principles first articulated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s nearly 80-year-old Hickman v. Taylor decision, as courts and ethics bodies confront whether disclosure of attorneys’ AI prompts and outputs would reveal their thought processes, say Larry Silver and Sasha Burton at Langsam Stevens.

  • Navigating Privilege Law Patchwork In Dual-Purpose Comms

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    Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to resolve a circuit split in In re: Grand Jury, federal courts remain split as to when attorney-client privilege applies to dual-purpose legal and business communications, and understanding the fragmented landscape is essential for managing risks, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Considerations In Building Guardrails For AI Use In Arbitration

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    A recent California federal court case involving allegations of artificial intelligence ghostwriting an arbitration award, prior analogous practice on tribunal delegation, and emerging generative AI recommendations all support building a forward-looking framework for arbitration rules to minimize the risk of AI-based challenges, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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