Business of Law
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May 17, 2019
In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360
For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.
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May 17, 2019
Helping Manafort's Kid Get Skadden Gig No Crime, Craig Says
Former Skadden partner Gregory Craig urged a D.C. federal court Friday to bar the government from introducing evidence that he helped line up a job at Skadden for the daughter of the now-jailed former chairman of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort.
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May 17, 2019
ABA Raises Bar For Law School Accreditation On Third Vote
The American Bar Association on Friday adopted a new standard requiring ABA-accredited law schools to show that at least 75% of graduates pass the bar exam within two years of getting their diplomas, a tightened standard that the organization had rejected twice before.
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May 17, 2019
Law360's Pro Say: Kavanaugh V. Gorsuch
President Donald Trump’s two U.S. Supreme Court appointees have found themselves at odds in a surprising number of cases, most recently in a big ruling this week backing iPhone owners who want to sue Apple. Reporter Jimmy Hoover joins us on the Pro Say podcast to discuss the Apple case and the rift between the court’s newest justices.
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May 17, 2019
Group Got $17M Secret Donation Ahead Of Kavanaugh Fight
The Judicial Crisis Network received $17 million from an anonymous donor shortly before the fight to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, according to two government watchdog groups that obtained the conservative judicial group's latest tax returns.
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May 17, 2019
Pierce Bainbridge Ends Partnership With Funder Pravati
Litigation boutique Pierce Bainbridge has concluded its partnership with litigation funder Pravati Capital, whose investment helped fuel the young firm's rapid national expansion over the past two years, the parties confirmed Friday.
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May 17, 2019
Top NJ Federal Judge Bemoans Court's Workload Upon Exit
New Jersey's federal court system outpaced all other district courts in civil case filings over the past year, further burdening a short-staffed bench that’s riddled with six vacancies, U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares said Friday in announcing his departure for private practice.
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May 17, 2019
Constitutional Crisis? Not Quite, But Courts Could Be Tested
Legal and political scholars agree we are not in a constitutional crisis … yet. But as tensions mount between the president and Congress, the role of the third branch of government could be both crucial and perilous.
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May 17, 2019
30K Attys In Calif. In Trouble Over Their Fingerprints
Nearly 30,000 attorneys in California face escalating penalties this month for missing a deadline to submit new fingerprints to the State Bar in an unpopular push to discover attorneys convicted of crimes.
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May 17, 2019
NJ District Chief Judge Joins McCarter & English
McCarter & English LLP on Friday welcomed retired U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares, the former chief of New Jersey’s federal court, as a partner who will lead the firm’s alternative dispute resolution practice in its Newark, New Jersey, headquarters.
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May 17, 2019
Robinson Bradshaw Liable For Diversity Promises, Atty Says
Law firms should be held liable for deceptive advertising when they lure minority and female attorneys by talking up their diversity and inclusion efforts and then fail to live up to their promises, according to a Thursday filing in a race bias suit against Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson PA.
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May 17, 2019
The Law Firms Making Millions Off The PG&E Cases
The nation's largest utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric, has paid at least $89 million in the past year in legal fees to firms directly involved with its bankruptcy, civil, criminal and regulatory cases stemming from California wildfires — and the vast majority of that sum has gone to Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP.
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May 17, 2019
GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week
General counsel said they think legal operations departments might make lasting progress on diversity and inclusion where others so far haven't succeeded, and the Federal Trade Commission said it's cracking down on companies that buy consumer data gathered through scammers. These are some of the stories in legal news you may have missed in the past week.
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May 17, 2019
FEC Chair Rips Peers For Nixing Thornton Donation Inquiry
The Federal Election Commission came up two votes shy of moving forward with an investigation into whether Boston-based Thornton Law illegally reimbursed partners for campaign donations, frustrating the commission's chair who worried that FEC inaction could spawn more unlawful activity.
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May 17, 2019
4 Blunders Law Firms Make On Social Media
Social media presents law firms with ample opportunity to build their reputation and attract the attention of new clients, but all too often firms end up stumbling in their online marketing strategies, falling face first into social media mediocrity.
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May 17, 2019
Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Caldwell Cassady's Brad Caldwell
If Apple could send people back in time, it would likely make them steer Brad Caldwell away from law school. It probably wouldn’t have even been that hard: He’d studied to be an engineer, even worked as one for the CIA, before applying for law school on a whim. There was a very real future in which he didn’t become a lawyer, and in that future, Apple might have kept the $1 billion Caldwell bled from it in court.
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May 16, 2019
Greenberg Traurig To Open Milan Office, Its 40th Worldwide
Greenberg Traurig LLP said Thursday it will acquire a boutique law firm in Milan and open an office in the northern Italian city, marking its fifth location in Europe and its 40th in the world.
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May 16, 2019
Which States Are Best And Worst At Atty Discipline?
Hawaii, Delaware and New Hampshire are the best states in the country when it comes to handling attorney discipline cases, according to a new paper from two researchers at Florida Atlantic University.
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May 16, 2019
Benefits Of Arbitration Pacts Hotly Debated At House Hearing
A fault line emerged at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday over whether arbitration agreements that limit class actions are beneficial for workers and consumers, with proponents of such pacts saying they give people a chance to pursue small-dollar claims and opponents arguing instead that they make potential claims vanish.
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May 16, 2019
3rd-Party Funding Now A Top Alternative Choice For Lawyers
Third-party litigation and arbitration funding has increasingly become an attractive destination for lawyers who’ve grown weary of the billable hour because it allows them to draw on their experience while challenging them to ensure a funded claim will be a good investment, said several people who have made the move.
The Legal Writing Habit Judges Say They Can't Stand
Riding #MeToo Wave, State Courts Get Their Ships In Order
Wall Of Secrecy Surrounds Sexual Harassment In State Courts
Discipline Rare For State Judges In Sexual Misconduct Cases
The Legal Writing Habit Judges Say They Can't Stand
The legal industry has a writing problem and judges and justices are speaking out, detailing exactly what it is that bothers them most about the documents they encounter on the bench.
Riding #MeToo Wave, State Courts Get Their Ships In Order
Most state court systems have already been rolling out their own changes in the wake of federal #MeToo reforms, but making judges accountable for sexual misconduct won't happen overnight.
Wall Of Secrecy Surrounds Sexual Harassment In State Courts
Is sexual harassment a systemic problem in the state judiciary? Law360 reviewed data from 50 states and the District of Columbia and found the answer is more elusive than it seems.
Discipline Rare For State Judges In Sexual Misconduct Cases
If raising a sexual harassment complaint against a state judge is uncommon, seeing a complaint go through the disciplinary process and result in a public determination is almost unheard of.
Editor's Picks
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The Law360 400
Kirkland & Ellis LLP has redefined what it means to be the biggest of BigLaw — weighing in at 2,116 attorneys by year end 2018 and becoming the first firm since Law360 began tracking law firm head counts to top 2,000 U.S.-based attorneys.
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Law360 Reveals Titans Of The Plaintiffs Bar
They’re global managing partners, lecturers in law, parents and former state prosecutors whose work in large-scale litigation has led to landmark victories and record-breaking deals. Law360 is honoring 10 influential plaintiffs lawyers who are champions in the courtroom and leaders in and outside their firms.
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The Big Picture: How #MeToo Is Changing The Legal Industry
As fallout from the #MeToo movement continues to reverberate throughout the legal industry, law firms are eagle-eyeing old attitudes and the judiciary is looking more closely at disciplinary mechanisms. Here, Law360 provides continuing coverage of the movement.
Expert Analysis
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Q&A
A Chat With Gilead Sciences Legal Ops Leader Gary Tully
In this monthly series, legal recruiting experts from Major Lindsey & Africa interview legal industry leaders about the increasingly competitive business environment. Here, Rod Osborne talks with Gary Tully, head of legal operations at Gilead Sciences.
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Series
Why I Became A Lawyer: Completing The Journey Home
My mother's connection to her Native American heritage had a major influence on my career — my decision to enter the legal profession was driven by the desire to return to my tribal community and help it in any way I could, says Jason Hauter of Akin Gump.
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Series
Judging A Book: Wood Reviews 'The Making Of A Justice'
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' new book, "The Making of a Justice," is required reading for anyone interested in 20th and 21st century America, says Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Diane Wood.
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Getting Out Of Legal Project Management Debt
If a client does not demand the application of project management techniques at the start of a matter, or a law firm does not routinely apply them, it is highly likely that additional, avoidable work — legal project management debt — will materialize throughout the matter, says Anthony Widdop of Shearman & Sterling.
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6 Ways To Keep Your Jury From Zoning Out
Science suggests that at least some jurors pay attention to less than 65% of the evidence during a trial due to "task-unrelated thoughts," but there are steps attorneys can take to present information in a more engaging, cognition-friendly fashion, say Dennis Stolle and Dennis Devine of Barnes & Thornburg.
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5 Myths In Legal Crisis Communications
Having worked at a boutique law firm, a crisis communications agency and in BigLaw, I have identified a number of common misconceptions across these disparate business models when it comes to crisis and litigation communications, says Robert Gemmill of Hogan Lovells.
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An Overview Of The Debate Over Litigation Finance Disclosure
In light of a New York federal court's recent decision in Benitez v. Lopez, which joins a growing body of case law denying forced disclosure of commercial litigation finance, Stephanie Spangler of Norris McLaughlin and Dai Wai Chin Feman of Parabellum Capital break down the arguments commonly raised for and against disclosure.
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How To Identify And Deal With Narcissists In Law
Given that a large swath of the legal profession may display some narcissistic tendencies, it is important for lawyers to know how to address the narcissist in the room — and it may be you, says Jennifer Gibbs of Zelle.
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Q&A
A Chat With Cleary Chief Talent Officer Hy Pomerance
In this monthly series, legal recruiting experts from Major Lindsey & Africa interview management from top law firms about the increasingly competitive business environment. Here, Amanda Brady and Dustin Laws talk with Hy Pomerance, chief talent officer of Cleary.
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Rebuttal
Forced Arbitration Is A Far Worse 'Product' Than Jury Trials
Jury trials are not dying because arbitration is a “better product,” as alleged in a recent Law360 guest article, but because corporations have rigged the system through forced arbitration to ensure they cannot be held accountable before a judge or jury, say attorneys at Hagens Berman.