Law firms of all sizes are grappling with whether to keep leaders on longer to maintain a sense of consistency and normalcy amid the global crisis or to implement a transition to bring in new perspectives and ideas.
The move to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic has attorneys juggling their jobs and household tasks and family care, with an especially devastating effect on the careers of women, attorneys of color and those in other marginalized or minority groups.
As a bankruptcy trustee's team toils away in Girardi Keese's deserted Los Angeles offices to prepare the plaintiffs firm for liquidation, numerous awards and photos of a triumphant Tom Girardi stare down at them from the walls.
Often isolated from co-workers and lacking established support networks, young attorneys have been particularly susceptible during the coronavirus pandemic to mental health struggles that were already pervasive in the legal profession.
The nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court have been "fully vaccinated" against the novel coronavirus, a court spokeswoman confirmed Friday. The justices, however, will continue to hold remote oral arguments via telephone through at least the end of March.
Kaplan Saunders' website suffered a cybersecurity breach Friday, as the firm's official URL redirected to a website that sells Viagra for part of the afternoon.
The legal industry has now recovered more than half of the 73,200 jobs it lost last spring as the coronavirus pandemic first hit, with the sector gaining approximately 7,200 jobs in February, according to preliminary data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission created a new task force to clamp down on environmental, social and governance-related disclosure violations, and Virginia became the second behind California to adopt a sweeping consumer privacy bill. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.
Second Circuit Judge Peter W. Hall took senior status on Thursday, giving President Joe Biden a third opening on the New York-based appeals court and his first opportunity to "flip" a circuit to a majority of Democratic appointees.
Clothing brand HanesBrand Inc. announced Friday that Neiman Marcus Group Chief Legal Officer Tracy Preston has joined the company as its new general counsel.
Juries could be returning to New Jersey courtrooms as early as May 17 after the state's Supreme Court authorized the summoning of in-person panels.
Texas lawyers voted to approve eight proposed amendments to the state's disciplinary and procedural rules, which would allow firms in the state to practice under trade names and more freely use social media to advertise their practice.
It took 15 months, $640 million and a two-week trial but Evonik managed to close its purchase of fellow hydrogen peroxide producer PeroxyChem last year, days after its Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP legal team broke the Federal Trade Commission's seven-case winning streak contesting mergers in federal court.
Kazakh mining company ENRC does not have to post £34 million ($47 million) cash in its bitter legal struggle with Dechert LLP and the Serious Fraud Office, as a judge said on Friday that its financial woes were obvious last year.
Law firms are vying to establish themselves as experts on how climate change impacts an ever-expanding array of client interests, putting new spotlights on the work of environmental and energy lawyers that are teaming with disparate practice groups to deliver holistic climate advice.
Wells Fargo has urged a California federal court overseeing a putative securities fraud class action to reject a request by investors that the bank reveal communications it had with Gibson Dunn, arguing that the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.
After years of patents being thrown out by the controversial Patent Trial and Appeal Board, one patent owner asked the Supreme Court on Monday to return the favor and declare the board itself invalid. Law360's The Term recaps the hearing, along with a crucial moment for the Voting Rights Act.
A divided Second Circuit panel on Thursday overturned $666,476 in sanctions against Steven Donziger, who helped secure a fraudulent $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador, saying confusing constraints imposed on his fundraising activity undermined the penalty.
The nation's top court has ordered a California county to allow indoor church gatherings, a Pittsburgh judge has been sued over an alleged lack of virtual court access and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can't enforce a nationwide freeze on evictions amid the pandemic.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued the first majority opinion of her U.S. Supreme Court career Thursday, siding against the Sierra Club in a Freedom of Information Act case that sparked a dissent from two of the court's liberal justices.
Tuesday's $2 billion patent verdict against Intel Corp. is a record-breaking result under a relatively new Texas federal judge who's seen as an innovator, and could draw even more litigants to a court that's quickly taken over as the reigning hotbed of patent litigation.
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP's New York City-based partner Barbara Becker will take the multinational law firm's reins as the first woman to reach its co-terminous chair and managing partner positions in its 131-year history, the firm has announced.
Judges, clerks, security officers and some attorneys have been designated essential workers in Arkansas and are now eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines immediately, the state's Supreme Court announced on Thursday.
A Mohrman Kaardal & Erickson PA partner wants the D.C. Circuit to overturn a federal judge's recent order referring him to face a court disciplinary panel over his role in a lawsuit that unsuccessfully sought to block the certification of last year's presidential election.
A Delaware vice chancellor said Thursday she "wasn't very persuaded" by some arguments from an investor seeking derivative damages from the top figures of online legal services venture UpCounsel Inc., who the investor says licensed away the heart of the company without adequate disclosures before folding the business.
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is refusing to let a Florida law firm register "The Consumer Protection Firm" as a trademark, saying it was merely a generic phrase.
Mike Toth, the recently named general counsel of REX - Real Estate Exchange Inc., thinks U.S. home buyers have had just about enough of staggering real estate fees and is leading his company's efforts to convince antitrust enforcers to rein in the charges.
The many constitutional challenges to coronavirus restrictions that businesses have launched are unlikely to succeed, but their proliferation worries public health law experts, who say more are coming and even those that fail can undermine public health measures, now and for future pandemics.
Manhattan U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said Thursday morning that a female juror hearing conspiracy charges against two men accused of tricking banks into processing $150 million of pot transactions has tested positive for COVID-19 but that the trial would continue.
Law360 congratulates the winners of its 2020 Practice Groups of the Year awards, which honor the law firms behind the litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year.
The Law360 2020 Glass Ceiling Report shows that law firms continue to make only minimal progress in their efforts to dispel the barriers women face, especially as they move up the ranks.
The elite slate of attorneys chosen as Law360's 2020 MVPs have distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.
Attorneys working remotely from jurisdictions in which they are not admitted should take precautionary steps to avoid engaging in unauthorized practice of law, say John Schmidt and Michael Seaman at Phillips Lytle.
Opinion
A recent Law360 guest article criticized attorneys who use California's Song-Beverly Act to fight for consumers who have purchased cars with serious defects — but automakers could avoid litigation if they simply followed the law and bought back defective vehicles promptly, says Nancy Peverini at the Consumer Attorneys of California.
Parenting during the pandemic has introduced a series of competing personal and professional obligations for attorneys and professional staff, and even organizations that are supportive of their parent employees can take steps to do better, says Meredith Kahan at Saul Ewing.
Opinion
Recent attention from the U.S. Senate to the gender gap in patent law shows that it's time to rethink qualifying for the patent bar, as well as the educational and business systems that perpetuate outdated stereotypes, say Julie Reed and Marie Weiskopf at Miller Nash.
The prospect of joining a law firm during the pandemic can cause added pressure, but with a few good practices — and a little help from their firms and supervising attorneys — lawyer trainees can get ahead of the curve while working remotely, say William Morris and Ted Landray at King & Spalding.
Law firms looking to diversify historically male-dominated patent practices should examine their hiring practices, expand their pool of applicants from underrepresented groups, tailor job postings and revamp interview processes, says Elaine Spector at Harrity.
Attorneys at Nossaman look at how President Joe Biden’s ethics pledge goes beyond those of his predecessors by imposing post-employment shadow lobbying and golden parachute restrictions on his administration’s appointees — and how a House bill proposing expansion of federal ethics law could affect enforcement.
Opinion
Law graduates across the states are sitting for the grueling two-day bar exam this week despite menstruation-related barriers, such as inadequate menstrual product and bathroom access, which could be eradicated with simple policy tweaks, say law professors Elizabeth Cooper, Margaret Johnson and Marcy Karin.
The volume and diversity of data managed by law firms today — from client files to internal financial records — may seem daunting, but when properly organized, good data can help practitioners stay competitive by providing sharper insight into firm resources and cost of work, say Jaron Luttich and Barry Wiggins at Element Standard.
Whether a law firm dissolution is amicable or adversarial, departing attorneys should take steps to maintain their legal and ethical responsibilities toward clients, and beware client confidentiality pitfalls when joining new firms, say John Schmidt and Colin Fitzgerald at Phillips Lytle.
Courts are leading the way in ensuring oral argument opportunities for newer attorneys by incorporating innovative language in a variety of orders, and private parties can and should follow suit by incorporating similar language into case management orders, say Megan Jones and Halli Spraggins at Hausfeld.
Amid economic uncertainty and increasing pressure on corporate legal departments to do more with less, work management processes should be aimed at tracking legal teams' every contribution, including routine matters that can be reallocated to nonlegal staff, says Aaron Pierce at LexisNexis CounselLink.
The American Bar Association's recent guidance on what constitutes materially adverse interests between clients makes clear that lawyers should not take comfort in a current representation just because a former client is not on the opposite side of the v., and those hoping to avoid disqualification should consider five steps, says Hilary Gerzhoy at Harris Wiltshire.
Rebuttal
Contrary to claims made in a recent Law360 guest article, nonlawyer ownership has incrementally improved the England and Wales legal system — with more innovation and more opportunities for lawyers — and there is no reason why those outcomes cannot also be achieved in the U.S., say Crispin Passmore at Passmore Consulting and Zachariah DeMeola at the University of Denver.
Marketing professionals often do not have firsthand knowledge of current legal trends and client issues, so law firms need to commit to an ongoing knowledge extraction process — a series of steps to draw out attorney insights that can help marketers create effective and frequent thought leadership content, says Michelle Calcote King at Reputation Ink.