Francesca's, a women's clothing boutique, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief Thursday in New Jersey to support an orderly store closing and wind-down of its business.
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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Retailer Francesca's Hits Ch. 11 To Support Wind-Down

By Ben Zigterman

Francesca's, a women's clothing boutique, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief Thursday in New Jersey to support an orderly store closing and wind-down of its business.

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FAT Brands Seeks OK To Use Subsidiary Stock Sale Cash

By Rick Archer

FAT Brands is asking a Delaware bankruptcy judge for permission to use the proceeds from a sale of new shares in one of its subsidiary restaurant chains, saying it needs the more than $3 million in cash to fund its Chapter 11 case.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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CHAPTER 11

Buffalo Diocese Abuse Settlement Rises To $315M In Ch. 11

By Rae Ann Varona

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo is making progress in settling roughly 900 claims of child sexual abuse, with the financial settlement approaching $315 million, counsel for the unsecured creditors committee in the diocese's Chapter 11 case announced Thursday.

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Nicklaus Golf Co. Gets $50M Baseline Bid For Licensing Biz

By Rick Archer

A $50 million offer from brand manager Iconix International will be the baseline bid for a Chapter 11 auction of licensing rights for golf legend Jack Nicklaus' name, rights holder GBI Services has told a Delaware bankruptcy judge.

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Ex-Alex Jones Atty Asks Conn. Justices To Nix Suspension

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut attorney who formerly represented conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones in a $1.4 billion defamation case has asked the state's highest court to consider whether it was proper for a judge to suspend his law license for violating a protective order governing Sandy Hook families' personal information.

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Cano Health CEO Accused Of Misleading $30M Share Buyer

By Carolina Bolado

The former chief operating officer of Cano Health Inc. told a Florida state court that ex-CEO Marlow Hernandez misled him into buying $30 million worth of shares in the company despite knowing it was on the brink of insolvency.

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CHAPTER 7

Defunct Gov't Contractor Found In Contempt Of Asset Freeze

By Jarek Rutz

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has held the owners and affiliates of a defunct government contractor in contempt for violating a court-ordered asset freeze, concluding that they improperly sold a Missouri property that had been expressly barred from transfer while a $14 million clawback suit proceeds.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Series

Teaching Logic Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Meet New Paul Weiss Chairman Scott Barshay

By Anna Sanders

New Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP chair Scott Barshay is a rainmaker who most recently led the corporate department, guiding clients through some of the largest transactions in recent history after joining the firm's New York office a decade ago.

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Judge Who Resigned To Criticize Trump Had Faced Inquiry

By Chris Villani

Former Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf was the subject of an inquiry into potential misconduct when he announced his November resignation, a decision he said at the time was motivated by a desire to speak out against the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.

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Judge Says AI Errors Show Atty Can't 'Learn' From Mistakes

By Ivan Moreno

A New York federal judge concluded that an attorney who repeatedly submitted filings with false AI-generated citations must be punished with case-terminating sanctions against a client he was defending in a trademark lawsuit, saying Thursday that the lawyer "has not, and apparently cannot, learn from his mistakes."

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NY Times Article Excerpts Admitted In Goldstein Trial

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors pressing their case against SCOTUSblog co-founder Thomas Goldstein for tax evasion and misleading statements on mortgage applications were finally able on Thursday to present jurors with key statements the U.S. Supreme Court lawyer made to legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin for a long New York Times Magazine article.

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Texas Atty Must Explain AI 'Misuse' In Employment Case

By Lauren Berg

A prominent civil rights attorney representing a University of Texas at Austin nurse in an employment discrimination case must explain why he shouldn't be sanctioned "for his apparent misuse of artificial intelligence" to research and write a brief, a Texas federal judge ruled.

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Deel Loses Bid To DQ Quinn Emanuel In Trade Secrets Fight

By Lauren Berg

Payroll and human resources company Deel Inc. cannot have Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP disqualified from representing its competitor Rippling in a trade secrets fight, a Delaware judge ruled Thursday, saying there is no "clear conflict" that would require booting the BigLaw firm.

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State Bar Of Texas Declines To Open Grievance On Ramey

By Emily Sawicki

The State Bar of Texas has declined to open a grievance against patent litigator William P. Ramey III after a San Francisco federal court sanctioned him and his firm, Ramey LLP, for practicing law in California without a license.

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Wash. Lawyer Faces Sanction Threat Over Alleged AI Errors

By Ben Adlin

A federal judge has ordered an attorney in Washington state to submit a sworn declaration explaining why she shouldn't be sanctioned for what opposing counsel claimed are dozens of artificial intelligence "hallucinations" across multiple case filings.

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Fake Case Pulled From Toshiba Malicious Prosecution Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A former printer toner salesman is trying to salvage his lawsuit against Toshiba after the company flagged nonexistent citations, apologizing to the California federal court in a corrected brief Thursday defending claims that the electronics company manufactured a criminal case against him and others to maintain an illegal monopoly.

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McCarter & English Wants To Torpedo $22M Malpractice Suit

By Aaron Keller

McCarter & English LLP on Thursday asked a Connecticut Superior Court judge to sink a $22.3 million professional negligence lawsuit by two struggling insurers, saying failures to provide documents or knowledgeable people to testify during pretrial depositions warrant a "harsh" end to the nearly decade-old case.

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Trump's Seattle US Atty Stays On For Now Via Title Swap

By Rachel Riley

Trump administration appointee Charles Neil Floyd will continue to be the Western District of Washington's top federal prosecutor for now, under the new title of "First Assistant U.S. Attorney," after the deadline passed Wednesday for the U.S. Senate to confirm the interim appointment.

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Klobuchar Alarmed By Exodus Of Prosecutors In Minnesota

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Thursday said she was alarmed by the surge of resignations by federal prosecutors in her state following the shooting deaths of two Minnesotans by immigration agents.

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Judiciary Backs Bill To Let Judges Carry Concealed Guns

By Courtney Bublé

The federal judiciary has come out in support of a Republican-led bill to allow judges and prosecutors to carry concealed firearms across state lines, according to a letter obtained by Law360.

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Ex-Prosecutors Call For Independent Probes Of ICE Killings

By Rose Krebs

A coalition of former federal prosecutors and civil rights attorneys is urging U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that the U.S. Department of Justice allows for "transparent, unbiased and impartial" investigations into the killings in Minneapolis last month of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration enforcement agents.

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Promo that reads 2025 Practice Groups of the Year

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Arete Law Group

Bielli & Klauder

Blank Rome

Bond Schoeneck

Burns Bair

Chipman Brown

Ciardi Ciardi

Cravath Swaine

Dalton & Associates PA

Feldman & Associates PLLC

Gellert Seitz

Gibson McAskill

Gleichenhaus Marchese

Goldstein & Russell

Gordon Rees

Greenberg Traurig

Hodgson Russ

Hunton Andrews

Jones Day

Koffsky Schwalb

Kroger Gardis

Latham & Watkins

Mandelbaum Barrett

Manning Gross

Margolis Edelstein

Maschoff Brennan

McCarter & English

Munger Tolles

Murphy Ball Stratton

Pachulski Stang

Paul Weiss

Quinn Emanuel

Ramey LLP

Reed Smith

Richards Layton

Silver Golub

Skadden Arps

Todd & Weld

Weil Gotshal

Whiteford Taylor

Wiggin & Dana

Woods Rogers

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

3G Capital

American Bar Association

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA/NV

Apollo Global Management LLC

Apple Inc.

Avenue Capital Group

Barron's

Bayer AG

Cano Health Inc.

Chevron Corp.

Deel Inc.

FAT Brands Inc.

Gelman, Rosenberg & Freedman

International Business Machines Corp.

Jana Partners LLC

Lion Capital LLP

McDonald's Corp.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Noble Energy Inc.

Outliers Inc.

Overstock.com Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

Red Hat Inc.

Renesas Electronics Corp.

Renewable Energy Group Inc.

SABMiller

Starbucks Corp.

State Bar of Texas

The Kraft Heinz Co.

The New York Times Co.

TikTok Inc.

Toshiba Corp.

Ultimate Fighting Championship Ltd.

Unilever PLC

United Airlines Holdings Inc.

Walmart Inc.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Connecticut Insurance Department

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Trade Commission

Internal Revenue Service

Judicial Conference of the United States

Minnesota Attorney General's Office

Texas Attorney General's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. District & Bankruptcy Courts of Southern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court

United States District Court for the District of Colorado

United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana