California Bar Exam Woes Latest Chapter In Ongoing Scrutiny

By Emily Sawicki

Recent headline-grabbing blunders with the February California bar exam represent a stumbling block in a yearslong effort to reshape the exam, with an eye toward equity and accessibility for the more than 10,000 applicants who sit for the exam each year.

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Alphabet, Investors Face Judge's Questions Over $500M Deal

By Lauren Berg

A California federal judge has questions about an investor settlement with Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., which agreed to earmark half a billion dollars over the next 10 years to overhaul its global compliance structure to resolve claims against company leaders of anticompetitive and monopolistic practices.

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Judge Warns Overeager Samsung, ZTE Attys Not To Bug Staff

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has issued a short, stern warning to counsel in Samsung's antitrust fight against ZTE over its standard essential patents' licensing practices, telling counsel not to contact court staff again about the status of their pending stipulation and noting "future improper communications to court staff may result in sanctions."

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Trump's Attack On Fed. Worker Unions Meets Skeptical Judge

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge Wednesday appeared open to temporarily blocking President Donald Trump's executive order reclassifying hundreds of thousands of federal workers to bar them from collective bargaining, calling the order "dramatic" and "unprecedented," and asking about the downsides of keeping the status quo until trial.

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State Farm Likely To Face 200K Calif. Homeowner Class

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Wednesday that he'll likely certify a class of nearly 200,000 homeowners in litigation alleging that State Farm underpays property insurance claims by depreciating sales tax when calculating replacement costs, saying a common issue predominates and noting he'd sided with plaintiffs in a similar 2017 case.

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Reddit Execs Downplayed Google AI's Impact, Investors Say

By Lauren Berg

Reddit and its top brass downplayed the impact Google's artificial intelligence-generated search results had on the forum website's traffic and ad revenues, causing stocks to drop when the truth emerged about weakening revenues, according to an investor's proposed class action filed Wednesday in California federal court.

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BofA Judge Doubts Class Certification Bid In Unpaid PTO Suit

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge doubted Wednesday whether a named plaintiff can adequately represent a proposed class of Bank of America employees who claim they weren't paid for unused vacation time when they left the bank, observing during a hearing that her individualized issues "could make her very differently situated."

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California Cities Say Enviro Group Destroyed Testing Data

By Mike Curley

The cities of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, California, are asking a federal judge to sanction environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper in a suit alleging the cities allowed sewage into the bay, saying the group destroyed key evidence either by "conscious effort or gross negligence."

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Judge Says A Ruling Unfreezing Wind Projects May Be Pyrrhic

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge said on Wednesday he will allow key claims to move forward in a suit challenging the Trump administration's halt of wind farm project reviews, yet he suggested even if the plaintiffs ultimately prevail, the administration could still simply deny requests for permits and leases.

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Hong Kong-Based Airline Sued Over Failed Takeoff To LA

By Jonathan Capriel

Plane passengers injured during a failed takeoff and "chaotic emergency evacuation" are suing Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., claiming the company failed to maintain equipment and properly train crew.

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9th Circ. Backs Papa John's Win Against Wiretapping Suit

By Gina Kim

The Ninth Circuit refused to reinstate a customer's proposed class action accusing Papa John's of recording website visitors' activities in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, ruling Wednesday the pizza chain, as a party to the communications, can't be liable for spying on its own conversation. 

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Split 9th Circ. Partly Undoes Walmart Copyright Verdict

By Elliot Weld

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday reversed part of a jury's verdict that found Walmart had violated a sculptor's copyrights by selling knockoffs of her lamps, allowing the retail giant to escape paying her attorney fees for now.

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Netflix Gets Fed. Circ.'s Backing In Streaming Patent Fight

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that invalidated claims in a streaming patent challenged by Netflix while also vacating the board's decision to decline to scrub other claims.

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Fed. Circ. OKs Google's PTAB Win In Sonos Patent Fight

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday backed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that claims in a Sonos music playback patent were invalid, handing a win to Google in a larger fight between the companies.

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9th Circ. Tosses NLRB Order On Union Jurisdiction Dispute

By Beverly Banks

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday axed a National Labor Relations Board order barring a longshore union from going after maintenance work in the Port of Seattle that was awarded to the Machinists, with one judge inviting en banc review of appeals court precedent about work preservation defenses.

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Super Micro Can't Ditch Whistleblower Retaliation Suit

By Lauren Berg

Super Micro Computer cannot escape its former employee's claim that the information technology company unlawfully retaliated against him for acting as a whistleblower to report its misleading accounting practices and other misconduct, a California federal judge ruled Tuesday.

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Brief

Feds Want Pa. Inmate To Face $810K Tax Refund Case

By Aaron Keller

Massachusetts federal prosecutors want a Pennsylvania inmate returned to the Bay State by July to face claims he impersonated a corporate executive and swiped an $810,000 tax refund bound for a Stamford, Connecticut, investment firm.

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DOJ Defends Using Written Depos In HPE-Juniper Merger Trial

By Jared Foretek

The U.S. Department of Justice is defending its proposal to include written deposition testimony into the record for its upcoming antitrust trial against Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks, saying that playing depositions live would waste crucial time in what is scheduled to be an eight-day trial.

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Groups Say Feds Violate Flores With Lengthy Child Detention

By Rae Ann Varona

Children's and legal rights groups on Tuesday evening urged a California federal judge to enforce a decadesold settlement agreement governing the custody of immigrant children, saying migrant children today are being held for prolonged periods in unsafe and unsanitary "prison-like" conditions.

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Cities Sign On To Chicago's Suit Over DHS Funding 'Pause'

By Rachel Riley

Boston, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle have joined Chicago's federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of illegally suspending federal counterterrorism funding meant for urban areas, saying the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has failed to fulfill nearly $3 million in preapproved reimbursement requests.

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State Farm Rate Hike Portends Intensifying Insurance Crisis

The California Department of Insurance's unprecedented emergency approval of a 17% rate increase for State Farm General Insurance, the first interim rate relief granted before completing full actuarial justification, represents a regulatory watershed and establishes precedent that could fundamentally reshape insurers' response to climate-driven market instability, says Daniel Veroff at Merlin Law Group.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Teaching Yourself Legal Tech

New graduates often enter practice unfamiliar with even basic professional software, but budding lawyers can use on-the-job opportunities to both catch up on technological skills and explore the advanced legal and artificial intelligence tools that will open doors, says Alyssa Sones at Sheppard Mullin.

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'Absolutely Disgusting': Litigant's Stashed Gum Irks Judge

By Hailey Konnath

A Florida federal judge admonished a plaintiff for sticking her chewed gum to a courtroom table, leading to a federal prosecutor getting the gum stuck to her skirt later, calling it "absolutely disgusting" and saying he "never dreamed" he would have to "write an order like this."

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9th Circ. Backs 'Legitimate' Bar Membership Admission Rules

By Lauren Berg

The Ninth Circuit on Friday tossed a challenge to local rules in district courts in the circuit requiring lawyers to be bar members in the state where the court is located in order to seek general admission, saying admission rules aren't unconstitutional and there are several "legitimate reasons" for the rule.

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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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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton and Andrea Keckley

WilmerHale leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Federal Circuit vacated a $300 million patent infringement jury verdict against Apple, based on instructions by a Texas federal judge that the appellate court panel determined to be erroneous.

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Feature

Current And Former GCs Urge Law Grads To 'Rise Up'

By Michele Gorman

From sharing details about being part of the first class of female graduates at Washington and Lee University School of Law to explaining how a middle-school teaching job led to obtaining a law degree, five commencement speakers — all current or former general counsel — recently shared their wisdom for the next generation of attorneys.

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Trump Taps Atty Dropped By Biden For Eastern Ky. Fed. Court

By Ali Sullivan

President Donald Trump has announced plans to nominate former Kentucky Solicitor General Chad Meredith to serve as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

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NJ Court Greenlights Beasley Allen Attys In Talc Litigation

By George Woolston

A New Jersey state judge will allow two Beasley Allen Law Firm attorneys to represent a California couple in their suit accusing Johnson & Johnson of selling carcinogenic talc-based baby powder and appear pro hac vice despite the company's vehement opposition.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new report showed a dip in the average size of corporate legal teams over the last year, and an attorney focused on special purpose acquisition companies is predicting the Trump administration's friendly stance on cryptocurrency will spawn a wave of new cryptocurrency-related ventures going public in the coming months. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Attys Face Sanctions For 'Sweeping' Copying Of Firm's Motion

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has ordered The Neil Jones Food Co.'s defense counsel to explain why she shouldn't sanction them for filing a dismissal motion that appears to plagiarize a losing motion filed by another firm in another case in the district, slamming the "sweeping copy and paste" conduct as "patently unacceptable."

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Pogust Goodhead face legal action from mining giant BHP Group, Trainline bring a procurement claim against the Department for Transport, Sworders auction house sue Conservative peer Patricia Rawlings, and Nokia hit with a patents claim by Hisense. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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