Squire Patton, Baker McKenzie Hit With Data Breach Suits

By Rae Ann Varona

Squire Patton Boggs LLP and Baker McKenzie failed to protect private personal information stored in the law firms' systems from separate cyberattacks and delayed notifying affected individuals for roughly two months, two proposed class actions filed in Ohio and Illinois federal courts have alleged.

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Pornhub Gets Initial Nod For $120M Child Content Class Deal

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge granted preliminary approval Friday to a $120 million settlement reached by the companies behind Pornhub to end certified class claims in California and Alabama by child sex trafficking and sexual abuse material survivors who allege the video-sharing website profited from crimes committed against them.

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Analysis

PHP Flaw Shows How AI 'Changing The Game' In Cyber Realm

By Allison Grande

Artificial intelligence's role in uncovering a critical flaw in the PHP programming language that underpins a majority of the world's websites underscores its growing power to identify and help address cybersecurity vulnerabilities — and signals that such AI-driven discoveries may only just be beginning.

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Fla. Judge Rejects Guilty Plea Over TikTok Threats To Trump

By David Minsky

A Florida federal magistrate judge recommended that the court reject a woman's guilty plea for allegedly threatening President Trump in a profanity-laced TikTok livestream, saying the facts in the case don't show that the video contained a true threat of violence. 

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Google Sued Over Claims Its School AI Fueled Suicide Plot

By Dorothy Atkins

A North Carolina couple have hit Google with a product liability lawsuit that was removed to California federal court Wednesday, alleging that the tech giant negligently rolled out a dangerous version of Gemini AI on school-issued Chromebooks that led their once-healthy 13-year-old daughter into a "life-threatening obsession" that "coached" her suicide plot.

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FinCEN Scraps Unpopular Cross-Border Recordkeeping Plan

By Aislinn Keely

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Friday it has withdrawn a controversial six-year-old proposal that planned to significantly lower the threshold for collecting and transmitting identifying information for financial transactions across U.S. borders and apply the requirements to cryptocurrency.

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FCC To Allow Cable Biz's Router Hardware Upgrades

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission's staff has granted a one-year waiver to a major cable industry group, so its members can make certain hardware changes to previously approved routers that now fall under a national security restriction.

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US Charges 3 Over $129M AI Scam Using Fake UK Lawyers

By Laura Stewart Liberty

U.S. prosecutors said Thursday they have charged three men, including one facing extradition from London, for allegedly defrauding companies of $129 million through a scheme that used AI to impersonate executives and U.K. lawyers.

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Medical IT Co. Makes Data Breach Deal With Conn., Mich., NJ

By George Woolston

The attorneys general of Connecticut, Michigan and New Jersey on Friday announced a settlement of up to $10 million with companies that they say failed to protect medical data ahead of a March 2023 data breach that affected 13.3 million people.

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OKCoin Beats $2M Hacker Crypto Theft Suit

By Sydney Price

A California federal judge has permanently tossed a proposed class action accusing digital asset exchange OKCoin and its affiliates of enabling cryptocurrency thieves, ruling the plaintiffs' allegations that the company lacked certain safeguards do not show it is liable for the losses.

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Software Co. Says Lack Of US Tie Dooms Revenge Porn Suit

By Kelcey Caulder

Georgia-based software firm Ebix asked a federal court to toss its ex-CEO's suit alleging the company's owner obtained intimate images of him and his wife without consent and threatened to release them to pressure him into dropping a separate case, arguing the law doesn't cover acts allegedly committed in India.

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Consumers Want State-Law Amazon Pricing Case Unpaused

By Matthew Perlman

Consumers accusing Amazon of violating various state antitrust and consumer protection laws with its seller pricing rules are asking a New York federal court to unpause their case, following a class certification ruling in a similar action.

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How Cos. Can Reassess Ad Tech After Wash. Pixel Use Ruling

The Washington Supreme Court's decision in Baker v. Seattle Children's Hospital, holding that the hospital website's use of Meta Pixel didn't violate the state’s privacy act, may provide a powerful defense against privacy claims, but shouldn’t be read as a blanket approval of advertising technologies, say attorneys at Duane Morris.

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How Feds' Shifting Guidance Hits Bank-Fintech Partnerships

A slew of recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reforms will ultimately give banks and fintechs more flexibility in third-party oversight and supervisory information sharing, but institutions still must document risk-based decisions and engage proactively with regulators, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

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What To Watch As Florida Stablecoin Framework Takes Shape

As Florida's new payment stablecoin licensing framework enters its second month, requiring issuers to map applicable state and federal obligations and account for certification and rulemaking uncertainty, businesses should build core controls while keeping launch plans and contracts flexible, says Rob Brighton at Becker.

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Opinion

Judges Must Turn To Merits Earlier To Fix Civil Justice System

The U.S. justice system is long overdue for a cultural shift that encourages judges to engage with the merits of a case from the outset, which would help to cut through procedural complexities and deliver high-quality justice efficiently and at lower cost, says Steven Kayman at Rottenberg Lipman.

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Are You Happy With Your In-House Role? Take Our Survey

Is your company giving you everything you need to succeed? What are some misconceptions about working in-house? Help Law360 Pulse answer these questions and more in this year's In-House Satisfaction Survey.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Susman Godfrey LLP, Langer Grogan & Diver PC, Hausfeld LLP and MoloLamken LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Ninth Circuit ruled that a former federal judge erred by scrapping a $4.7 billion jury verdict against the National Football League in a class action over the price of its Sunday Ticket broadcast package.

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Judge Kewalramani Warns Against Taking Sanctions Lightly

By Dani Kass

Retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Shashi Kewalramani on Friday cautioned patent attorneys to be extremely discerning when filing sanctions motions, comparing it to crying "fire" in a crowded room.

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Brief

US Legal Sector Jobs Reached Record High In October

By Tracey Read

The legal industry's hot streak continued last month, adding 2,400 more jobs in October to reach a record high, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Defeated Texas Justice Being Considered For Federal Bench

By Courtney Bublé

With the clock ticking on Republicans' control of the Senate, President Donald Trump is considering putting a Texas Supreme Court justice who just lost reelection on the federal bench.

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Attys Can Curb AI Error Fallout With Candor, Accountability

By Andrea Keckley

Nearly four years since ChatGPT launched and the legal industry began experimenting at scale with generative artificial intelligence, not a month goes by without another attorney finding a hallucination error in a court filing.

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Top Blanche Adviser Among Latest To Exit DOJ

By Jared Foretek

A top legal adviser to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced his departure from the U.S. Department of Justice Friday, becoming the latest in a slew of high-profile resignations from the department since Republicans' midterm election defeat Tuesday night.

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Ice Miller Sued Over $729K Award After Losing Federal Forum

By Andrea Keckley

A couple who hired Ice Miller LLP to defend their organization against a breach of contract suit have accused the firm in Indiana federal court of exposing them to additional litigation with a settlement that failed to preserve federal jurisdiction over future disputes.

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Law Firm Sues Sierra Leone Over $361K Legal Bill

By Jared Foretek

Law firm Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC claims in a complaint filed in D.C. federal court that Sierra Leone's government stiffed it on more than $300,000 in legal fees and costs after the firm defended it against earlier claims of unpaid fees by Jenner & Block.

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Mich. Supreme Court Chief Next To Lead Chief Justice Group

By Melanie Dorsey

The Michigan Supreme Court's chief justice has been named president-elect of the Conference of Chief Justices, a national organization representing the highest-ranking state judicial officers, and she plans to focus on expanding access to legal services, reforming attorney licensing and strengthening courthouse security.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The U.S. Department of Justice's new cash rewards program for tips on criminal fraud could backfire in some cases, experts say. Elsewhere, attorneys are weighing new strategies in the wake of Texas' historic blue shift during the midterm elections. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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