Boeing Supplier Sues Texas AG To Block Safety Investigation

By Henrik Nilsson

The subsidiary of a company that produces fuselages for Boeing's 737 jets sued on Wednesday to block the Texas attorney general's investigation into apparent manufacturing issues that have caused recent midair emergencies, saying the probe is unconstitutional and violates the company's right to be free from unreasonable searches.

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Abu Ghraib Contractor Torture Liability Case Ends In Mistrial

By Daniel Wilson

A Virginia federal judge on Thursday declared a mistrial in a suit accusing military contractor CACI International of aiding and abetting torture at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq, after the jury deadlocked following extensive deliberations.

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Email Exchanges Doom Honeywell Bid To Nix $20M GSA Claim

By Alyssa Aquino

A contract appeals board wouldn't free Honeywell International Inc. from the General Services Administration's efforts to recoup an alleged $20 million overpayment on an energy deal, finding it unclear whether a 2021 agreement related to the contract barred the claim.

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Gov't Proposes Buy Ban Rule For Certain Semiconductors

By Daniel Wilson

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council said Thursday it is planning to implement a ban on federal purchases of semiconductor products from U.S. adversaries, asking for feedback from contractors on how prescriptive the pending rule should be.

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Hahn Air To Pay Feds $26.8M To End FCA Travel Fees Suit

By Dorothy Atkins

Hahn Air Lines agreed to pay $26.8 million to resolve a whistleblower's allegations that the German airline-ticketing company violated the False Claims Act by intentionally failing to remit to the U.S. government certain travel fees the company collected from U.S. commercial airline passengers.

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7th Circ. Mostly Backs Ill. Home Health Kickbacks Judgment

By Hailey Konnath

The Seventh Circuit on Thursday largely left intact an Illinois federal judge's $6 million ruling that a home health care company broke federal kickback laws, refusing to reverse the lower court's liability finding but directing it to ensure its damages award was calculated correctly.

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Cisco Counterfeiting Scheme Earns Fla. Man 6½ Years

By Elliot Weld

A Florida resident was sentenced to 6½ years in prison after pleading guilty to running what New Jersey federal prosecutors said was an "enormous" scheme to sell over $1 billion worth of counterfeit and broken Cisco networking devices.

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Sysco Unit To Provide Back Pay To End DOL Hiring Bias Probe

By Patrick Hoff

A subsidiary of restaurant food distributor Sysco Corp. will pay over $133,000 in back pay to resolve the U.S. Department of Labor's allegations that it discriminated against women by failing to hire qualified female applicants to fill open warehouse positions in Palmetto, Florida, the agency said Thursday.

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DOL Fights Bid To Halt Prevailing Wage Rule

By Irene Spezzamonte

A group of construction groups didn't show how a final rule regulating prevailing wages hurts them, and halting the rule wouldn't be in the public's interest, the U.S. Department of Labor told a Texas federal court.

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Claims Court Won't Upend $21M FEMA Deal Over Doc Mix-Up

By Alyssa Aquino

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims refused to read further misconduct into a document mix-up in the $21 million battle over a Federal Emergency Management Agency administrative deal, accepting FEMA's explanations that it made a small mistake.

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11th Circ. Rules Tribal Co. Is Not Immune In Trade Secrets Suit

By Carolina Bolado

The Eleventh Circuit has revived a tribal-owned defense contractor's suit against another tribal-owned competitor and a former employee for allegedly stealing trade secrets, finding the competitor agreed to federal court jurisdiction when it participated in the bidding process for work on a missile detection system.

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11th Circ. Urged To Clear Final Hurdle To Interstate Water Deal

By Chart Riggall

As the finish line comes into view in Georgia and Alabama's decadeslong fight over water rights, the Peach State, the federal government and a host of local water providers are urging the Eleventh Circuit to reject a bid by environmental groups to block the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' management proposal for the Apalachicola watershed.

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Pharma. Co. Wants Ex-Director To Stop Poaching Customers

By Hayley Fowler

A pharmaceutical company has doubled down on its bid to stop a former director from soliciting customers for a rival drugmaker, saying he's trying to twist words in his contract and make up excuses for allegedly stealing trade secrets following his termination.

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GAO Backs Navy's Cost Realism Evaluation For Support Deal

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Government Accountability Office denied a joint venture's protest of a U.S. Navy decision to tap a competitor for an operations support deal in the Philippines, saying the protest was based on a misunderstanding of cost realism evaluation requirements.

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Don't Use The Same Template For Every Client Alert

As the old marketing adage goes, consistency is key, but law firm style guides need consistency that contemplates variety when it comes to client alert formats, allowing attorneys to tailor alerts to best fit the audience and subject matter, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.

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Legal Industry Gains Jobs In April Following Downward Trend

By Tracey Read

The U.S. legal sector eased back into a positive trajectory in April, with a gain of 3,200 jobs compared with the previous month, according to preliminary data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Boies Schiller's Sigrid McCawley

By Hannah Albarazi

Sigrid McCawley was barely back from parental leave with her fourth child in February 2015 when she flew to New York City to take on a case that would turn her life upside down, and change the world.

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Analysis

How Big IP Judgment Winners Are Insuring 'Nuclear Verdicts'

By Ivan Moreno

Until a few years ago, intellectual property plaintiffs who scored large monetary awards — often referred to as "nuclear verdicts" — had to wait out a lengthy appellate process before knowing how much money they would end up with. But a relatively new type of insurance policy is allowing plaintiffs to insure part of their judgment in case it gets reduced or wiped out on appeal. 

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AI Legal Tools Could Be Too Pricy For Those Most In Need

By Marco Poggio

At a moment when generative AI is showing potential to help poor and underserved communities address legal issues they've historically had to face without representation, some experts warn that the cost of legal AI tools could put them out of reach for those who need them the most.

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Gen AI Shows Promise — And Peril — For Pro Se Litigants

By Marco Poggio

Research on the capabilities of generative AI tools to help self-represented people has shown potential, but there is broad disagreement about how and when pro se litigants should be using them alone.

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Q&A

NJ Judge Kugler Reflects On 32 Years Spent As Federal Jurist

By George Woolston

With the fates of his colleagues who didn't get the chance to enjoy retirement weighing on his mind, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler decided this year it was time to call it a career on the bench in Camden, New Jersey, after three decades of service.

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Graham Blasts Mass. Judge Nom For 'Radical' Policing Letter

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted a Massachusetts judicial nominee on Friday for failing to disclose prior to his nomination hearing that his name appears on the letterhead of a 2020 public statement issued in the wake of protests following the murder of George Floyd by police.

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Hope Hicks Tells Jury Of 'Access Hollywood' Tape Fallout

By Stewart Bishop and Frank G. Runyeon

Hope Hicks, a former senior aide to Donald Trump, took the witness stand Friday in the former president's Manhattan hush money trial and described the fallout during the 2016 campaign after the release of the notorious "Access Hollywood" video and as word of his alleged extramarital affairs began to spread.

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Coverage Recap: Day 7 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial

By Frank G. Runyeon

Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day seven.

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Judge In Trump's Georgia Case Raises $320K For Election Bid

By Chart Riggall

In his bid for election to his first full term on the bench, the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's Georgia election interference case is enjoying support from a broad swath of the Atlanta legal community, raising over $127,000 in the last three months.

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Harvey Weinstein Denied Win In $1M Fee Fight With Jose Baez

By Craig Clough

A New York state judge on Friday denied an early win to Harvey Weinstein in his $1 million fee dispute with criminal defense attorney Jose Baez, saying the incarcerated former media mogul produced nothing but a "self­-serving affidavit" and "haphazard printout" to make his arguments. 

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Robbins Geller Attys To Take Stand In $8M Sanctions Dispute

By Bryan Koenig

A petroleum refiner will put current and former Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP attorneys on the stand May 7 in an extraordinary evidentiary hearing testing what the plaintiffs' lawyers knew about an analyst's now-discredited findings as they pursued since-nixed price-fixing claims.

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Greenberg Traurig No Longer Repping Guatemala In $32M Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

Guatemala's newly elected government has decided not to have Greenberg Traurig as its counsel in its fight against a construction and engineering firm's bid to enforce $31 million in arbitral awards, according to a Friday filing in a D.C. federal court.

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Colo. Jury Hits Berkshire Unit With $7M Monopoly Verdict

By Daniel Ducassi

A Colorado federal jury on Friday awarded the rival of a Berkshire Hathaway-owned construction supplier $6.7 million for the larger company's monopolistic practices, hours after a judge scolded the Berkshire company's lawyer because he "crossed a line" during closings.

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California Judge Ousted For 'Willful,' 'Prejudicial' Misconduct

By Jake Maher

A California state judge has been removed from the bench after an investigation found that he conducted a campaign of retaliation against court employees he suspected of being "moles" in a probe against him and lied about his actions to investigators afterward.

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Calif. Appeals Court Calls Firm's Conduct 'Woefully Uncivil'

By Hailey Konnath

A California state appeals court has backed sanctions against The Vanderpool Law Firm in a dispute with Masimo Corp., finding that the firm had engaged in misconduct during discovery and noting that it was "woefully uncivil" in its emails with opposing counsel.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Clement & Murphy PLLC and Yetter Coleman LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Fifth Circuit reversed a Texas federal court's $1.6 billion ruling against IBM in an operating agreement dispute with Houston-based software company BMC.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A former general counsel testified Thursday in the criminal fraud trial of former Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch that the company's chief operating officer didn't want a whistleblower's claims to get into court, and a South Carolina man and his companies must pay the SEC nearly $24.9 million to settle claims that he misappropriated investors' money to make Ponzi payments. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen rapper Ivorian Doll hit with a copyright claim, private members club Aspinalls file a claim against a Saudi sheikh, and Motorola Solutions file a claim against the British government on the heels of its dispute over losing a £400 million ($502 million) government contract. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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