3rd Circ. Revives $4M Coverage Dispute Over Highway Pileups

By Jennifer Mandato

The Third Circuit revived a highway construction company's coverage dispute stemming from lawsuits related to two separate vehicle pileups, finding that a policy issued by one of its excess insurers is ambiguous due to the policy's adoption of unclear language in a preceding policy.

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Fed. Court Asked To Block IRS' Microcaptive Reporting Rule

By Kevin Pinner

A Texas federal court should vacate an IRS rule aimed at flagging potential tax avoidance by requiring companies to disclose information about their microcaptive insurance transactions because it undermines Congress' authority, according to a Texas plastics company and its microcaptive adviser.

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Real Estate Biz Seeks $8.6M Coverage For Rockslide Net

By Mark Payne

A real estate development firm alleged that its insurer wrongfully denied $8.6 million in coverage for netting to protect its property from a falling-rock wall after repeated incidents, telling a New Jersey federal court the insurer is misconstruing its policy to deny coverage.

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MVP: Blank Rome's John Gibbons

By Ganesh Setty

John Gibbons of Blank Rome LLP's insurance recovery practice beat an insurer's attempt to relitigate a yearslong coverage battle over underlying asbestos claims and defeated an insurer's bid to avoid covering defense costs over a company's sale of subsidiaries, landing him a spot among the 2025 Law360 Insurance MVPs.

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Airplane Hangar Owner Seeks $1.4M From AIG In Hail Dispute

By Eli Flesch

The owner of several Dallas-area airplane hangars is suing an AIG unit for at least $1.4 million in coverage for hail damage, saying the insurer wrongfully determined the hail caused only cosmetic damage based on a biased engineering report.

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Insurer Denies Coverage For Car Shop's Customer Suit

By Abraham Gross

An insurer told a California federal court it had no duty to defend a car conversion business from a suit alleging it wrongfully used a customer's car in advertisements, explaining that the claims did not fall under the specified ad injury coverage.

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Tapping Into Jurors' Moral Intuitions At Trial

Many jurors approach trials with foundational beliefs about fairness, harm and responsibility that shape how they view evidence and arguments, so attorneys must understand how to frame a case in a way that appeals to this type of moral reasoning, says Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.

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Series

The Law Firm Merger Diaries: Integrating Practice Groups

Enacting unified leadership and consistent client service standards ensures law firm practice groups connect and collaborate around shared goals, turning a law firm merger into a platform for growth rather than a period of disruption, says Brian Catlett at Fennemore Craig.

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Bonus Spotlight

Susman Godfrey Bests Market With Bonuses Of Up To $280K

By Andrea Keckley

Susman Godfrey LLP announced on Tuesday that it is topping New York's bonus scale with payouts that range from a median of $120,000 for first-year associates to a median of $280,000 for the most senior associates.

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Kasowitz Hid Plummeting Profits From Ex-Partner, Suit Says

By Andrea Keckley

A former Kasowitz LLP partner has accused the firm and its founder, renowned litigator Marc Kasowitz, of misrepresenting its finances and failing to pay him the millions he is owed in a lawsuit in New York state court, alleging the firm's profits have plummeted due to poor management.

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Hagens Berman Sanctioned For Bot Errors In OnlyFans Case

By Emily Sawicki

A California federal judge sanctioned Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for submitting four briefs that contained errors blamed on ChatGPT while representing OnlyFans users pursuing proposed class fraud claims against the online platform, tossing the suit but allowing the users a chance to refile.

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DOJ Says NY Court Can't Handle Maurene Comey Firing Suit

By Adrian Cruz

The U.S. Department of Justice has said former prosecutor Maurene Comey's suit challenging the circumstances of her firing should be dismissed, arguing that it is an attempt to sidestep the Civil Service Reform Act.

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Fired Top Antitrust Official Warns Of 'Politicization'

By Courtney Bublé

The former No. 2 at the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division until he was terminated this year testified Tuesday about the "politicization" of antitrust enforcement.

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Levona Says New Docs Show Reed Smith Lied In $102M Feud

By Emily Sawicki

Levona Holdings Ltd. is pressing a Manhattan federal court to vacate what it calls a fraudulent $102 million arbitral award issued to international shipping company Eletson, arguing that new documents released under the crime-fraud exception show that the company and its prior attorneys at Reed Smith LLP lied during the arbitration.

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Ex-State High Court Chiefs Start Group To Defend Rule Of Law

By Jake Maher

A group of over 40 former chief judges of state supreme courts across the country this week launched a new project to speak out against attacks on the judiciary's independence and educate about the rule of law. 

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Quinn Emanuel Fee Fight Bound For Texas Or Mass. Court

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Massachusetts federal judge is weighing whether to kick Quinn Emanuel's bid for $30 million in legal fees from a former client's parent company, Nano Dimension Ltd., to state court or to the Texas bankruptcy court where the client is undergoing Chapter 11 proceedings.

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Bullivant Houser Files For Ch. 11 After November Closure

By Rose Krebs

The now-shuttered Bullivant Houser Bailey PC has filed for Chapter 11 protection in California, with its chief dissolution officer saying the bankruptcy was filed so the firm can liquidate its assets as it continues "an orderly wind-down" of its operations.

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Corporate Transparency Act Is Constitutional, 11th Circ. Says

By Kevin Pinner

The Corporate Transparency Act is constitutional because it regulates economic activities with a substantial impact on interstate commerce and doesn't violate protections against unreasonable searches, the Eleventh Circuit said Tuesday, reversing a lower court's decision.

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