Morgan & Morgan Seeks To Block Celebrity Ad Ban In Florida

By Ryan Boysen

Personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan PA has asked a Florida federal court for a preliminary injunction to block a Sunshine State bar rule that forbids celebrity endorsements in attorney advertisements.

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McCarter Can Keep ABA Report Quotes In Loan Suit Brief

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut state judge will not order McCarter & English LLP to file a new post-trial reply brief in a $21.3 million malpractice case over collapsed loan transactions, despite two insurers' arguments that the firm improperly quoted a treatise that was never admitted into evidence.

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Fla. High Court Finds No Atty Misconduct Over PACER Snafu

By David Minsky

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday entered a judgment in favor of an attorney accused of knowingly making false statements when explaining why he missed a client's hearing, finding that he may have been "sincerely confused" over why he wasn't notified through the federal PACER filing system.

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Tax Prep Biz Owner, Workers Charged In $177M Fraud Scheme

By Zak Kostro

An Alabama tax preparation business owner and several of her employees participated in a scheme to submit false tax returns to the IRS seeking more than $177 million in fraudulent federal tax refunds, federal prosecutors said.

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SEC Reopens $200M Debt Box Case After Sanctions

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reopened a $200 million crypto Ponzi scheme case that landed it in hot water two years ago, saying that the individuals behind the company known as Debt Box misled investors into believing that they were spending on real-world projects.

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Gov't Urges 11th Circ. To Lift Sanctions Over Trump-IRS Deal

By Asha Glover

A federal judge's order barring President Donald Trump, the IRS and the U.S. Treasury Department from citing the agreement made to settle his $10 billion suit against the tax agency is unsupportable and should be reversed, the government told the Eleventh Circuit.

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Fla. Court Dismisses Ex-School GC Grand Jury Secrecy Case

By David Minsky

A Florida state court Thursday tossed an indictment alleging a former school general counsel unlawfully violated the secrecy of a grand jury convened after the 2018 Parkland school shooting after the state's highest court declined to hear prosecutors' appeal to reinstate criminal charges earlier this week. 

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6th Circ. Upholds Prefiling Curbs On Vexatious Litigant

By Susan Smiley

An Ohio federal court was justified in designating a local probate attorney as a vexatious litigant and dismissing her suit with prejudice, a Sixth Circuit panel ruled Tuesday, upholding the district court's decision to saddle the attorney with prefiling restrictions.

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NJ Justices Uphold Atty's Privacy Expectation In Email Advice

By George Woolston

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a split decision that the name of the attorney who emailed legal advice to a municipal prosecutor in a traffic dispute should not be disclosed under the state's public records law, finding the sender's reasonable expectation of privacy outweighs any interest in disclosure.

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Telecom Shareholders Claim Arbitrator Was Biased

By Nadia Dreid

Majority shareholders of a Central and South American telecommunications tower business fighting a $300 million arbitration award they were ordered to pay to the minority shareholders of that business have told the Second Circuit that the arbitrator was biased against them.

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Pa. Justices Undo Contempt Over Vulgar Insult To Judge

By Matthew Santoni

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a courtroom observer who called a Philadelphia judge a vulgar name as he left his friend's evidence-suppression hearing should not have been held in contempt and sentenced to 30 days in jail, since his insult had not significantly disrupted the proceedings.

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Spoliation Silence Should End Price-Fixing Claims, Court Told

By Lauraann Wood

Broiler chicken producers defending sprawling price-fixing accusations in Illinois argue two Burford Capital units' intentional discovery misconduct that destroyed key bid-rigging evidence should bar the litigation funding units from pursuing claims in two food distributors' place.

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Ex-Philly Prosecutors Open Firm After Clash With DA Krasner

By Christine DeRosa

Two former prosecutors in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office have launched their own firm after resigning from the office following a clash with District Attorney Larry Krasner in a habeas corpus case.

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How To ID And Respond To 5 Types Of Misleading Witnesses

Witnesses can mislead fact-finders using a variety of tactics — from strategic amnesia to manufactured ignorance — but lawyers can learn how to identify and expose this testimony to come out on top, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

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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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DOJ Backs Ex-Wisconsin Judge's ICE Obstruction Conviction

By Andrea Keckley

The U.S. Department of Justice told the Seventh Circuit that the high-profile conviction of a former Wisconsin state court judge for interfering with an ICE arrest was not compromised by her position on the bench or by jury instructions.

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Roundup

Hub Hires: WilmerHale, Womble Bond, Kirkland

By Chris Villani

Falling temperatures didn't bring a cooldown in the Boston legal lateral market as WilmerHale and Robinson & Cole LLP both welcomed former assistant attorneys general, Honigman LLP established its first office in the market, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP snagged a partner from Ropes & Gray LLP.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Consovoy McCarthy PLLC and Smith Porsborg Schweigert Armstrong Moldenhauer & Smith lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Eighth Circuit struck down the Federal Reserve's regulatory cap on the swipe fees that larger banks may collect on debit card transactions.

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Cyberattack Class Action Against Fox Rothschild Dropped

By Madison Arnold

Three data breach victims have dismissed their proposed class action against Fox Rothschild LLP after ransomware group Silent Ransom Group targeted the firm.

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Ramona Nee, Tapped To Lead Weil, Now In Talks With Kirkland

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

Ramona Nee, the co-leader of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP's U.S. private equity practice who had been poised to become its leader, is engaged in talks to join Kirkland & Ellis LLP, a source with knowledge of the situation told Law360 Pulse on Friday.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Meta reached a settlement during jury selection in the second Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims its Instagram platform harms the mental health of children, leaving Snap as the lone defendant facing trial. In the meantime, current and former in-house lawyers for Google and Meta said that the ability of AI to write patent applications is rapidly improving, and that in blind tests, experienced attorneys often deem AI-drafted patents to be superior to those from humans. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Jackson Walker Inks $500K Deal In EXCO's Ch. 11 Fee Fight

By Clara Geoghegan

Jackson Walker has agreed to pay EXCO Resources Inc. $500,000 to end litigation over fees paid to the firm while one of its partners was in an undisclosed relationship with the former bankruptcy judge who mediated in the reorganized oil and gas driller's Texas Chapter 11.

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Fed. Judge A No-Show Amid Inquiry Into Her Mental Health

By Craig Clough

U.S. District Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas failed to appear Friday before a judicial investigative committee examining allegations that she abandoned her post and concerns that a mental condition may be interfering with her ability to perform her duties.

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K&L Gates DQ'd In Trust's Mortgage Loan Agreement Dispute

By Isaac Monterose

A Washington federal judge disqualified K&L Gates LLP from a trust's dispute over a residential mortgage loan sale agreement, ruling that the law firm must leave the suit because it drafted the form agreement used in the transaction.

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Cruz Counsel Returns To FCC As Space Bureau Chief

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has named a former employee with experience in both the public and private sectors to head the agency's Space Bureau, after a stint as chief telecommunications counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee.

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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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Kalshi Taps Clement For High Court Sports Contracts Fight

By Elaine Briseño

Kalshi has hired appellate heavyweight Paul D. Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC to represent the company in its potential U.S. Supreme Court battle over whether the prediction markets platform's sports wagering is subject to state or federal oversight.

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