Blake Lively Defeats PR Consultant's 'It Ends With Us' Suit

By Hailey Konnath

A Texas federal judge on Wednesday threw out a public relations consultant's defamation suit accusing Blake Lively of wrongly roping him into her sexual harassment claims against her "It Ends With Us" co-star Justin Baldoni, meaning that all of Baldoni's team's suits against her have been dismissed, at least for now.

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Analysis

Copyright Guide Or Policy Change? Project Divides IP Attys

By Ivan Moreno

The American Law Institute's restatements of law, widely regarded as influential reference points for judges and attorneys, are typically yearslong projects that are finished quietly and without much controversy, but one for copyright that concluded this year has diverged from that tradition.

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Weinstein Prosecutors Say Jury Squabbles Can't Undo Verdict

By Lauren Berg

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office on Wednesday scoffed at Harvey Weinstein's attempt to wipe out his June sexual assault convictions, arguing that the court appropriately addressed "scattered instances of contentious interactions between jurors" during trial, and post-trial testimony from two jurors cannot be used to impeach the guilty verdict.

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FCC To Face Senate Oversight Following Kimmel Controversy

By Nadia Dreid

For the first time in half a decade, the full Senate Commerce Committee will convene for an oversight hearing, this time to place an examining eye on the FCC after the head of the agency said ABC could lose its license if it didn't punish talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for comments he made on air.

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Law Firm Drops 'Steamboat Willie' Suit Against Disney

By Carolina Bolado

Morgan & Morgan dropped its suit Wednesday against Disney that asked a Florida federal court to declare that an advertisement the firm planned to run featuring elements from the animated short film "Steamboat Willie" does not infringe Disney's intellectual property because the work entered the public domain last year.

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Del. Justices Mull Paramount Merger Doc Suit Revival

By Jeff Montgomery

An attorney for Paramount Global urged Delaware's Supreme Court on Wednesday to adopt a "very bright-line rule" barring post-document-demand use of unverified reports and confidential news sources to support stockholder suits seeking access to corporate deal books and records.

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Angels Pitcher Ty Buttrey Says Skaggs Wasn't A Drug Addict

By Gina Kim

Former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Ty Buttrey told a California state jury considering wrongful death claims over Tyler Skaggs' overdose that he "took offense" to allegations Skaggs was a drug addict, testifying Wednesday he never saw signs of Skaggs being under the influence of any drug, either on or off the field. 

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Fed. Circ. Upholds New England Patriots' Patent Win

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday refused to revive a patent on technology for providing wireless connections in sports and entertainment venues, shooting down a patent-holding company's appeal in its suit against the New England Patriots.

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Valve Suggests AI Created Quotes, Cases In Patent 'Troll' Feud

By Adam Lidgett

Video game company Valve Corp. has told a Washington federal court that a patent licensing company's filings seeking to exclude Valve's experts contained quotes and case citations that were nonexistent, suggesting the filings may have been made using artificial intelligence.

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Google Spying On Users With Newly Default AI Tool, Suit Says

By Allison Grande

Google is illegally tracking its email, chat and videoconferencing users' private communications through its Gemini AI assistant, which the tech giant secretly turned on by default for all users without their knowledge or consent last month, according to a proposed class action filed Tuesday in California federal court. 

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Adult Webcam Owner Says Illegal Thailand Studio Cost $1.5M

By Ben Adlin

A Florida adult webcam operator moved his family to Thailand and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars setting up a studio only to learn that production in the country is illegal, his business claims in a lawsuit against the streaming platform that it says encouraged the plan.

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Google Tells 9th Circ. Not To Revive Rumble Antitrust Case

By Bryan Koenig

Google urged the Ninth Circuit not to revive Rumble's antitrust suit accusing the tech giant of rigging search results to favor its YouTube unit over the rival video-sharing site, arguing a district court rightly found the claims time-barred.

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Wash. Linebacker's Suit Over NCAA Limits Sprints To Tenn.

By Rachel Riley

A Seattle federal judge has sent University of Washington linebacker Jacob Manu's lawsuit challenging NCAA eligibility limits to a Tennessee court, concluding the suit overlaps with a putative class action pending there over the same rules capping student-athletes at four seasons of competitive play.

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Antitrust Plaintiffs Want Chat On Apple, Google CEO Depos

By Bonnie Eslinger

A group of consumers asked a federal judge on Wednesday for a private hearing after the court rejected their request to depose Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai in antitrust litigation accusing Google of suppressing rival search engines with anticompetitive deals.

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Former Twitter Exec Can't Pursue State Claims During Appeal

By Patrick Hoff

Twitter's former chief marketing officer can't move forward with the state law claims in her $20 million severance suit while the company asks the Ninth Circuit to kick the allegations to arbitration, a California federal judge ruled, rejecting her argument that the company's appeal is a waste of time.

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Marketing Co. Can't Escape Ex-CEO's Pay Bias Lawsuit

By Patrick Hoff

Marketing firm Omnicom can't dodge a former executive's lawsuit alleging she was paid less than men and fired without the chance to transfer when her job was eliminated, a Texas federal judge ruled, saying her lawsuit adequately identified men who she said were treated better.

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Fla. College Sued By Employee Fired Over Charlie Kirk Posts

By David Minsky

A college worker who was fired after sharing social media posts about the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk sued her former employer Wednesday for alleged retaliation in Florida federal court, saying the posts didn't amount to condoning violence. 

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Broker Cops To Trading On Stolen Morgan Stanley Merger Info

By Pete Brush

A stockbroker from New Jersey told a Manhattan federal judge Wednesday that he traded on secret merger information stolen by a friend from a Morgan Stanley executive assistant, pleading guilty to insider trading, obstruction and fraud charges.

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MLB Pitcher Pleads Not Guilty To Rigging Pitches For Gamblers

By Elliot Weld

A pitcher for Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians denied accusations in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday that he conspired with others to throw his pitches a certain way to secure gambling payouts.

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Regional Cable Biz Looks Toward Permit Reform Priorities

By Christopher Cole

Independent cable providers want the Federal Communications Commission to wield its statutory powers to slash state and local rules that their main trade group considers impediments to broadband deployment.

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Ensure Feds Preempt On Phone Line Upgrades, FCC Told

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission must "seize this pivotal moment" and clarify that federal priorities to remove copper from the nation's telecommunications infrastructure have precedent over state or local regulations, says a Georgetown University-affiliated policy center.

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Brief

NTIA Readies Plans For 2 Fed-Dominated Spectrum Bands

By Christopher Cole

The Trump administration will consider making more private-use spectrum available across two bands that are predominantly used by federal agencies, a U.S. Commerce Department official said Wednesday.

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Brief

NTIA Aims To Cut 'Red Tape' From Tribal Programs

By Christopher Cole

The Commerce Department agency in charge of two tribal connectivity programs said Wednesday it will streamline their funding rules in a notice coming out next spring.

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Brief

Railroads Have Conditions For Supporting 900 MHz Changes

By Nadia Dreid

The nation's railroads say they're fine with the Federal Communications Commission's plans to open up two more bands of 900 megahertz spectrum for broadband use, but not without protections in place to ensure that their critical safety communications aren't affected.

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9th Circ. Says Finance Guru Ramsey Can't Arbitrate Fraud Suit

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel rejected celebrity financial planner Dave Ramsey's bid to force arbitration in a proposed class action accusing him of roping radio show listeners into a timeshare exit scheme, concluding Wednesday the suit isn't tied to the consumers' contract with Reed Hein & Associates.

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Insurer Tells Justices AMC's Share Battle Yielded No Liability

By Jeff Montgomery

An indemnity insurer for AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. told Delaware's justices on Wednesday that the entertainment company failed to show a covered loss when it issued shares to settle a $99.3 million claim for losses arising from a stock conversion and reverse stock split.

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How Banks Can Safely Handle Payments For Gambling Biz

As the betting market continues to expand, it's crucial for banks and fintechs to track historical developments in wagering and ongoing prediction markets litigation that can factor into a risk analysis for payment processing with respect to gambling operators, says Laura D'Angelo at Jones Walker.

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Defeating Estoppel-Based Claims In Legal Malpractice Actions

State supreme court cases from recent years have addressed whether positions taken by attorneys in an underlying lawsuit can be used against them in a subsequent legal malpractice action, providing a foundation to defeat ex-clients’ estoppel claims, says Christopher Blazejewski at Sherin and Lodgen.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Networking 101

Cultivating a network isn't part of the law school curriculum, but learning the soft skills needed to do so may be the key to establishing a solid professional reputation, nurturing client relationships and building business, says Sharon Crane at Practising Law Institute.

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McDermott Exploring Selling Stake To Private Equity

By Emily Sawicki and Alison Knezevich

McDermott Will & Schulte on Wednesday acknowledged it is fielding interest from private equity investors, a development that underscores how some of the legal industry's largest players are considering moving to a nontraditional business model.

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Baker McKenzie Accuses Ex-Atty Of Playing 'Cat And Mouse'

By James Boyle

An ex-associate at Baker McKenzie's Washington, D.C., office has been accused by her former employer of playing a "cat and mouse game" to avoid getting served a defamation complaint filed in October by the office and its managing partner.

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Ex-Prince Lobel Atty Charged With Forging Liquor Licenses

By Julie Manganis

The former chair of Prince Lobel Tye LLP's restaurant and hospitality practice has been indicted on charges that she forged liquor licenses for three clients before she was fired last year, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

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Feds Launch Crypto Scam Strike Force With New Sanctions

By Sarah Jarvis

Federal authorities said Wednesday they have created a strike force targeting cryptocurrency-related fraud and scams originating in Southeast Asia, a development announced alongside the addition of a Burmese armed group to a list of entities under U.S. sanctions.

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Reed Smith Facilitated Jet Repossession Ploy, Suit Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

Reed Smith LLP and two of its attorneys are facing claims of improperly facilitating an attempted repossession of an aviation company's plane, purportedly representing the company's lender while actually working for an alternative investment firm angling to seize the plane.

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Texas Pick Among 3 Formally Tapped For District Court Seats

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday three nominees for federal judgeships in Texas, Arkansas and Alaska, which have been anticipated for a few weeks.

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Analysis

CFPB Forges Ahead On Rules As Funding Hangs In Doubt

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is rolling out plans to narrow how it defines and watches out for lending discrimination, even as the Trump administration casts fresh doubt on any plans to fund the agency once its reserves dry up.  

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Insurer Fights Margolis Edelstein's Bid To Toss Malpractice Case

By Jake Maher

An insurance company told a New Jersey state court this week that it should be allowed to proceed with a malpractice suit against Margolis Edelstein because the firm had a duty to represent it in an underlying insurance dispute under state law.

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Edelson Enters 'Clean' Dismissal In Girardi Atty Case

By Andrea Keckley

Edelson PC has submitted a "clean and unadulterated" dismissal of its conversion case against two former attorneys from the now-defunct law firm Girardi Keese after an Illinois federal judge took issue with a previous version of the stipulation.

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Ex-Alaska Judge Disbarred Over Sexual Misconduct Scandal

By Jack Karp

Former Alaska federal judge Joshua Kindred has been disbarred by that state's Supreme Court over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including that he had inappropriate sexual relationships with several attorneys who appeared before him.

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House Looks To Undo Sens.' Ability To Sue Over Phone Info

By Courtney Bublé

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that House Republicans will be introducing stand-alone legislation to repeal a provision tucked into the government funding package the Senate passed Monday that would allow Republican senators investigated by special counsel Jack Smith to sue for damages.

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SEC's Atkins Previews Crypto 'Taxonomy' Plans, Exemptions

By Aislinn Keely

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins on Wednesday pledged to "draw clear lines" about which crypto transactions the SEC doesn't regulate, but said that coming rules and exemptions for digital assets are "not a promise of lax enforcement at the SEC."

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Trump's Budget Deputy Named Interim US Atty In NC

By Abigail Harrison

Federal budget official and former U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop secured an interim role as one of North Carolina's top prosecutors Wednesday.

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