Google Users' $85M Fee Ask Stalls Over 'Utterly Lacking' Bill

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge on Thursday rejected an $85 million attorney fee request following a $700 million settlement in a consumer-led case against Google, ruling that counsel's submitted billing records are "utterly lacking in information demonstrating what work was done and for what purpose," while granting leave to amend the request.

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Texas Court Tosses $60M Security Guard Scuffle Verdict

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas appeals court Friday tossed a roughly $60 million verdict and castigated the trial court for creating a record "rife with error" after the lower court wrongly included several corporate entities in a judgment relating to a scuffle between a security guard and a patron.

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Wash. Justices Void Vague Release Term For Sex Offender

By Parker Quinlan

The Washington Supreme Court has reversed a convicted child molester's community custody condition that he not possess or access "sexually exploitive materials" because the term is not clearly defined in state law, and could potentially mean many things.

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Analysis

Expect These Post-Midterm Probes If The Hill Changes Hands

By Phillip Bantz

The top investigative priorities of a potentially Democratic-controlled Congress are coming into sharper focus with the midterms weeks away and could impact an array of companies and individuals in technology, finance and energy, experts say.

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Analysis

Could A Criminal Sentencing Case Upend Loper Bright?

By Katie Buehler

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is concerned that a ruling instructing trial courts to defer to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines could blow a "pretty big hole" in the court's recent rejection of deference doctrines. His colleagues, however, don't appear as perturbed.

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Q&A

She Has A Point: Munger Tolles' Carolyn Luedtke

By Dani Kass

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP partner Carolyn Hoecker Luedtke has been great at providing sound judgment during trade secret litigation between top artificial intelligence companies, according to Jessica Kaempf of Fenwick & West LLP.

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FCC Says Five Eyes Allies Share Cybersecurity Info

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission is working with foreign counterparts in the Five Eyes security alliance to share data on cyber risks, the U.S. agency said Friday.

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Investment Co. Can't Exit Laos $5M Casino Award Fight

By Joyce Hanson

A federal judge has refused to dismiss an investment company from the government of Laos' latest bid to enforce about $5 million in arbitral awards stemming from an ill-fated casino venture, ruling that the firm must face the suit in Saipan even though it is incorporated in Macau.

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Target Says It Warned Investors About Pride Merch Backlash

By Sydney Price

Target Corp. told a Minnesota federal court it should be released from a class action alleging it "betrayed" investors with Pride-themed merchandise that they claim was "exceptionally offensive," saying the company sufficiently warned investors about the potential backlash to the campaign.

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FCC Eyes 'All Options' As 5th Circ. Orders Subsidy Fee Redo

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission said Friday it was exploring all options for managing the $9 billion Universal Service Fund after a Fifth Circuit panel ruled the FCC lacked authority to create the funds' private oversight company.

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Nasdaq Sued Over Delisting Of Social Media Co.

By Jessica Corso

A social media company that has pitched itself as an alternative to TikTok has sued Nasdaq in Delaware Chancery Court, asking the court to relist its shares while it fights what it says was an "arbitrary and capricious" decision to boot the company off the exchange.

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Frontier Settles Connecticut's Data Breach Probe For $625K

By Nadia Dreid

Frontier is going to pay $625,000 to end a Connecticut state investigation into a data breach that compromised the Social Security numbers of nearly 60,000 people in the state two and a half years ago.

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NJ Deputy AG Charged Over AI Child Porn Shared On Discord 

By Matthew Santoni

A now-fired New Jersey deputy attorney general has been arrested and charged with using artificial intelligence to create child pornography, which he then allegedly distributed on Discord under the username "The Gentleman Pervert," Bucks County, Pennsylvania, prosecutors have announced.

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Reckoning With The IP Risks Of Building Vibe-Coded Products

While artificial intelligence can now be prompted into generating potentially valuable software, developers who sell vibe-coded products must account for questions about authorship, copyrightability and their ability to control the resulting code, say attorneys at Lawgorithm Advisors.

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Protecting Trade Secrets When AI Agents Go Rogue

In light of a recent incident in which artificial intelligence agents compromised parts of Hugging Face's production systems, and the uncertain court guidance surrounding liability in such situations, companies looking to update their trade secret protections should carefully examine agents' permissions and technical limitations, says Matt Nealon at Marshall Gerstein.

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Womble Bond Reports Data Breach Exposing Personal Info

By Jake Maher

Womble Bond Dickinson was hit with a data breach in August that revealed personal information to an unauthorized third party, the firm said in a notice with the Massachusetts state government this week.

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Suing The Trump Admin Can Have Massive Impact, Attys Say

By Bonnie Eslinger

Lawyers representing clients against the federal government spoke Friday about the challenges and rewards of such litigation in the Trump era, with plaintiff-side powerhouse Elizabeth Cabraser pointing to the potential for massive impact, including one case in which she successfully got more than a billion dollars in grant funding reinstated.

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Dems Press Kirkland Again For Details Of $125M Trump Deal

By Courtney Bublé

A trio of congressional Democrats once again accused Kirkland & Ellis LLP of subverting their oversight requests into the $125 million deal the firm cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Brief

Cooley Reportedly Matches Milbank Pay Scale Starting In '27

By Matt Perez

Cooley LLP will reportedly increase U.S. associate base compensation in line with the pay scale set by Milbank LLP in June beginning on Jan. 1.

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Google Class Attys Get $22.7M Despite Hourly Rate Rebuke

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has approved Google's $68 million class action settlement to resolve a long-running privacy suit, including class counsel's requested $22.67 million fee award, commending the parties' hard work while also criticizing a plaintiffs attorney's "patently unreasonable" proposed $3,000 hourly rate.

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Fla. High Court Says 'COVID Brain' Can't Excuse Atty Blunder

By David Minsky

The Florida Supreme Court found an attorney guilty of misconduct over his lack of candor when questioned about an interaction with his own witness in a paternity trial, saying there's no way "COVID brain" caused him to violate a sequestration rule and lie to a judge. 

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Attys Can Still Protect Voting Rights During The Midterms

By Cara Bayles

With the midterm elections approaching, a coalition of local and national nonprofits are seeking volunteers, especially lawyers, to safeguard the vote during an election with more states in play as battlegrounds and growing anxiety about federal interference in local elections.

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Survey Of Ill. Attys Reveals Mental Health Struggles, Stigma

By Celeste Bott

A survey of nearly 7,000 Illinois lawyers found roughly 20% rated their mental health as fair or poor, according to an Illinois Supreme Court commission report documenting the toll of workplace stress on the state's attorneys and judges, their alcohol and drug use, and barriers to getting them care.

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Balancing The Scales: Criminal Appeals, Sentencing Rules

By Orlando Lorenzo

The Second Circuit has been ordered to take another look at a murder-for-hire conviction in light of the high court's new miscarriage-of-justice exception for criminal appeal waivers, and the top courts in Pennsylvania and Michigan will look at the retroactivity of new sentencing rules. Here, Law360 highlights access to justice stories arising from litigation, verdicts and judgments you may have missed.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Schlichter Bogard LLC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the full Eleventh Circuit overturned decades-old precedent that took a strict view of when federal benefits law claims could be brought in court.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The top investigative priorities of a potentially Democratic-controlled Congress are coming into sharper focus with the midterms just weeks away and could impact companies in various sectors. In the meantime, one BigLaw firm formed a board to oversee the use of artificial intelligence and evaluate proposals from its practice groups and sectors. 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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