NC Top Court Scraps Judicial Fix For Public School System

By Abigail Harrison and Hayley Fowler

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in a divided decision Thursday that a trial court lacked the power to impose constitutional remedies for the state's failure to provide students with a quality education, invalidating nine years of developments in the decadeslong case known as Leandro.

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BofA $72.5M Deal With Up To 75 Epstein Victims Clears Hurdle

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge gave preliminary approval Thursday to a settlement in which Bank of America will pay $72.5 million to as many as 75 women to settle allegations that it facilitated what the court called Jeffrey Epstein's "monstrous" sex trafficking and abuse.

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Gibbs Racing Wants Ex-Employee's Alleged Deleted Texts

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Joe Gibbs Racing LLC has asked a federal judge for permission to access cellphone records that would unearth purportedly erased communications between its former competition director and the owner of a rival team that hired him, with the Gibbs team expressing urgency to preserve the messages as crucial evidence in the trade secrets case.

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Uber Fights Common Carrier Tentative Ahead Of NC Bellwether

By Bonnie Eslinger

Uber on Thursday urged a California federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation for alleged passenger sexual assaults to reverse his tentative decision that it's a "common carrier" with a duty to ensure passenger safety, a finding that could hamstring the ride-hailing giant in an upcoming North Carolina bellwether trial.

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AG Urges NC Justices To Keep Jurisdiction Over TikTok Suit

By Matthew Santoni

North Carolina Attorney General Jeffrey Jackson urged the state's Supreme Court to make TikTok's parent company face claims that it's addictive to juvenile users, arguing the social media giant had enough contact with the Tarheel State to be subject to its courts' jurisdiction.

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Convenience Store Chain Denied Quick Appeal In Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Han-Dee Hugo's can't immediately appeal a decision conditionally certifying a collective action of gas and convenience store managers in an overtime pay dispute, a North Carolina federal judge ruled, finding that it failed to show that doing so would speed up the litigation.

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Insurer Distorts Evidence In $50M COVID Row, Court Told

By Gianna Ferrarin

An auto parts manufacturer accused an insurer of distorting evidence of COVID-19 at its plants and contradicting policy language in order to escape its $50 million bid for coverage of pandemic-related losses in North Carolina federal court.

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Nexstar Slams DirecTV's 'Speculative' $6.2B Merger Challenge

By Dorothy Atkins

Broadcast giants Nexstar and Tegna urged a California federal judge on Thursday to allow their $6.2 billion merger to proceed as state attorneys general and DirecTV challenge the tie-up, arguing that their allegations of harm are "generalized and speculative" and that DirecTV is merely trying to maximize its leverage in future negotiations.

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Feds Say Habeas Ruling Could Spur More 'Illegal Orders'

By Jared Foretek

The Trump administration has asked the Fourth Circuit to reverse a district ruling that upheld a standing order from Maryland federal judges barring immediate removal or transfer of immigrant detainees, arguing the ruling sets a dangerous precedent for district court standing orders.

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Justices May Hesitate To Limit Courts' Arbitration Review

Based on Monday's argument in Jules v. Andre Balazs, the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to preserve federal jurisdiction over arbitral award enforcement stemming from actions originated in federal court, a holding that would markedly limit the court's 2022 Walters v. Badgerow decision, says Ashwini Jayaratnam at DarrowEverett.

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Series

Ultramarathons Make Me A Better Lawyer

Completing a 100-mile ultramarathon was tougher, more humbling and more rewarding than I ever imagined, and the experience highlighted how long-distance running has sharpened my ability to adapt to the evolving nature of antitrust law and strengthened my resolve to handle demanding, unforeseen challenges, says Dan Oakes at Axinn.

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ABA, Ex-Judges And Many More Back BigLaw In EO Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

Numerous bar associations, 239 former judges, 21 states, lawmakers and dozens of other amici curiae have thrown their weight behind BigLaw firms in the Trump administration's consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal seeking to revive executive orders targeting the firms, broadly arguing that the orders are an affront to foundational constitutional rights.

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Legal Sector Lost 700 Jobs In March, Ending Hiring Streak

By Tracey Read

The legal sector began to slow down in March after a year and a half straight of gains, with 700 fewer people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in February, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Progressive Org. Rolls Out $3M Anti-Trump High Court Push

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump does not have any vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court, but a progressive court advocacy organization is not waiting for a justice's departure to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign opposing a possible Trump pick.

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Brief

Justice Alito Treated For Dehydration After Federalist Event

By Courtney Buble

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito felt ill during a Federalist Society event last month and was seen by a doctor "out of an abundance of caution," the high court announced on Friday.

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6th Circ. Axes Atty For 'Inexcusable' AI 'Transgressions'

By Rae Ann Varona

An attorney committed "inexcusable transgressions" by relying on Westlaw's internal CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform for appellate filings and by failing to catch erroneous AI-generated content, the Sixth Circuit said Friday and removed the lawyer from further representing a man who pled guilty to drug trafficking charges.

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Analysis

'Political' Deals Pit DOJ Against State AGs, And Not Just Dems

By Bryan Koenig

Controversial U.S. Department of Justice settlements with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Live Nation, along with the approval of Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, are increasingly inspiring state attorneys general to strike out on their own as antitrust enforcers, often in direct challenge to a federal government that Democrats have cast as "corrupt."

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Florida Gov., AG Face Criticism For Judge Impeachment Push

By Rose Krebs

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier faced pushback this week from some in the state's legal community for calling for the impeachment of a judge for releasing a man who went on to allegedly kill his five-year-old stepdaughter, with critics blasting those calls as being politically motivated and "unethical."

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DOJ's New Corporate Enforcement Policy May Eclipse SDNY's

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice has put to use for the first time its new corporate enforcement policy of declining prosecutions when companies self-report potential criminal violations, but experts say the new, department-wide initiative has rendered a more business-friendly approach by the Southern District of New York moot.

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Ex-DOJ Official Wants Epstein-Talk Suit Kept In District Court

By Emily Sawicki

A former U.S. Department of Justice acting deputy chief who was fired last year after a hidden-camera video of him discussing the Epstein files was posted online has told a D.C. federal judge his due process case must survive in district court because the Trump administration now controls federal oversight agencies.

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Trump Seeks 13% Boost In DOJ Funding

By Courtney Bublé

The White House budget request for fiscal 2027, released on Friday, seeks $40.8 billion in discretionary funds for the U.S. Department of Justice, a 13% increase from the current year level.

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Judge Stands By Block Of DOJ Subpoenas In Powell Probe

By Jon Hill

A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Friday rejected a U.S. Department of Justice attempt to revive subpoenas from its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the government hadn't "come close" to giving him a reason to rethink blocking them.

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Schneider Wallace Loses Bid For Bigger Piece Of $75M Fee

By Lauren Berg

A California federal magistrate judge on Friday rejected Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's bid to increase its cut of a $75.4 million fee award for representing plaintiffs in a $228.5 million Sutter Health antitrust deal, saying lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP's allocation of $1.4 million to Schneider Wallace was fair.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal was hit with a proposed investor class action that claims the payments giant hid slowing growth for its critical branded checkout business. In the meantime, a Shopify lawyer encouraged his peers during a webinar to make sure their outside counsel have "met the moment" by leveraging artificial intelligence in smart ways. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Alliance Defending Freedom, Pearman Law Firm PC and attorney Barry Arrington lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado ban on therapy intended to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to viewpoint discrimination against a Christian therapist.

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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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