Judge Brown To Exit NC Biz Court With Successor Named

By Hayley Fowler

North Carolina Business Court Judge A. Todd Brown is stepping down from the bench less than two years into his term, the state judicial branch said Thursday in an announcement that named Judge Graham Shirley as his successor.

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Paralegal Can Pursue Her ADA Bias Suit Against Former Firm

By Abigail Harrison

A former paralegal at The Driscoll Firm PC can pursue her lawsuit alleging the firm discriminated against her after she informed higher-ups that her cancer had metastasized, because a North Carolina federal judge said she stated plausible claims for relief.

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'Sealed Container' Defense Sinks Exploding Battery Suit

By Mike Curley

A North Carolina appeals panel won't revive a man's suit against a retailer and distributor alleging he was sold a defective lithium-ion battery that exploded in his pocket, saying all his claims are blocked by the sealed container defense.

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Scientist Must Give Splenda Maker Emails With In-House Attys

By Hayley Fowler

A scientist battling a lawsuit by the maker of Splenda over her research linking the artificial sweetener to cancer-causing chemicals must turn over emails with her employer's in-house counsel, a North Carolina magistrate judge ruled, finding they are not protected by privilege.

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Law Firm Says Sports Database Co. Defaulted On $116K Bill

By Abigail Harrison

College sports database service Winthrop Intelligence LLC failed to pay a just under $116,000 bill for three months of legal representation in Winthrop's contentious asset battle with the widow of the company's co-founder, a law firm told a North Carolina state court.

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Wells Fargo Urges 4th Circ. To Ax Ex-Director's $22M ADA Win

By Katryna Perera

Wells Fargo is doubling down on its efforts to unravel a $22 million Americans with Disabilities Act verdict in favor of a former employee, telling the Fourth Circuit the former bank director was never denied a chance to work from home and therefore cannot claim the bank failed to accommodate him, among other things.

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Brief

Northrop Grumman 401(k) Suit Dropped For 4th Circ. Appeal

By Kellie Mejdrich

A Virginia federal judge dismissed a suit Thursday against Northrop Grumman from workers who alleged misspending of 401(k) forfeitures, a step that followed the parties settling a final claim in anticipation of workers' Fourth Circuit appeal of the court's December order tossing most claims in the dispute.

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Judge Denies Mylan And Aurobindo's Bid To Escape Trial

By Jonathan Capriel

A Connecticut federal judge has once again rejected generic-drug makers' bid to escape a multistate lawsuit accusing them of engaging in an overarching antitrust conspiracy, saying the evidence supports the need for a jury trial on whether the companies colluded to fix prices and divvy up markets for dozens of generic drugs.

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Series

Trivia Competition Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Playing trivia taught me to quickly absorb information and recognize when I've learned what I'm expected to know, training me in the crucial skills needed to be a good attorney, and reminding me to be gracious in defeat, says Jonah Knobler at Patterson Belknap.

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McGlinchey Stafford Files Ch. 7 With Over $10M In Liabilities

By Lauren Berg

New Orleans-based firm McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, which announced last month that it's winding down operations after more than half a century, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with more than $10 million in liabilities owed to former staff and attorneys, workplace vendors, financial institutions and other creditors.

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Judge Nixes DOJ Fine In ICE Case, But Blasts 'Radio Silence'

By Hailey Konnath

A Minnesota federal judge said Friday that a U.S. Department of Justice attorney won't be fined after an immigrant's identification documents were finally returned to him, yet she tore into the DOJ's excuses and said she will "not tolerate what happened here: disobedience and radio silence from the government."

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Analysis

Deportation Policy Pushes Texas Federal Bench To The Brink

By Courtney Bublé

Texas has suffered through a shortage of judges for its federal courts for a while now, but the recent influx of immigration cases is pushing the system to the brink.

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Michigan Federal Judge Faces State's 'Super Drunk' Charge

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Michigan federal judge facing trial on drunken driving charges crashed his car on the night he was arrested, registered a 0.27% blood alcohol level and told a state trooper who asked him to recite the alphabet, "A, B, C, D, F, U," according to a police report recently made public.

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Boies Schiller Partner Faces Possible Sanctions For AI Errors

By Emily Sawicki

A Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner must explain why he should not face monetary sanctions for filing a brief containing artificial intelligence-generated citation errors amid his representation of women who allege the Church of Scientology harassed them for reporting convicted actor Danny Masterson's sexual assaults.

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Epstein's Advisers Ink $35M Deal With Sex Trafficking Victims

By Katryna Perera

A class of victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking scheme has asked a New York federal judge to grant the first OK in a settlement reached with Epstein's lawyer and accountant, who allegedly aided him in the scheme.

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Va. Judges Name New US Atty, But Blanche Says 'You're Fired'

By Lauren Berg

The federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday unanimously appointed veteran litigator James W. Hundley to serve as interim U.S. attorney, a decision immediately met with derision from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who purported to fire Hundley in a social media post.

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Class Attys Allege Lead Counsel Is Hoarding $75M Sutter Fees

By Dorothy Atkins

Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP has urged a California federal magistrate judge to enforce the $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million deal resolving a decade-long antitrust fight, arguing lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP "unilaterally" and "arbitrarily" cut SWCK's fees by nearly $800,000 while boosting its own.

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Beasley Allen Can't Pause NJ Talc DQ Order, Judge Rules

By George Woolston

The Beasley Allen Law Firm can't delay an order disqualifying it from representing hundreds of women who claim their ovarian cancer was caused by Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder while it seeks review from the New Jersey Supreme Court, a state judge ruled on Friday.

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Fake Attys, Judges, Hearings: DOJ Alleges Immigration Scam

By Hailey Konnath

A group of Colombian immigrants scammed clients out of $100,000 by pretending to be immigration lawyers at a fake firm and orchestrating phony hearings in which they pretended to be judges and federal agents, complete with fake judicial robes and uniforms, federal prosecutors in New York said Friday.

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6th Circ. Chief Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

Chief Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton announced on Friday that he will take senior status on Oct. 1 after more than 20 years on the bench.

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Judiciary Preps Training On National Injunction Limits

By Courtney Bublé

Seven months after the budget reconciliation bill was enacted, the federal judiciary is making progress on the provisions to rein in what Republicans deem abuse of nationwide injunctions targeting the Trump administration's initiatives.

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Analysis

Valve's Anti-Troll Law Win Could Open New Doors

By Dani Kass

The first jury verdict in the U.S. finding a patent owner violated state law meant to curb bad faith patent suits had unique circumstances that will be hard to repeat, but attorneys say Tuesday's decision still has them considering the little-used laws more closely.

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Florida AG Defends $100K Teaching Side Gig Amid Scrutiny

By Jake Maher

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been on defense amid scrutiny over a reported $100,000-per-year teaching gig at the University of Florida law school, just as he sought to roll out a new anti-corruption unit.

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Attys Regret Unnoticed ChatGPT Errors In Conn. Court Filings

By Tracey Read

Attorneys ordered to explain errors in two January Connecticut Supreme Court briefs said ChatGPT altered legal arguments that counsel did not notice when they asked the artificial intelligence software to help limit duplicate passages, meet word count rules and format the filings.

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Brief

2nd NJ Defendant Joins Bid To Disqualify US Atty Leadership

By Carla Baranauckas

A second defendant in a New Jersey federal criminal case on Friday joined a pending bid to disqualify the three assistant U.S. attorneys overseeing the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, escalating a constitutional challenge to the office's leadership structure.

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Beltway Moves: Baker McKenzie, Armstrong & Bradylyons

By Alison Knezevich

The deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division returned to Baker McKenzie, while two former DOJ fraud prosecutors launched a new white collar boutique, in some of the latest legal industry happenings in Washington, D.C.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

The last week in London saw the founders of Getir sue investment fund Mubadala for more than $700 million tied to alleged breaches during the company's restructuring, the Welsh Rugby Union face a claim by Swansea Council over a proposed takeover of Cardiff Rugby, and Euro Car Parks target the Competition and Markets Authority after it was fined by the watchdog. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Several pension funds in New York City sued AT&T, alleging the illegal exclusion of their shareholder proposal requesting a corporate diversity report from the telecom giant's corporate ballot. In the meantime, the DOJ said the Trump administration is investigating federal contractors and grant recipients for potentially engaging in discrimination, rather than for their DEI programs. These are among 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

Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis Elefterakis & Panek lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a New York federal judge denied the NFL's bid to force a class of National Football League coaches into arbitration.

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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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