California Pulse


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    How States' 'Perry Mason Moment' Led To $17B Meta Deal

    A recent landmark $17.1 billion settlement with Meta Platforms Inc. may have never happened if it weren't for a quick-thinking trial attorney and his close-knit team of lawyers representing 29 states, who worked together to swiftly shift strategies midtrial.

  • Calif. Judge Charged Over Fatal Crash With Bicyclist

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that his office charged Kings County Superior Court Judge Kendra Weber with a misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter, alleging she struck and killed a bicyclist.

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    Orrick Hires CFO From Paul Hastings, Tech Leader From KKR

    Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP announced Tuesday that the firm has two new C-suite executives, both of whom will be based in New York.

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    Legal Ops Pay Stagnates As Big Company GCs See Increases

    A company's size has always influenced pay for in-house lawyers, but a new study shows a significant difference for general counsel and chief legal officers, with their median base salaries running 90% higher than their counterparts at smaller organizations. Meanwhile, compensation for directors of legal operations was flat.

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    Legal Deserts: Millions Across America Struggle To Access Lawyers

    Tens of millions of Americans live in towns and counties across the nation with limited or no access to legal services. By one estimate, at least a third of the nation's counties qualify as a "legal desert," having only one or no attorney per 1,000 residents. Roughly 24 million Americans reside in these counties.

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    California Wildfire Litigator Joins Sterlington From Buchalter

    Sterlington PLLC announced Monday that an experienced litigation attorney with a niche practice focusing on matters related to wildfires has joined the New York-based firm from Buchalter PC and will work remotely from Sacramento, California.

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    What Happens When The Only Lawyer In Town Retires?

    Many rural attorneys, often the only lawyer in town, work until they die or simply close their practices when they retire. But small to mid-sized firms looking to expand into rural markets could help to make succession planning a real possibility for these solo practitioners.

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    First-Gen Students Pressured By Earlier BigLaw Recruiting

    Students who are the first in their families to attend law school have been thrown a new challenge at the beginning of their legal journeys, as BigLaw accelerates their recruitment timelines.

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    What Summer Associates Learned From Working At Firms

    From learning how to come back from mistakes to cross-team collaboration, this year's summer associates came away with lessons that will help them succeed in their future careers. Here's what they want law students to know as they begin their own journeys.

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    The 2026 Summer Associate Experience: AI Led The Way

    Summer associate programs give law students an up-close look at changes unfolding in the legal industry, and a new Law360 Pulse survey found artificial intelligence use and pay have reached new heights.

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    Sullivan & Cromwell Adding Kirkland Private Equity M&A Attys

    Sullivan & Cromwell LLP announced Tuesday that four private equity mergers and acquisitions attorneys are moving to the firm from Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

  • Man Cops To Bombing Calif. Courthouse Over Gun Seizure

    A California man pled guilty on Monday to setting off a bomb at a Santa Barbara County courthouse in 2024 as retaliation for law enforcement officers taking away his firearms.

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    Disney Taps Warner Bros. Atty As Corp. Transactions Lead

    Disney has expanded its corporate transactions legal team with the addition of Warner Bros. Discovery's senior vice president of business and legal affairs, according to an internal memo.

  • State Farm Attorney Sanctioned $999.99 For AI Hallucinations

    An attorney for State Farm who filed several motions citing nonexistent cases and fabricated quotes generated by AI software must pay a $999.99 sanction, a Los Angeles judge ruled, an amount one cent below the threshold that would have triggered a mandatory notice to the State Bar of California under state law.

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    One County, One Lawyer: Legal Deserts Take A Human Toll

    Divorce is often hard, but it is harder still when there’s just one lawyer in town. The story of one divorcing couple in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula illustrates the financial costs and emotional pain of living in a legal desert, and it helps explain why lawyer shortages are spreading throughout rural America. This story introduces Law360 Pulse’s special series on legal deserts.

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    Morgan & Morgan Plans $1B In AI Spending, Unveils Platform

    Personal injury firm Morgan & Morgan formally announced Monday that it has been running a proprietary artificial intelligence platform over the past few years while also committing to spend at least $1 billion on AI and technology improvements over the next decade.

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    K&L Gates Hires 6-Atty Pillsbury Team In California, Texas

    K&L Gates LLP announced Monday that it recently added six attorneys from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP to bolster its corporate, intellectual property, litigation, and labor and employment practices.

  • Jackson Lewis Removes Ex-Atty's Bias Suit To Federal Court

    Jackson Lewis PC has moved a former associate's suit accusing the firm of refusing to accommodate her temporary work restrictions following her medical leave to California federal court, saying state court wasn't the right venue for dispute.

  • Attys Must Arbitrate $8 Oil To Fight $625K Sanction: 9th Circ.

    Class action lawyers slapped with six-figure sanctions for suing Walmart Inc. based on erroneous purchase information can't yet challenge the discipline, the Ninth Circuit ruled, suggesting they may first need to arbitrate grievances over an $8 bottle of avocado oil.

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    ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

    With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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    2 Former BigLaw Attys Open SF Litigation Boutique

    Two former partners at Greenberg Traurig LLP and Levin Law PA have launched a new boutique focusing on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and cybersecurity in the San Francisco Bay area, they announced this week.

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    Anti-Trans Care Push Continues Despite Big Proxy Losses

    While conservative investor groups filed at least six shareholder proposals focused on transgender care coverage for minors during the 2025-2026 proxy season, all have been overwhelmingly defeated — with the most recent coming this week at Nike Inc.

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    Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

    Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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    Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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    Law Firm Leasing Marks Record In Second Quarter Of 2026

    The second quarter of 2026 was a record quarterly high for law firm leasing, with 7.3 million square feet of office space leased from April to June in the U.S. legal sector, according to a new report from commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

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Expert Analysis

  • Law Firm Leaders Should Adopt Founding Fathers' Bold Ideas Author Photo

    To ensure continued success, law firm leaders helming their firms through the legal industry revolution should take inspiration from the Founding Fathers' bold decisions, such as James Madison's abandonment of the Articles of Confederation and George Washington's trust in junior officers', says Samuel Pond at Pond Lehocky.

  • The AI Ownership Question Firms Can't Afford To Skip Author Photo

    The artificial intelligence conversation among law firm leaders has advanced from adoption to governance and business impact, but it hasn’t resolved who maintains ownership and operational responsibility, which should be determined by the range of functions that AI touches, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate.

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    Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Practice Authenticity

    Attorneys who demonstrate who they truly are and what they stand for by sharing the human impact of their results, earning the media's trust by providing accessible analysis, and providing hands-on aid to their communities can build stronger reputations than any advertising budget can buy, says Ray DeLorenzi at RebuttalPR.

  • Legal AI Adoption Tips And Takeaways From Dot-Com Bubble Author Photo

    Legal artificial intelligence is on a similar trajectory as the internet in the dot-com era, where several internet companies failed after the initial market frenzy, but even if AI company valuations take a hit and the industry goes through a major reordering, legal leaders should note that the technology itself remains genuinely transformational for the delivery of legal services, says Gabriel Buigas at Integreon.

  • Opinion

    Keeping PE Out Of Law Is Job For Courts, Not Capitols Author Photo

    Efforts by lawmakers in California, Colorado and Illinois seeking to bar private equity firms, hedge funds and other nonattorney investors from owning or financing law firms risk intruding on authority that state constitutions and the inherent powers doctrine have traditionally assigned to the judiciary, says attorney Felix Shipkevich.

  • Legal Tech Talks: WordSmith AI's CEO On Shifting Mindsets Author Photo

    Ross McNairn, founder and CEO of Wordsmith AI, discusses how the lawyers who treat legal work like an engineering problem and can deploy legal intelligence at scale will define the next decade.

  • Avoiding The Changing Pitfalls Of Firm Website Redesigns Author Photo

    BigLaw firms about to tackle a website redesign need to understand the fundamental changes to costs, timelines, vendors and technology since their last big update so their leadership teams can steer resource management decisions away from costly potential mistakes, says Stephan Roussan at Vertical Minds.

  • Public AI Disclosures Raise Stakes For AI Agent Oversight Author Photo

    Two recent reports shift the legal posture of every organization deploying artificial intelligence agents because they establish the foreseeability, for negligence liability purposes, of an AI agent becoming weaponized for data exfiltration, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.

  • How Firms Can Win Market For Unified Legal Client Services Author Photo

    Firms willing to develop a new operating model, where AI-powered legal tech is paired with deep industry expertise and a different incentive structure, can win over companies looking to consolidate their legal needs with a single provider, says Lana Manganiello at Practice Growth Partner.

  • 7 AI Training Tips For Law Firm Summer Associate Programs Author Photo

    Law firms trying to weave artificial intelligence into summer associate programs should build a program that isn't really about AI but teaches students how to think about using AI, with the goal of building judgment, understanding implications and leveling up in a way that's repeatable, says Zeynep Ersin at Seyfarth.

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    Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Don't Obstruct Knowledge Author Photo

    Lawyers and firms should treat knowledge transfer as a business development function, using the sharing of context and institutional know-how to preserve continuity through change, strengthen relationships and create long-term competitive advantage, says Mark Wraight at Stinson.

  • How Private Equity Priorities Will Test The Law Firm Model Author Photo

    The biggest question about private equity moving into the legal sector is no longer whether it can financially succeed, but how law firms can contend with the unavoidable economic, institutional and ethical tensions introduced by external ownership without compromising their core professional commitments, say Kirsten Vasquez and Allison Rosner at Major Lindsey.

  • AI-Powered Search Demands New Legal Marketing Playbook Author Photo

    As potential clients use artificial intelligence tools instead of search engines when looking for counsel, it is a democratizing moment for specialized midsize firms and a compression threat for generalist big-firm brand positioning, says Ronn Torossian at 5WPR.

  • What Law Firm MSOs Can Learn From Accounting Co. Model Author Photo

    Private equity capital has been flowing into accounting firms for years, with investors developing creative structures to work within that field's specific ownership restrictions, and the framework developed by these transactions offers valuable insights for law firms looking for outside investment, says Russell Shapiro at Levenfeld Pearlstein.

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    Legal Tech Talks: StrongSuit CEO On The AI Gold Rush Author Photo

    Justin McCallon, CEO of StrongSuit, discusses how the potential for automation and insight generation with artificial intelligence is massive, but that in legal work, especially litigation, the margin for error is essentially zero.

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