California Pulse


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    Ex-Sunrun Legal VP Joins Wilson Sonsini In San Francisco

    Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC announced Tuesday that the former vice president of legal at solar energy company Sunrun has joined the firm's San Francisco office as an energy and climate solutions partner.

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    Sunstone Hotel Cuts GC Role In Exec Restructuring

    Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. announced the departure of its general counsel on Tuesday, saying that it is eliminating the position from its management structure amid a larger reshuffling.

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    Proskauer Lands Globetrotting Private Funds Atty In LA

    Proskauer Rose LLP announced Tuesday that it has brought on a former Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP partner in its private funds group in Los Angeles.

  • Calif. Firm Accused Of Withholding Fees From Dying Partner

    The wife of a late Carpenter & Zuckerman LLP partner says the firm withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from her husband before he died of cancer, claiming he spent his final months "pleading for funds" and living in "constant fear" that he would die without securing financial security for his family.

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    Orrick Partner Jumps To Pillsbury IP Team In LA

    A longtime Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP partner has joined the Los Angeles office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, bringing years of experience in intellectual property litigation and expertise in the Copyright Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

  • Attys Defend $85M Fee Bid Blasted By Judge In Google Deal

    Consumers who pursued an antitrust class action against Google urged the California federal judge who criticized their 98,000 hours billed as "grotesquely bloated" to approve their $85 million fee request, emphasizing Friday that they filed suit a year before state attorneys general joined the case and maintained a leading role in the litigation.

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    Davis Polk Lands Skadden's LA Leader To Launch New Office

    Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is opening an office in Los Angeles and is bringing on the former leader of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP's office in the city.

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    Reed Smith Adds Private Equity Partner In LA

    A corporate attorney specializing in private equity transactions has moved his practice to Reed Smith LLP's Century City, Los Angeles, office after nearly three years with Winston & Strawn LLP.

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    Alston & Bird Adds Winston & Strawn IP Leaders In NY, SF

    Alston & Bird announced Monday that it has added three new partners to its IP litigation group, luring two leaders from Winston & Strawn LLP.

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    Women Lag In BigLaw Tech Leadership, Except For One Role

    The percentage of women holding tech-focused C-suite positions at the largest U.S. law firms is just under 20%, though women hold parity in roles centered on innovation, a Law360 Pulse analysis found.

  • Winery's Ex-Lawyer Has No Rights To Wine Brand, Judge Says

    A California federal judge has entered judgment in a battle between a Napa Valley winery and an attorney who had worked with it, ruling that the attorney had no rights to the trademark on the high-end RBS wine brand.

  • California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

    The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

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    Grindr CLO Saw Compensation Surpass $6M In 2025

    Grindr's chief legal officer received roughly $6.1 million in compensation for 2025, up about $1.3 million from the prior year due to an increase in stock awards, a public securities filing says.

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    Data Center Boom Unites Wide-Ranging Practice Areas

    As the legal industry vies to take advantage of the trillions of dollars of investment on the horizon for data center development, a range of law firms have formed multidisciplinary groups that can handle various aspects of the projects, from real estate and energy to finance and regulatory work.

  • Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal jury cleared Armistice Capital and two of its executives of class action claims that it pumped and dumped $250 million in Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and violated federal securities law with insider trading.

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    EBay Legal Chief Gets $8.4M In Compensation In 2025

    The chief legal officer of eBay Inc. received roughly $8.4 million in compensation for 2025, her first full year in the post, according to a public filing.

  • Voir Dire: Law360 Pulse's Weekly Quiz

    Insights on 2026 law firm performance and BigLaw firm efforts to expand practice offerings made this another action-packed week for the legal industry. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse's weekly quiz.

  • Cannabis Dispute Ends With Plaintiff Co. Facing $1.34M Default

    A California state court snuffed out a Los Angeles cannabis company's fraud lawsuit against its investors and landlords, which were accused of stealing $40 million and wrecking its cannabis license, opening the door for the ex-business partners to score a $1.34 million default judgment.

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    Choice Of Trump's Attys For Bench Worries Some, Not Others

    President Donald Trump is drawing from a pool of his own personal lawyers to fill some seats on the federal bench — a change in strategy from his first term that some experts say is unremarkable, but that others worry will undermine the legitimacy of the courts.

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    This CLO Shifts Mindsets About AI From 'Fear To Innovation'

    When Ali Hartley introduced AI to her team members at electronic health record platform SimplePractice, she asked them to create a cafe menu using AI in less than 30 minutes. She wanted the exercise to show her employees — who at the time ranged from former software coders to people who had never experimented with ChatGPT — that AI can serve as a creative and innovative partner.

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    Buchalter Adds Engineer Turned Patent Atty From Mintz

    Buchalter PC announced Wednesday that it has welcomed an engineer-turned-lawyer to its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, touting her long-standing experience as a patent litigator and registered patent attorney.

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    Law Firm Real Estate Report

    An active April saw several law firms around the country expand their footprints into new markets and move their teams into new spaces.

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    Sheppard Adds 15 Perkins Trial Attys As It Targets IP Growth

    Sheppard announced another major addition to its intellectual property practice on Thursday, welcoming a 15-lawyer litigation team from Perkins Coie that includes five partners.

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    Why A Mid-Law Firm Went All In On One E-Discovery Platform

    Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass LLP selected CS Disco as its preferred provider for e-discovery technology, the mid-sized law firm confirmed exclusively to Law360 Pulse on Thursday.

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    Demand Rebound, Rising Rates Fuel BigLaw Revenue Jump

    BigLaw firms had a strong first quarter of 2026, driven by ever-increasing billing rates and higher-than-expected demand for legal services, according to survey results released Wednesday.

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Expert Analysis

  • How Law Students Can Effectively Use AI In Their Job Search Author Photo

    Law students can use artificial intelligence tools strategically throughout the job application process to review materials, prepare for interviews and navigate employers’ use of similar tools, but there are several key missteps they should be careful to avoid, says Lauren Wong at University of San Diego School of Law.

  • An After-Placement Plan Maximizes Legal Content's Potential Author Photo

    Before landing a published quote, feature or interview, law firms should articulate the content’s purpose and develop a strategic plan for repurposing it to ensure they’re aligning public relations efforts with measurable business outcomes, says John Hellerman at Hellerman Communications.

  • Ask A Mentor: How Should I Coordinate Pro Bono Projects? Author Photo

    Julie LaEace at Perkins Coie offers tips for attorneys acting as pro bono coordinators, including how to choose appropriate projects, how to encourage participation and why it is important to keep in touch with legal aid partner organizations.

  • 6 Strategies For Navigating Legal Leadership Transitions Author Photo

    Amid uncertainty in the legal job market, attorneys who are considering a transition to a leadership role must fundamentally reimagine their approach to value creation and develop a new set of skills, say Stacy Bratcher at Cottage Health and Michael Watkins at Genesis Advisers.

  • The Augmented Lawyer: Crafting Responsible AI Policies Author Photo

    As the legal industry increasingly looks to impose responsive guardrails for artificial intelligence use, firms and organizations’ internal use policies, outside counsel guidelines and vendor contracts can address confidentiality and data retention concerns in several ways, say attorneys at KXT Law.

  • 6 Ways To Build Pro Bono Culture If You Lack Dedicated Staff Author Photo

    Firms can develop a strong pro bono culture without hiring dedicated professionals through strategies like demonstrating active involvement by leadership, tailoring volunteer tasks to individual professional development needs and building trusted partnerships within the legal aid community, says Stacy Zinken at Paladin.

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    Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Extend Your Content's Life Author Photo

    Attorneys often limit the impact of their thought leadership by letting their content languish after initial publication, but through four easy strategies for retooling existing content, they can maximize its reach and further their business development goals, says Jillian McKenna at Verrill Dana.

  • Why Law Firm Leaders Should Care About Student Debt Crisis Author Photo

    ​​​​​​​As the student debt crisis evolves under changing federal policies, firms that proactively address the burden will have significant advantages in recruiting and retaining the best young lawyers, says Brian Kabateck at Kabateck.

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    Talking Mental Health: Encouraging New Attys To Find Joy Author Photo

    Rudene Haynes at Hunton discusses her experiences as a hiring partner, common sources of stress that newer attorneys face and steps that law firms can take to protect their attorneys' mental health and encourage personal life fulfillment.

  • Fla. Bar's Cyber Incident Response Plan Sets Precedent Author Photo

    The incident response plan developed by the Florida Bar's cybersecurity and privacy committee might not seem all that consequential, but it's a long overdue framework that could go a long way toward protecting the highly sensitive data law firms handle — and could even set a model for other professional organizations to follow, says Chris Boehm at Zero Networks.

  • Why Attorneys Should Write About Justices' Minority Opinions Author Photo

    Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s searing dissents this past term serve as a reminder for attorneys to analyze U.S. Supreme Court minority opinions in their thought leadership for three key reasons, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.

  • 3 Business Development Lessons From Mozart's 'Magic Flute' Author Photo

    Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” offers a useful framework for attorneys to build relationships and develop new business, inspired by Prince Tamino’s curiosity, courage and consistency, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.

  • 5 Ways Legal Teams Can Use KPIs To Quantify Their Value Author Photo

    As in-house legal departments are increasingly expected to do more with less, developing a thoughtful framework to measure key performance indicators can help them both maximize and demonstrate their contribution to business success, say co-founders at New Era ADR.

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    Defining The Culture For A Legal Nonprofit Author Photo

    We co-founded The International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators to connect leading trial lawyers, litigation experts and academics, and our experience has shown that embracing opportunity, responding fearlessly to market realities, and relentlessly defining the organization’s culture have all been integral to success, say Stéphane Bonifassi, Lincoln Caylor and Elizabeth Ortega.

  • 5 Emerging Themes Shaping Lateral Partner Moves This Year Author Photo

    A few key trends have arisen in partners’ lateral movements in the first half of 2025, reflecting a legal market defined by macroeconomic uncertainty, shifts in firm structures and rising scrutiny of firm affiliations, say legal recruiters at Macrae.

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