Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
The legal industry began spring with a busy week of BigLaw moves as firms expanded practices and shifted headcounts. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse’s weekly quiz.
Gray Reed Advisory Services, a subsidiary of law firm Gray Reed & McGraw LLP, is growing its government affairs division under the GRPR brand with the addition of Adam Leggett, a former political aide who operated his own Texas public relations firm for the past four years.
Hogan Lovells pledged to dedicate 65,000 pro bono hours to advancing racial justice in June 2020, and, according to a report out this week, the firm's personnel have exceeded that goal by dedicating approximately 107,000 hours through 2023 to causes across the globe aimed at advancing racial justice.
The Senate voted 88-7 on Friday to confirm Ernest Gonzalez, a senior attorney adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division, Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section, and then 90-8 to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Leon Schydlower both to the Western District of Texas.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday urged the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas to quickly implement the Judicial Conference of the United States' updated policy that looks to prevent litigants from judge shopping, arguing that the district's current practices are "dangerous."
A Texas federal judge has dismissed a 21-count indictment against seven men accused of operating a multimillion-dollar "pump-and-dump" stock scheme over social media platform Discord two weeks before they were set to be tried before a jury, writing that the government's case was unable to survive two recent appellate court decisions that reined in corruption prosecutions.
Reed Smith LLP is reportedly raising associate salaries in a range similar to those first announced by Milbank LLP last November, with an associate's place on the scale depending on their billable hours.
A former business executive has sued the Texas law firm and legal technology company where she worked, alongside the firms' founders, claiming she was sexually harassed on the job and then illegally fired earlier this year after she tried to collect on more than $1 million in shares from the tech company.
Snell & Wilmer LLP's geographic footprint and full-service capabilities helped convince a seasoned commercial litigator to move his real estate and construction law practice from Cokinos Young PC to the firm's Dallas office.
Houston-based energy company Murphy Oil paid its general counsel $3.4 million in total compensation last year, amid what it called "another year of strong production and excellent execution" for the company in a securities filing Thursday.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers has put forward bills in the Senate and House that would make 10 temporary district judgeships permanent in 10 states including Texas, Florida and California.
Quintairos Prieto Wood & Boyer PA said it had created a tax division that will be led by an Atlanta-based partner who has guided clients on civil and criminal tax law, reinforcing its national expertise in litigation, regulatory and corporate law matters.
Nossaman LLP announced Thursday that Seijin C. Brooks and Melissa Ferringer have joined the firm's Austin, Texas, office as partners in that shop's eminent domain and valuation group.
Greenberg Traurig LLP's most recent Houston addition is a shareholder who came aboard from Jackson Walker LLP, where he established and led its U.S. Food and Drug Administration practice.
McGlinchey Stafford PLLC's managing member recently spoke to Law360 Pulse about the New Orleans-based firm's 50th anniversary, its plans for growth and how it tries to build and maintain a supportive culture.
As generative AI platforms rapidly advance, law firms are hastening to develop policies that address ethical and legal concerns arising from the new technology — including the latest firm to jump into the fray, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. Here, Law360 Pulse talks with general counsel Steven Puiszis about Hinshaw's new policy and how it took shape.
Widespread access to generative artificial intelligence tools could help increase access to justice for low-income Americans, according to a new study that found these tools largely boosted productivity for legal aid lawyers.
An American Bar Association ethics opinion released Wednesday offers new guidance on when a lawyer's conflict of interest after meeting with a prospective client should be considered to impact the whole firm and how lawyers can try to avoid sparking that whole-firm conflict.
Amid concerns from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about third-party litigation funding, including from potentially hostile foreign entities, state legislatures in Indiana and West Virginia have recently passed bills imposing restrictions on the practice.
Law360 Pulse recently caught up with James Bennett, co-founder of boutique litigation firm Dowd Bennett LLP, to discuss the firm's expansion this year in Chicago and Dallas.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday lauded the Judicial Conference's updated policy on random case assignments to prevent litigants from judge-shopping, saying that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing back against the policy since it'd make it tough for hard-right partisans "to hijack our courts for their purposes."
The policymaking body for U.S. courts provoked a stir last week when it proposed a rule designed to curb "judge shopping," with observers saying that the policy does address one type of the practice but that it remains to be seen if individual federal district courts will be willing to adopt even that limited reform.
Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP has strengthened its finance and restructuring practice in Dallas with partner Deanna Reitman, an experienced commodities lawyer who previously worked at DLA Piper.
Kilpatrick is turning to the leader of its intellectual property department in Atlanta to succeed the firm's longtime chair when he steps down from the role later this year.
Despite heavy representation in the legal operations field, women in this area continue to be underpaid compared to men, earning as much as 25% less total compensation than their peers, a new survey has found.
Many legal technology vendors now sell artificial intelligence and machine learning tools at a premium price tag, but law firms must take the time to properly evaluate them as not all offerings generate process efficiencies or even use the technologies advertised, says Steven Magnuson at Ballard Spahr.
While chief legal officers are increasingly involved in creating corporate diversity, inclusion and anti-bigotry policies, all lawyers have a responsibility to be discrimination busters and bias interrupters regardless of the title they hold, says Veta T. Richardson at the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Every lawyer can begin incorporating aspects of software development in their day-to-day practice with little to no changes in their existing tools or workflow, and legal organizations that take steps to encourage this exploration of programming can transform into tech incubators, says George Zalepa at Greenberg Traurig.
As junior associates increasingly report burnout, work-life conflict and loneliness during the pandemic, law firms should take tangible actions to reduce the stigma around seeking help, and to model desired well-being behaviors from the top down, say Stacey Whiteley at the New York State Bar Association and Robin Belleau at Kirkland.
As clients increasingly want law firms to serve as innovation platforms, firms must understand that there is no one-size-fits-all approach — the key is a nimble innovation function focused on listening and knowledge sharing, says Mark Brennan at Hogan Lovells.
In addition to establishing their brand from scratch, women who start their own law firms must overcome inherent bias against female lawyers and convince prospective clients to put aside big-firm preferences, says Joel Stern at the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms.
Jane Jeong at Cooley shares how grueling BigLaw schedules and her own perfectionism emotionally bankrupted her, and why attorneys struggling with burnout should consider making small changes to everyday habits.
Black Americans make up a disproportionate percentage of the incarcerated population but are underrepresented among elected prosecutors, so the legal community — from law schools to prosecutor offices — must commit to addressing these disappointing demographics, says Erika Gilliam-Booker at the National Black Prosecutors Association.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can Associates Deal With Overload?Young lawyers overwhelmed with a crushing workload must tackle the problem on two fronts — learning how to say no, and understanding how to break down projects into manageable parts, says Jay Harrington at Harrington Communications.
Law firms could combine industrial organizational psychology and machine learning to study prospective hires' analytical thinking, stress response and similar attributes — which could lead to recruiting from a more diverse candidate pool, say Ali Shahidi and Bess Sully at Sheppard Mullin.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can Associates Seek More Assignments?In the first installment of Law360 Pulse's career advice guest column, Meela Gill at Weil offers insights on how associates can ask for meaningful work opportunities at their firms without sounding like they are begging.
In order to improve access to justice for those who cannot afford a lawyer, states should consider regulatory innovations, such as allowing new forms of law firm ownership and permitting nonlawyers to provide certain legal services, says Patricia Lee Refo, president of the American Bar Association.
The Texas Supreme Court's recently proposed rule change allowing substituted service through social media and email could take effect in December, and practitioners will need to know how to establish that the defendant received notice through a technological method, says Marcus Eason at McGinnis Lochridge.
Law firms will be hiring conservatively well into 2021 and beyond, but associates eyeing a new firm or market can successfully make a move if they are pragmatic about their requirements, say Rebecca Glatzer and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.