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NY Judge To Sentence Trump Jan. 10 But Says Prison Unlikely
A New York state judge said Friday he will sentence Donald Trump on Jan. 10 after rejecting his motion to dismiss his hush money conviction in light of his status as president-elect, but suggested a prison term is highly unlikely.
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Atty Wants Free Speech Suit Over Tenn. Court Rule Kept Alive
A free speech challenge to a Middle District of Tennessee rule barring attorneys from making "any extrajudicial statements" about cases in the district should be allowed to move forward since the court is not entitled to sovereign immunity, according to the Nashville civil rights lawyer behind the suit.
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Ala. Judge Won't Recuse In Talc Fight Due To Law Firm Work
An Alabama federal judge will not recuse himself from a fight between two leading plaintiffs law firms in the multibillion-dollar litigation over Johnson & Johnson's tainted talcum powder, saying Friday that his previous representation of Beasley Allen Law Firm won't bias him against Smith Law Firm PLLC.
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Menendez Cites 'Good Deeds' In Bid To Avoid Prison
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has asked a Manhattan federal judge not to sentence him to prison after he was convicted of bribery and corruption in July, saying a "lifetime of good deeds and good character" and a low likelihood of future offenses merit leniency.
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Biden Honors Del. Jurist For Role In Brown V. Board Ruling
President Joe Biden issued a top civilian award, posthumously, to former Chancellor Collins J. Seitz of Delaware Chancery Court, father of the state's current chief justice, for his role in decisions woven into the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
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Murdaugh Hit With $15M Tab In Insurance Case Set For Trial
A South Carolina federal judge hit ex-lawyer and convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh with a $14.8 million default judgment Thursday in favor of Nautilus Insurance Co., days before the insurer is set for trial against another lawyer and law firm who allegedly should have known about Murdaugh's insurance fraud.
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Judicial Conference Closes Thomas Gift Probe With No Action
The Judicial Conference of the United States will not refer ethics complaints accusing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of unlawfully failing to disclose decades of luxury gifts and travel to the U.S. Department of Justice for further investigation, according to letters released Thursday.
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Retired Justice Breyer To Sit On 1st Circ. As Visiting Judge
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is returning to the bench this month as a visiting judge on the First Circuit, joining three-judge panels hearing oral arguments Jan. 8 and 10, including a financial adviser's appeal of its $93 million loss to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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DC US Atty Matthew Graves Stepping Down Jan. 16
Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for D.C. who led the federal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said he'll be stepping down as the capital's top federal prosecutor four days before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
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Biden Lauds Bipartisanship In Confirming Record No. Of Judges
With less than three weeks left in office, President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated putting 235 lifetime judges on the federal bench.
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Ga. Judge Dies By Apparent Suicide In Courtroom
A Georgia state judge died in an apparent suicide in the courtroom earlier this week during his final days in office shortly after Gov. Brian Kemp rejected his resignation and said it would have nullified the results of a runoff election that the judge lost last year.
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Feds Ask High Court To Unpause Corporate Transparency Law
The federal government is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a Texas judge's injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act, telling the justices in a new application that the 2021 anti-money laundering law's compliance deadlines should take effect while the Fifth Circuit hears the full case.
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Texas High Court Tosses Ethics Case Against Paxton Deputy
A split Texas Supreme Court this week ended an ethics case against state Attorney General Ken Paxton's first assistant over a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in other states, finding that such discipline would violate the Lone Star State's separation of powers doctrine.
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Ex-Defender Asks 4th Circ. To Force Back Harvard Profs, Attys
A former assistant public defender in North Carolina who lost her case accusing the judiciary of violating her equal protection and due process rights has doubled down on an attempt to reinstate her legal team of Harvard Law School professors and litigators who abruptly abandoned the case just before trial.
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Chancery Recognizes Magistrate's Work With New Title
The Delaware Chancery Court's longest serving magistrate has been given a new title in recognition of her leadership and work handling administrative duties to help ensure the court's hectic caseload is managed.
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Fla. Ethics Case Over Ex-Judge's 'Intemperate' Conduct Nixed
An ethics complaint against a former Sunshine State jurist accused of acting "intemperately" has been dismissed because the judge left office Tuesday and has agreed not to serve as a judge again, according to a Thursday notice from a judicial ethics panel.
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How Jimmy Carter Transformed The Federal Bench
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday, presided over the country's largest judicial expansion, an opportunity he seized to fill seats on the federal bench with more women and people of color than ever before.
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Chancery's Glasscock Slams Attacks On Judges As Exit Nears
As he prepared to end his lengthy tenure on the Delaware Chancery Court bench, Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III told Law360 Pulse recently it had been a joy to serve, while also expressing concern about an increasingly difficult environment judges have to navigate.
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Here's Where Mid-Law Leaders Will Be Focused In 2025
Mid-Law leaders entering 2025 say that they are optimistic about the new year but also focused on potential challenges, such as the rise of generative artificial intelligence tools, succession planning and ensuring that any growth they are experiencing is sustainable.
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Fed. Court Reforms Face Long Odds Amid GOP Control In '25
Some modest reforms to the federal courts may be enacted in the coming years, but major changes championed by Democrats and judicial reform activists are likely "dead in the water" now that Republicans will be controlling Congress and the White House in 2025, reform advocates say.
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Lit Finance Enters '25 On Solid Ground Amid Disclosure Push
The $15 billion U.S. litigation finance industry has come a long way in recent years, but demands for more transparency from pro-business groups and the defense bar could present a significant challenge in the year ahead.
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7 New York Law Firm Leaders Share 2025 Priorities, Concerns
New York managing partners are focused on strategic growth and expanding their bench of talent in 2025, as clients look to navigate new power dynamics from the White House to Wall Street.
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The Biggest Cases At State Supreme Courts In 2025
Abortion access, education funding and mandatory prison sentences are among the high-profile issues on state supreme courts' dockets in 2025, as attorneys and activists increasingly turn away from the U.S. Supreme Court and instead look to the states to protect certain constitutional rights, experts say.
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The Top 5 High Court Cases To Watch This Spring
The U.S. Supreme Court justices will return from the winter holidays to tackle major First Amendment questions and several administrative law disputes — all arising from the Fifth Circuit — that could further change how federal agencies promulgate rules and defend them.
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Trump Begins 2nd Term With At Least 45 Judge Seats To Fill
Incoming President Donald Trump will take office Jan. 20 with 45 seats on the federal bench to fill. Currently, there are 39 empty seats on U.S. district and circuit courts and 6 pending vacancies due to announced retirements and plans to take senior status, three of which opened on Dec. 31 and another that opened Jan. 2.
Expert Analysis
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Former Minn. Chief Justice Instructs On Writing Better Briefs
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, now at Greenberg Traurig, offers strategies on writing more effective appellate briefs from her time on the bench.
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Ask A Mentor: How Do I Juggle Billables And Other Activities?
While involvement in internal firm initiatives can be rewarding both personally and professionally, associates' billable time requirements don’t leave much room for other work, meaning they must develop strategies to ensure they’re meeting all of their commitments while remaining balanced, says Melanie Webber at Fisher Phillips.
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Making Legal Cents: How To Adapt As Clients Tighten Budgets
Amid a dip in corporate legal spending and client pushback on bills, Shireen Hilal at Maior Consultants highlights specific in-house counsel frustrations and explains how firms can provide customized legal advice with costs that are supported by undeniable value.
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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.
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General Counsel And Legal Ops Must Work Together
It is critical for general counsel to ensure that a legal operations leader is viewed not only as a peer, but as a strategic leader for the organization, and there are several actionable ways general counsel can not only become more involved, but help champion legal operations teams and set them up for success, says Mary O'Carroll at Ironclad.
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How Generative AI's Growing Memory Affects Lawyers
A new ChatGPT feature that can remember user information across different conversations has broad implications for attorneys, whose most pressing questions for the AI tool are usually based on specific, and large, datasets, says legal tech adviser Eric Wall.
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A Model For Optimal Legal Tech Investment Strategy
Legal organizations struggling to work out the right technology investment strategy may benefit from using a matrix for legal department efficiency that is based on an understanding of where workloads belong, according to the basic functions and priorities of a corporate legal team, says Sylvain Magdinier at Integreon.
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Series
My Nonpracticing Law Job: Recruiter
Self-proclaimed "Lawyer Doula" Danielle Thompson at Major Lindsey shares how she went from Columbia Law School graduate and BigLaw employment associate to a career in legal recruiting — and discovered a passion for advocacy along the way.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Do I Balance Social Activism With My Job?
Corporate attorneys pursuing social justice causes outside of work should consider eight guidelines for finding equilibrium between their beliefs and their professional duties and reputation, say Diedrick Graham, Debra Friedman and Simeon Brier at Cozen O'Connor.
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Personality Tests And Machine Learning Applications In Law
Mateusz Kulesza at McDonnell Boehnen looks at potential applications of personality testing based on machine learning techniques for law firms, and the implications this shift could have for lawyers, firms and judges, including how it could make the work of judges and other legal decision-makers much more difficult.
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AI Is Reshaping Lawyering: What To Expect In 2024
The future of lawyering is not about the wholesale replacement of attorneys by artificial intelligence, but as AI handles more of the routine legal work, the role of lawyers will evolve to be more strategic, requiring the development of competencies beyond traditional legal skills, says Colin Levy at Malbek.
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Embrace Active Voice In Legal Writing — In Most Cases
Legal writers should strive to craft sentences in the active voice to promote brevity and avoid ambiguities that can spark litigation, but writing in the passive voice is sometimes appropriate — when it's a moral choice and not a grammatical failure, says Diana Simon at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law.
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Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Help Associates Turn Down Work?
Marina Portnova at Lowenstein Sandler discusses what partners can do to aid their associates in setting work-life boundaries, especially around after-hours assignment availability.
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How AI Legal Research Tools Are Shifting Law Firm Processes
Although artificial intelligence-powered legal research is ushering in a new era of legal practice that augments human expertise with data-driven insights, it is not without challenges involving privacy, ethics and more, so legal professionals should take steps to ensure AI becomes a reliable partner rather than a source of disruption, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.
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Data Source Proliferation Is A Growing E-Discovery Challenge
With the increased usage of collaboration apps and generative artificial intelligence solutions, it's not only important for e-discovery teams to be able to account for hundreds of existing data types today, but they should also be able to add support for new data types quickly — even on the fly if needed, says Oliver Silva at Casepoint.