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California Pulse
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Plaintiffs Atty Who Disclosed Uber MDL Docs On 'Thin Ice'
A California federal magistrate judge warned plaintiffs attorney Bret Stanley of Johnson Law Group during a hearing Tuesday that he's on "thin ice" after Uber argued he should be sanctioned for allegedly repeatedly using discovery in multidistrict litigation over sexual assault liability to litigate other cases against Uber.
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Law360 Names Firms Of The Year
Eight law firms have earned spots as Law360's Firms of the Year, with 48 Practice Group of the Year awards among them, achieving milestones such as high-profile litigation wins at the U.S. Supreme Court and 11-figure merger deals.
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9th Circ. Revives Malpractice Suit Against Bankruptcy Atty
The Ninth Circuit Tuesday reinstated a California woman's malpractice lawsuit against her bankruptcy attorney, but said the bankruptcy court needs to significantly narrow the permission to sue it granted to the debtor.
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Stranch Jennings Opens In Calif. With Bleichmar Fonti Team
Nashville-based firm Stranch Jennings & Garvey PLLC has launched an office in Oakland, California, with a nine-attorney team from another plaintiffs' class action firm, Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP.
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Massumi & Consoli Lands M&A Pro In Los Angeles
Massumi & Consoli LLP announced Monday that it has added an attorney who previously operated his own talent management business for athletes and also spent time at Paul Hastings LLP and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP to enhance its capacity to handle mergers and acquisitions.
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Womble Bond's Consumer Finance Team Eyes Growth
Womble Bond Dickinson has added a 36-person consumer financial services team from McGlinchey Stafford PLLC led by Cleveland partner Mark Edelman. Law360 Pulse talked with Edelman about why his team made the move.
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Private Equity Eyes Legal Field As Alternative Paths Open Up
This could be the year that private equity finally cracks the ramparts of the U.S. legal sector, as the rise of alternative business structure programs and managed services organizations chip away at the long-standing ban on nonlawyer ownership of law firms.
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Law360 Names Practice Groups Of The Year
Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2025, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and significant transaction work that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.
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Littler Adds Epstein Becker Employment Litigator In Calif.
Littler Mendelson PC announced that an attorney from Epstein Becker Green is joining its Century City, California, office as a shareholder, bringing a wealth of experience in employment law.
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Calif. Atty Wins Fee Appeal In Dispute With Ex-Firm
A California appellate panel on Thursday approved an attorney fee award for a lawyer in dispute with his former firm but also denied that attorney's attempt to get attorney fees for a post-arbitration hearing.
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Boutiques Loomed Large In Latest Bonus Season
Sometimes referred to as the BigLaw bonus scale, year-end associate bonuses of more than $100,000 have included prestigious boutique law firms in recent years, with a notable outpouring of large bonuses among such firms in 2025, an analysis of data compiled by Law360 Pulse shows.
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Law360 Pulse Spotlight On Mid-Law Work
Kellogg Hansen's handling of an antitrust suit against Google and Choate's work on a $215 million acquisition of a medical device maker lead this edition of Law360 Pulse's Spotlight on Mid-Law Work, recapping the top matters for Mid-Law firms from Jan. 2 to 16.
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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week
Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Sher Tremonte LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Second Circuit upheld a ruling requiring Getty Images to pay out nearly $88 million to investors who said they were blocked from purchasing shares in the company once it became public.
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Do's And Don'ts For How To Handle That Year-End Bonus
While associates' bank accounts may be flush after the recent round of year-end bonuses at many of the country's top firms, whether the money leads to additional benefits or problems hinges on how attorneys handle the influx of cash, financial experts tell Law360 Pulse.
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Voir Dire: Law360 Pulse's Weekly Quiz
The legal industry had another action-packed week with more lateral moves, leadership changes and C-suite promotions. Test your legal news savvy here with Law360 Pulse's weekly quiz.
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Warren Kash Rebrands After Partner Departure
Technology litigation firm Warren Kash Warren LLP announced Thursday that it is changing its name to Warren LLP following the departure of Jen Kash, who has joined California-based Bunsow De Mory LLP.
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Womble Bond Expands With 36-Person McGlinchey Team
Womble Bond Dickinson announced Friday it has added a 36-member consumer financial services team from the shuttering McGlinchey Stafford PLLC and is opening two new offices in Albany, New York, and Cleveland.
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Dykema Adds Former Assistant US Attorney In Los Angeles
Dykema Gossett PLLC is growing its litigation team, bringing in a former assistant U.S. attorney as senior counsel in its Los Angeles office.
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Jenner Atty And Ex-Newsom Aide O'Leary Heads To OpenAI
Jenner & Block LLP public policy partner Ann O'Leary, who previously worked as chief of staff for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has joined OpenAI in the newly created role of vice president of global policy, according to an announcement this week.
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Lateral Hiring Finished 2025 Strong Despite Q4 Dip
Large U.S. law firms capped 2025 with higher lateral hiring totals than the year before, despite a late-year slowdown, as demand for partners and counsel remained strong, new information from legal data company Firm Prospects LLC shows.
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Long-Time Stanford U. General Counsel To Retire In August
Stanford University is searching for a new general counsel after long-time legal chief Debra Zumwalt announced this week that she will retire in August after serving five university presidents and dealing with several school scandals.
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Calif. Justices Order Prosecutors To Explain Alleged AI Errors
The California Supreme Court has ordered Nevada County prosecutors to explain to a lower court why they shouldn't be sanctioned for "apparent serial submission" of artificial intelligence-generated briefs with nonexistent legal citations in multiple criminal proceedings.
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Legal Chiefs Shift Work From Firms Amid 'Threshold Moment'
Nearly all the chief legal officers and general counsel who participated in a recent survey said they plan to move more law firm work in-house or to alternative providers within the next two years as increasing outside counsel rates, artificial intelligence and ongoing efficiency pressure factor into how they distribute work, according to a report published Wednesday.
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Crowell Lands Buchalter Practice Group Co-Chair In Calif.
Crowell & Moring LLP announced Thursday that it has added the former co-chair of Buchalter PC's white collar and government investigations practice to bolster its capacity to handle healthcare fraud and other cases.
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Ex-Teacher Turned GC On How She's Grown Into Partner Role
When general counsel Deborah Carrillo was recently named a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, she had traveled a long way from being the middle school math teacher who aspired to use the law to right the inequities of public school systems.
Expert Analysis
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Ask A Mentor: How Do I Help After Mental Health Leave?
Molly Ranns at the State Bar of Michigan suggests five ways to smooth a colleague's return to practice after short-term mental health leave, while creating a firm culture that protects employees’ emotional health.
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Tips For Attracting Stellar CLOs In A Competitive Landscape
Amid a rapidly changing regulatory environment and a fierce market for talent, companies hoping to attract the best chief legal officers must have a strong grasp of their roles’ biggest selling points, and any roadblocks that may prevent them from recruiting the strongest choice, says Heather Fine at Major Lindsey.
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'Golden Handcuffs' May Be A Double-Edge Sword For Firms
As law firms increasingly use certain financial incentives to retain partners in a fierce lateral market, managing partners should consider the pros and cons of various deferred compensation schemes, says Tom Hanlon at Buchanan Law.
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The 10-Min. Rule For Building A Business Development Habit
Many lawyers assume that becoming a rainmaker requires a significant investment of time and effort, but the truth is that building a consistent habit of business development can start with just 10 minutes of strategic outreach a day, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.
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5 Pointers For Firm Leaders Communicating Tough Decisions
Certain law firm decisions — such as whether to challenge an executive order — cannot be crowdsourced, but leadership can collaboratively communicate these choices using strategies that build trust, reinforce values and preserve cohesion, says John Hellerman at Hellerman Communications.
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Series
Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Create A Succession Plan.jpg)
Conversations around retirement and succession can be understandably difficult, but when attorneys make a plan for the transition early and effectively, they have the opportunity to not only keep work but also increase it, says Jillian McKenna at Verrill Dana.
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Looking Under The Hood Of The $3,000 Billable Hour
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In recent years, top-tier law firms have pushed hourly rates to unprecedented heights, with some partners commanding $3,000 per hour — but this eye-popping number doesn’t tell the full story, as there are numerous caveats and rigorous winnowing along the way, says Christopher Seck at Squire Patton.
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How Law Firms Can Keep Nonequity Partners Happy
Law firms that successfully manage two-tiered partnership do so by creating a culture that treats everyone with respect and by establishing financial incentives outside their base compensation to reward performance, says Carol Morganstern at Major Lindsey.
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Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Leverage Your Atty Bio
If maintained properly, your firm bio can help attract potential clients and create authentic connections, so it's crucial to take steps to write an updated attorney profile that goes beyond a list of credentials, says Raychel Lean at Reputation Ink.
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Ask A Mentor: How Can I Promote Thoughtful Use Of AI?
Eran Kahana at Maslon discusses how partners can encourage responsible use of artificial intelligence tools within their firms by learning to spot pitfalls common to AI-generated work product and championing firmwide procedures and trainings that address the risks of uncritically relying on this powerful but imperfect technology.
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Making Legal Cents: Firm Culture Is The New Game Plan
Law firm culture is often dismissed as a soft factor — merely platitudes on a website that seem disconnected from the bottom line — but by intentionally embedding a strong culture into day-to-day operations, law firms can achieve sustainable success, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Strategic Consulting.
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5 Questions Firms Must Ask For Successful Lateral Integration
To ensure that lateral partners effectively integrate their books of business, firms should design a structured transition plan based on a few fundamentals, from tracking the right data to implementing meaningful incentives, says Lana Manganiello at Practice Growth Partner.
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Goldilocks Solution: Why The 4-Day Office Week Is Just Right
As law firms continue to wrestle with return-to-office policies, many are being pulled toward one or the other of two extremes: the rigidity of a five-day in-office schedule and the laissez-faire approach of a flexible three-day hybrid model — but a four-day in-office workweek may be the sweet spot, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.
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As Attys Adopt Generative AI, 3 Elements Should Be Cardinal
As the legal world increasingly adopts generative artificial intelligence, lawyers and firms must develop and utilize strong prompting skills, keep a pulse on forthcoming tech evolutions, and remain steadfast to ethical obligations, say Michele Carney at Carney & Marchi and Marty Robles-Avila at BAL.
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Rethinking 'No Comment' For Clients Facing Public Crises
“No comment” is no longer a cost-free or even a viable public communications strategy for companies in crisis, and counsel must tailor their guidance based on a variety of competing factors to help clients emerge successfully, says Robert Bowers at Moore & Van Allen.