California Pulse


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    Former Dechert Litigation Head Joins JAMS In San Francisco

    The alternative dispute resolution service JAMS is expanding its mediation team, announcing Wednesday it has added a retired Dechert LLP head of litigation as a neutral in San Francisco.

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    Law Firm Marketing Budgets Have Fallen Behind Firm Growth

    During a period when many law firms experienced strong revenue and headcount growth, the industry's marketing budgets did not grow at the same pace, according to the results of a survey released Thursday.

  • Calif. Judge Murdered His Wife, DA Tells Jury As Trial Wraps

    California state court judge Jeffrey Ferguson intentionally killed his wife by drunkenly shooting her to death in their home after a heated argument, prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday, while Ferguson's attorney argued that the gun accidentally discharged as the judge tried to set it on a table.

  • Calif. AG's Hiring Of Lieff Cabraser In Climate Suit Challenged

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta improperly hired Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP to assist with the state's climate deception suit against fossil fuel companies when attorneys in his office were capable of handling the litigation, the union representing the public lawyers contended in a newly filed state court complaint.

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    Simpson Thacher Adds Partner From Wilson Sonsini

    Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP has picked up a trial litigator from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC who helped a startup defeat a nearly $460 million trade secrets case over expert testimony involving antibody cancer treatments and secured defense victories in patent cases for companies like Google LLC and HTC Corp.

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    Ballard Spahr Launches AI Tools Led By 'Ask Ellis' Chatbot

    National law firm Ballard Spahr will roll out a custom suite of generative artificial intelligence tools, highlighted by Ask Ellis, a chatbot named after a co-founding attorney of the 140-year-old firm.

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    Brownstein Hyatt Adds Seyfarth Real Estate Pro In LA

    Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP is growing its California team, bringing in a Seyfarth Shaw LLP real estate expert as a shareholder in its Los Angeles office.

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    Wilson Sonsini Adds Employment Litigator In Palo Alto

    Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC has added an employment law expert to its litigation department in Palo Alto, California, who brings with her more than 15 years of BigLaw experience including most recently at O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

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    4 Tips To Hit Billable Hours Out Of The Park This Year

    Early in the year is the best time to start to think about billable hour targets and strategies for how to meet them, according to partners and attorney career coaches. Here are four strategies those experts say will help associates hit a home run this year.

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    Hecker Fink Opens LA Shop With Former Federal Prosecutors

    New York-based litigation boutique Hecker Fink LLP is expanding to the West Coast, bringing in two former federal prosecutors to open a Los Angeles office.

  • Apple Litigation Director Threatened With Sanctions At Hearing

    A California federal judge presiding over a high-stakes evidentiary hearing into whether Apple has complied with her 2021 antitrust injunction threatened to sanction Apple's commercial litigation director Tuesday, telling counsel she has "significant concerns" about Apple's over-designation of attorney-client privilege, saying, "Your client is not entitled to have you engage in unethical conduct."

  • Judge Who Shot Wife Admits Hundreds Of Gun Law Violations

    A California judge accused of killing his wife admitted on the witness stand Tuesday to breaking the law at least hundreds of times by drinking alcohol while carrying a concealed weapon, but insisted her shooting was an accident and denied shedding crocodile tears to gain the jury's sympathy.

  • Jay-Z's Claims Against Buzbee May Get Trimmed, Judge Says

    A California state judge said Tuesday that he's inclined to toss Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's extortion claims against personal injury lawyer Tony Buzbee and some, but not all, of the rapper's defamation allegations stemming from a now-abandoned rape lawsuit.

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    Sidley Brings On Dentons Consumer Safety Pros In Calif.

    Sidley Austin LLP continues expanding its West Coast team, announcing it is adding a pair of Dentons consumer products safety litigators as partners in its San Diego and Los Angeles offices. 

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    Kirkland Regains Top Spot in 2024 Performance Ranking

    Kirkland & Ellis LLP surged back to the top of legal market intelligence provider Leopard Solutions' annual Law Firm Index released on Tuesday with a perfect score for the year, while last year's leader Latham & Watkins LLP slipped to fourth place.

  • Calif. Bar Touts Reduction In Racial Disparity In Atty Discipline

    The State Bar of California has reported what it calls "significant" shifts toward equity in attorney discipline in the five years since a watershed study showed a decades-long trend of disparity, including that Black male attorneys were more than three times as likely to be placed on probation or disbarred compared to their white counterparts.

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    Apple, Deere Stand Up For Diversity At Annual Meetings

    The pro- and anti-diversity corporate battles are heating up this week, as Apple Inc. shareholders on Tuesday rejected a proposal to abolish its inclusion and diversity program, while Deere & Co. has managed to convince pro-diversity investors to trust it and withdraw their proposal. 

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    Law Firms Walk DEI Tightrope Amid Political Pressure

    Law firms that once led the charge on diversity initiatives now find themselves walking a tightrope, balancing their long-standing commitments to diversity with shifting corporate priorities and political pressure stemming from the Trump administration's efforts to curtail such programs.

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    Law Firm Leasing Reaches Highest Level Since Before COVID

    Law firms in the United States have broken through years of pandemic-related uncertainty about market conditions and the need for office space to record the highest volume of lease activity in more than five years, according to newly released data.

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    Girard Sharp Adds Atty From Lieff Cabraser In San Francisco

    The former leader of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP's fertility practice has joined Girard Sharp as a partner in San Francisco, according to a Tuesday announcement.

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    Duane Morris Adds Former Federal Prosecutors In NY, Calif.

    Duane Morris LLP has expanded its trial practice group with a pair of former federal prosecutors coming aboard in San Francisco and New York.

  • 'It Was An Accident': Judge Denies Shooting Wife On Purpose

    A California judge who shot his wife to death in their living room following an argument took the stand in his murder trial Monday, fighting hard to maintain his composure while explaining to jurors that his Glock discharged accidentally when he tried to set it down on the coffee table.

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    Venable Litigator Jumps To Steptoe In California

    Steptoe LLP continues growing its West Coast team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Venable LLP commercial trial lawyer as a partner in its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices.

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    Apple Antitrust Ace Returns To Latham In Bay Area

    Latham & Watkins LLP announced Monday that it has welcomed back an attorney who was working as in-house counsel for Apple to bolster its antitrust and competition practice and enhance its efforts to handle monopolization cases.

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    Ex-Sheppard Mullin Media Atty Joins O'Melveny In Calif.

    An entertainment attorney with expertise representing stakeholders on all sides of deal negotiations has moved his practice recently to O'Melveny & Myers LLP's office in the Los Angeles area after more than six years with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

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Expert Analysis

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can Associates Deal With Overload? Author Photo

    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.

  • A Scientific Path For Improving Diversity At Law Firms Author Photo

    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.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can Associates Seek More Assignments? Author Photo

    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. 

  • Legal Sector Regulatory Reform Is Key To Closing Justice Gap Author Photo

    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.

  • How Attys Can Guard Against Rising Settle-And-Sue Claims Author Photo

    Certain precautions can help lawyers avoid post-settlement malpractice claims and create a solid evidentiary defense, as settle-and-sue lawsuits rise amid pandemic-induced dispute settlements, say Bethany Kristovich and Jeremy Beecher at Munger Tolles.

  • What I Learned As A Virtual Summer Associate Author Photo

    It is necessary in a virtual law firm summer program to think twice about asking questions you may be able to answer on your own, but this independence and other aspects of a remote internship may help to instill habits that would be useful for future full-time associates, says law student Kelley Sheehan, who interned at Patterson & Sheridan this summer.

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