California Pulse


  • 9th Circ. Grants Atty Fee Appeal In Eye Drop Pricing Suit

    District courts cannot reduce fee awards to attorneys based on a firm's size, the Ninth Circuit ruled in a published opinion Tuesday, sending a case back to a California federal court to recalculate attorney fees awarded to a "small" firm that represented wholesalers in a Robinson-Patman Act suit against eye drop manufacturers.

  • Munchkin Can't Arbitrate Ex-GC's 'War On Families' Suit

    Baby products brand Munchkin Inc. lost its bid to arbitrate its former general counsel's suit alleging he was fired for complaining about the company's "war on families," after a California judge ruled a sexual harassment claim added in an amended version of his suit exempted him from mandatory arbitration.

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    Judiciary Seeks Control Over Courthouse Maintenance

    The federal judiciary says courthouses are in "crisis," with an $8.3 billion backlog in maintenance, and on Tuesday repeated its request to Congress for the direct authority to maintain the buildings.

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    Procopio Real Estate Pros Jump To Hanson Bridgett In Calif.

    Hanson Bridgett LLP is expanding its California team, bringing in a pair of Procopio Cory Hargreaves & Savitch LLP real estate attorneys as partners.

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    Ex-Goodwin Silicon Valley COO Joins Sandstone As Adviser

    Legal technology company Sandstone announced Tuesday that Mary O'Carroll, most recently the Silicon Valley-based chief operating officer of Goodwin Procter LLP, joined it as a product expert adviser.

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    Freshfields Bicoastal M&A Tech Duo Move To Covington

    Covington & Burling LLP has strengthened its mergers and acquisitions group on both coasts with the additions of two former Freshfields LLP tech M&A partners.

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    Mintz Lands IP Pro From Wilson Sonsini In San Francisco

    Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC. announced Tuesday that it has added a patent litigation attorney who was at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC for more than two decades to bolster its intellectual property division.

  • ABA Mulls Repeal Of Embattled Law School DEI Standards

    The American Bar Association's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has voted to move forward with a plan to repeal its diversity and inclusion standards for law schools, which have been suspended since last February amid the White House crackdown on DEI initiatives.

  • Brie, Franco Can't Duck Claims That 'Together' Is a 'Rip-Off'

    A California federal judge has refused to dismiss StudioFest's lawsuit alleging the horror film "Together," starring real-life spouses Alison Brie and Dave Franco, is a "blatant rip-off" of a screenplay the production company pitched to the couple's agents in 2020, saying the complaint plausibly alleges "substantial similarities" between the two works.

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    Stanford Law School Names Executive Director Of AI Initiative

    Stanford Law School announced Monday the appointment of a former artificial intelligence adviser to the California State Senate as executive director of the Stanford Law School AI Initiative, which seeks to advance interdisciplinary research, teaching and engagement with industry leaders and policymakers.

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    Greenberg Glusker Adds Land Use, Corporate Attys In LA

    Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP announced Monday the firm is expanding its ranks with the addition of two new partners to its Los Angeles office: a land use whiz from Jeffer Mangels & Mitchell LLP and a transactional ace from Prospera Law LLP.

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    DAC Beachcroft Expands US Footprint With New Miami Office

    DAC Beachcroft LLP announced Monday that it is opening an office in Miami and has added new insurance coverage teams there and in Los Angeles.

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    Lathrop GPM Absorbs California Construction Boutique

    Lathrop GPM LLP announced Monday that the firm is adding five attorneys from a Northern California construction boutique, marking what the firm said was a substantial expansion of its construction practice group and continued growth in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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    Barnes & Thornburg Head On Firm's Nonmerger Growth Motto

    In an age of BigLaw megamergers, Barnes & Thornburg LLP has opted to expand strategically through steady, organic growth and lateral hiring rather than law firm combinations.

  • Class Attys Allege Lead Counsel Is Hoarding $75M Sutter Fees

    Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP has urged a California federal magistrate judge to enforce the $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million deal resolving a decade-long antitrust fight, arguing lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP "unilaterally" and "arbitrarily" cut SWCK's fees by nearly $800,000 while boosting its own.

  • Social Media Cases Atty In Hot Water Over Courthouse Filming

    A Los Angeles judge on Friday ripped into an attorney for the plaintiff in a bellwether suit alleging Meta and Google's social media platforms harm childrens' mental health, stripping the attorney of his seat on the plaintiffs' steering committee for violating court rules by twice filming inside the courthouse.

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    FBT Gibbons Adds Trusts & Estates Litigator In SoCal

    Recently formed firm FBT Gibbons LLP is expanding its West Coast team, bringing in a trusts and estates litigator who previously ran his own firm as a partner in its Newport Beach, California, office.  

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    Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis Elefterakis & Panek lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a New York federal judge denied the NFL's bid to force a class of National Football League coaches into arbitration.

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    'Scare Tactics Work' But Hope Persists For Legal Industry DEI

    The suspension of Diversity Lab's Mansfield Certification program is the latest indication that political threats against BigLaw are working, as the Trump administration targets DEI programs, observers say. Still, some supporters of legal industry diversity initiatives predict law firms will continue to pursue inclusive hiring practices — even if they don't talk about it publicly.

  • Investors Push Apple For Report On China 'Entanglements'

    An investor group is asking Apple Inc. to do an audit on the risks and costs associated with the company's involvement with China, which it calls an "existential risk" to the value of Apple's stock.

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    What's Costing Legal Marketing Officers Sleep

    Finding the best ways to implement artificial intelligence and maximizing employees' business development are some of the things keeping legal industry professionals up at night, according to a new report by public relations firm Greentarget.

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    Synopsys GC Earns Over $3M In First 6 Months On The Job

    Synopsys Inc.'s general counsel, who took on the role in July after the acquisition of Ansys Inc. was complete, earned just over $3.2 million in 2025, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proxy filing.

  • Former Calif. Judge Seeks To End Sex Assault Case

    A former California Superior Court judge facing five criminal counts alleging he sexually assaulted a court staffer and later lied to investigators in an attempt to cover up the encounter and another alleged assault is pushing for a full dismissal of charges.

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    HSF Kramer Wants To Show BigLaw Can Also Be AI-Native

    On the heels of its recent transatlantic merger, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP is one of the largest law firms seeking to become "AI-native," a term being used by several newly launched smaller law firms that promise to provide cheaper and faster legal services than traditional law firms.

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    Boies Schiller Partner Faces Possible Sanctions For AI Errors

    A Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner must explain why he should not face monetary sanctions for filing a brief containing artificial intelligence-generated citation errors amid his representation of women who allege the Church of Scientology harassed them for reporting convicted actor Danny Masterson's sexual assaults.

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Expert Analysis

  • The Importance Of Client Engagement In Law Firm Innovation Author Photo

    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.

  • The Unique Challenges Facing Women-Owned Law Firms Author Photo

    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.

  • The Pursuit Of Wellness In BigLaw: Lessons From My Journey Author Photo

    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.

  • Why We Must Recruit And Advance More Black Prosecutors Author Photo

    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.

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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.

  • Series

    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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