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California Pulse


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    Musk AI Startup Promotes Ex-NASA Engineer To Legal Chief

    Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture xAI has promoted as the head of legal affairs a company attorney who previously worked as a NASA engineer.

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    ݮƵ's Legal Lions Of The Week

    Rousso Boumel Law Firm PLLC, Singleton Schreiber LLP, Poses Law Group PA and Eaton & Wolk PL lead this week's edition of ݮƵ Legal Lions, after a Miami federal jury found Tesla's autopilot product to be defective and awarded $329 million in damages following a 2019 fatal crash.

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    Duane Morris Joins Firms Requiring 4 In-Office Days Per Week

    Duane Morris is the latest in BigLaw to mandate more in-office work for its lawyers, with a spokesperson for the firm confirming Friday that it will require in-person work four days a week after Labor Day weekend.

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    Quinn Emanuel Launches Foundation To Support Artists

    What started as a way for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP to support local artists during the COVID-19 quarantine has grown into what the firm says is the first arts foundation ever established by BigLaw.

  • Voir Dire: ݮƵ Pulse's Weekly Quiz

    The legal industry kicked off August with another action-packed week as law firms took on new attorneys and expanded their practices. Test your legal news savvy here with ݮƵ Pulse’s weekly quiz.

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    How These Small Firms Have Withstood The Test Of Time

    According to the leaders of small law firms that have survived for generations, and whose legacies include prosecuting secessionists after the Civil War and taking on Ford Motor Co. in one of the first automobile-related product liability cases, succession planning and deep community ties have been key to their longevity.

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    Venable Real Estate, Land Use Pro Joins Procopio In Calif.

    Procopio Cory Hargreaves & Savitch LLP is expanding its real estate team, announcing Thursday it is bringing in a Venable LLP land use expert as a partner in its Orange County office in Irvine, California. 

  • 'Breakdown In Civility' Gets Boies Schiller Sanctioned

    A California federal judge slapped Boies Schiller Flexner LLP with a $15,000 sanction Thursday in a former worker's suit claiming Levi Strauss & Co. declined to promote her out of sex bias, faulting the firm for a "uniquely eye-opening breakdown in civility and professionalism."

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    How Stradley Ronon Is Training Firm Attys On Generative AI

    As the legal industry continues to grapple with the use of artificial intelligence, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young LLP has launched a 12-week program to train its lawyers and business professionals on integrating a law-focused generative AI assistant into their work in an ethical and effective manner.

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    Tariffs Drive Cost Increases For Law Firm Office Build-Outs

    Higher tariffs are driving higher construction costs for law firm office build-outs and renovation projects, as firms look to improve the quality of the office experience rather than increase its footprint, according to a new report by CBRE.

  • Calif. Ethics Panel Clarifies Judge DQs In Racial Justice Cases

    A California judicial ethics committee has issued a formal opinion advising a judge who is a former prosecutor that a pending case involving a discovery motion under the state's Racial Justice Act does not require the judge's recusal.

  • Ex-DHS AI Chief Joins Salesforce's Legal Team As Tech Exec

    The former chief information officer and chief artificial intelligence officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has joined Salesforce as its new chief AI and transformation officer for legal and corporate affairs.

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    Legal Legend For MLB's Giants Focuses Efforts On Biz Side

    A profile writer for the San Francisco Bar Association once called then-general counsel Jack Bair the "definition of the San Francisco Giants" and the person who "has probably done more for the Giants than just about anyone else."

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    Milbank Offers Summer Bonuses Of Up To $25K To Associates

    Milbank LLP has become the first BigLaw firm to announce summer bonuses this year, offering up to $25,000 for associates and counsel after smaller shops also unveiled midyear payouts.

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    Much Shelist Names Real Estate Atty As West Coast Leader

    Chicago-based Much Shelist PC has named a veteran real estate transactional attorney to head its operations on the West Coast and oversee its expansion there. 

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    How Feeder Judges 'Gatekeep' Supreme Court Clerkships

    In the last 50 years, U.S. Supreme Court clerkships have transmogrified from a simple secretarial job for enterprising young lawyers to the legal profession's ultimate status symbol, access to which is controlled by a tiny handful of "feeder judges" who serve as "hidden gatekeepers," according to a new study.

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    McDermott Adds Mintz Litigator As First Post-Merger Hire

    McDermott Will & Schulte is boosting its litigation team announcing Wednesday that a Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC cross-border asset recovery pro is joining its four-month-old San Diego office as a partner, the firm's first new partner hire since completing its merger last week.

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    Some Law Firms Feel Secure Despite Persistent Cyberthreats

    Some firms feel secure from cybersecurity threats like ransomware, even though law firms remain prime targets for cyberattacks, according to a new report by cyber disaster recovery company Fenix24 and the International Legal Technology Association.

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    Which GCs Sold Stock In July? MicroStrategy, Palantir & More

    General counsel Wei-Ming Shao, who's been with MicroStrategy Inc. for over 25 years, cashed in some $31 million worth of stock in July. An active trader, Shao has sold over 200,000 shares of the company since 2021 for an estimated $78.6 million, according to Quiver Quantitative, which tracks stock trades.

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    Banks Increasingly Help New Partners With BigLaw Buy-Ins

    Most lawyers may not think about a bank when they're approaching the transition from associate to partner, but according to Lisa Kohut, head of the Citi Wealth Law Firm Group, her team has become increasingly involved in the process in recent years.

  • LA Seeks To Nix Attys In Ex-Cop's Military Leave Bias Suit

    Attorneys for a former Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant improperly obtained and tried to use a privileged email between a city attorney and a current LAPD lieutenant in a military bias suit, the city said, urging a California federal court to disqualify them from the case.

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    Thompson Hine Adds Trio In Key Markets In 3 States

    The former branch chief of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission office in D.C. dedicated in part to reviewing mutual fund filings, a former Latham & Watkins LLP associate based in Chicago, and a securities lawyer from an Orange County boutique all have joined Thompson Hine LLP.

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    Crowell Lands 16 Reed Smith Health Partners Across 4 Cities

    Crowell & Moring LLP announced Wednesday that it is expanding its healthcare practice with dozens of attorneys from Reed Smith LLP, including 16 healthcare litigation partners based in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas, where the firm is launching a new shop with a former Reed Smith lawyer at the helm.

  • OptumRx Urges Panel To DQ Motley Rice In LA Opioid Suit

    OptumRx told a California appellate panel Tuesday that Motley Rice should be disqualified from representing Los Angeles County in a lawsuit alleging it colluded with drugmakers to fuel the opioid crisis, saying the firm violated state law by using confidential information obtained in the case in other lawsuits it's handling against Optum.

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    Law, Medical School Orgs Face Application Fee Antitrust Suits

    The Law School Admission Council and the Association of American Medical Colleges have each been hit with a proposed class action in Pennsylvania and D.C. federal courts, respectively, by candidates who said the nonprofits conspired with their member schools to charge excessive application fees that have been fixed at the same price regardless of the school.

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Expert Analysis

  • DoNotPay Cases Underscore Hurdles For AI-Fueled Legal Help Author Photo

    Recent legal challenges against DoNotPay’s "robot lawyer” application highlight pressing questions about the degree to which artificial intelligence can be used for legal tasks while remaining on the right side of both consumer protection laws and prohibitions against the unauthorized practice of law, says Kristen Niven at Frankfurt Kurnit.

  • For The Future Of Legal Practice, Let's Learn From The Past Author Photo

    At some level, every practicing lawyer is experiencing the ever-increasing speed of change — and while some practice management processes have gotten more efficient, other things about the legal profession were better before supposed improvements were made, says Jay Silberblatt, president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

  • Why All Law Firms Should Foster Psychological Capital Author Photo

    Law firms will be able to reap great long-term benefits if they adopt strategies to nurture four critical components of their employees' psychological wellness and performance — hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, says Dennis Stolle at the American Psychological Association.

  • A GC's Guide To Litigation, Inspired By Sun Tzu's 'Art Of War' Author Photo

    With caseloads and spending increasing, in-house counsel might find themselves called to opine on the risks and benefits of litigation more often, and they should look at five Sun Tzu maxims from the ancient Chinese classic "The Art of War" to inform their approach to any suit, says Jeff Golimowski at Womble Bond.

  • Mentorship Is Key To Diversity In The Legal Industry Author Photo

    Not only can effective mentorship have a profound impact on women and people of color entering the legal field, but it also benefits mentors and the legal profession as a whole, creating a true win-win situation for all involved, says Natasha Cortes at Grossman Roth.

  • ChatGPT Is A Cool Trick, But AI Won't Replace Lawyers Author Photo

    Generative AI applications like ChatGPT are unlikely to ever replace attorneys for a variety of practical reasons — but given their practice-enhancing capabilities, lawyers who fail to leverage these tools may be rendered obsolete, says Eran Kahana at Maslon.

  • Pro Bono Work Is Valuable In IP And Continued Learning Author Photo

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's recent elimination of a rule that partially counted pro bono work toward continuing legal education highlights the importance of volunteer work in intellectual property practice and its ties to CLE, and puts a valuable tool for hands-on attorney education in the hands of the states, say Lisa Holubar and Ariel Katz at Irwin.

  • Increasing Public Access To Legal Services: A Practical Plan Author Photo

    Recommendations recently issued by a special committee of the Florida Bar represent a realistic, pragmatic approach to increasing the accessibility and affordability of legal services, at a time when the disconnect between the legal profession and the public at large has widened considerably, says Gary Lesser, president of the Florida Bar.

  • Series

    Ask A Mentor: How Do I Relay Shortcomings To Associates? Author Photo

    Michael Cohen at Duane Morris discusses the best ways to articulate how an associate is not meeting expectations, and why documentation of performance management is crucial for their growth and protecting the firm from discrimination suits.

  • 10 Principles For Effective Partner Reward Systems Author Photo

    Several forces are reshaping partners’ expectations about profit-sharing, and as compensation structures evolve in response, firms should keep certain fundamentals in mind to build a successful partner reward system, say Michael Roch at MHPR Advisors and Ray D'Cruz at Performance Leader.

  • Why Interdisciplinarity Is Key To Designing The Future Of Law Author Photo

    The legal profession faces challenges that urgently demand new solutions, and lawyers and firms can address this by leaning on other industries that have more experience practicing, teaching and incorporating innovation into their core business and service models, says Jennifer Leonard at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Incorporating ADA Guidance Into Lawyer Wellness Movement Author Photo

    The Americans with Disabilities Act and rules of professional conduct may help the legal profession promote lawyer well-being by focusing on mental conditions' actual impact, rather than on associated stereotypes, says Alex Long at the University of Tennessee College of Law.

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    Ask A Mentor: How Can New Partners Generate Business? Author Photo

    Christine Wong at MoFo discusses how newly elected partners can prioritize business development by creating a strategic plan with the firm's marketing team and strengthening relationships with professional and personal networks.

  • 9 Writing Tips From The Justices' Opinions Last Term Author Photo

    Hidden in the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions from the last term are each justice’s talents for crafting choice turns of phrase, highlighting best practices for attorneys to jump-start their own writing, says Ross Guberman at BriefCatch.

  • What Web3 Means For Lawyers' Ethical Duties Author Photo

    As law firms embrace Web3 technologies by accepting cryptocurrency as payment for legal fees, investing in metaverse departments and more, lawyers should remember their ethical duties to warn clients of the benefits and risks of technology in a murky regulatory environment, says Heidi Frostestad Kuehl at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

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