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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.
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.
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.
As the calendar turns from 2024 to 2025, small-firm attorneys and solo practitioners across the U.S. are facing a constellation of new and old issues, from dealing with new regulations to confronting the longstanding challenges of keeping a small business alive.
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.
After an eventful 2024, industry experts are looking ahead to what might be the big topics in legal ethics in the new year, including the ethics implications of artificial intelligence and ethics opinions that may be relevant to attorneys in the incoming second Trump administration.
The coming year's main event in New York courts is an expected sex-trafficking trial for hip-hop icon Sean "Diddy" Combs, while the political reascendancy of Donald Trump will echo in halls of the judiciary as the president-elect litigates to quash his own conviction.
Law firms have experienced rapid change and growth in recent years, and 2025 will likely be no different. Firm leaders told Law360 Pulse they are bracing to respond quickly to a number of different opportunities likely to arise in the new year.
President Joe Biden vetoed a bill Monday that would have added more federal judgeships, despite the judiciary's plea that more seats on the bench are needed desperately.
Former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and two co-defendants, convicted of bribery in July, have made a third push for a new trial in Manhattan federal court, contending that the government's latest admission of an evidence gaffe bolstered their case.
Public confidence in state courts seems to be rising at the same time that trust in the federal courts and overall judicial system is plummeting, according to recent surveys that paint drastically divergent pictures of people's faith in state and national judicial systems.
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP and Alston & Bird LLP told associates Monday they'd be receiving year-end bonuses that meet the prevailing scale for large law firms set by Milbank LLP in November — as long as they meet certain billable hours requirements, according to media reports.
Sheppard Mullin's New York office has launched a firmwide holiday pet calendar — featuring not only cats and dogs but also a donkey, peacocks, some lizards, a few guinea pigs and three little soccer-playing fish — that has raised nearly $11,000 for charity.
Katya Cronin, a professor at George Washington University Law School and former BigLaw attorney, argued in a recent academic paper that law schools need to do more to encourage students to examine their personal values and pursue legal careers in line with them.
A lot can happen in a year for small firms. Law360 Pulse caught up with four, some just getting started and others with long legacies, to talk about what their 2024 looked like.
Muriel Goode-Trufant first joined the New York City Law Department in 1991 — and now she's running the show.
As Jen Cafferty Patton moves up from chief talent officer to chief operating officer at Foley & Lardner LLP, she says she is prioritizing keeping the firm’s people-focused culture strong for both employees and clients.
In a tradition stretching back just over a quarter century, Blank Rome LLP taps into the Washington, D.C., community by hosting a competition for students at a local arts-focused high school to submit designs for the annual holiday card sent out to the firm’s thousands of clients.
You're a rock star associate in your fourth or fifth year trying to make partner, and you just got an average review after previously receiving high marks. Although it's tempting to panic, experts say it's possible to come back after such setbacks by being proactive.
After more than two decades as an employment attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, Jenna Mooney has taken on the role of its second-in-command with a focus on running the business of the firm.
Personal injury lawyer Tony Buzbee urged a Manhattan federal judge on Friday to reject Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's "astonishing request" to change the rules for a sanctions motion in rape litigation against the rapper and Sean "Diddy" Combs, saying the "rich, famous and powerful" must obey the same restrictions as everyone else.
Prosecutors told a Manhattan federal judge Friday that New York City Mayor Eric Adams' lawyer has violated local court rules by making comments to the press that deride their bribery and corruption case against the mayor as a "contrived" effort to tarnish his reputation.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued investment adviser firm Silver Point Capital LP in Connecticut federal court on Friday, alleging that it failed to establish policies to safeguard material nonpublic information, particularly from a now-deceased former BigLaw attorney.
Jurists weighed the benefits of partisan elections, praised innovations in telehearings and worried about the future of the profession in nearly a dozen interviews with Law360 this year.
Rudy Giuliani is accusing counsel for two Georgia election workers of political bias as they seek to sanction the former Donald Trump adviser and collect on a $148 million defamation judgment.
Marjorie Peerce and Peter Jaslow at Ballard Spahr discuss the challenges of building a new law firm practice group from the ground up, and how sustained commitment, communication and collaboration are the key ingredients for success.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Do I Relay Shortcomings To Associates?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.
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.
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.
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.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can New Partners Generate Business?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.
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.
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.
New York's recently announced requirement that lawyers complete cybersecurity training as part of their continuing legal education is a reminder that securing client information is more complicated in an increasingly digital world, and that expectations around attorneys' technology competence are changing, says Jason Schwent at Clark Hill.
Opinion
Law Firms Stressing Work-Life Balance Are Missing The MarkLaw firms struggling to attract and retain lawyers are institutionalizing work-life balance through hybrid work models, but such balance is elusive in a client services and tech-dependent world, underscoring the need for firms to instead aim for attorney empowerment and true balance within — not outside — the workplace, says Joe Pack at Pack Law.
Summer associates are expected to establish a favorable reputation and develop genuine relationships in a few short weeks, but several time management, attitude and communication principles can help them make the most of their time and secure an offer for a full-time position, says Joseph Marciano, who was a 2022 summer associate at Reed Smith.
To avoid physical and emotional exhaustion, attorneys must respect their own and their colleagues' personal and professional boundaries, but law firms must also play a role in discouraging burnout culture — especially if they are struggling with attorney retention, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.
Gibson Dunn's Debra Yang shares the bumps in her journey to becoming the first female Asian American U.S. attorney, a state judge and a senior partner in BigLaw, and how other women can face their self-doubts and blaze their own trails to success amid systemic obstacles.
Law firms that are considering creating an in-house alternative legal service provider should focus not on recapturing revenue otherwise lost to outside vendors, but instead consider how a captive ALSP will better fulfill the needs of their clients and partners, say Beatrice Seravello and Brad Blickstein at Baretz & Brunelle.
Ignore what you've been told about jargon — adding insider industry terms to your firm's marketing and business development content can persuade potential clients that you have the specialized knowledge they can trust, says Wayne Pollock at Law Firm Editorial Service.