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New data shows U.S. bankruptcy filings surged by 18% in 2023 on the back of higher interest rates, tougher lending standards and the continued runoff of pandemic-era backstops — and the number of cases is expected to keep climbing in the new year, Dan Burns reports.
Total bankruptcy filings — encompassing commercial and personal insolvencies — rose to 445,186 last year from 378,390 in 2022, according to data from bankruptcy data provider Epiq AACER. Commercial Chapter 11 business reorganization filings shot up 72%, while consumer filings rose 18%, the data showed.
The good news: Insolvency case volumes remain well below the level seen before the pandemic. In 2019, nearly 758,000 cases were filed, according to the data. But 2024 is likely to see case numbers rise again, said Michael Hunter, vice president of Epiq AACER.
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- An attorney representing former Donald Trump fixer Michael Cohen asked a Manhattan federal judge not to sanction him for filing court papers that included fake case citations generated by artificial intelligence. David Schwartz apologized to U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for citing the made-up cases, which Cohen said last week he had inadvertently created using the AI program Google Bard.
- A Rutgers law student sued the university and several law school administrators, alleging they discriminated and retaliated against him for raising concerns over antisemitism on campus. Yoel Ackerman, an Orthodox Jewish first-year law student, claims Rutgers wrongfully initiated disciplinary action against him when he reported to law school administrators what he deemed as pro-Hamas messages circulated by classmates.
- Lawyers for Elon Musk defeated an effort by plaintiffs’ attorneys in a Tesla wrongful death case to question him for up to an hour for their lawsuit in Florida state court. A state appeals court overturned a lower judge who said Musk could be deposed.
- A lawyer for Donald Trump ally Mike Lindell at a hearing on Wednesday asked a U.S. judge in Minnesota to scrap an arbitrator’s decision requiring him to pay $5 million to a man who debunked Lindell’s false claims of election fraud. An arbitration panel ordered Lindell, founder of pillow manufacturer My Pillow, to pay cyber expert Robert Zeidman after he won a contest Lindell hosted in Nevada in July 2021.
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That’s the value globally of transactions that Kirkland advised on in 2023, ranking the law firm No. 1 in the league tables compiled by Dealogic and LSEG that track the volume of mergers and acquisitions. Latham and Sullivan & Cromwell ranked Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, our colleague Anirban Sen reports. Overall global M&A volumes came in at about $3.13 trillion, according to Dealogic. Kirkland also topped the rankings for transactions in the U.S., the world’s biggest M&A market.
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What is the optimal way to balance the interests of contingency fee lawyers and their clients in big-money cases? Two sets of prominent law professors are offering very different answers to that seemingly simple question in the Delaware Supreme Court appeal of a $267 million fee award to plaintiffs lawyers who obtained a $1 billion settlement with Dell Technologies and its controlling shareholders. Alison Frankel has the story.
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“It was the regulatory equivalent of Romeo sending Mercutio on a wild goose chase.“
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- Closing arguments are expected in a trial over a lawsuit brought by a former South Carolina federal public defender who accused the judiciary of violating her constitutional rights by being deliberately indifferent to her complaints of sexual harassment. Caryn Strickland alleges that she was sexually harassed by a superior and stonewalled in her efforts to have the judiciary address her complaint. She previously testified before Congress in favor of greater legal protections for the judiciary’s 30,000 employees, who unlike other workers are not protected against sexual harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- The top rules committee for the federal judiciary, the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, will hold a hearing in Austin, Texas, to discuss potential changes to the criminal and civil rules of procedure.
- A final pretrial conference is scheduled in Boston before Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor ahead of a Jan. 8 trial in a lawsuit brought by a Massachusetts-based computer technology developer alleging circuits Alphabet’s Google developed that can be used in artificial intelligence infringe its patents. The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by Singular Computing and is seeking damages of more than $7 billion.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The DOJ filed a lawsuit against Texas to challenge an immigration law that gives state officials broad powers to arrest, prosecute and deport people who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The law, known as SB4 makes it a state crime to illegally enter or re-enter Texas from a foreign country.
- Google will head to trial in March 2025 in Texas federal court in the state’s antitrust lawsuit accusing the tech giant of squelching competition in the digital ads market. Attorneys for the Alphabet unit at Freshfields and other firms have denied the claims.
- Apple agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of knowingly letting scammers exploit its gift cards and keep stolen funds for itself. The parties are drafting a formal settlement to be presented to U.S. District Judge Edward Davila for preliminary approval.
- A 2nd Circuit panel appeared skeptical of a New York doctor’s bid to strike down a federal law banning surprise medical bills from providers outside patients’ insurance networks during oral arguments. The panel pressed Nicholas Wilder, a lawyer for Long Island surgeon Daniel Haller, to explain how his client’s rights had been violated by the so-called No Surprises Act, which took effect a year ago.
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- DLA Piper added D.C.-based antitrust partners Amanda Wait, Victor Domen and Carsten Reichel. They are alums of Norton Rose. (DLA Piper)
- Morgan Lewis hired Diana Cortes as a Philadelphia-based litigation partner. Cortes returned to the firm after serving as Philadelphia’s first Latina city solicitor. (Morgan Lewis)
- Akin added James Munsell as a New York-based investment management partner. He was previously at Sidley. (Akin)
- Mayer Brown added Anthony Weibell in the firm’s Northern California offices from Wilson Sonsini. Weibell has defended tech companies in class action and data privacy matters. (Mayer Brown)
- Dentons picked up partners Andrew Callahan and Robert Scheininger for its corporate practice in New York. They were previously at Reed Smith. (Dentons)
- Edelson hired Aaron Colangelo as a D.C.-based partner from National Resources Defense Council, where he was chief litigation counsel. (Edelson)
- Norton Rose added insurance coverage litigation partner Manuel Mungia to the firm’s global insurance practice in San Antonio. Mungia was previously at Chasnoff Stribling. (Norton Rose)
- Laurence Smith left Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi to join Day Pitney as a corporate partner based in New Jersey. (Day Pitney)
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