- law dawg
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Today we kick off summer with the long Memorial Day Weekend. It’s also the last day of school for CCSD, so get set to enjoy less traffic and shorter commutes next week. We hope you have something fun planned this weekend and remember to prioritize what’s important to YOU, because as the late Kyle Busch said, “You never know when the last one is.” (RIP Kyle, and our condolences to his family and friends.) As you make the most of your weekend, be safe out there, don’t drink and drive, and if you know someone who is struggling or alone, take a couple minutes to reach out and check in. Tell your friends and family you love them. And remember that no matter how bleak things may seem, there is a way forward.
- Former judge Bridget Robb files to plead guilty to misdemeanor stalking charge. [MyNews4]
- Debate between Democrats running for AG in Nevada devolves into mudslinging. [TNI]
- Nevada’s top gaming regulator tells Affinity CEO Primm is a ‘grave concern’. [TNI]
- Summerlin private school students accused in sex assault case paused, pending appeal. [RJ; 8NewsNow]
- A’s plan to open Strip ballpark without Bally’s project. [RJ]
- Not Vegas, but: Judge in Google antitrust case blasts $85M attorney fees request as ‘shockingly huge’. [ABA Journal]
- Not directly Vegas, but: Lawyer can’t represent plaintiffs in morgue scandal because of past AI errors, judge says. [ABA Journal]
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This blog: “Have a great time spending three days with your families…totally unrelated, don’t like…kill yourselves or anything.”
They apparently know what it’s like to spend three days with our families then.
Two attorneys shot outside the courthouse in Raleigh, NC this morning. Both survived, it appears. Sounds as if shooter was probably a disgruntled opposing party or client.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article315856612.html
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/civil-courts/county-violated-public-records-law-by-withholding-records-judge-rules-3827954/?
Speaking entirely as a disinterested observer of federal fee-litigation jurisprudence: Judge Donato’s ‘shockingly huge’ characterization is not a legal standard recognized anywhere in the Ninth Circuit’s lodestar jurisprudence, and the bench knows it. 98,200 hours on a $700M class action is, if anything, conservative – anyone who has litigated complex multi-district matters at the federal level (I have been at the bar forty-some years, including Ninth Circuit practice) understands that the hours compress on the page but expand substantially in execution. The lodestar analysis asks whether the hours were reasonable and the rate defensible. ‘Too much’ has never, in my experience, constituted an independent analytical category – and I note that fee-shifting on the fee petition itself remains available to counsel who briefed this correctly. One suspects the bench was billed for the moment it took to write ‘shockingly huge.’ The motion to reconsider practically drafts itself.
Thank you Mr. E.
The disqualification was correct and, frankly, insufficient. Disqualification is the floor; sanctions are the ceiling, and the court left money on the table by not reaching them. In forty-some years at the bar – Ninth Circuit practice included, for those interested in such things – the duty to independently verify every citation has never been an open question. The practitioner who outsources that verification to a machine has not delegated the duty. He has abandoned it. I have, separately, written on the perils of AI in legal practice, and the analysis is not kind to the AI-reliant practitioner. The clients whose cases were infected by fabricated citations are entitled to fee-shifting for the cost of the remediation. The court could, sua sponte, have addressed that. It did not. I am not in the mood for bench timidity on questions this settled.
Thank you old guy. The future isn’t that scary. Just deal with it. The good old days weren’t as great as you remember. And thanks for all the inflation and income disparity you and your fellow baby boomers gave us.
Time to pass the torch.
AI isn’t scary. A generation of attorneys letting AI think for them is terrifying.