A group of antitrust lawsuits blames the nationwide affordable housing crisis in part on a conspiracy among some of the country's top landlords to drive up rent using artificial intelligence tools. The scheme allegedly works through property management software that crunches data provided by its customers—the landlords—to maximize rent. Another group of lawsuits also targeted the top hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, saying they operated a parallel cartel using similar...

At the New Jersey state supreme court, all of the justices seem to get along–even though they maintain a 4-3 partisan split in their ranks. The unique system, based on an unwritten rule that the governor will select justices and maintain a 4-3 balance politically, leads to an extraordinary amount of agreement among the justices. And attorneys like it, too. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, senior correspondent Alex Ebert talks about how the New Jersey Supreme Court maintains its...

Fighting over the meaning of contracts is expensive and time-consuming. But a University of Pennsylvania professor sees the potential of generative artificial intelligence to give judges a tool to clarify a contract. Bloomberg Law senior correspondent Roy Strom spoke with professor David Hoffman, an expert on contracts law who co-wrote a paper on what he calls “generative interpretation.” It’s a pretty simple concept: using large language models to determine what a contract really means. On...

It's been almost four months since the Supreme Court's landmark ruling decision in Loper Bright that overruled the oft-cited Chevron doctrine. And now we're starting to see what administrative law is going to look like with judges more empowered to pick apart federal agencies' justifications for their actions. However, there could also be another case on the Supreme Court's docket for this term that upends the field of administrative law once again, and this one involves an arcane principle...

Fortress Investment Group has powered its way to the top of the litigation funding industry. It has committed $6.6 billion to legal assets, and another $2.9 billion to intellectual property. But beyond the money, the secret to the firm's success may be its intensity and attention to detail. Bloomberg Law litigation finance reporter Emily Siegel sat down for almost three hours with two Fortress executives: Jack Neumark, managing partner and co-CIO, and Eran Zur, head of intellectual property....

Disney recently backtracked on its attempts to force arbitration on a widower who who filed a wrongful death lawsuit but, it said, had agreed to not take the company to court when he signed up for a free trial of its streaming service. This about-face, which followed a wave of bad publicity for Disney, may be the exception, not the rule, according to a law professor who specializes in arbitration. David Horton calls these agreements "infinite arbitration" clauses because they force consumers...

Vice President Kamala Harris enjoyed a huge cash infusion to her campaign shortly after it launched this summer, and one of the groups behind this influx were attorneys donating to the Democratic candidate. Attorneys gave more than $8 million to the Harris campaign in just the first 10 days of its existence, according to data analyzed by Bloomberg Law reporters Tatyana Monnay and K. Sophie Will. This is the latest example of the legal profession moving more toward the Democratic column with...

Deals activity is picking up, according to the third quarter data from Bloomberg Law's League Tables. But the looming election and more potential rate cuts from the Fed means there's uncertainty over what comes next. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporter Mahira Dayal digs into the data and talks about which firms are on top and which ones have slipped. She also talks about what impact the election could have on next quarter's report. Do you have feedback on...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself far more often than his eight other colleagues in recent years, and that's because, unlike his colleagues, he holds a significant amount of stock in public companies. But what's more notable are the times Alito failed to recuse himself even though he had a conflict of interest. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg News reporter Emily Birnbaum talks about why, even with a new code of ethics, there are still few, if any,...

Electric vehicles are far from a new phenomenon, but the sparseness of public, non-Tesla charging stations along the highway can still make taking a road trip in other types of EVs somewhat harrowing. Bloomberg Government reporters Kellie Lunney and Lillianna Byington discovered this first hand when they went on a road trip to test out the country's federally funded EV infrastructure and almost got stranded on the side of the road. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Kellie and...

This summer, Bloomberg Law released its fourth DEI Framework, recognizing 57 US-based law firms that meet or exceed standards for diversity, equity, and inclusion. But, in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that ended race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities, how are these firms managing their initiatives without facing complaints from DEI opponents like conservative activist Edward Blum? Last year, Blum, along with his team, the American Alliance for Equal...

In the past, environmental lawyers had a reputation as being extremely overworked and underpaid, but now things are looking up for attorneys working on green issues. The Inflation Reduction Act included numerous complicated tax breaks and other incentives for clean energy, all of which need to be parsed by skilled attorneys. Additionally, with the demise of Chevron deference, nearly every environmental rule and regulation is now under a more intense judicial microscope. All of this means...

OpenAI is fending off half a dozen copyright lawsuits that allege the tech company illegally used copyrighted materials to train its flagship product, ChatGPT. The company's defense in these suits, which have the potential to shape the future of AI, is raising some eyebrows in the world of IP law. OpenAI says the authors, news outlets, and other copyright holders who filed these suits engaged in "prompt hacking"—that, to get ChatGPT to spit out their books or articles, they had to manipulate...

Thomas V. Girardi was once a widely admired lawyer. He assisted in the making of the film "Erin Brockovich," and, many years later, was featured with his wife Erika Jayne on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." Now, Girardi is a convicted felon. He was charged with withholding funds his clients had won, and, last week, was convicted on four counts of wire fraud. Bloomberg Law reporter Maia Spoto, who covered the trial from start to finish, joins our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about...

The state of Texas is creating an entirely new corporate law court in an attempt to lure big firms away from Delaware, the current incorporation capital of the world. However, just days before its official opening, there's trouble with the new court's rollout. It's been difficult for the state to find basic physical office space for the Texas business court to operate in. But beyond that, there are also questions about why its judges are serving only short, two-year terms and why, unlike in...

The number of non-equity partners has ballooned in recent years, with some data estimating there will soon be more of them at law firms than full partners. But not all of these attorneys are happy with their job classification. There are several ongoing employment lawsuits against firms from non-equity partners who claim they get the worst of both worlds: none of the profit sharing that full partners enjoy, but also no benefits or tax withholding that's standard for most employees. The guest...

Almost a year ago, the public first learned that David R. Jones, a now former federal judge, was in a secret, live-in romantic relationship with a partner at a bankruptcy firm that had lots of business in Jones' Houston court. Since then, Jones has stepped down from the bench, but the dust has definitely not settled. The federal bankruptcy monitor is trying to claw back millions in attorneys' fees that the firm, Jackson Walker, collected in cases overseen by Jones. And Jones himself is in...

It's difficult enough for Congress to fill vacant judgeships, let alone create new ones in courts that have seen their jurisdictions grow in size. That means federal judges are having to take on more and more cases. That, in turn, means the wait for a civil trial in some federal courts can stretch for years. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, reporters Suzanne Monyak and Tiana Headley talk about what's behind this backlog, and explain how a dispute over a North Carolina judicial...

Kamala Harris' nascent presidential campaign has the wind at its back right now. But her entry into the race doesn't change her party's daunting Senate map, in which Democrats are playing defense in states like Montana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Government senior reporter Greg Giroux says it will be tough for Democrats to hold onto the Senate unless Harris scores a surprisingly large victory and some downballot candidates ride her...

When a legal malpractice claim is filed, regardless of whether or not it's meritorious, that means an attorney's relationship with their client has broken down. On today's episode of our podcast, On The Merits, we're talking with Tyler Maulsby, an attorney at the firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz who represents other attorneys in malpractice cases. A recent report found that multi-million dollar malpractice payouts from legal insurers are increasing. Maulsby talks about what trends he's...

Kirkland & Ellis, the largest law firm in the world by revenue, has mastered the art of forum shopping for the many bankruptcy cases it handles. That's the takeaway from a Bloomberg Law analysis of how the firm chooses which courts to file its bankruptcy cases. James Nani and Ronnie Greene, two of the reporters behind that analysis, talk about it on this episode of our podcast, On The Merits. They say Kirkland has shown it will stop filing in a particular court if it encounters any...

Just the idea of litigation finance makes some people uncomfortable. To them, it's a distortion of the justice system when wealthy people or businesses profit by bankrolling a lawsuit. But the truth of how litigation finance actually works on a day-to-day basis is much more mundane, according to Bloomberg Law reporter Emily Siegel. She says most litigation financiers get involved in mass torts, not in cases where the defendants are individuals or small businesses. Siegel joins our podcast, On...

Attorneys, especially those at the country's largest firms, have long tended to favor Democratic candidates. But lawyers are especially enthusiastic about the nascent presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. That's according to reporting from the guests on today's episode of our On The Merits podcast, reporters Tatyana Monnay and Brian Baxter. They talk about why Big Law attorneys are so strongly backing Harris and what this might mean for Big Law's influence on her administration next year if...

Kirkland & Ellis, the largest law firm in America by revenue, is implementing new policies to try to bring more young attorneys in the door and to prevent its most seasoned attorneys from walking out. It's doubled the size of its referral bonus, but the firm will also now withhold the year-end pay from partners who leave Kirkland in the middle of the year. Are these measures signs that the legal market has rebounded from its slump in late 2022? Our guests on today's On The Merits podcast,...