Prosecutor says Google aimed to control web ad tech, SCOTUS' Kagan says emergency docket not the court’s best work, Ballard Spahr merger and more ??
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?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:
?? Google aimed to control web ad tech, US prosecutor says as trial begins
Alphabet's Google sought to dominate all sides of online advertising technology by controlling competitors and customers, a Justice Department prosecutor said as trial began in the tech titan's latest antitrust showdown in Alexandria, Virginia on Monday.
Prosecutors say Google has largely dominated the technological infrastructure that funds the flow of news and information on websites through more than 150,000 online ad sales every second.
Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating competitors through acquisitions, locking customers into using its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the online ad market, Julia Tarver Wood, an attorney with the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in an opening statement.
"Google is not here because they are big, they are here because they used that size to crush competition," Tarver Wood said.
At trial, prosecutors are seeking to show Google used dominant positions in technology for publishers and advertisers to keep them from using other tools and undercut bids placed through competitors' products.
Tim Wolfe, an advertising executive at Gannett testified on Monday that the company has used Google's publisher ad server for around 13 years, and that there are no other realistic options.
?? US Supreme Court's Kagan says emergency docket does not lead to court's best work
Justice Elena Kagan said the U.S. Supreme Court would be better off spending less time hurrying through cases on its emergency docket.
More commonly known as the "shadow docket," the emergency docket is where justices address issues - some controversial - that litigants want resolved quickly, sometimes after lower courts issue rulings that apply nationwide.
Justices have relied increasingly on this process to rule in a wide array of cases without the normal deliberative process, including public oral arguments and full written decisions.
"It's a very hard problem," Kagan said in an interview with a professor at New York University's law school. "I don't think we do our best work in this way."
Kagan, a justice since 2010 and part of the court's three-member liberal wing, said the court issues decisions in only about 60 cases a year, fewer than half the norm in the 1980s when she clerked there, but spends "a ton more time" on the shadow docket.
She said cases there began increasing during the Trump administration, when the U.S. solicitor general's office decided it could not risk waiting until former President Donald Trump was no longer in office and remain elevated during the Biden administration.
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?? US law firm mergers mount as Ballard Spahr combines with Seattle firm
Philadelphia-founded Ballard Spahr and Seattle-founded Lane Powell said that they have agreed to merge and create a 750-lawyer firm under the Ballard Spahr name effective Jan. 1, making it the latest merger in a busy third quarter for legal industry consolidation.
Peter Michaud, an M&A and private equity lawyer who became chair of Ballard Spahr at the start of the year, said the deal with Lane Powell will allow the firm to grow in a new geographic region, which he hopes will help attract new clients.
Ballard Spahr will gain Lane Powell's three Pacific Northwest offices, in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Anchorage, Alaska.
Large U.S. firms Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders and Locke Lord said last week that they had agreed to merge, creating a 1,600-lawyer firm that will be called Troutman Pepper Locke.
Several of the recent mergers have involved a larger firm absorbing a smaller one. Legal industry consultants have said firms are increasingly seeking greater practice areas and geographic reach to compete for clients and legal talent.
More legal merger news:
?? Opioid plaintiffs' committee urges US appeals court to toss fee bid by shut-out law firms
When it comes to calling dibs on $2.1 billion set aside for lawyers who contributed to settlements with nine major opioids defendants, the plaintiffs' lawyers in charge of the sweeping nationwide case are not kidding around.
On Sept. 6, the plaintiffs executive committee, which includes Motley Rice, Simmons Hanly Conroy and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, moved to dismiss a 6th Circuit appeal by the appellate boutique Goldstein Russell, which contends that it and Kelley & Ferraro were wrongly denied common benefit fees after helping to kill a controversial “negotiation class” back in 2020. The executive committee told the 6th Circuit that Goldstein and Kelley waived the right to appeal when they agreed to participate in the elaborate allocation process.
?? That's all for today, thank you for reading?The Legal File, and have a great day!
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