Judge Jenkin wrote that the Batton's plaintiffs interests would not be impaired if their motion to intervene was denied, as they would have the opportunity to object to the settlement at the agreement's final approval fairness hearing.
The legal profession rewards endurance, precision and control. It also quietly normalizes stress, isolation and overextension. For patent practitioners and other IP lawyers, the pressures are uniquely acute: compressed prosecution deadlines, high-stakes litigation exposure, often unrealistic client-driven budget constraints, regulatory whiplash at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and increasingly complex technologies layered with global filing and prosecution strategy.
For patents to be born strong, and the public to have confidence that they are, we must ensure strict adherence to USPTO's ethical standards and avoid (real or apparent) conflicts of interest.
Market forces such as rising attorney salaries, persistent inflation, and unrelenting demand in premium practices are giving firms the confidence to push hourly rates beyond historical norms.
Leading legal departments are shifting from reactive negotiation to proactive pricing design, setting guardrails before rates are proposed rather than responding after the fact. This approach enables departments to establish parameters and expectations upfront, fundamentally changing the negotiation dynamic and improving outcomes.
Bites (noun): more meaty news to sink your teeth into. Barks (noun): peripheral noise worth your attention. Want to have your doggie(s) featured in one of our future Barks & Bites Columns? Send your dogs photo(s) along with their name, breed (if you know it) and their age to info@ipwatchdog.com. All photos will be added to the IPWatchdog Dog Wall at IPWatchdog Studios and will be added to the queue of images we select from each week.
They don't drive it. They don't manage it. They don't control it. They let it control them. And then one day, they look up and realize discovery closed last week, the client is asking why nobody has taken the key depo, the adjuster wants a status report "by the end of the day," and the partner is asking the question that makes your stomach drop: "Where are we on this file?"
Lindsey Halligan, the former insurance attorney who spent some time "masquerading" - to use a federal judge's words - as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia attempted to ramrod criminal cases against Donald Trump's political enemies and failed spectacularly. Halligan botched the grand jury process, submitted an indictment that the full grand jury never saw, and got two cases dismissed simultaneously.
