Bressler Risk Blog

Quick Update on the BRB Risk Compensation Survey:

I’m quite pleased to see continued strong interest in our annual salary survey! I wanted to drop a quick note with a clarification/recommendation, based on a note from one firm.

Short version: Yes, you can totally have HR reach out directly to engage with this survey and submit data on behalf of the firm.

This comes up a few times each year. It’s not unusual for someone in risk to pass the survey on to HR. It’s fine to have an HR analyst fill things out. Just have them note their own title/email in the exercise, which will used solely to provide them with the final report.

Alternatively, from time to time a firm reaches out wanting to provide data via Excel vs the survey form. I’m happy to work with organizations to accommodate, so long as we’re able to collect the specific comp characteristics we’re looking for. Just sent those folks my email address (responses to the daily update go back directly to me) or the contact form on the blog to get in touch.

Thanks. And now back to your regular updates.

Talking to clients, or potential clients, or about work in law firm conference rooms containing an LG televisions? It may be prudent to investigate the implications of this news: “LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby” —

• “Smart TVs are built to siphon your data and sell it to advertisers or whomever else wants to know your viewing habits. LG, a screenmaker already coming off of a monitor adware scandal, has reportedly given its screens the ability to capture audio from your living room, even if the TV seems like it’s turned off.”
• “LG’s TVs can be sending this data even if the screen is off, according to the YouTubers’ findings. Gizmodo reached out to LG for comment, and we’ll update this post if we hear back. LG’s privacy policy explicitly gives the company consent to send data to advertising partners or law enforcement. LG also says it ‘may collect audio, electronic, visual, or similar information, such as video recordings’ through its ThinkQ app.”
• “The amount of data LG’s screens can log is staggering. The video describes how, with a few changes, these TVs are apparently able to identify devices using the home network, even those that aren’t actually connected to the TV itself. That includes the ability to identify several smartwatches and phones all on the same network.”
• “Security researchers who analyzed Gamer’s Nexus findings suggested that users disconnect their LG TVs from the internet. That’s not necessarily out of privacy considerations but more so for all the potential vulnerabilities hackers could potentially exploit.”
• “The bigger problem isn’t necessarily how some ne’er-do-well could hack your home screen to spy on you while it’s off; it’s the fact your data isn’t just used by advertisers. U.S. law enforcement has been caught buying advertising data from data brokers as yet another form of surveillance.”
  “That data can be linked directly to individuals, where such voice transcripts would be invaluable information for any law enforcement or government agency keeping tabs on U.S. residents. LG’s data collection may be especially egregious. Still, every TV owner is essentially giving up their privacy for the sake of buying a cheaper screen.”

Do take note that if your firm does use LG TVs, you may have a duty to inform everyone in the room (and maybe even on the network) where this happens. (Will let you ask your lawyers to navigate the implications. No legal advice here.) From LG’s Terms:

• “CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.”

“Carrot Top Accuser Wants Comic’s Lawyer Banned From Explicit Video Lawsuit – Claims Conflict of Interest” —

• “Billboard chart singer Brian Evans is demanding that Carrot Top’s lawyer be banned from their explosive legal battle, claiming the comedian’s attorney is caught in a conflict of interest that threatens the integrity of the case, RadarOnline.com can reveal. Evans has filed a motion seeking to disqualify attorney Ronnie J. Bitman and his firm, Bitman O’Brien, PLLC, from representing the comic, whose real name is Scott Thompson.”
• “According to court documents obtained by Radar, Evans claims Bitman is simultaneously representing Chad Fitzgerald, a defendant in a separate lawsuit Evans filed against Fitzgerald and his law firm, in a pending federal appeal – while also defending Carrot Top in the bombshell case.”
• “Evans argues the overlapping representation creates a major problem since Carrot Top’s defense could eventually require his attorney to investigate Fitzgerald’s conduct or take positions that could potentially hurt Fitzgerald’s interests. The filing claims Carrot Top may need to obtain documents from Fitzgerald, subpoena or depose him, challenge his account, or attempt to place responsibility on Fitzgerald or another person for the later handling of disputed settlement documents.”
• “Evans argues Bitman cannot independently advise Carrot Top about taking those steps while simultaneously owing Fitzgerald duties of loyalty and confidentiality.”
• “Evans wants Bitman and his entire firm immediately prohibited from filing motions, conducting discovery, attending hearings, participating in depositions, or otherwise acting as Carrot Top’s counsel while the judge determines whether they should be disqualified.”
• “The latest courtroom clash comes amid Evans’ disturbing allegations about his former personal and professional relationship with the Las Vegas entertainer.”
• “Evans is now asking the judge to disqualify Bitman and his firm or schedule an expedited evidentiary hearing to determine whether the alleged conflict prevents them from continuing to represent Carrot Top.”

“Fish & Richardson Slams IP DQ Bid As Possibly Manufactured” —

• “LVMH urged a Texas federal court to reject a bid to boot Fish & Richardson PC from defending the luxury goods business against an infringement lawsuit over patents for nonfungible token display technology, saying the company behind the suit may have tried to ‘manufacture’ a conflict to disqualify the firm.”
• “LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE argued Monday that Watch Skins’ disqualification motion should be rejected based on its own misconduct, which included oversharing information with the firm and cold-calling a firm attorney.”
• “‘The record demonstrates, at every turn, that Watch Skins — not Fish & Richardson PC — is the party that acted improperly,’ LVMH said. ‘Watch Skins ignored multiple warnings not to share confidential information, ignored Fish’s decision to decline representation, and then, through a sophisticated co-founder represented by an experienced IP litigator, unilaterally transmitted information no one at Fish had requested.'”
• “Watch Skins alleges Paris-based LVMH and three other companies under the LVMH umbrella, including Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer SA, infringed three of its patents on NFT smartwatch display technology. Watch Skins developed a platform that enables users to display their NFTs.”
• “LVMH said that while it could be that Watch Skins meant to ‘manufacture a conflict,’ its intent does not matter, because the firm carefully followed the rule regarding a lawyer’s duty to a prospective client. LVMH said the American Bar Association’s ‘safe harbor of Rule 1.18(d), now adopted in Texas, exists precisely to address this situation.'”
• “LVMH said it was contacted twice by Watch Skins, once via its website in December 2023 and a second time in July 2024 through a cold call to Fish & Richardson attorney Jennifer Huang, who is not listed as counsel in the instant case. LVMH said Watch Skins’ motion to disqualify the firm ‘misleads the court’ by not mentioning the website inquiry.”
• “Fish & Richardson’s website warns prospective clients against providing any confidential or sensitive information, but Watch Skins did it anyway, LVMH said. After receiving the website form from Watch Skins, the firm declined representation because it had a history of representing LVMH and warned Watch Skins again not to ‘share confidences.'”
• “‘This attorney also took steps to limit exposure to confidential information: requesting only specific categories of information necessary to screen a potential contingency representation and waiting for conflict clearance before disseminating any information received,’ LVMH said. Despite already being represented by other counsel and in disregard of Huang’s ‘limiting instructions,’ Watch Skins again ‘overshared,’ LVMH said. ‘The attorney promptly removed the additional information from her inbox and declined representation,’ LVMH said, adding that Huang has been screened from the matter.”
• “‘No prospective client should be allowed to poison a client’s law firm by arguing a conflict should be imputed under these circumstances,’ LVMH said, later adding that ‘Watch Skins has no explanation for waiting 15 months into active litigation before taking the drastic step of seeking Fish’s disqualification; it has waived the request.'”
• “LVMH said ‘this is a textbook case’ for the safe harbor exception spelled out in the ABA and Texas rules.”

Longtime reader Roy Simon, the Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Legal Ethics at Hofstra University, sent word that he’s looking for a lawyer who is in good standing in New York interested in being a co-author for the next edition of: “Simon’s New York Rules of Professional Conduct Annotated.” He writes:

• “If you could put out a general call for interest, that would be very helpful.  The treatise is in its 24th edition (with the 25th at the publisher) and is now over 2000 pages. It requires a good deal of upkeep — New York’s Courts amended 20 separate provisions in the New York Rules of Professional Conduct in 2025, and a few more rules are likely to be amended this year or early next, plus I summarize every new ethics opinion from a New York ethics committee (about 20 total opinions a year), plus major court decisions.  But I enjoy every minute working on the book and I think a co-author would as well.  I would of course share royalties in a fair way with any co-author(s).”
• If interested, you can find his contact information: here.

David Kluft spotsthe best stuff. His latest: “Can I create a conflict of interest by falsely declaring I represent my opponent?” —

• “The majority owner of a CA car dealership fired the manager, who was also a minority owner. When the manager kept coming to work and refused to leave, the dealership initiated a trespass action against him. The manager hired a lawyer to represent him in the trespass proceedings.”
• “Meanwhile, the dealership was also in hot water with the manufacturer, which issued a notification that it was terminating the franchise. The majority owner filed a separate suit on behalf of the dealership to protest this.”
• “The manager decided to interfere with the franchise action by engaging in a stunt. He had his lawyer from the trespass case intervene in the franchise case and also a file a protest, purportedly on behalf of the dealership (i.e., ‘I’m the real owner of this franchise!’).”
• “The manager and his lawyer were bounced from the franchise case for lack of standing. This caused the dealership to move for the manager’s lawyer’s disqualification from the trespass case. The argument basically was: if he says (even incorrectly) that he represents the dealership in the franchise case, he can’t be adverse to the dealership in this case.”
• “The manager’s lawyer’s defense was essentially that he never really represented the dealership – he just said he did to make a rhetorical point on behalf of his client. The manager’s lawyer cited case law in which an attorney representing a corporate defendant in a class action lawsuit incorrectly informed the court that he represented the employees too, and the Court of Appeal held that this incorrect unilateral declaration cannot create an attorney client relationship and therefore it cannot create a conflict.”
• “However, here, the record contained evidence that this was not merely a mistake: a client (the manager) with apparent authority (because he was also a minority owner) hired a lawyer expressly to represent the dealership, and the lawyer represented himself as such many times, notwithstanding the whole thing being a dumb stunt. The lawyer was disqualified.”
• Decision: here.

“Federal Court in Seattle Addresses Standing for Disqualification Motions” —

• “The Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) typically supply the substantive law of disqualification for determining, for example, whether a law firm has a conflict. The procedural elements of disqualification, by contrast, are court-made law. A recent case from the federal district court in Seattle illustrated a key procedural aspect of disqualification litigation: standing. “
• “As a general proposition, the party bringing a disqualification motion must be either a current or former client of the targeted law firm and the burden is on the moving party to demonstrate that requisite standing. ”
  “Shenzhen Yihong Technology Co. Ltd. v. Dbest Products, Inc., 2026 WL 2267436 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 6, 2026) (unpublished), is a patent-infringement case. Plaintiff’s counsel had handled earlier cases against the same defendant. During those earlier cases, the defendant’s lawyers had provided discovery to plaintiff’s counsel and negotiated settlements. Plaintiff’s counsel, however, had never represented the defendant. Nonetheless, the defendant moved to disqualify plaintiff’s counsel—arguing that the knowledge it had gained through its prior work was disqualifying. The court denied the motion. “
• “The court began by finding that the defendant lacked standing to bring the motion because it had never been a client of plaintiff’s counsel. The court then went on to conclude that simply obtaining information about an opponent through either discovery or settlement negotiations did not provide an alternative basis for standing. While the decision doesn’t plow any new analytical ground, it includes a useful survey of the law on standing in disqualification. The decision also serves as a reminder of the important role court-made procedural law plays in disqualification litigation.”

“Judge: Madison County auditor must find new attorney, county will pay” —

• “Madison County Auditor Michele Brant will have to find a new attorney to represent her in her case against two county supervisors.”
• “On Friday, a judge disqualified County Attorney Stephen Swanson from representing Auditor Brant in the case due to a conflict of interest. However, the judge rejected the idea that Brant should have to pay for her own attorney.”
  In the overarching case, Brant claims that supervisors Jessica Hobbs and Heather Stancil retaliated against her after she filed a civil rights complaint. Hobbs and Stancil later voted to restructure Brant’s office and repeatedly denied her efforts to hire for a position within her office, even though it had already been approved within the budget.”
  Swanson, who would normally represent the board in his position as county attorney, had argued during a July hearing that there was no conflict of interest since Stancil and Hobbs voted months ago to retain a high-end legal firm to represent them in county matters.”
• “The judge disagreed, finding that Swanson is required by statute to represent Madison County and its officers, according to court records.”
• “Under Iowa Code §331.759, the court ordered that the reasonable and necessary costs of representing Brant in her official capacity as Madison County Auditor be paid from Madison County’s general fund. Stancil and Hobbs, and their $305-per-hour taxpayer-funded attorney, had tried to argue that Brant should pay for the legal fees herself since the board approves litigation fees and it would be unlikely that Stancil and Hobbs, who together make up a board majority, would vote in favor of the move.”
• “The ruling does not resolve the underlying retaliation case. For now, there is a court-ordered pause on the effort to make any changes to Auditor Brant’s office.”
• Decision: here.

These sentiments definitely align with the feedback shared by risk leaders in the survey report on AI for law firm risk we published last week.

“What Corporate Clients Want to Know About Law Firms’ Use of AI” —

• “Artificial intelligence has become a routine topic of discussion between law firms and their corporate clients, but the nature of those conversations has changed significantly over the past few years. Early discussions often centered on whether outside counsel should use AI at all. Today, clients have moved beyond that threshold question and instead want to understand how AI is being used, what safeguards govern its use, and how it can create greater value without compromising quality, confidentiality, or professional judgment.”
• “Rather than asking whether a firm uses artificial intelligence, clients want to understand how AI fits into legal workflows, which tools are being used, what tasks they support, how client information is protected, and what level of attorney oversight exists before work product reaches the client.”
• “As Andrew Woolf, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Cozen O’Connor, explained: ‘Across the board, the questions are becoming more practical, detailed, and technical. The question has moved from ‘Are you using AI?’ to ‘How are you using it, and how are you controlling it?’’ He explained that clients want detailed information regarding the AI models and platforms firms use, whether client data is retained or used for model training, what security controls are in place, and how attorneys supervise AI-assisted work.”
• “Several interviewees also observed a notable shift in client attitudes toward AI itself. Aubrey Bishai, Chief Innovation Officer at Vinson & Elkins, explained that conversations have evolved from clients saying, ‘Don’t use AI on my matters’ to now saying, ‘Please use AI on my matters where it makes sense.’ According to Bishai, today’s discussions focus less on whether AI should be used and more on where it can appropriately support legal work, while fostering greater transparency and collaboration between law firms and in-house legal departments.”
• “Alma Asay, Chief Innovation and Value Officer at Crowell & Moring, similarly noted that clients are increasingly addressing AI through outside counsel guidelines, requests for proposal (RFPs), and governance surveys. Rather than imposing blanket prohibitions, many clients now permit AI use within defined parameters while requesting consultation before AI is used in higher-risk situations. She also observed that clients frequently ask what peer organizations are doing, reflecting an industry-wide effort to benchmark AI governance practices.”
• “As Ashton Batchelor, Chief Innovation and Value Officer at Blank Rome, explained: ‘Innovation and AI governance aren’t mutually exclusive; they reinforce each other.’ Rather than trading confidentiality or quality for efficiency, clients increasingly expect firms to leverage AI responsibly while maintaining the same standards of legal excellence they have always demanded.”
• “Bishai echoed that sentiment, explaining that clients are simultaneously focused on innovation, efficiency, confidentiality, security, and quality. She emphasized that enterprise-grade AI platforms, attorney training, and alignment among people, processes, and technology have become essential components of responsible AI adoption. Firms are also collaborating with clients by sharing lessons learned and helping develop best practices as both sides continue to integrate AI into legal work.”
  Attorney accountability emerged as another recurring theme. Asay noted that, regardless of technological advances, ‘Ultimately what they are paying for is our lawyers’ legal advice and judgment’ and that clients continue to expect attorneys to understand both the benefits and limitations of AI, independently verify AI-generated work, and remain personally responsible for the final legal product.”
• “AI Governance Is Becoming Part of Outside Counsel Selection. As Asay put it, ‘It’s not looking ahead, it’s today.’ She explained that clients are already incorporating AI considerations into panel counsel selection, RFPs, outside counsel guidelines, and governance reviews. RFPs now often require firms to explain how AI will be used on specific matters, while clients are seeking greater transparency regarding governance policies, attorney supervision, approved technologies, and documentation surrounding AI use.”
• “The industry leaders we spoke with also identified several emerging governance trends, including formal written AI governance frameworks, explicit supervisory responsibilities for attorneys overseeing AI-assisted work, documentation regarding when and how AI is used, and growing interest in standardized governance models that can be applied consistently across outside counsel relationships.”
• “Batchelor compared AI governance to the evolution of cybersecurity requirements, observing that ‘AI governance is becoming as ubiquitous as information security and pricing in outside counsel engagements.’ While governance expectations continue to evolve, she expects greater convergence across the legal industry as clients and firms develop more consistent standards for responsible AI use.”

“Rethinking Outside Counsel Guidelines for the AI Era: Ohio’s AI Ethics Guidelines as a Template for Legal Teams” —

• “AI Is Now Embedded in Client Expectations. One of the most important developments goes beyond formal guidance. Clients now ask direct questions about AI use.They want to know whether their counsel uses AI, how it is governed, and what safeguards are in place to protect their data.”
• “This demand has already reshaped outside counsel guidelines (OCGs). What began as simple disclosure language now includes detailed governance requirements, approved tool lists, and data retention expectations.”
• “Prepare for client scrutiny be developing a clear AI usage policy. Align it with client expectations and industry norms, and be ready to explain how your approach improves efficiency and controls risk.”
• “Firms that answer these questions confidently gain a competitive edge.”
• “Governance Must Move Beyond Quick Fixes. AI governance is no longer a one-line policy update. It requires integration across the business.”
• “Retention policies, discovery readiness, supplier management, and internal training all come into play. Even AI search histories may become discoverable in certain contexts, making documentation and retention decisions critical.”
• “Teams must build a structured governance model:”
  • “Define retention rules for AI interactions”
  • “Align policies with discovery obligations.”
  • “Regularly review and update guidance as tools evolve.”
• “Quick fixes will not hold up under scrutiny. Comprehensive governance will.”
• “Ohio’s guidance does not break new ground. That is precisely its value. It confirms that responsible AI use in legal practice rests on familiar principles. Competence, confidentiality, supervision, and fair billing remain the foundation. The difference lies in how those principles apply when AI is involved.”
• “Legal teams are empowered to use AI to improve efficiency and reduce cost. To do so, maintain rigorous oversight and ethical discipline and align practices with client expectations and evolving standards.”
• “This approach strengthens defensibility, builds client trust, and creates a more consistent, scalable model for adopting AI with confidence.”

“From permission to performance: What clients now expect from AI-enabled law firms” —

• “We recently had the chance to talk with Chief Information Officer Skip Lohmeyer and Partner and Public Finance Attorney Carlos Manzano from Parker Poe about the rapidly evolving conversation about AI between in-house teams and outside counsel, and what that means for how firms operate and how clients select the right teams to hire.”
• “Carlos Manzano: Two or three years ago, clients were mostly asking whether AI use was permissible… In 2026, that conversation has fundamentally shifted. Today, in-house legal teams are leveraging AI themselves to compress timelines, reduce routine work, and handle high volumes. Clients are benchmarking firms against their own operations and asking not whether their law firm uses AI, but what value outside counsel can actually deliver that their own capable teams cannot. The expectation has moved from permission to performance, and the firms that have not kept pace are starting to feel it.”
• “What makes this shift particularly meaningful is the gap it has started to expose. The capabilities of generative AI tools have raised the floor for everyone providing legal services. The tools that felt like differentiators eighteen months ago are rapidly becoming baseline expectations. The more important competitive shift, though, is how AI empowers lawyers to raise the ceiling.”
• “Skip Lohmeyer: Increasingly, clients view AI through the lens of risk management, operational efficiency, and business value. We see that reflected in conversations with clients, in RFPs, and in outside counsel guidelines.”
• “Many clients are establishing expectations around confidentiality, data security, transparency, and attorney accountability when AI is used. At the same time, a growing number are asking different questions: where is AI improving efficiency and responsiveness, why would a law firm not use it responsibly, and how is it reducing legal costs?”
• “What has not changed is accountability. Clients hire lawyers for judgment, experience, and trusted counsel. AI can help us work more efficiently, but it does not replace legal analysis or professional responsibility. We remain accountable for every work product we deliver and every recommendation we make.”
  “Skip Lohmeyer: We evaluate AI through three lenses: client value, risk management, and practical implementation. If a tool can help us deliver work more efficiently, provide deeper insight, or improve responsiveness while maintaining appropriate safeguards, we explore how to incorporate it into our workflows.”
• “At the same time, we recognize that clients have different expectations and risk tolerances. Some clients are encouraging broader AI adoption. Others prefer tighter controls. We have built our governance and operational processes to support both.”
  “Carlos: Make governance a non-negotiable part of the evaluation as well. In-house counsel should understand whether the firm’s approved tools can train on client data, what security or privacy commitments apply, and who is ultimately accountable for AI-assisted work product before it reaches the client.”

Hot off the heels of the recent release of the agentic AI for law firm risk survey report, I’m pleased to invite our law firm risk readers to participate in the 2026 Risk Staffing Compensation Survey [HERE]! 

Last year’s exercise, our fourth go, was a great success. We saw participation from 108 individuals, providing nearly 700 data points on US-based risk positions.

Given the large number of report requests over the past year, I once again think we still have room to grow in 2026 numbers! (For those who don’t participate, the fee for a report/personal benchmark will go up in 2027. So, there’s an incentive to contribute.)

Given feedback on the last report, I think we’ve arrived at good framework for collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. We’ve edited a question or two, but folks should find the exercise familiar.

It’s gratifying to see mangers using this data to pursue adjustments for their team and to support recruiting processes. I’m also always happy to hear from individuals using this industry data to self advocate.

So if you’re an individual contribution looking to understand how your comp compares to your peers, or you’re a risk director/manager looking to keep your team (and potential new hires) on par with changing market standards, you don’t want to miss out.

SURVEY DETAILS:

• Participation open to law firm risk professionals only
• All responses will be treated confidentially
• Risk Director / Manager participants sharing data on themselves and their team’s roles and compensation will receive a report summarizing key findings and analysis relevant to their firm demographics
  • (The report may be shared internally within your firm, but not redistributed externally. So if you want the results, your best path is to participate!)
  • NOTE: You’ll need to provide detail on the number of risk staff at your firm and compensation details on yourself and all reports, or you risk a survey report “disqualification.”
  • And if you want the Q&A results section, you’ll need to participate in that optional section as well.
• Individual contributor participants sharing personal compensation data will be receive a personal benchmark compensation summary relevant to their specific role and firm demographics.

The survey will be open through September 30, and can be accessed here: 2026 Risk Staffing Compensation Survey.

Feel free to share the link with law firm peers and colleagues!

And if anyone has questions (or really needs more time), please do reach out to me directly. (Email readers can do that by just replying to this note — it’ll reach me. Others can use the contact form as well.)

Let’s see what we learn this round!

A Note to Canadian Readers:

• Given compensation differences across the border, last year I shifted away from aggregating all North American data into the averages.
• If there’s sufficient participation from Canada, I’ll generate a localised report for that geography.
• I want to support this segement of loyal and supportive readers, but we need a critical mass of firms and data points. So, encourage your colleagues and let’s see what develops!

“Nelson Mullins Faces Ex-Client’s $1M Fee Suit Over Conflict” —

• “A former client of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough is suing the firm and two partners over their fees, claiming they failed to disclose a conflict in representing him in a fraud investigation and indictment that later landed him 10 years in prison.”
• “Brian Martinsen, who was convicted of defrauding investors in nine related private funds referred to as ‘StraightPath Funds’ and sentenced to 10 years in prison in May, filed a complaint in the Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday looking to reclaim $950,000 he said should have been refunded to him after Nelson Mullins withdrew as his counsel.”
• “According to the complaint, Nelson Mullins and its partners Scott Sherman and Jonathan Etra failed to disclose a conflict of interest until opposing counsel from the government pointed out the issue to the federal judge handling Martinsen’s case.”
• “The conflict, according to the complaint, was that Nelson Mullins also represented Martinsen’s co-defendants and co-fund-principals Michael Castillero and Eric Lachow in a related civil enforcement action, both of whom had then become cooperating government witnesses against Martinsen. The partners and the firm knew about this when they agreed to represent Martinsen against the government, the complaint states.”
• “Martinsen said Nelson Mullins had him execute a $1.5 million retainer agreement on the day of his arraignment in 2023 and accepted a wire from him for the same amount despite the conflict. The conflict remained undisclosed to Martinsen until March 2025 when the government filed a letter with the Southern District of New York court alerting the judge that Martinsen did not have the conflict-free counsel he was entitled to under the Sixth Amendment, the suit says.”
• “After that letter was filed, Nelson Mullins filed a motion to withdraw as Martinsen’s counsel. The court granted that withdrawal motion, and Martinsen retained new attorneys, Matthew Brissenden and Kevin Keating, both of whom run their own law offices.”
• “Nelson Mullins did not fully refund Martinsen’s retainer, the complaint states. Instead, the firm held on to $950,000 of the $1.5 million on the ‘self-serving’ determination that it had earned that amount in fees despite the conflict, the lawsuit alleges. Martinsen’s state court suit seeks to recover that remaining amount.”
• “‘Under controlling New York authority, an attorney who engages in misconduct by violating the Rules of Professional Conduct is not entitled to legal fees for the services rendered, and an attorney whose own conflict of interest compels withdrawal may not recover in quantum meruit,’ the suit says.”
• “The complaint seeks fee forfeiture and disgorgement for the $950,000 held by Nelson Mullins. It also lays out claims for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, deceit and unjust enrichment.”
• “Further, the suit states that Nelson Mullins failed to provide Martinsen with the required written engagement letter when it first started representing him. Martinsen asked the court to grant him treble damages with interest as well as the fees and costs of his suit against Nelson Mullins.”

“Playboy fights fee bid in dispute with ex-lawyers at Quinn Emanuel” —

• “Playboy Enterprises and Quinn Emanuel are locked in a dispute over unpaid legal fees after Playboy accused the U.S. law firm of mishandling litigation and ignoring conflicts of interest while representing the adult entertainment company.”
• “Playboy sued the law firm in Los Angeles Superior Court last week, asking a judge to halt an arbitration proceeding in which Quinn Emanuel is seeking legal fees it claims it is owed by Playboy from litigation over its iconic ‘bunny’ logo.”
• “The clash over fees stems from Quinn Emanuel’s prior work for Playboy in a lawsuit that alleged sexual wellness company Advanced Vita Supplements infringed the company’s bunny trademarks. Playboy claims Quinn Emanuel improperly steered the company away from naming additional defendants in the case because they were clients of the firm.”
• “Playboy argued in its August 18 filing that the arbitration should be paused until after a trial that is scheduled for March 2027 in the trademark case. The resolution of the trial, Playboy said, could affect its claims against the law firm.”
• “Quinn Emanuel initiated an arbitration proceeding in March seeking to recover about $712,000 in unpaid fees for its work on the Advanced Vita Supplements case. It represented Playboy in the case until 2024, when the company fired the firm and hired lawyers from Frost.”
• “Playboy said it has already paid Quinn Emanuel more than $4.5 million and will show the firm ‘was massively overpaid for the work it actually performed.'”
• “Quinn Emanuel has denied any wrongdoing and argued that the fee arbitration is separate from Playboy’s conflict-of-interest claims and should proceed. The firm said in court filings that its fees and costs billed to Playboy were reasonable.”

“Detroit Ethics Board to investigate top city lawyer for side job at Lear” —

• “The Detroit Board of Ethics voted Wednesday, Aug. 19 to investigate whether top City Hall attorney Conrad Mallett violated the city’s ethics ordinance by serving as a paid director of Lear Corp., an auto supplier receiving city tax breaks.”
• “The investigation comes after the Free Press reported in August that Mallett received $1.8 million in cash and stock awards from Lear while holding top city government posts. The company opened a large plant near City Airport in 2022 and is receiving an approximately $4 million, 12-year tax abatement approved by the Detroit City Council in October that year.”
• “At the ethics board’s meeting, Executive Director Christal Phillips said Mallett has failed to respond to recent requests from ethics board staff to disclose his position at Lear.”
• “The meeting also produced a new allegation: Phillips said Mallett never disclosed that his son had applied for or accepted a job with the city of Detroit, in potential violation of an ethics ordinance provision requiring officials exercising significant authority to identify immediate family members employed by the city ‘or making an application to the city for employment.'”
• “Board members also voiced concern that Mallett’s position as corporation counsel – where he helms the city’s Law Department – could complicate the investigation. The Board of Ethics relies on Law Department attorneys for legal advice, but those attorneys report to Mallett.”
• “‘We’re going to poke a bear,’ board member Raymond Card said, of going after a top city official appointed by the mayor with city council approval. ‘And we’ve got to get a clear path, because I’m a firm believer – I only trap things I can kill.'”
• “In a statement issued to the Free Press after the board’s meeting, Mallett said, ‘I will address BOE concerns about its disclosure process when I have an opportunity to speak to it during the course of their investigation. I am confident that I have operated in an ethical and transparent manner and that if there were any oversights, they were unintentional.'”
• “Mallett previously told the Free Press that he disclosed his Lear board position to former Mayor Mike Duggan and Mayor Mary Sheffield. He said he was not involved in the Lear plant deal in either of his roles with the city or the company.”
• “Detroit’s ethics ordinance bars public servants who exercise ‘significant authority’ from taking a loan or payment from individuals receiving city tax abatements, credits or exemptions. The Board of Ethics has previously determined that city employees may not accept compensation for board service from entities receiving city tax breaks or doing business with the city.”
• “Mallett has served on Lear’s board since 2002, and last year earned $335,000 in cash and stock awards, as first reported by the Free Press on June 1.”
• “Phillips said Mallett never disclosed his Lear income to the ethics board or in annual mayoral disclosures received by her office in 2024 and 2026. His 2026 mayoral disclosure, she said, indicated that he had no non-city employment income from 2025 through the date of the filing. On a separate question concerning board activities, Phillips said, Mallett listed ‘N/A.'”
• “Phillips said Mallett’s failure to respond to the board’s June 30, July 20 and July 30 requests also could amount to willful neglect of duty. A board investigator said that Mallett was among just 10 of 120 senior city employees who had not filed disclosure forms with the board this year.”
• “Ethics board investigations can result in public admonishments and, in extreme cases, referrals to law enforcement for possible criminal prosecution.”

Rhode Island Supreme Court Ethics Advisory Panel Op. 2026-07: “Attorneys – Conflict – Prospective client” —

• “Where (1) a prospective client, seeking to file a personal injury action against a quasi-state entity, sought representation from an attorney, (2) the attorney ultimately declined the representation, and (3) the attorney has come under consideration to represent the entity, a conflict of interest does not exist prohibiting the inquiring attorney from representing the entity.”
• “‘Several years ago, an individual (the ‘Wife’) seeking to file a personal injury action on behalf of her husband was referred to the inquiring attorney for potential representation. The Wife’s claims centered on the allegedly injurious operations and development activity of a quasi-state entity (the ‘Entity’) occurring on an ongoing basis near her home. During the intake process, the inquiring attorney — and possibly his or her associate — discussed with the Wife the nature of the Wife’s inquiry, the feasibility of representation, anticipated litigation costs, and potential funding sources. The inquiring attorney states that at no time did he or she determine or provide a concrete case valuation, however. The inquiring attorney ultimately declined the representation due to the anticipated litigation expense, the Wife’s concomitant inability to obtain adequate funding, and the inquiring attorney’s then-current law firm’s capacity limitations.”
• “‘Recently, the inquiring attorney came under consideration to represent the Entity. Concerns have been raised regarding whether the inquiring attorney’s past interactions with the Wife constitute a conflict of interest prohibiting the inquiring attorney from representing the Entity. …”
• “‘Because the Wife actively sought representation from the inquiring attorney, she is a prospective client within the meaning of Rule 1.18 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. …”
• “‘… To be sure, the interests of the Wife and the Entity are undoubtedly materially adverse, given the Wife’s claims that the Entity’s ongoing operations and development activity have caused and continue to cause personal injury to her husband. … However, the Panel is unaware of any pending matter, substantially related or otherwise, involving the Wife and the Entity. …”
• “‘On the facts as described by the inquiring attorney, then, the Panel concludes that no conflict exists under Rule 1.18 rendering the inquiring attorney unable to represent the Entity. Should a matter arise involving both the Entity and the Wife, however, the Panel cautions the inquiring attorney that this calculus may change. …'”
• “Rhode Island Supreme Court Ethics Advisory Panel Op. 2026-07 (Lawyers Weekly No. 75-021-26) (3 pages) (Aug. 13, 2026).”

“NJ Panel Says Arbitrators Don’t Have To Disclose Remote Ties” —

• “A New Jersey appellate panel on Friday rejected a former hospital employee’s argument that an arbitrator’s prior role as corporate counsel for a hospital her attorney had previously sued created a conflict of interest, ruling that such remote relationships don’t create a conflict.”
• “A three-judge Appellate Division panel said in a published opinion that the statute governing disclosure requirements for arbitrators requires more than a reference to the arbitrator’s former position, and applies only when the prior relationship creates a reasonable question of the arbitrator’s ability to be impartial.”
• “Angela Gray argued that had she known the arbitrator, a retired judge who was unnamed in the opinion, served as corporate counsel for Chilton Memorial Hospital for more than two decades, she would have objected to his appointment because her attorney Mark Mulick sued Chilton in 2003, the opinion said.”
• “Despite Gray’s argument, the panel held that there was no prior relationship between the parties. University Hospital, which Gray had sued for sexual harassment and retaliation, is a state-owned academic hospital, while Chilton is not, the panel said. There also was nothing on the record to show there was any professional contact or relationship between the arbitrator and the plaintiff’s counsel.”
• “‘Therefore, we hold a party-appointed arbitrator has no duty to disclose prior employment of over 20 years as corporate counsel for a former client, not a party to the litigation, nor a prior professional relationship with a plaintiff’s counsel during a limited portion of that time, because such remote relationships do not constitute a conflict of interest,’ Judge Avis Bishop-Thompson wrote for the panel.”
• “The panel further found Gray’s bid to vacate the arbitrator’s final award procedurally improper, and that she had waived any objections to the arbitrator’s appointment because the arbitrator had disclosed his prior employment before the final decision was issued.”
• “‘Even assuming the arbitrator’s statement constituted full disclosure of a potential conflict, plaintiff failed to timely object in writing and did not object on the record. Under both the [American Arbitration Association] Rule 36 and [New Jersey statute] 2A:23B-11, plaintiff waived the right to object to the arbitrator’s appointment,’ Judge Bishop-Thompson said.”

“‘Show How 3M Is 0% at Fault:’ Expert Witness Used ChatGPT to Write Report Defending Company in Deadly Explosion Lawsuit” —

• “An expert witness testifying in a lawsuit about liability for a Houston explosion that killed three people and destroyed roughly 200 homes used ChatGPT to write significant portions of his ‘expert report.’ The man, who was hired by the industrial product conglomerate 3M, exposed his AI prompts publicly. They showed that he asked ChatGPT to help him ‘create an exceptional expert witness report defending the standard of care at 3M,’ and that the report should ‘show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion at Watson Grinding.'”
• “The incident shows that artificial intelligence has made its way into courtrooms not just in AI-generated legal briefings, hallucinated cases, and adversarial ‘prompt injections,’ but in expert witness testimonies. Court transcripts, deposition documents, and discovery records shared with 404 Media show extensive AI use in an extremely high profile case, where multiple people died and hundreds of millions of dollars in total liability are at stake in ongoing litigation about the explosion. The case also shows that the specific prompts used to create this type of expert testimony can be discoverable during a case, and that those prompts can be quite embarrassing. (Prompts provided in the case are here). “
• “As part of the case, 3M hired a man named Josh Autenrieth of Knighthawk Engineering to prepare an ‘expert report’ about the explosion. During discovery in the case, Will Moye, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, found a five-page document called ‘Citation Overlay,’ which appeared to have been generated by AI. Moye recognized the Citation Overlay document as being from ChatGPT, and demanded all of the prompts Autenrieth used from 3M’s lawyers. The deposition was paused for three hours while they were gathered, and Moye was given 350 pages of ChatGPT conversations that Autenrieth had when creating the report. Those documents included ChatGPT’s public links to Autenrieth’s full conversations. Court transcripts suggest that 3M paid Knighthawk Engineering roughly $90,000 for its analysis, and a filing by 3M shows that Autenrieth’s rate was $475 per hour.”
• “The conversations show much of Autenrieth’s process from start to finish, which included telling ChatGPT that he was ‘being retained as a professional expert witness by 3M in defense of them in their lawsuits and other legal proceedings behind the January 2020 explosion at Watson Grinding.’ He told ChatGPT that he needed ‘to create an expert witness report to defend 3M’s standard of care for their work,’ and that, specifically, it needed ‘to counter the defense witness [sic] outlandish and false claims particularly about working on equipment you are not trained to and without the right permitting.’ He asked ChatGPT to help him find violations of various working standards, then attached hundreds of court records.”
• “Autenrieth then asked ChatGPT to read all of the attached records and to defend 3M, ‘illustrating the lack of [Process and Safety Management] and safety by Watson Grinding, defeating [the defense witness’] comments […] and show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion at Watson Grinding and how my background and experience is well suited to render this professional opinion.’ “
• “ChatGPT created a roughly 30-page report that included the line ‘From a technical and standard-of-care standpoint, 3M is 0% responsible for the January 24, 2020 explosion.’ This line did not make it into the final report filed with the court, because when Autenrieth later asked ChatGPT to ‘review this as the opposing council,’ ChatGPT determined that writing ‘‘0% responsible’ is an easy target’ for a lawyer to poke holes in, and is one of several ‘phrases [that] let opposing counsel paint you as an advocate rather than an expert.'”
• “Autenrieth used ChatGPT to help him make various edits to the report it had generated, and repeatedly uploaded different versions of the report, getting revisions from the tool, then uploading new versions of the report (in some of the chats he changed the subject from his expert witness testimony to having ChatGPT generate t-shirt images). He also asked ChatGPT to ‘grade’ his report (it got a 97/100), and ‘what are the 5 main things in my report the prosecution could attack and how do I defend them?’ He then asked ChatGPT if his resume was sufficient to be an expert witness; ‘will prosecution go after me for never having been [an expert witness] before based on wording and how do I defend that?’ “
• “The report that Autenrieth submitted to the court is structured the same as the initial output given by ChatGPT and large swaths of it are identical to what ChatGPT first outputted and the revisions that it recommended in Autenrieth’s subsequent chats.”
• “‘This expert relied on AI not as an assistive device, but exclusively relied on ChatGPT to form his opinions and write his report,’ Moye told 404 Media in a phone interview. ‘He acknowledged [at trial] the prompts he put in were biased toward 3M to help 3M win the case […] it’s really egregious.’ Moye added that many of the prompts took place the night before Autenrieth was deposed as an expert witness. ‘They hired him for the sole purpose of changing the outcome of the case. They hired him and he used ChatGPT to write these reports, so really, ChatGPT was the expert in the case. There’s just no question about that.'”
• “Moye told 404 Media that 3M eventually tried to get Autenrieth disqualified from the trial, but that after he learned Autenrieth extensively used AI to generate his report, he took the somewhat unusual step of calling the other side’s expert witness as his own witness. ‘I said, I’m calling you to trial because I need a jury to hear from you because this is bad, bad stuff. And that’s exactly what I did,’ Moye said.”
• “Beyond this being a highly interesting case on its own merits, it shows that ChatGPT transcripts can be obtained by opposing lawyers in discovery or during depositions. Moye said ‘every lawyer needs to make sure their own experts aren’t generating work product in a way that’s insincere, and then knowing you can subpoena the prompts […] I’ve got lawyers all over the place saying, 1) ‘Holy shit, man. How did you get the prompts?,’ and 2) ‘How many cases do I have where this is happening to us?’'”

“Law Firms’ AI Opportunity Is in the Back Office” —

• “Almost every AI conversation in legal right now is about attorney work. Drafting, review, research, contract analysis. Those tools are real, they’re getting better fast, and firms will need them to stay competitive. But look at what they do: they help attorneys work faster. In a business that sells time, faster doesn’t automatically show up as more revenue. Attorney-facing AI runs headfirst into the billable hour, and its value depends on attorneys changing how they work, which is a hard thing to do inside a law firm.”
• “That isn’t a knock on attorneys. It’s just how the incentives sit. The people whose behavior has to change are the same people who generate the revenue, set the culture, and can opt out at any time without consequence. Unless a firm has a managing partner or a board with unusual appetite for pushing technology, adoption is voluntary. And voluntary adoption is how you end up with a platform the firm paid for two years ago that four people use.”
  Meanwhile, the part of the firm where process optimization has the biggest impact is sitting right there. The Back Office Is Where the Firm Actually Runs. Intake. Conflicts. Matter setup. Reimbursements. Vendor payments. The work that has to happen before anyone can bill an hour, and the work that has to happen after.”
• “Two things are true about that work at most firms. The first is that it runs on genuinely old technology. The accounting and practice management platforms in this industry were architected a long time ago, and it shows in the number of clicks it takes to do anything.”
• “The second is more expensive: firms have built entire administrative processes around compensating for those interfaces. There are people whose job is substantially to be the connective tissue between systems that were never designed to talk to each other, and to chase attorneys who don’t want to fill out the form. Fix that and you don’t save hours in some theoretical way that never shows up in a financial statement. You reduce cost, and it goes straight to the bottom line.”
• Start with Intake, Because Intake Touches Everything. When a firm asks where to start, we start with intake. Not because intake is the biggest pain, though it usually is, but because of what building it forces you to connect.”
• “To run intake properly you need to reach the document management system, the accounting and billing platform, the conflicts data, and
• increasingly the CRM. Get intake right and you’ve built the foundation the rest of the back office runs on.”
  “Here’s what it looks like in practice. Today an attorney gets asked to fill out a long form. It may be dynamic, it may be well designed—it doesn’t matter. They don’t want to fill out a form. So instead, they send an email the way they would to a colleague. The system reads the email, derives the context, populates the form, and hands it to the admin team to review before anything moves. The person who is good at this work still puts eyes on it, fills in what’s missing, and kicks off the conflicts check. The human stays in the loop. The friction moves off the person least willing to absorb it.”
• “Two things make back-office AI difficult, and neither of them is the AI. The models are the easy part now and getting easier. What’s hard is everything they have to touch. The first is integration. The same platforms that make the back office painful to work in are painful to connect to. Some have a real API. Some have an API that covers a third of what you need. Some have nothing worth using, and you need to build a database connection, a nightly file, or a vendor conversation that takes a year to resolve. This is where the budget on these projects actually goes. Not the AI, which is comparatively cheap and getting cheaper. Any firm scoping this work should establish, before anything else, what its core systems will permit, and expect a few engineering challenges. ‘We have an API’ and ‘you can do what you need through the API’ are different sentences, and vendors are not always quick to distinguish them.”
• “The second is governance. You are building something that reads client email, touches conflicts data, and writes into the accounting system. That sits squarely inside the firm’s confidentiality obligations, and it sits on top of outside counsel guidelines that increasingly say specific things about AI. Some clients now require notice. Some require consent. Some prohibit certain uses outright.”
• “The item, less dramatic and in my experience the more common cause of failure: somebody has to own it. This is not a project with an end date. Processes change, systems get upgraded, a vendor renames a field and something quietly stops working. The firm needs a named person responsible for that, internal or fractional, but named. Firms that treat go-live as the finish line end up with a layer that worked well for eight months and nobody who noticed when it stopped.”
• “Go back to the deployment problem. The reason so much legal technology stalls is that it requires behavior change from people who don’t have to change. Back-office AI doesn’t. The attorney sends an email, which is what they were going to do anyway. The administrative team gets a better version of the process they already own. Nothing about the firm’s existing systems has to be ripped out, because the whole point is to sit on top of them and connect them.”
  “None of that changes because the work is hard. It’s a trade, and it’s one I’d make every time. The difficulty in back-office AI is technical, and technical problems can be scoped, priced, and handed to people you hire. The difficulty in attorney-facing AI is behavioral, and there is nobody you can hire to make a partner change how they work.”
• “The AI conversation in legal is going to stay focused on the attorneys, and it should. But if you’re looking for the place where AI can go into a law firm this year and produce a measurable result without a change management fight, it’s the part of the firm nobody is talking about.”

“Ex-Client Can’t Revive Brach Eichler Malpractice Suit” —

• “A New Jersey appellate panel on Thursday affirmed a lower court ruling granting summary judgment to Brach Eichler LLC in a suit accusing the firm of legal malpractice from its work in a long-running real estate dispute.”
• “In its ruling, the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division agreed that Brian Delaney was barred from pursuing his conflict of interest claims against Brach Eichler because he failed to object to the firm’s participation during the original matter that led to the malpractice suit.”
• “The underlying suit, which originally stemmed from a matter in which Delaney sued his ex-partners for allegedly misappropriating his capital contributions to their former business venture, said that by failing to properly draft documents related to his ownership of Cash Cow Sparta Village, Brach Eichler helped set the dispute in motion when Prassas and the Dykstras decided to remove Delaney as a CC Holdings member.”
• “Three separate lawsuits ensued following Delaney’s ouster from CC Holdings, during which he never objected to Brach Eichler’s representation of Prassas despite its prior representation of Cash Cow Sparta Village, which he believed himself to be a part of, the opinion said.”
• “Additionally, because Delaney had already agreed to a settlement in a prior matter that included the mutual release of all claims, the panel said, he was no longer able to file another suit related to those issues.”
• “‘The judge specifically noted Delaney was collaterally estopped from relitigating issues previously decided, including the alleged conflict and his lack of ownership interest in [Cash Cow Sparta Village], both of which were central to the dismissal of his earlier claims,’ the panel said. ‘The court also found the statements made by Brach Eichler in its representation of Prassas were protected by the litigation privilege, regardless of their truth or falsity.'”
• “The decision affirming summary judgment comes after a 2020 opinion by the same court in which a panel overturned a trial court decision that barred Brach Eichler from serving as counsel in the underlying litigation, finding that Delaney gave up his right to seek the firm’s disqualification by not raising an objection in prior matters. The panel said the prior settlement also invalidates Delaney’s negligence claim as the decision to accept it meant he was unable to prove he suffered damages.”