In the High Court of England and Wales, Family Division:”Law firm can keep acting in dispute after partner swapped sides” —

• “A law firm representing a woman in a dispute with her ex-husband can continue to act despite hiring the partner who previously supervised the legal work for him, the High Court has ruled.”
• “‘The existence of a former professional relationship does not itself establish current possession of confidential information,’ said Nageena Khalique KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge. ‘Nor does the mere possibility that information was once known. Evidence is required… The evidence before me is that Mr Burrows remembers nothing. I accept that evidence.'”
• “‘C’, represented by Birketts, is in dispute with her ex-husband, ‘A’, over ownership of a property in Tunbridge Wells. A first spoke to Sebastian Burrows, then a partner at Stowe Family Law, in January 2025 and a file was opened the following month.”
• “Another solicitor handled the day-to-day work but the client-care documentation named Mr Burrows as the partner with overall responsibility. The evidence indicated that A and Mr Burrows were not in direct contact after February.”
• “Mr Burrows resigned from Stowe in September 2025 and was placed on garden leave until the end of the year, with no access to its systems. In December 2025, Birketts sent a letter before action and A decided to dispense with Stowe and represent himself.”
• “Mr Burrows joined the Cambridge office Birketts in April, but which time C’s case was already fully pleaded by her legal team, based in Bristol. No new evidence has been disclosed since.”
• “Nonetheless, A argued before the court that, by virtue of imputed knowledge, Birketts had a conflict of interest and could no longer act.”
• “Judge Khalique described Mr Burrows as ‘an impressive witness’ and accepted his evidence that he had no recollection of the defendant or the case. He said he had supervised a very substantial caseload at Stowe, involving numerous clients and multiple fee-earners, and had not brought any documents with him either.”
• “‘Mr Burrows emphasised that he was fully aware of his own professional obligations regarding confidential information and would not jeopardise his own or his employer’s professional reputation by such careless conduct.”
• “‘He further described that high standards of professional conduct in this regard were practised not only by himself, but by [the fee-earner handling the case] and other members of the team with whom he had worked at Stowe.'”
• “The judge said the case law did not establish, as A had contended, that imputed knowledge was on its own sufficient to prevent Birketts from acting.”
• “She said there was ‘simply no evidence’ that Mr Burrows had any confidential information to disclose. He had not contacted C’s team in Bristol and he had no access to the file.”
• “While there was therefore no need for Birketts or Mr Burrows to provide any undertakings in relation to A’s confidential information, ‘I note that such undertakings have been unconditionally offered on behalf of Birketts and by Mr Burrows. Taken together, they provide substantial additional protection’.”

“Democrats Gain Power to Probe Trump Big Law Deals in Election” —

• “Democrats’ election win gives them expanded power to investigate deals that major law firms cut with the White House, including some that lawmakers said have stonewalled their inquiries.”
• “Their majority position greatly increases Democratic lawmakers’ ability to probe the agreements in which nine firms pledged a combined $940 million in free legal services on shared causes with the White House. That topic will compete with a myriad of other oversight targets identified by Democrats, including Trump immigration enforcement, Justice Department misconduct allegations and funding for the White House ballroom project.”
• “There is a lengthy list of bad actors ‘in this era of oligarchy,’ said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. ‘It is hard to say at this juncture whether these particular capitulators will rank higher than other places where we’ve seen cronyism occur,’ she said.”
• “Democrats in both chambers of Congress have vowed to investigate the deals in the new Congress, a posture that could turn up scrutiny on firms Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. A trio of lawmakers, including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), have said the firms are stymieing their efforts to gain information about the deals and potential legal services provided.”
• “‘Notwithstanding Kirkland’s lack of cooperation, we will use every tool at our disposal to pursue this investigation — in this Congress and the next,’ the lawmakers wrote last month in a letter to Jon Ballis, Kirkland’s chairman.”
• “Democrats have sought a range of information from various law firms that struck deals, including the specific terms of the agreements, detailed descriptions of any pro bono requests from the White House and communications over any proposed agreement or threatened executive order. Lawmakers pressed Kirkland for potential communications it had with Trump’s personal attorney, Boris Epshteyn.”
• “Big Law firms struck deals with the Trump administration in the months after the president returned to the White House as others were targeted. Trump used executive orders — against Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey — to direct that lawyers’ security clearances be suspended and access to government buildings be limited. The president also ordered a review of their clients’ government contracts.”
• “Wall Street’s Paul Weiss was the first firm to strike a deal with Trump, after being hit with an executive order. Eight others signed agreements: Kirkland, Skadden, Latham & Watkins, Milbank, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Some of those firms faced Equal Employment Opportunity Commission inquiries into their diversity-related employment practices.”
• “The lawmakers behind the Kirkland letter — Raskin, Blumenthal and Sen. Adam Schiff (Calif.) — say Kirkland failed to produce any responsive documents and refused to meet with congressional staff. Kirkland, the largest US law firm by revenue, pledged $125 million in free legal services in its deal with the Trump administration.”
• “The same trio of lawmakers in August castigated Skadden’s ‘vague and cursory’ response to their questions about the law firm’s promise to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services. A July letter from lawmakers referenced ‘Skadden’s manifestly corrupt bargain with the President’ and raised concerns about the firm’s work with Intel Corp. on the US government’s stake in the company.”
• “The possibility of renewed scrutiny from Congress comes as a federal appeals court is set to rule on the Trump administration’s bid to overturn judges’ decisions striking down the orders against the four firms that challenged them in court.”

“PVC giant JM Eagle gets initial OK in RICO suit against law firms” —

• “A law firm that specializes in filing mesothelioma and asbestos claims must face the civil racketeering lawsuit brought by plastic pipe maker JM Eagle, a Chicago federal judge ruled on Friday.”
• “The PVC pipe maker has alleged that the two law firms are operating ‘a multi-faceted scheme to defraud that misleads asbestos plaintiffs, state regulators, and asbestos defendants alike.'”
• “The law firms had argued that JM Eagle’s lawsuit should be dismissed under a legal doctrine known as Noerr-Pennington, which stems from the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection of the right to petition the government. Gettleman held that the doctrine is not an absolute and contains exceptions if the litigation activity is alleged to be a sham.”
• ‘The court finds that plaintiff has pleaded enough here to avoid dismissal,’ Gettleman said.”
• “The case, which has been pending in Chicago federal court for two years, now moves into the discovery phase, and the company will be able to examine how the law firms’ claims ‘were generated, investigated and brought,’ said Ashwin Ram, a partner at Buchalter who is representing JM Eagle in the litigation.”
• “‘This is an important ruling for any company that has faced serial, sham claims under the cover of litigation,’ Ram said.”
• “JM Eagle, which is pursuing the lawsuit under its prior name J-M Manufacturing, has alleged that Simmons Hanly suppressed evidence, used perjured or falsified testimony and statements, and committed fraud in the course  of recovering billions of dollars from asbestos defendants in thousands of cases.”
• “Simmons Hanly has filed more than 430 cases against JM Eagle since 2001, according to the lawsuit.”