A class of consumers challenging “pay for delay” drug settlements is asking California’s Supreme Court to find that pharmaceutical patent holders violate antitrust laws when they pay competitors to put off the potential release of generic medicines — a practice estimated to cost consumers $3.5 billion a year in inflated prices.

A federal judge overseeing a dispute over death benefits between the parents and wife of a deceased Cozen O’Connor partner has requested briefing on the question of same-sex marriage, increasing the potential for a determination of the constitutionality of DOMA and a similar Pennsylvania statute.

Plaintiffs lawyers on Friday won a rare class certification ruling in a mortgage-backed securities suit against Washington Mutual, but the judge slashed the potential value of the claims by about 80 percent and went further than most courts have gone in examining MBS plaintiffs’ standing.

Setting up the potential for a petition to the Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit will not rehear a case in which former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is trying to invoke a legislative privilege.

Top 30 U.K. firm Irwin Mitchell has appointed legal and financial advisers as it continues to move toward becoming one of the first law firms to accept external investment