For years, culminating with his Ninth Circuit win against UMG Recordings this week, Elkin has relied on a safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to fend off copyright infringement claims against his client Veoh Networks. Elkin's pioneering work has paid off for Veoh, and so far it's paying off for Google and YouTube as they defend against Viacom's $1 billion copyright suit.

You don't often hear complaints about working for Apple, Google, Intel, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intuit, or Pixar. But according to plaintiffs lawyers at Lieff Cabraser, Berger & Montague, and Grant & Eisenhofer, employees at the companies were the victims of a conspiracy to suppress their salaries and keep them tied down at their jobs. And on Wednesday, a judge in San Jose ruled that the lawyers had come up with enough evidence to allow their case to move forward.

Kirkland & Ellis partner William Pratt led the team that represented Discover in its landmark $2.75 billion settlement with Visa and MasterCard. We talked with him about the challenges to the litigation.

Given that patent litigation brought by non-performing entities (n�e patent trolls) continues in full blossom, it's no surprise that Big Firm castaways are leaping in to get a piece of the action on the plaintiffs side. But representing trolls carries risks for lawyers who earned their patent pedigrees at defense firms, as a pair of decisions highlighted on Thursday.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply limited the reach of a federal law used to hold corporations and others accountable for human rights abuses committed abroad. But human rights lawyers predicted additional litigation over how much of the federal courthouse door was left ajar.

Viacom International is getting a second shot at proving that YouTube massively infringed its copyrights by hosting clips from shows like "The Daily Show" and "Family Guy" without its permission. And whether Viacom and its lawyers succeed or not, they've already managed to shape the developing case law over copyrighted content that users illegally upload to the Internet.

No word yet on affirmative action, voting rights, or same-sex marriage, but the justices did resolve three of the outstanding 26 cases to be decided, ruling on issues as diverse as arbitration, sentencing, and even raisins.