Wake Up Call: OptumRx Tries to Kick Motley Rice Off Opioids Case

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• UnitedHealth’s pharmacy benefits manager OptumRx is trying again to get plaintiffs’ law firm Motley Rice booted from a lawsuit over the company’s alleged role in the opioid crisis, citing the firm’s past work for state and local governments. OptumRx last week asked a federal magistrate judge in Utah to disqualify Motley Rice as the attorneys for the state, which has accused OptumRx of having “incredible knowledge and control over the flow of opioids into our communities.” (Reuters)
• The Trump administration is pursuing sanctions against Los Angeles attorney Joshua Schroeder for his emergency legal efforts to halt the deportation of a Laotian immigrant with a 1990s attempted murder conviction. The Justice Department’s sanctions motion, filed in Guam, accuses Schroeder of acting in bad faith and comes after a political directive by Trump to punish lawyers deemed to file “frivolous” lawsuits. (Politico)
• Attorney Brett Schreiber secured a $243 million verdict against Tesla in a wrongful death case involving a 2019 crash, marking a rare courtroom loss for the company, which typically avoids jury trials in Autopilot-related fatalities. Schreiber’s strategy hinged on exposing the gap between Tesla’s public claims about self-driving capabilities and its courtroom defenses, using Elon Musk’s own statements to show how the company misled consumers. (The Verge)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Daniel Cooper, Emalee Welsh, and Daniel Carmody joined Sterlington as private wealth partners in Philadelphia. They join from Morgan Lewis.