Michele Gorman

Starbucks settled a high-profile discrimination suit with Florida over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, agreeing not to use race- or sex-based goals in hiring and promoting. And the SEC floated changing how publicly traded companies seek shareholder input, including promising to end one pathway for shareholders to place their proposals on corporate ballots. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Goldman Sachs, Coinbase and Sanofi. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from July.

The former chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs told House investigators this month that Jeffrey Epstein's client referral produced "single-digit-millions" in billings for Latham & Watkins LLP, her former law firm, but that she didn't want the billionaire to be a client of the firm directly, according to a transcript of her testimony released Wednesday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing electronic delivery to be the default method for sending investors information, and a panel of investor activists said the 2026 proxy season was shaped by regulators who seem to let public companies behave more like private ones. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing electronic delivery to be the default method for sending investors information, and a panel of investor activists said the 2026 proxy season was shaped by regulators who seem to let public companies behave more like private ones. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

Chief legal officers using external service providers outside traditional law firms are barely a blip on the radar, despite the ever-rising costs of working with private practice attorneys. But a general counsel’s use of ALSPs can be more complicated than the surface level tells us.

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, who led the cryptocurrency exchange through a prolonged, high-profile battle with U.S. regulators, will step down at the end of the month and be succeeded by the company's current vice president of legal, according to a securities filing late Thursday.

Coinbase CLO Grewal To Exit, Advise Company Through Oct.

The top lawyer at Liquid AI, which aims to build general-purpose AI at every scale, recently told Law360 Pulse that innovation can't replace human judgment, persuasion or negotiation. It can, however, supercharge lawyers by allowing them to do "exponentially more" with their time.

Corporate Legal Spending Hit 6-Year Low In 2026