SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 7, 2026--
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein is delighted to announce that Matthew G. Jacobs, former General Counsel of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”), has joined the firm’s San Francisco office as Of Counsel.
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Mr. Jacobs brings more than 40 years of experience in complex litigation, crisis management, government investigations, and public-sector leadership. Most recently, he served as the General Counsel of CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, with more than $550 billion in assets under management. As a member of the CalPERS executive leadership team, Mr. Jacobs oversaw the organization’s legal, compliance and risk, and information security functions, and managed both its affirmative and defensive litigation.
During his tenure, CalPERS recovered over $1 billion for its beneficiaries from financial institutions and rating agencies responsible for mortgage-backed securities fraud. He also oversaw some of the nation’s largest and most consequential securities fraud class actions in CalPERS' capacity as lead plaintiff. That work helped strengthen investor protections, enhance corporate accountability, and safeguard investments for millions of public employees and other investors.
Prior to joining CalPERS, Mr. Jacobs was a litigation partner at DLA Piper LLP, where he co-chaired the White Collar and Government Investigations Practice Group. Before that, he held senior roles in both private practice and public service, including at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. At the U.S. Attorney’s office, he served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division.
Mr. Jacobs is a frequent speaker and author on corporate governance, fiduciary responsibility, and institutional investor issues. He has served on the boards of the Council of Institutional Investors and the National Association of Corporate Directors, Northern California Chapter, and on the steering committee for the Cambridge Forum’s Committee for International Forum for General Counsel–Asset Owners. Mr. Jacobs also serves on the executive committee of WEAVE, a rape crisis center in Sacramento County, and on the executive committee of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, which facilitates and enhances philanthropy in the greater Sacramento area.
“We are excited to have a lawyer of Matt’s caliber and reputation joining our team,” noted Lieff Cabraser Managing Partner Steven E. Fineman. “Matt brings a wealth of experience championing, protecting, and maintaining fund integrity and assets, which will serve our firm’s institutional investor clients exceedingly well.”
“I’m thrilled to be joining Lieff Cabraser in its mission to pursue justice for victims of corporate misconduct,” Mr. Jacobs shared. “That commitment is what drew me to the law, and no one does it better than LCHB. I could not imagine a better next chapter.”
Mr. Jacobs earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.S., cum laude, from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and serves as a Judge Pro Tem in Sacramento Superior Court.
Matthew (Matt) Jacobs
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Review-Journal announced Friday that it will no longer print its rival the Las Vegas Sun for the first time in decades, sharpening a legal dispute over the nation’s last joint operating agreement stemming from a 1970 law designed to preserve newspapers.
Readers “will not find a printed Las Vegas Sun insert inside,” the Review-Journal said in an editorial, noting the Sun maintains a website, has a few hundred thousand followers across social media platforms, and is free to produce its own newspaper.
“We encourage them to do so. The Review-Journal competes with countless sources of news and entertainment, but we would welcome one more. We just don’t want to foot the bill. It is time the Sun stood up on its own two feet,” the editorial said, without specifying the cost.
The two publications will be in court Friday and the Sun hopes a judge will order printing to immediately resume, attorney Leif Reid said in an email. It will be the first day in 76 years that the Sun hasn’t been printed, he said.
“This does irreparable harm to our community, as no one benefits when a local newspaper is prevented from being published,” he said.
The now-rare joint operating agreement required the Sun to be printed as a daily insert in the Review-Journal, while both companies remained editorially independent with separate newsrooms and websites.
A lower court had found the agreement was unenforceable because a 2005 update was never signed by the U.S. attorney general, and in February the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the Sun.
The Review-Journal editorial called the Supreme Court decision a decisive victory, saying that halting publication of the Sun on Friday was “a result of 6½ years of litigation between the newspapers, precipitated by the Sun.”
Such agreements between rival publications have dwindled as part of a "long, slow goodbye of newspapers as we knew them,” said Ken Doctor, a news business analyst. The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News ended a 40-year agreement last year. USA Today Co., which owns the Detroit Free Press, recently announced its plans to purchase the Detroit News.
In 1950, the Sun was founded in response to the Review-Journal’s refusal to negotiate with typesetters from the International Typographical Union. The union started its own newspaper and reached out to businessman Hank Greenspun for financial backing. The Greenspuns still own the paper.
The Review-Journal has been publishing since 1909, first as the Clark County Review. It is owned by the Adelson family, casino magnates and mega GOP donors, and remains the state’s largest newspaper.
The Review-Journal’s editorials lean more conservative, while the Sun’s lean liberal. The 1970 law signed by then President Richard Nixon, called the Newspaper Preservation Act, was designed to save newspapers costs while maintaining competition and editorial variety in cities as newspapers began to financially struggle.
The papers first entered into a joint operating agreement in 1989 when the Sun was struggling to stay afloat financially. The agreement made the Sun an afternoon newspaper during weekdays and a section within the Review-Journal on weekend mornings, while the Review-Journal handled production, distribution and advertising. The Review-Journal also collected all revenue and was required to pay the Sun monthly to cover the Sun’s news and editorial expenses.
In 2005 the agreement was amended to make the Sun an insert in the Review-Journal every morning.
Review-Journal owners sought to end the agreement in 2019, and in response the Sun’s owners filed a lawsuit alleging that ending the agreement violated anti-trust laws.
The 1970 law allowing such agreements was signed at a time when news options weren't as prevalent and there was more concern over news monopolies.
Las Vegas — and Nevada as a whole — today have more strong, independent news organizations compared to other places, said Stephen Bates, a journalism and media professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The Sun also publishes online. But it has argued in court that losing its print product could make it harder to recruit staff, cause a loss in readers, and even force it to close.
Genelle Belmas, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas who specializes in media law, said it would be disappointing if the last joint operating agreement in the country ends. During visits to Vegas, she's enjoyed being able to pick up the Review-Journal and see the Sun folded inside, offering two differing points of view in one place. Online news outlets make it easier for consumers to stay in their echo chambers, she said.
“Every local news outlet we lose — and that includes big towns, small towns, whatever — is a loss of perspective and a loss of a potential alternative view,” Belmas said.
The exterior of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is shown Friday, April 3, 2026, in Las Vegas (AP Photo/Ty Oneil)
The front page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is shown Friday, April 3, 2026, in Las Vegas (AP Photo/Ty Oneil)
FILE - This Dec. 17, 2015 file photo shows a sign outside the building housing the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Las Vegas. AP Photo/John Locher, File)
