Top Stories

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  New USPTO GC Vows Government Won't 'Micromanage' IP

  By Bonnie Eslinger

  John Duffy, the new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office general counsel and acting solicitor, told patent professio...(read more)

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  Amex Fined $350M Over Anti-Money Laundering Lapses

  By Jon Hill

  American Express has been fined $350 million over findings of systemic deficiencies in its banking unit's anti-m...(read more)

• Species Protections May Differ By State Under Senate Bill

  By Gautama Mehta

  A new U.S. Senate bill proposing to change federal agencies' consultation process for energy and infrastructure projects could lead to inconsistent wildlife protections in different states and includes some provisions that may ultimately be counterproductive to speeding up development.

• Boeing Can't Preclude Punitive Damages In Door Plug Suit

  By Ben Adlin

  A Washington judge Friday rejected The Boeing Co.'s effort to shut down passengers' bid for punitive damages in a lawsuit over the 2024 blowout of an aircraft door plug, allowing the plaintiffs time to conduct more discovery around whether Illinois law applies.

• Calif. Jurists' Atty Tips: 'Emulate Lincoln,' 'Don't Be Boring'

  By Bonnie Eslinger

  Three current and former Northern California federal judges and one Morrison Foerster LLP partner during a Federal Bar Association panel discussion Thursday gave attorneys tips on "courtroom persuasion," including knowing the judges, keeping things interesting and, like the nation's 16th president, getting quickly to the winning point.

• DOJ Policy Checking Voters' Immigration Status Banned

  By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

  A D.C. federal judge has struck down the U.S. Department of Justice's new policy of collecting states' unredacted voter information to cross-check voter rolls against immigration databases, saying federal voting laws the agency relied on were meant to protect the right to vote and not take it away.

• 9th Circ. Says AmeriBen Data Breach Is Enough To Allege Injury

  By Gina Kim

  The Ninth Circuit on Friday revived a proposed data breach class action alleging health plan administrator AmeriBen unlawfully revealed patients' information, ruling that the disclosures were enough to sustain a lawsuit even if the underlying information might seem "mundane."

• DA Pans Mangione's Double Jeopardy Bid In NY Murder Case

  By Frank G. Runyeon

  New York prosecutors on Friday panned Luigi Mangione's bid to dismiss his state murder case, arguing that his guilty plea to federal stalking charges does not subject him to unlawful double jeopardy, as the second-degree murder charge is meant to prevent a different kind of "harm or evil."

• Hertz Settles Investors' Derivative Suit Over EV Fleet Losses

  By Elaine Briseño

  The investor plaintiffs seeking damages on behalf of Hertz Global have settled with the company, its former CEO and other executives who they accused of breaching their fiduciary duties by releasing misleading statements about the demand for electric vehicles.

• Can Trade Secret Law Protect Indigenous Knowledge?

  By Ivan Moreno

  As the U.S. and other countries struggle to agree on new international protections for Indigenous knowledge, trade secret law is drawing renewed attention as a possible solution for material that communities actually keep confidential.

• SEC Proposes Restoring Funds' Ability To Cross-Trade Bonds

  By Jessica Corso

  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put forth a proposal on Friday to make it easier for mutual and other registered funds under the same manager to trade with one another, while promising to update the oversight rules for fund managers participating in such cross-trades.

• 'A Moral Hazard': Kalshi Drug Trial Bets Spark Ethical Qualms

  By Chris Villani

  Kalshi Inc. opening prediction markets for clinical drug trials has raised a host of compliance concerns for attorneys, including the risk of insider trading among the wide swaths of stakeholders in the know about the trials, as well as the danger of compromising the trials themselves.

• M&A Attys See Resilience Through Q3 Amid Geopolitical Risk

  By Al Barbarino

  Global M&A activity remained strong through the first nine months of 2026 despite a third-quarter slowdown, as strategic buyers and private equity firms continued to pursue deals in areas ranging from technology and defense to essential services, attorneys told Law360.

• Up Next At High Court: Criminal Sentences & Video Privacy

  By Katie Buehler

  The U.S. Supreme Court will close out its October sitting by hearing oral arguments in two cases that ask what level of deference federal district courts should give to commentary interpreting the federal sentencing guidelines, and what purchases are protected under a video consumer privacy statute.