Appellate

  • July 21, 2026

    Guam Group Says Air Force Can't Skip Review Of Detonations

    A nonprofit in Guam asked the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm a ruling that the U.S. Air Force shirked environmental review duties when it applied to renew a permit to detonate expired munitions, as well as reject the agency's attempts to avoid them.

  • July 21, 2026

    Wash. Tribe, Enviro Org. Say FERC Hydro Delay Imperils Sites

    A Washington tribe and an environmental group are asking the Ninth Circuit to deny a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission bid to hold a challenge against the agency's issuance of a hydroelectric license in abeyance, arguing that it won't stop the project from moving toward construction that will destroy resources.

  • July 21, 2026

    Minn. County Urges State Justices Review School Tax Break

    A Minnesota childcare center that missed a filing deadline related to a property tax exemption for educational institutions should not have been allowed to appeal the matter to the state tax court, a county told the state Supreme Court, urging it to review the case.

  • July 21, 2026

    4th Circ. Asks SC Justices To Weigh In On Heater Death Suit

    The Fourth Circuit has certified a question to the South Carolina Supreme Court in a suit alleging the defective design of a propane heater led to the death of a man using it, asking the justices to determine if adequate labeling precludes a defect claim under state law.

  • July 21, 2026

    DC Circ. Says NLRB 'Successor Bar' Conflicts With Labor Law

    A split D.C. Circuit panel said Tuesday that the National Labor Relations Board's practice of insulating unions from removal after businesses change hands defies federal labor law, applying a landmark 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that scaled back courts' deference to federal agencies.

  • July 20, 2026

    Panel Revives Malpractice Suit Against Criminal Defense Atty

    A Washington state appellate panel Monday revived legal malpractice claims against a public defense attorney who failed to correct an erroneous sentencing document that placed his client on supervised probation, when a plea deal instead called for unsupervised probation.

  • July 20, 2026

    NJ Court Backs Utility In Motorist's Tree-Fall Injury Suit

    A New Jersey man who suffered a "catastrophic" spinal cord injury after a tree fell on his car while driving cannot pursue damages against Jersey Central Power & Light Co., a state appeals court ruled Monday, saying utilities have no duty to cut vegetation to keep passing motorists safe.

  • July 20, 2026

    4th Circ. Upholds Conviction Despite Closed Court Testimony

    The Fourth Circuit on Monday ruled that a North Carolina man was given a fair trial even though the courtroom was temporarily closed after a witness believed someone in the audience was trying to intimidate them.

  • July 20, 2026

    10th Circ. Backs Debt Collector In FCRA Identity Theft Dispute

    A Georgia-based debt collection company does not have to face a $500,000 jury verdict that it failed to reasonably investigate a disputed debt involving identity theft, the Tenth Circuit ruled Monday, joining other circuits in holding that it's up to the consumer to show the underlying information was incorrect.

  • July 20, 2026

    Filing Delay Dooms Mother's Traffic Stop Suit, 6th Circ. Finds

    A split Sixth Circuit panel has dismissed a woman's civil rights lawsuit alleging a Nashville police officer illegally arrested her and lied that she led him on a car chase with her son in the car, finding she waited too long to sue even though prosecutors withheld dispatch recordings that supported her story for years.

  • July 20, 2026

    DOJ Hints Russian Court Ruling May Not Stop $5B Award

    The Trump administration on Monday urged the D.C. Circuit to closely evaluate a Russian court's determination that an underlying arbitration agreement is invalid as it weighs whether to enforce a nearly $5 billion arbitral award against the Kremlin, saying circumstances surrounding the ruling should be a factor.

  • July 20, 2026

    4th Circ. Overturns Class Cert. In Boeing Investor Case

    The Fourth Circuit on Monday reversed class certification granted in an investor lawsuit against Boeing over the company's alleged concealment of safety issues with its 737 Max fleet, finding that neither the plaintiffs nor the lower court met the standards for certification set in a 2013 Supreme Court ruling.

  • July 20, 2026

    9th Circ. Says Age-Based Groups Are Immutable In Asylum Bid

    The Ninth Circuit Monday revived the asylum bid of a Mexican mother and her children who escaped masked men, saying an immigration appeals panel disobeyed its own precedent when rejecting an age-based social group she based her petition on.

  • July 20, 2026

    Scientist Seeks To Enforce Journalist's 2024 Contempt Order

    Yanping Chen, a scientist who accused an FBI agent of leaking her confidential immigration records to former Fox News correspondent Catherine Herridge, is asking a D.C. federal judge to finally enforce a yearsold contempt order against Herridge now that the appeals process has run its course.

  • July 20, 2026

    Denver Strip Club Says Officer's Suit Taints Labor Appeal

    A Denver strip club Friday asked a state court judge to prohibit a Denver Labor hearing officer from presiding over its appeal challenging $14 million in fines stemming from wage theft allegations, claiming the hearing officer is biased and didn't fully disclose her professional relationship with the Denver Labor director who hired her.

  • July 20, 2026

    7th Circ. Backs Printing Co. In $265M ESOP Sale Fight

    The Seventh Circuit won't revive a lawsuit claiming a printing company's directors and employee stock ownership plan trustee illegally undersold the business into private equity for $265 million, saying a lower court made no clear errors in throwing out the case.

  • July 20, 2026

    Mass. Panel Says Competing Atty Fee Awards Can't Be Offset

    Massachusetts' intermediate-level appeals court Monday determined that a housing court was wrong to offset attorney fees awarded to a landlord against fees granted to the tenant on the other side of a housing dispute, finding the awards should be entered as separate judgments to preserve the lawyers' rights.

  • July 20, 2026

    NJ Justices Call Land Swap An Abuse Of Eminent Domain

    The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that a municipality violated state law and constitutional limits when it condemned two privately owned parcels of land to trade them to a developer, holding that the town never intended to put the seized properties to public use.

  • July 20, 2026

    4th Circ. Remands Models' Image-Misuse Coverage Fight

    An insurance company's coverage dispute with a Virginia Beach restaurant accused by a group of models of misappropriating their images was sent back to the district court Monday by the Fourth Circuit to determine if the lawsuit became moot when the restaurant settled with the models.

  • July 20, 2026

    Vanda's NDA Rejection Challenge Can't Be Heard At DC Court

    A D.C. federal judge has said he no longer has jurisdiction to hear Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s challenge alleging the FDA violated the Appointments Clause by allowing a non-officer to exercise "signatory authority" and reject its new drug application for tradipitant, since Vanda went to the D.C. Circuit raising the same argument already.

  • July 20, 2026

    3rd Circ. Clears Supplier Of Safety 'Duty' In Fatal Explosion

    The Third Circuit ruled in a precedential opinion Monday that an industrial equipment supplier did not have a duty to provide safety training to civilian workers who were killed or injured by an explosion in a paint-mixing facility at an army depot.

  • July 20, 2026

    Wis. Village Can't Void Tribal Land Trust Order, 7th Circ. Told

    The U.S. Department of the Interior is asking the Seventh Circuit to reject a Wisconsin village's appeal that seeks to undo the agency's decision to place 500 acres into trust for the Oneida Nation, arguing that the municipality can't overcome Congress' power to regulate Indian affairs.

  • July 20, 2026

    Insurers Seek Clarity On Arbitration Estoppel Rules

    Another group of insurers is pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether state or federal law applies when deciding whether a nonsignatory to an international arbitration agreement can force arbitration of a property damage coverage dispute, an issue they say is "of national and international importance."

  • July 20, 2026

    Grocery Chain To Shell Out $225K To Settle 401(k) Fee Suit

    A supermarket chain agreed to pay $225,000 to settle a proposed class action claiming the company allowed its 401(k) plan to be weighed down by excessive fees, according to a motion filed in New York federal court Monday.

  • July 20, 2026

    Ga. Appellate Court Affirms Contempt Order Against Atty

    The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed a state court's decision to hold a Georgia attorney in contempt of court for a late appearance at a hearing for his client's criminal case, rejecting the attorney's claims that he wasn't given due process and was discriminated against because he's Black.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Alpine Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Skiing has shaped habits I rely on daily as an attorney — focus, resilience and the ability to remain steady when circumstances shift rapidly — and influences the way I approach legal strategy, client counseling and teamwork, says Isaku Begert at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Opinion

    Time To Fix The Accountability Gap In Freight Logistics

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    In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport, the U.S. Supreme Court must resolve an urgent question: whether freight broker selection in trucking accidents is categorically protected — meaning unreasonable safety decisions are insulated from liability — or subject to accountability under traditional negligence principles, says Amanda Demanda at Amanda Demanda Injury Lawyers.

  • 2 Strands Of Patent Law In High Court's 'Skinny Label' Case

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    Amarin v. Hikma, which is set for oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this month, highlights the distinction between two different strands of intellectual property law — analogizing a patent to either a property deed or a home, says Jonas McDavit at Spencer West.

  • Justices' Geofence Ruling May Test 4th Amendment's Future

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court decides in Chatrie v. U.S. whether law enforcement may use geofence warrants to compel Google to disclose location history data, the ruling is likely to become an important statement about the future of Fourth Amendment law in data-driven investigations, says Duncan Levin at Levin & Associates.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1

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    In the first quarter of 2026, New York's banking developments were headlined by initiatives to expand oversight of financial institutions and strengthen consumer protection laws, including a new framework for buy now, pay later lenders, a sweeping debt collection rule and a revised corporate self-disclosure program for financial crimes, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Seeking A Policy Fix As Merger Reporting Fight Continues

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    A recently announced request by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for public comment on the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger reporting requirements, as litigation challenging the commission's updated requirements continues, suggests the government's willingness to address how best to support modern merger enforcement without unduly burdening filing parties, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • Opinion

    Wash. Amazon Ruling Should Reshape Suicide Liability

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    The Washington Supreme Court's reinstatement of negligence claims in Scott v. Amazon.com, brought by the families of people who died by suicide after purchasing chemicals online, signals a reckoning for digital commerce and the rejection of the defense that online marketplaces are merely passive technology platforms, says Donald Fountain at Clark Fountain.

  • Axed Trade Secret Award Cautions Against Bundling Damages

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    The Fifth Circuit's recent ruling in Trinseo v. Harper, vacating a $75 million jury verdict for trade secret misappropriation due to a bundled damages model, offers a strong reminder to apportion damages so a jury can award a nonspeculative figure when it credits only some alleged secrets, say attorneys at Seyfarth.

  • 2 Rulings Poke Holes In Mandatory Restitution Framework

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Ellingburg v. U.S., as well as the Third Circuit’s recent ruling in U.S. v. Abrams, provide criminal defense practitioners with new tools to challenge Mandatory Victims Restitution Act orders, and highlight several restitution-related issues that converged in the recent prosecution of former Frank CEO Charlie Javice, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl.

  • Pivotal 6th Circ. Ruling Threatens Decades Of NLRB Decisions

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    The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Brown-Forman v. National Labor Relations Board fundamentally challenged the NLRB's long-standing practice of establishing policies through adjudication rather than formal rulemaking, giving employers and unions a new avenue to procedurally attack the vast majority of its rules, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • What A Court Doc Audit Reveals About Erroneous Filings

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    My audit of 1,522 court documents from last month found that over 95% contained at least one verifiable error, with fewer than 1% showing clear indicators of artificial intelligence use — highlighting above all else that lawyers may want to focus most on strengthening their review processes, says Elliott Ash at ETH Zurich.

  • Exploring When Fraud Asset Freezes Limit Right To Pick Atty

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    The defendant’s claim in the Seventh Circuit’s pending U.S. v. Shah case that the government restrained his assets until he couldn’t afford his chosen counsel presents a useful case study in how criminal forfeiture procedure interacts with U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Sixth Amendment rights and appealing complex fraud convictions, says Elisha Kobre at Sheppard.

  • How Justices' GEO Ruling Resets Gov't Contractor Litigation

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent GEO Group v. Menocal decision, holding that government contractors cannot immediately exit cases via interlocutory appeals, may increase litigation costs, strengthen plaintiffs' leverage in settlement negotiations and dampen the government's ability to attract bids on high-risk or sensitive projects, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • Appellate Strategy Lessons From Pa. Excess Coverage Ruling

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    In FedEx v. National Union Fire Insurance, a Pennsylvania state court recently set forth a clear holding that policyholders may recover postjudgment interest under excess liability insurance policies only when the policy language expressly allows, offering important takeaways for planning appeals, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • Defense Counsel Options Widen As No-Bill Rate Increases

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    Citizens impaneled on grand juries in politically motivated cases who are reasserting their role as a critical check on state power could provide criminal defense attorneys an opportunity to pursue seldom-used preindictment strategies, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

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