Appellate

  • May 27, 2025

    DC Circ. Backs FERC In NY Grid Upgrade Cost Fight

    The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's refusal to allow New York utilities to earn investment returns from grid upgrades, saying the agency reasonably concluded that shifting from the current nonprofit approach was unwarranted.

  • May 27, 2025

    6th Circ. Urged To Revive FedEx, Kellogg Pension Suits

    FedEx and Kellogg retirees urged the Sixth Circuit to revive two proposed class actions alleging their ex-employers' use of outdated actuarial assumptions shortchanged the value of their pension annuity benefits, arguing that definitions of the term "actuarial equivalent" from the time federal benefits law was enacted supported their appeals.

  • May 27, 2025

    Split 5th Circ. Tosses NLRB's 12-Year-Old Back Pay Order

    A split Fifth Circuit panel has denied the National Labor Relations Board's request to enforce a 2013 back pay order against a Louisiana plumbing company, with the majority saying it's unfair to make a mom-and-pop shop that's recovering from two floods pay out roughly $100,000 over a decade-old matter.

  • May 27, 2025

    Philly Atty Suspended 3 Years For Sexual Conduct With Client

    Philadelphia personal injury lawyer Brian Dooley Kent has been suspended from the practice of law for three years for engaging in sexual conduct with a client he represented while investigating claims against the Church of Scientology.

  • May 27, 2025

    Justices Will Consider Judges' Limits Under First Step Act

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear arguments in a case that could determine how much discretion trial judges have when considering whether to reduce defendants' sentences under the First Step Act.

  • May 27, 2025

    Tesla Asks Delaware Justices To Slash $176M Class Atty Fee

    Attorneys for Tesla Inc. have told Delaware's Supreme Court that counsel for stockholders who secured a disputed $735 million in savings from director cash and options rollbacks deserve less than the $176.2 million fee awarded the team.

  • May 27, 2025

    Fla. Justices Urged To Stop Agency's Prosecution 'Overreach'

    A man accused of election fraud has filed his opening brief with the Florida Supreme Court over claims that the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution doesn't have the authority to pursue the charges against him, calling the organization a "creature of limited jurisdiction."

  • May 27, 2025

    Winston & Strawn Adds McDermott Supreme Court Co-Head

    Winston & Strawn LLP has hired the former co-leader of McDermott Will & Emery LLP's U.S. Supreme Court and appellate practice, who has represented a range of clients before appellate courts throughout the country for more than 15 years, the firm announced Tuesday.

  • May 27, 2025

    NC Justices Say Insured's Failure To Read Doesn't Bar Claim

    North Carolina's highest court found a homeowner isn't barred from suing an insurance agency for negligence over false answers on a property insurance application even though he never read the document, saying context bears on his culpability.

  • May 27, 2025

    Fla. Biz Owner Missed Tax Appeal Deadline, 11th Circ. Told

    The owner of a Florida marketing business who failed to report millions of dollars in income to the Internal Revenue Service missed the deadline to appeal U.S. Tax Court rulings sustaining the related taxes, the U.S. government told the Eleventh Circuit.

  • May 27, 2025

    High Court Passes On Axed $563M BMO Harris Ponzi Verdict

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review the Eighth Circuit's decision to strike down a $563 million jury verdict against BMO Harris NA over claims that a bank it acquired had aided and abetted Thomas J. Petters' multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

  • May 27, 2025

    Justices Deny Food Wrapping Co.'s Prior Art Petition

    The owner of invalidated food wrapping patents failed to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to review its allegations that the Federal Circuit wrongly presumes prior art is always enabled.

  • May 27, 2025

    Justices Skip Law Firm's TM Appeal Over Rival's Google Ads

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an appeal from personal injury law firm Lerner & Rowe PC to review a Ninth Circuit decision that a rival did not infringe its trademarks by using the firm's name in keyword advertising with Google.

  • May 27, 2025

    High Court Won't Hear Apache's Bid To Undo Mining Decision

    The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up a challenge by an Apache nonprofit that seeks to undo the federal government's transfer of nearly 2,500 acres of land to an Arizona copper mining company, a decision that could ultimately decide the fate of a centuries-old Indigenous worship site.

  • May 23, 2025

    Law360 Reveals Titans Of The Plaintiffs Bar

    This past year, a handful of attorneys secured billions of dollars in settlements and judgments for both classes and individual plaintiffs against massive companies and organizations like Facebook, Dell, the National Association of Realtors, Johnson & Johnson, UFC and Credit Suisse, earning them recognition as Law360's Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar for 2025.

  • May 23, 2025

    9th Circ. Mulls 'Two John Smiths' In Classmates.com Class

    Ninth Circuit judges Friday scrutinized a vast class of Californians whose identities were allegedly misappropriated by yearbooks platform Classmates.com, discussing ways to distinguish people with the same names and the case's implications for internet search giants — as well as how one judge's class of '62 yearbook might be a small part of the litigation.

  • May 23, 2025

    USPTO Asks Fed. Circ. To Deny Both VLSI, OpenSky In IP Row

    The acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday stepped into a patent review dispute between VLSI Technology and OpenSky Industries at the Federal Circuit following a $2.18 billion jury verdict against Intel Corp., urging the appellate court to reject both sides' arguments.

  • May 23, 2025

    5th Circ. Sides With Texas Library In Book Ban Redo

    The Fifth Circuit gave a green light for a Texas public library to toss several books that deal with topics such as sexuality and racism, labeling the arguments challenging the library's decision to remove the challenged literature as "over-caffeinated" in a Friday en banc opinion.

  • May 23, 2025

    Group Asks 5th Circ. To Clarify Freight Broker Negligence

    Truck safety advocates asked the Fifth Circuit on Friday to preserve state-law personal-injury claims against freight brokers, weighing in on a dispute that alleges Penske Logistics LLC is liable for negligently hiring an unsafe motor carrier that caused a fatal 2018 accident in Texas.

  • May 23, 2025

    Mid-Deliberation Juror Swap Constitutional, NC Justices Rule

    The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday reinstated a murder conviction after finding that the substitution of an alternate juror in the middle of deliberations was acceptable under state law.

  • May 23, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Lifts Stay Against MSN In Entresto Appeal

    The Federal Circuit won't make a Delaware federal judge hold off on entering a judgment that would stop MSN Pharmaceuticals from having its generic version of Novartis' blockbuster cardiovascular drug Entresto approved, saying Friday that MSN hasn't pled its case convincingly.

  • May 23, 2025

    Texas Nonprofits Can Be Sued For Doc Med Mal, Justices Rule

    The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that nonprofit health organizations can be sued for the alleged medical malpractice of one of their physician employees, in a dispute over an allegedly botched brain surgery.

  • May 23, 2025

    NC Judge Censured For Drunken Driving With His Child In Car

    The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday censured a state judge after he was found guilty of drunken driving with his minor daughter in the vehicle, calling the discipline the "minimum acceptable consequence" for the judge's wrongdoing.

  • May 23, 2025

    2nd Circ. Rejects Novel Short-Swing Trading Theory

    Controlling shareholders who sell stock at a time when their company is conducting a share repurchase program cannot be sued to recoup so-called short-swing profits, the Second Circuit said in rejecting a novel legal theory Friday.

  • May 23, 2025

    10th Circ. To Weigh Tribal Sovereignty In Casino Land Dispute

    Officials for the Fort Sill Apache Tribe have asked the Tenth Circuit to reverse a lower court's partial denial of their bid to dismiss the Comanche Nation's lawsuit seeking to shut down an FSA casino that the Nation claims is on its historical reservation.

Expert Analysis

  • The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • The Future Of ALJs At NLRB And DOL Post-Jarkesy

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    In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Jarkesy ruling, several ongoing challenges to the constitutionality of the U.S. Department of Labor's and the National Labor Relations Board's administrative law judges have the potential to significantly shape the future of administrative tribunals, say attorneys at Wiley Rein.

  • The Tides Are Changing For Fair Access Banking Laws

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    The landscape of fair access banking laws, which seek to prevent banks from denying services based on individuals' ideological beliefs, has shifted in the last few years, but a new presidential administration provides renewed momentum for advancing such legislation against the backdrop of state efforts, say attorneys at Latham.

  • Imagine The Possibilities Of Openly Autistic Lawyering

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    Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law, who was diagnosed with autism about midway through her career, discusses how the legal profession can create inclusive workplaces that empower openly autistic lawyers and enhance innovation, and how neurodivergent attorneys can navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with disclosing one’s diagnosis.

  • Top 10 Healthcare And Life Sciences Issues To Watch In 2025

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    Under the new Trump administration, this coming year may benefit some healthcare and life sciences stakeholders, while creating new challenges for others amid an increasingly complex regulatory environment, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Disciplinary Rule Updates Every Texas Lawyer Needs To Know

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    Sweeping amendments to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct that recently went into effect provide essential clarity and modernity to rules governing conflicts of interest, client confidentiality and duties to prospective clients, says Robert Tobey at Johnston Tobey.

  • Parsing 3rd Circ. Ruling On Cannabis, Employee Private Suits

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    The Third Circuit recently upheld a decision that individuals don't have a private right of action for alleged violations of New Jersey's Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act, but employers should stay informed as the court encouraged the state Legislature to amend the law, say attorneys at Mandelbaum Barrett.

  • Perspectives

    How High Court May Rule In First Step Act Resentencing Case

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    U.S. Supreme Court justices grappled with verb tenses and statutory intent in recent oral arguments in Hewitt v. U.S., a case involving an anomalous resentencing issue under the First Step Act, and though they may hold that the statute is unambiguous, they could also decide the case on narrow, practical grounds, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • Series

    Documentary Filmmaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Becoming a documentary filmmaker has allowed me to merge my legal expertise with my passion for storytelling, and has helped me to hone negotiation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are important to both endeavors, says Robert Darwell at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Litigation Funding Disclosure Debate: Strategy Considerations

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    In the ongoing debate over whether courts should require disclosure of litigation funding, funders and plaintiffs tend to argue against such mandates, but voluntarily disclosing limited details about a funding arrangement can actually confer certain benefits to plaintiffs in some scenarios, say Andrew Stulce and Marc Cavan at Longford Capital.

  • Discretionary Compensation Lessons From 7th Circ. Ruling

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    The Seventh Circuit’s recent ruling in Das v. Tata established that contract disclaimers don't automatically bar claims under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, underscoring the limits of compensation systems that purport to grant employers unilateral discretion, say attorneys at Schoenberg Finkel.

  • Gas Contract Fight Holds Lessons On Force Majeure Clauses

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    Ongoing litigation over gas deliveries during Winter Storm Uri underscores the need for precision and foresight when negotiating force majeure clauses in contracts — particularly in the energy sector, where climate-related disruptions and market volatility are inevitable, but often unpredictable, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

  • Justices Likely To Stay In ERISA's Bounds On Pleadings

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    The arguments in Cunningham v. Cornell showed the U.S. Supreme Court's willingness to resolve a circuit split regarding Employee Retirement Income Security Act pleading standards by staying within ERISA's confines, while instructing courts regarding what must be pled to survive a motion to dismiss, says Ryan Curtis at Fennemore Craig.

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