Appellate

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and Kellogg retirees urged the Sixth Circuit to revive two proposed class actions alleging their ex-employers' use of outdated actuarial assumptions shortchanged the value of their pension annuity benefits, arguing that definitions of the term "actuarial equivalent" from the time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

  • May 23, 2025

    Westlaw AI Win Right But Appellate Review Wise, Judge Says

    A Delaware federal judge Friday voiced confidence in his ruling that tech startup Ross Intelligence infringed copyrighted material from Thomson Reuters' Westlaw platform to create a competing legal research tool powered by artificial intelligence, but explained that granting interlocutory appeal on two questions will help resolve the case more efficiently.

Expert Analysis

  • Strategies To Limit Inherent Damage Of Multidefendant Trials

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    As shown by the recent fraud convictions of two executives at the now-shuttered education startup Frank, multidefendant criminal trials pose unique obstacles, but with some planning, defense counsel can mitigate the harm and maximize the chances of a good outcome, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.

  • Patent Takeaways In Fed. Circ.'s 1st Machine Learning Ruling

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Recentive Analytics v. Fox, a case of first impression affirming the invalidity of patents that applied general machine learning methods to conventional tasks, serves as a cautionary guide for patent practitioners navigating the complexities of machine learning inventions, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

  • AT&T Decision May Establish Framework To Block FCC Fines

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    The Fifth Circuit's recent decision in AT&T v. FCC upends the commission's authority to impose certain civil penalties, reinforcing constitutional safeguards against administrative overreach, and opening avenues for telecommunications and technology providers to challenge forfeiture orders, say attorneys at HWG.

  • Series

    Playing Guitar Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a lawyer not only requires logic and hard work, but also belief, emotion, situational awareness and lots of natural energy — playing guitar enhances all of these qualities, increasing my capacity to do my best work, says Kosta Stojilkovic at Wilkinson Stekloff.

  • Crisis Management Lessons From The Parenting Playbook

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    The parenting skills we use to help our kids through challenges — like rehearsing for stressful situations, modeling confidence and taking time to reset our emotions — can also teach us the fundamentals of leading clients through a corporate crisis, say Deborah Solmor at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and Cara Peterman at Alston & Bird.

  • High Court's Ruling May Not Stop Ghost Gun Makers

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    In Bondi v. VanDerStok, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Gun Control Act applies to untraceable "ghost gun" kits under certain circumstances — but companies that produce these kits may still be able to use creative regulatory workarounds to evade government oversight, says Samuel Bassett at Minton Bassett.

  • Justices' Labcorp Questions Explore Class Cert. Tensions

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    At the recent oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Davis, the justices' questioning highlighted a fundamental tension between constitutional standing requirements, the procedural framework of Rule 23, and the practical challenges of managing large, diverse classes in complex litigation, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

  • Immunity Waiver Ruling A Setback For Ch. 7 Trustees

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    While governmental units should welcome the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in U.S. v. Miller restricting the reach of the Bankruptcy Code's sovereign immunity waiver, Chapter 7 trustees now have a limited ability to maximize bankruptcy estates, says Dan Prieto at Jones Day.

  • Wash. Justices' Moonlight Ruling Should Caution Employers

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    The Washington Supreme Court's recent decision in David v. Freedom Vans, which limited when employers can restrict low-wage workers from moonlighting, underscores the need for employers to narrowly tailor restrictive covenants, ensuring that they are reasonable and allow for workforce mobility, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • What To Watch For As High Court Mulls NRC's Powers

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    If successful, Texas’ challenges to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority — recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and currently pending before a Texas federal court — may have serious adverse consequences for aspiring NRC licensees, including potential nuclear power plant operators, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From NY Fed To BigLaw

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    While the move to private practice brings a learning curve, it also brings chances to learn new skills and grow your network, requiring a clear understanding of how your skills can complement and contribute to a firm's existing practice, and where you can add new value, says Meghann Donahue at Covington.

  • Calif. Smoke Claim Ruling Gives Insurers Support On Denials

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    Far from being an outlier among ash, soot and smoke coverage cases, a California appellate court's recent opinion in Gharibian v. Wawanesa General Insurance reinforces the principle that policyholders must establish entitlement to coverage as a threshold matter, while supporting denials of coverage for meritless claims, says Kyle Espinola at Zelle.

  • Cos. Face Enviro Justice Tug-Of-War Between States, Feds

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    The second Trump administration's sweeping elimination of environmental justice policies, programs and funding, and targeting of state-level EJ initiatives, creates difficult questions for companies on how best to avoid friction with federal policy, navigate state compliance obligations and maintain important stakeholder relationships with communities, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Top 3 Litigation Finance Deal-Killers, And How To Avoid Them

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    Like all transactions, litigation finance deals can sometimes collapse, but understanding the most common reasons for failure, including a lack of trust or a misunderstanding of deal terms, can help both parties avoid problems, say Rebecca Berrebi at Avenue 33 and Boris Ziser at Schulte Roth.

  • 5th Circ. Ruling Is Latest Signal Of Shaky Qui Tam Landscape

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    In his recent concurring opinion in U.S. v. Peripheral Vascular Associates, a Fifth Circuit judge joined a growing list of jurists suggesting that the False Claims Act's whistleblower provisions are unconstitutional, underscoring that acceptance of qui tam relators can no longer be taken for granted, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.

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