California

  • August 14, 2026

    'You're Not Ready': Judge Warns Tesla, Agency Of Sanctions

    A California state judge presiding over the California Civil Rights Department's lawsuit alleging Tesla fostered racism at its Fremont factory admonished both parties Friday for violating orders and being unprepared for an upcoming bench trial, telling counsel, "Frankly I'm ready to start lobbing sanctions against every person in this room."

  • August 14, 2026

    9th Circ. Says Film Industry Pension Fight Needs 2nd Look

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday revived a set designer's suit claiming that the board of the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans stood by while certain investment funds underperformed year over year, ruling a lower court should reassess whether the board acted imprudently under a clarified legal standard.

  • August 14, 2026

    9th Circ. Revives Bid For 15 Alaska Tribal Health Docs

    A Ninth Circuit panel has revived a request for 15 documents related to internal investigations and governance reforms from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, finding that the district court abused its discretion and the case is not moot because it's uncontested that the information hasn't yet been viewed.

  • August 14, 2026

    Calif. Tribe Failed To Show Harm Over 40-Acre Land Transfer

    A California tribe can't block the U.S. Department of the Interior from transferring 40 acres into trust for a fellow tribe's casino project, a D.C. district court judge has determined, saying action on the contested land isn't imminent and there's no demonstrable irreparable harm.

  • August 14, 2026

    Orrick Hires New Global Capital Markets Head From Kirkland

    Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP has hired a new global head of capital markets from Kirkland & Ellis LLP and is bringing on another capital markets partner from the firm later this month.

  • August 14, 2026

    Goodwin, DLA Piper Guide Dynatrace's $915M Arize Deal

    Goodwin Procter LLP and DLA Piper are advising Dynatrace and Arize, respectively, on Dynatrace's $915 million planned acquisition of the artificial intelligence observability company.

  • August 14, 2026

    FBT Gibbons Adds Wells Fargo Senior Litigator In Calif.

    FBT Gibbons LLP has grown its financial services and litigation capabilities in California with the addition of a litigator who previously worked in-house at Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab.

  • August 13, 2026

    XAI Can't Send Grok User's Privacy Suit To Texas, Judge Says

    Elon Musk's xAI lost its bid to have a Grok user's proposed privacy class action sent to Texas, after a California federal judge ruled Thursday that Grok's platform, including its sign-up and chat screens, doesn't give reasonably conspicuous notice of its terms containing a mandatory forum selection clause. 

  • August 13, 2026

    Baby Food Cos. Near Ax Of Some ADHD, Autism Claims

    A California federal judge indicated on Thursday that she would grant summary judgment to a significant swath of claims in multidistrict litigation alleging lead and arsenic in baby food from Gerber, Beech-Nut, Walmart and others contributed to children's ADHD and autism, which follows her previous ruling that the plaintiffs' causation evidence was too unreliable.

  • August 13, 2026

    DirecTV Says Tegna Board Issue Proves Injunction Is Needed

    DirecTV is pointing the Ninth Circuit toward a recent court order clarifying that when a federal judge told Nexstar and Tegna to remain separate while a challenge to their $6.2 billion merger plays out, that also meant they weren't allowed to put Nexstar execs on Tegna's board of directors.

  • August 13, 2026

    Supreme Court's Apple App Store Pause Lifted After 24 Hours

    Following the expiration of a roughly 24-hour pause on the App Store dispute between Apple and Epic Games, Apple put a 15% commission on the table Thursday to try to comply with a mandate forcing it to dramatically cut what it charges for App Store sales.

  • August 13, 2026

    'Anticompetitive Friction': Google Must Fix App Store Search

    A California federal judge Thursday ordered Google LLC to streamline the steps for Android users to find rival app stores as part of his court-ordered remedies in antitrust litigation won by Epic Games Inc. against Google, saying the current user process includes "anti-competitive friction" to discourage competition.

  • August 13, 2026

    Quinoa Product Has Barely Any Quinoa, Suit Says

    Seeds of Change, an organic brand under food giant Mars Inc., is accused of tricking customers into paying inflated prices for an organic quinoa product when the item in question doesn't really have much edible seed in it, in a proposed class action filed Wednesday in California federal court.

  • August 13, 2026

    Customers Can't Depose Google, Apple CEOs, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit has denied a group of consumers' petition for writ of mandamus challenging a lower court's order rejecting their repeated requests to depose Google's and Apple's CEOs and several other executives in antitrust litigation alleging the search engine giant shut out competitors.

  • August 13, 2026

    Netlist Targets Micron, HPE After Huge Samsung IP Deal

    Netlist Inc. has filed a new U.S. International Trade Commission complaint accusing Micron and three other companies of infringing multiple memory patents with their imports, less than two weeks after the patent owner announced a nearly $1 billion licensing deal with Samsung over the same technology.

  • August 13, 2026

    Calif. Judge OKs $57M Deal On Former Navy Site's Cleanup

    A California federal judge has approved a $57 million settlement between the U.S. government and Tetra Tech EC Inc., resolving claims that the company billed the Navy for radiation cleanup work at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard that it never performed.

  • August 13, 2026

    ICE Again Ordered To Fix 'Inhumane' Adelanto Detention Site

    A California federal judge on Wednesday once again ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to improve conditions at its Adelanto detention facility in the Mojave Desert, pointing to "severe and inhumane deficiencies" in necessities including access to safe food and water and sanitary living conditions.

  • August 13, 2026

    9th Circ. Revives $140M Robo-Surgery Antitrust Case

    The Ninth Circuit on Thursday revived a surgical instrument repair company's antitrust suit accusing the makers of the da Vinci surgical robot of illegally blocking third parties from repairing its instruments, ruling that a district judge erred in applying the U.S. Supreme Court's Kodak factors to the dispute.

  • August 13, 2026

    3 Firms Guide Defense Tech Co. Aevex's $650M BlackSea Buy

    U.S. defense technology company Aevex Corp. said it has agreed to purchase BlackSea Technologies in a deal valued at about $650 million, with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Crowell & Moring LLP advising Aevex and Cooley LLP representing BlackSea.

  • August 13, 2026

    State Farm Attys Admit Filing Motions Full Of AI Hallucinations

    A law firm representing State Farm has admitted that its pretrial motions contained citations to nonexistent cases and legal quotes, errors that were seemingly "hallucinations" generated by AI software designed for lawyers and caught by the plaintiff's attorneys as they prepared for trial in a California state court case about fire damage coverage.

  • August 13, 2026

    Festival Director Must Face Suit Over Drakeo's Killing

    The festival director of a concert where rapper Drakeo the Ruler was killed backstage cannot escape a consolidated wrongful death suit brought by the artist's family and associates, with a Los Angeles judge ruling Thursday that a triable issue of material fact remains regarding the entity's role at the event.

  • August 13, 2026

    DHS Defends Building New ICE Facility In Silicon Valley

    The federal government fired back in California federal court Wednesday against a bid by California and Santa Clara County to block a planned ICE office and temporary holding facility in Silicon Valley, arguing that the project's alleged environmental, health and safety impacts are speculative and unsupported.

  • August 13, 2026

    DOJ's HPE Merger Settlement Approved Over State Objections

    A California federal judge approved a controversial settlement struck by the U.S. Department of Justice to end a case challenging Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks, despite concerns from state enforcers about political influence in the settlement process.

  • August 13, 2026

    States Say DOT Illegally Sought 17M CDL Driver Records

    A group of 21 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia accused the Trump administration on Thursday of illegally pressuring a nonprofit commercial driver database operator to hand over millions of Social Security numbers for immigration enforcement by threatening to cut funding for noncompliance.

  • August 13, 2026

    Lilly Claims 6 Vendors Illegally Sold Obesity Drug Candidate

    Eli Lilly & Co. hit a medical spa business, compounding pharmacy and a group of chemical suppliers with claims they're illegally selling an obesity drug candidate Lilly is researching, telling California and Texas federal courts the alleged "black market" sales threaten public health.

Expert Analysis

  • Asylum Ruling Signals Larger Separation Of Powers Battle

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado that border officials may turn away asylum-seekers without inspection is part of a broader conversation about the reach of institutional safeguards that subject governmental authority to legal constraint, says Dree Collopy at American University's Washington College of Law.

  • Solar's Momentum At Mid-2026 Will Help It Overcome Snags

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    The rapid expansion of U.S. solar development in the first half of 2026 is likely to continue its pace, even amid ongoing shifts in federal trade policy and supply chain regulations, obstacles to permitting reform, and an increasing divide between states enacting policies to encourage or stymie project development, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

  • Carbon Health Settlement Highlights Why Evidence Is Key

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    The California Attorney General's Office's first-of-its-kind settlement with Carbon Health, imposing penalties for alleged corporate practice of medicine violations, shows that friendly professional corporation challenges usually hinge not on the parties' management services agreement, but on whether the operational record matches it, says Ben Dubin at VC Expert Services.

  • Series

    Being A Magician Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I've developed as a lifelong magician have translated directly into tangible benefits in the courtroom because performing magic and trying cases both live at the intersection of psychology, storytelling, timing and disciplined rehearsal, says Mark Dombroff at Fox Rothschild.

  • How Litigants Are Testing Conversion Therapy Ruling's Scope

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    Litigants are already using the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Chiles v. Salazar ruling, which applied strict scrutiny to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, to challenge laws limiting algorithmic rental pricing, artificial intelligence-based discrimination and anti-union employer speech, and courts must soon decide Chiles’ First Amendment limits, say attorneys at O'Melveny.

  • Illinois Audit Law Will Make AI Clauses Actually Enforceable

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    A law recently enacted in Illinois creates a first-in-the-nation requirement for artificial intelligence developers to undergo annual audits, providing objective standards that can be incorporated into private contracts and addressing the problem of defining responsible AI use, says William Tanenbaum at Moses & Singer.

  • Opinion

    Shareholder Derivative Litigation Needs A Better Framework

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    Uncoordinated, multiforum shareholder derivative litigation is a growing issue for corporate defendants that have little to no recourse for organizing and consolidating actions, but several commonsense steps should be utilized to preempt such disputes, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • Occupier Contract Strategies For Locking In Expansion Rights

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    In a market defined by record-setting demand, shrinking availability and rising rents, large commercial office occupiers must treat expansion space planning as a strategic priority, including by auditing existing rights, understanding the competitive landscape within their buildings and exploring creative lease provisions, says Josh Winefsky at HSF Kramer.

  • How State, Local Rules Are Expanding Debt Collection Reach

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    Consumer protection rules recently enacted by several states signal that the rules of debt collection are being rewritten at a pace that should command the attention of every creditor, servicer, debt buyer, collection agency and collection law firm operating across state lines, says Weldianne Scales at Reed Smith.

  • 2 AI Washing Rulings Apply Familiar Securities Fraud Rules

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    Two recent federal court decisions to allow AI washing complaints to proceed begin to clarify the line between nonactionable optimism and actionable misstatements by framing the core issue as not overstating the promise of artificial intelligence, but misrepresenting the current state of a company's products, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • A New Regulatory Environment For PE In Calif. Healthcare

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    The California Office of Health Care Affordability's proposed revisions to its cost and market impact review regulations, amid broader state scrutiny of private equity-backed healthcare arrangements, represent a qualitative shift in California's regulatory posture toward institutional healthcare investment, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • CFIUS' Mandate Misses Foreign Risk In Project Subcontracts

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    Recent calls for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review equity transactions like the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. deal miss a consequential oversight gap — CFIUS' inability to review the subcontracting layer of U.S. infrastructure projects, says Thibaut Giret at Alstef Group.

  • AI Governance Tips For Avoiding Securities Suits

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    A recent securities class action in California federal court against lending platform Upstart highlights how statements about artificial intelligence are increasingly being scrutinized not only by regulators, but also by shareholders, meaning companies should ensure oversight frameworks keep pace with the technology, say attorneys at Akerman.

  • How Cos. Can Prep For Ultra-Processed Food Legal Risks

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    A wave of litigation and government scrutiny directed against ultra-processed foods is now gaining momentum, following patterns seen previously in other industries — and food companies that recognize those patterns early will be better positioned to manage the increasing risks, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Series

    Bass Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Landing a trophy striped bass and closing a big deal both require cultivating the patience to finesse — not force — your way to desired outcomes, changing course when your old approach isn’t working and learning from the ones that got away, says Jon Ruiss at Alston & Bird.

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