California

  • August 31, 2026

    Tesla, Calif. Family Settle Suit Over Fatal Autopilot Crash

    Tesla has agreed to settle a suit alleging the automaker's autopilot technology and marketing of its self-driving capabilities contributed to a fatal 2023 crash that killed a driver and seriously injured his passenger, according to documents filed in California federal court.

  • August 31, 2026

    Paul Mitchell Urges 9th Circ. To Untangle False Ad Class

    Paul Mitchell urged the Ninth Circuit Monday to decertify a class of customers alleging the company deceptively concealed its animal testing in China while touting its U.S. haircare products as cruelty-free, arguing there's no evidence that all class members saw and relied on its cruelty-free labels before their purchases.

  • August 31, 2026

    Webinar Site Says Recorded Meetings Were Public

    A webinar site accused of secretly recording and posting private videoconferences online for profit told a California federal court Friday the "dissonance" required to assume the meetings are private is enough to end the proposed class action.

  • August 31, 2026

    Judge Says Risky Investments Wipe SVB's $1.7B FDIC Claim

    A California federal judge has ruled that a $1.7 billion claim by the parent of the failed Silicon Valley Bank against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is more than offset by the more than $5 billion the parent's reckless investment strategy cost the bank.

  • August 31, 2026

    9th Circ. Faults Notice Errors In Jamaican's Deportation Case

    A Jamaican citizen's due process rights were violated when the federal government failed to properly notify him about its appeals of decisions granting him withholding of removal, the Ninth Circuit ruled, noting that he's been in immigration detention since 2021.

  • August 31, 2026

    Law Firm's Calif. Claims Stayed Over AI Comms Co.'s NY Suit

    A California federal judge ruled that AI communications company Connex One cannot escape claims brought by a personal injury law firm alleging it faced harassment and threats of litigation after it declined to renew their contract, saying the case will be stayed until a New York lawsuit brought by Connex against the firm runs its course.

  • August 31, 2026

    Feds Say New USPS Mail-In Ballot Rule Isn't A 'Takeover'

    A new U.S. Postal Service rule compelling states to submit voters' names to the federal government and redesign envelopes in order to have mail-in ballots delivered in November imposes "modest" requirements and is not a "federal takeover of elections," the Trump administration told a Massachusetts federal judge in a weekend filing.

  • August 31, 2026

    Weil Adds Private Equity Attys From Dechert, Kirkland In SF

    Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP announced Monday that it has added two partners to its U.S. private equity group in San Francisco, including the former managing partner of Dechert LLP's office in the city.

  • August 28, 2026

    Meta's $17B Child Safety Deal Puts Heat On Congress To Act

    Meta's landmark $17.1 billion settlement of states' claims that it purposely addicted kids to social media mandates many of the safeguards increasingly being required by a growing patchwork of largely contested state child safety laws, boosting not only the profile of these measures but also the push for Congress to enact a more comprehensive fix.

  • August 28, 2026

    Judge Temporarily Nixes 'Arbitrary' Pauses On Diversity Visas

    A California federal judge Friday certified classes of diversity immigrant visa applicants affected by three Trump administration policies that froze immigrant visas and temporarily vacated the policies, agreeing with a Washington, D.C., federal judge who days ago found the policies arbitrary and capricious.

  • August 28, 2026

    25K Workers 'Out Of Luck': Feds Defend Layoffs At 9th Circ.

    The federal government Friday urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse a finding that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wrongfully fired 25,000 probationary workers shortly after President Donald Trump took office, arguing that the OPM was operating well within its statutory authority, the district court lacked jurisdiction, and the workers are "simply out of luck."

  • August 28, 2026

    Calif. Panel Upholds Win For Dentist In Fatal Trip-And-Fall Suit

    The deletion of surveillance footage showing a woman's fatal trip and fall outside a California dentist's office was not spoliation, a state appeals court ruled Friday, calling the erasure unintentional while upholding a lower court's order ending the wrongful death lawsuit.

  • August 28, 2026

    'Friday The 13th' Creators Say Game Publisher Hid Royalties

    Creators of the "Friday the 13th" franchise alleged in a Friday suit that a video game publisher withheld up to $4.5 million in royalties from sales of a "Friday the 13th" video game that it was licensed to distribute and destroyed reports that proved how much it owed.

  • August 28, 2026

    2nd Circ. Revives FCA Overpayment Suit Against Pharmacy

    A Second Circuit panel on Friday undid a whistleblower's loss on False Claims Act allegations that AmerisourceBergen Corp.'s pharmacy business owes the government money for overpayments from federal healthcare programs for drug purchases and other services.

  • August 28, 2026

    Apple Is Infringing 5G Tech Patents, Longhorn Affiliate Says

    Apple was hit with a patent suit in Texas federal court Friday by a Longhorn IP affiliate alleging the Silicon Valley tech behemoth is infringing its innovative 5G wireless technologies that are found in some of the defendant's iPhones and iPads.

  • August 28, 2026

    Md. Pot Co. Evermore Faces Bid To Confirm $1.98M Award

    A California-based capital advisory firm is urging a state court to enforce a $1.98 million arbitration award it scored against Evermore Cannabis Company, which was found to have intentionally dodged fees it promised to pay the firm as part of a contract that helped the marijuana cultivator secure loans.

  • August 28, 2026

    'Exemplary Performance' Earns Google Users' Attys $146.8M

    A California federal judge Friday awarded plaintiffs' attorneys $146.8 million in fees after they secured a $425 million jury verdict against Google LLC in a privacy class action covering about 98 million people, calling the one-third fee award "extraordinary" but justified given their "exemplary performance."

  • August 28, 2026

    Judge Wants Info On Effort To Return Deported Nigerian

    A California federal judge ordered the Trump administration Friday to explain how it is facilitating the return of a Nigerian citizen who was granted protection from being deported to Nigeria but who is now hiding in Togo after Ghanaian officials tried sending him to Nigeria.

  • August 28, 2026

    OpenAI Sued Again Over ChatGPT's Role In FSU Shooting

    Another survivor of the April 2025 shooting at Florida State University that killed two people and left five injured joined the pile of suits facing OpenAI over ChatGPT, saying in her own federal complaint that artificial intelligence fed the shooter's delusions and violence.

  • August 28, 2026

    Amazon Beats Calif. AG's 'Ill-Conceived' Injunction Bid

    A California judge refused to block what the state attorney general's office has cast as Amazon's coercive price-fixing imposed on Walmart, Target and others via major brands like Levi Strauss, critiquing enforcers for the "last-minute request" targeting conduct they have not shown is ongoing.

  • August 28, 2026

    Calif. Challenges Trump Admin's Offshore Wind Lease Buyout

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against the Trump administration and Golden State Wind LLC, claiming the government unlawfully used a $120 million buyout of the company's offshore wind energy lease to end the renewable energy project and facilitate fossil fuel development.

  • August 28, 2026

    9th Circ. Rules Against Kalshi In Sports Wager Circuit Split

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday backed a Nevada federal court decision that cleared the way for the state's gambling regulators to pursue Kalshi's sports offerings, creating a circuit split in the sprawling litigation over prediction market regulation.

  • August 28, 2026

    Feds Gain Ground In Energy Permit Turf War With States

    A federal judge's endorsement earlier this month of the Trump administration's restart of a pipeline over California's objections will likely embolden the federal government to override state opposition to energy project development, but the ruling won't be the last word on the legality of such moves.

  • August 28, 2026

    ITC Probes If Apple Stole Tech For Swapping Contact Info

    The U.S. International Trade Commission is investigating a claim that Apple's smart devices infringe a patent covering exchanges of contact information, but a judge will first determine whether the company bringing the claim has sufficient U.S. presence, the agency said Friday.

  • August 28, 2026

    Calif. County Judges Recuse From Bias Suit Against DA's Office

    The entire bench of a county court recused itself from a lawsuit alleging the San Francisco District Attorney's Office didn't take appropriate action when a Black employee reported a colleague's use of a racial slur, pushing the trial in the decade-old case to early October.

Expert Analysis

  • Looking Beyond Calif. Climate Laws As NY Bills Advance

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    California's climate disclosure legislation has made emissions and risk reporting a practical reality — and now that New York is working on its own climate disclosure bills, companies must confront a future in which compliance systems will need to be ready for multiple states' reporting regimes, says Thierry Montoya at FBT Gibbons.

  • 5 Rules In 10 Weeks: Inside Genius Act's Implementation Blitz

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    Regulators have proposed five Genius Act rules in a striking span of 10 weeks, building a stablecoin framework that, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency at its operational center, will shape oversight and force issuers, banks and fintechs to take action as deadlines approach, say attorneys at Cahill.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • A Framework For Habeas Relief After 5th Circ. Bond Ruling

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    Following the Fifth Circuit’s recent Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi decision foreclosing statutory bond for detained nonimmigrants not deemed admitted to the U.S., lawyers should adopt a framework that requests habeas relief pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • Startup Founder Disputes Increasingly Turn On Governance

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    Recent Delaware developments suggest that as courts place increasing emphasis on board process, independence and oversight in founder-led startups, the growing intersection of governance, technology risk and investor oversight is accelerating both the emergence and escalation of founder disputes, says mediator Frank Burke.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Sentencing Tips For Defending Crypto Conspiracy Cases

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    The sentencing of Evan Tangeman to 70 months in federal prison for laundering money in a cryptocurrency conspiracy illustrates that defense attorneys representing clients in multidefendant crypto cases need to understand the mechanics of conspiracy liability, loss attribution and restitution exposure before they reach the sentencing table, says Joseph De Gregorio at Sentencing Advocacy.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Nexstar Offers A Cautionary Tale On State-Level Deal Scrutiny

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    State-enforcement challenges to the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger remind legal practitioners that federal approval isn't always sufficient to deliver certainty on closing, integration and timetable assumptions, says Brett Story at Britehorn Securities.

  • How 'Bundling' Enforcement Is Parsing Efficiency, Access

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    Recent antitrust enforcement actions have taken a selective view of companies' bundling of products or services — challenging it when it shuts out rivals, but tolerating it when it creates efficient scale — making the real test now less about lower prices than about whether competition is being blocked, says attorney Alan Kusinitz.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

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    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • Operational AI Washing: A New Securities Class Action

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    In rising claims of operational AI washing — plaintiffs alleging that artificial intelligence was invoked to explain corporate business decisions in ways that may obscure underlying financial distress — earnings calls, restructuring disclosures and board-level communications will serve as key defense evidence, say attorneys at Akerman.

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