California

  • November 07, 2025

    AI Startup CEO Gets 1-Year Sentence For $40M Fraud

    A California federal judge on Friday sentenced the founder of a company that purported to sell artificial intelligence-based business automation software to one year behind bars for defrauding investors in what the federal government called a "fake-it-til-you-make-it" scheme that never made it.

  • November 07, 2025

    Calif. Cannabis Co. Fights $10M IRS Bill In Tax Court

    A California company that manages cannabis operators challenged $10 million in taxes and penalties in the U.S. Tax Court, arguing the Internal Revenue Service stripped it of business deductions by incorrectly determining it trafficked in a controlled substance.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Pushed To Revive Suit Over $3.8B Failed Tech Merger

    A California federal judge erred in finding that investors in semiconductor company MaxLinear Inc. had no standing to sue it over what they say were misrepresentations about a $3.8 billion merger plan with chipmaker Silicon Motion Technology Corp., they told the Ninth Circuit in a bid to revive their suit.

  • November 07, 2025

    Block Says Cash App Probe, Bigger SF Tax Bill Could Cost It

    Jack Dorsey's fintech firm Block Inc. told investors that it may take a financial hit from a multistate probe into its mobile payments platform CashApp, and remains locked in a separate multimillion-dollar tax dispute with the County of San Francisco over its bitcoin sales.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Sides With Calif. In Tribal Cigarette Tax Fight

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday backed California in a dispute it brought to enforce cigarette taxes against a tobacco company owned and operated by a federally recognized Native American tribe, holding that the tribal leader defendants can't claim sovereign or qualified immunity exempts them from the federal tax law.

  • November 07, 2025

    Vegas Hotels Say 9th Circ. Shouldn't Rethink Price-Fixing Suit

    Several Las Vegas hotel operators, two software companies and Blackstone all told the Ninth Circuit to reject a rehearing petition for its August decision for a proposed price-fixing class action that accused hotel operators and Blackstone of conspiring to use the software companies' GuestRev software to set prices for Las Vegas hotel rooms.

  • November 07, 2025

    Shutdown, Funding Crisis Leave Federal Defenders Unpaid

    The record-long government shutdown has hindered an already dire funding situation for the federal defense community, but now the judiciary is working on requests to Congress to alleviate that.

  • November 07, 2025

    Mayer Brown Adds Goodwin Real Estate, Hospitality Trio In SF

    Mayer Brown LLP is boosting its West Coast team, bringing in a trio of Goodwin Procter LLP real estate and hospitality experts as partners in the firm's San Francisco office.

  • November 07, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Upholds PTAB Rulings Favoring Uber

    The Federal Circuit on Friday refused to restore claims in a pair of patents used to track individuals, leaving in place Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions that Uber showed the claims were invalid.

  • November 07, 2025

    Dorsey & Whitney Adds Real Estate Duo From Womble Bond

    Dorsey & Whitney LLP has expanded its Southern California team, bringing in two Womble Bond Dickinson real estate attorneys in its Orange County office in Costa Mesa.

  • November 06, 2025

    Consumers Sue Tilray Over Protein Claims In Hemp Product

    International cannabis lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company Tilray Brands Inc. was hit with a proposed class action in California federal court by a woman who claims it overstates the amount of protein consumers will get from eating its "Just Hemp" protein powder.

  • November 06, 2025

    Pair Of Health-Focused Startups Net $423M In Combined IPOs

    Two startups, spanning the diagnostics and biotechnology sectors, began trading on Thursday after raising a combined $423 million in initial public offerings, guided by three law firms, as more companies continue going public despite a historic government shutdown that has reduced staffing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • November 06, 2025

    Retailer Can't Force Arbitration Of False Pricing Class Claims

    A California federal judge Thursday rejected a bid by women's fashion brand Maggy London to arbitrate a proposed class action accusing it of advertising "phantom" price discounts on products sold on its website, finding that merely providing a link to the arbitration terms during the checkout process wasn't enough to form a binding agreement. 

  • November 06, 2025

    Cal Poly Athletes Rip NIL Deal For Impact On Women's Sports

    California Polytechnic State University athletes criticized the NCAA's $2.78 billion name, image and likeness settlement, telling a California federal judge during a hearing Thursday that it has harmed women's sports and caused inequitable cuts, while class counsel defended the deal, saying that it specifically preserves class members' Title IX rights.

  • November 06, 2025

    'Restore Coherence': Trump Admin Told To Fully Fund SNAP

    The Trump administration must fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in full this month, a Rhode Island federal judge ruled Thursday while admonishing the government for "entrenching delay" of benefits for the 42 million low-income Americans who rely on food assistance.

  • November 06, 2025

    PayPal Beats Antitrust Suit Over Merchant Rules Again

    PayPal has for a second time beat a proposed class action accusing it of illegally boosting online retail prices with restrictive merchant agreements, but the consumers have one more chance to amend.

  • November 06, 2025

    T-Mobile Fairly Canceled $27M In Phone Orders, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit isn't going to disturb a ruling tossing out a cellphone manufacturer's $27 million lawsuit against T-Mobile accusing it of reneging on purchase orders, after finding that the mobile behemoth had the right to unilaterally end their agreement.

  • November 06, 2025

    Attys Spar Over Dismissal Motion In Nurse Strike Pay Suit

    A Colorado federal judge on Thursday questioned the parties on both sides of a complaint in determining if it has enough details to move forward in the lawsuit from nearly 40 nurses who claim they were not properly paid while temporarily working at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California during a 2023 strike.

  • November 06, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs NLRB Ruling On Nurses' Pandemic Pay Fight

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed the National Labor Relations Board's order finding a trio of Southern California hospitals violated federal labor law by unilaterally implementing a COVID-19 pandemic pay program without first bargaining with a Service Employees International Union affiliate representing registered nurses and professional workers. 

  • November 06, 2025

    Ex-NBA Player Damon Jones Denies Role In Gambling Ruse

    Former NBA player and coach Damon Jones pled not guilty on Thursday in a pair of cases accusing him of participating in mob-connected, rigged poker games that cheated players out of millions of dollars and conspiring to impact outcomes of bets on NBA games.

  • November 06, 2025

    Tom Girardi's Brother, Bankruptcy Trustee Settle Legal Fees

    The brother of disgraced attorney Tom Girardi and the trustee for their now-defunct law firm, Girardi Keese, have reached an agreement resolving John Girardi's claim seeking legal fees for cases he worked on after leaving the firm, the trustee told the California bankruptcy court.

  • November 06, 2025

    Education Tech Co. Inks $5.1M Data Breach Deal With 3 AGs

    Technology company Illuminate Education Inc. will pay a total of $5.1 million to California, Connecticut and New York and strengthen its data security efforts after a breach in late 2021 and early 2022 exposed the information of millions of students to online hackers, the attorneys general of the three states announced Thursday.

  • November 06, 2025

    Meta Accused Of AI Copyright Theft By Entrepreneur Mag

    The owner of Entrepreneur magazine hit Meta Platforms Inc. with the latest suit accusing an artificial intelligence developer of infringing copyrighted material, telling a California federal court Thursday Meta "seeks to build a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence empire on a foundation of systematic and widespread copyright theft."

  • November 06, 2025

    Social Media Apps Must Face Jury After Section 230 Loss

    A California state judge refused Wednesday to grant social media companies summary judgment on claims their platforms harm young users' mental health, again rejecting arguments that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields them from liability, and sent three cases to bellwether trials, with the first to begin Jan. 27.

  • November 06, 2025

    AI-Powered Parking Lot Startup Metropolis Raises $1.6B

    Parking payments artificial intelligence company Metropolis Technologies Inc. on Thursday revealed that it reached a $5 billion valuation after raising $1.6 billion of debt and equity fundraising.

Expert Analysis

  • New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.

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    In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Influencer Marketing Partnerships Face Rising Litigation Risk

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    In light of recent class actions claiming that brands and influencers are misleading consumers with deceptive marketing practices — largely premised on the Federal Trade Commission's endorsements guidance — proactive compliance measures are becoming more important, say attorneys at Olshan Frome.

  • 7 Ways Employers Can Avoid Labor Friction Over AI

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    As artificial intelligence use in the workplace emerges as a key labor relations topic in the U.S. and Europe, employers looking to reduce reputational risk and prevent costly disputes should consider proactive strategies to engage with unions, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Trump Air Emissions Carveouts Cloud The Regulatory Picture

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    President Donald Trump's new proclamations temporarily exempting key U.S. industries from air toxics standards, issued under a narrow, rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act, will likely lead to legal challenges and tighter standards in some states, contributing to further regulatory uncertainty, say attorneys at GableGotwals.

  • Opinion

    DOJ's HPE-Juniper Settlement Will Help US Compete

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    The U.S. Department of Justice settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise clears the purchase of Juniper Networks in a deal that positions the U.S. as a leader in secure, scalable networking and critical digital infrastructure by requiring the divestiture of a WiFi network business geared toward small firms, says John Shu at Taipei Medical University.

  • Anthropic Ruling Creates Fair Use Framework For AI Training

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    A California federal court’s recent ruling that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its large language model qualified as fair use provides important guidance for both artificial intelligence developers and copyright holders because it distinguishes between transformative uses and unauthorized uses involving pirated or format-shifted works, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • How Property Insurers Serve As Climate Change Harbingers

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    Thomas Dawson at McDermott discusses the role that U.S. property insurers may play in identifying and assessing climate risk, as well as in financing climate change adaptation projects, in light of global warming and shifting geopolitical realities.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • APA Relief May Blunt Justices' Universal Injunction Ruling

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    The Administrative Procedure Act’s avenue for universal preliminary relief seems to hold the most promise for neutralizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA to limit federal district courts' nationally applicable orders, say attorneys at Crowell.

  • Managing Risks As State AGs Seek To Fill Enforcement Gap

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    Given an unprecedented surge in state attorney general activity resulting from significant shifts in federal enforcement priorities, companies must consider tailored strategies for navigating the ever-evolving risk landscape, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • Tips For Cos. From California Climate Reporting FAQ

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    New guidance from the California Air Resources Board on how businesses must implement the state's sweeping climate reporting requirements should help companies assess their exposure, understand their disclosure obligations and begin documenting good-faith compliance efforts, says Thierry Montoya at Frost Brown.

  • What Calif. Insurance Ruling Means For Smoke Damage Limits

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    As California continues to grapple with an increasing number of wildfire claims, a state court's recent Aliff v. California FAIR Plan decision serves as a clear directive to insurers that policy language that narrows the scope of fire coverage below the California Insurance Code's minimum standards is impermissible, say attorneys at Wood Smith.

  • How NJ's Proposed Privacy Rules Could Reshape AI Data Use

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    Although not revolutionary, New Jersey's proposed privacy rules would create obligations around the management and processing of consumer personal data that will require careful planning before they can be successfully implemented, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

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