Expert Analysis

• Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons

  

  In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses six recent rulings involving pecuniary loss in false price comparison advertising, privity in an insurance fee class, antitrust standing, immigration class representatives, retirement beneficiary class commonality, and Rule 23(f) appeals in Fair Labor Standards Act claims.

• Wireless Patent Suits Offer Lessons For Data Center Industry

  

  As the data center patent litigation wave begins to crest, the industry can gain insight into what's to come by looking to the wireless and telecommunications industries, giving operators and suppliers concrete reasons to revisit their agreements and establish clear allocations of patent risk, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

• 4 Tips On Expert Gatekeeping From J&J Talc Deal

  

  Johnson & Johnson's successful campaign to exclude plaintiff-side oncologist testimony about whether its talcum powder caused ovarian cancer, which prompted the recent resolution of 70,000 claims, offers lessons on how product liability defendants can reshape risk calculation by rigorously applying expert admissibility rules, say attorneys at Hollingsworth.

• Tracking Texas: When A Promissory Note Is Not A Security

  

  The Texas Business Court's recent application of the so-called family-resemblance test in Thompson v. Anchor Capital offers a useful road map for Texas business owners and lenders navigating the intersection of commercial lending and securities law and determining when promissory notes can be classified as securities, say attorneys at Greenberg Traurig.

• Series

  Playing Bid Whist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  As a child, I viewed bid whist as a family tradition and a source of friendly card game competition, but as a lawyer, I see it as a tool that has helped me cultivate skills like communication, teamwork, risk assessment and composure, says Keyonn Pope at Riley Safer.

• FCC Robotics Restrictions Raise AI Compliance Risks

  

  A recent "covered list" update from the Federal Communications Commission places restrictions on foreign-produced advanced robotic devices’ ability to obtain new authorizations, creating a framework that is poorly suited to continuous artificial intelligence updates, and raising several transactional and contractual challenges, says Kim Larsen at Stinson.

• Opinion

  Calif. Bill Goes Too Far In Trying To Regulate Attorney AI Use

  

  California’s first-in-the-nation act regulating how attorneys and arbitrators use generative artificial intelligence will likely soon become law, but read broadly, the provisions may dissuade lawyers from employing AI at all, thereby depriving them of key work tools, says Joshua Wurtzel at Schlam Stone.

• How Real Estate Funds Can Use Umbrella Partnership REITs

  

  Recent transactions demonstrate how the conversion from a Delaware statutory trust to an umbrella partnership real estate investment trust may benefit real estate funds, and why attorneys should treat the structuring of this conversion as a coordinated diligence and drafting exercise, say attorneys at Kelley Drye.

• A Look At Litigation Risks From Financing The AI Buildout

  

  Artificial intelligence infrastructure financing can create gaps between accounting presentation and project-level economic exposure, and those gaps may affect management communications and how accounting experts can reconstruct the financial record when those communications become the subject of a securities dispute, says Erik Johannesson at Brattle Group.

• A Texas Ruling May Offer Guidance On Freight Broker Liability

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport removed federal preemption defenses to freight broker negligent-selection claims, and a July verdict in Texas against C.H. Robinson raised further questions about how brokers can achieve compliance — but another recent Texas decision involving Home Depot may offer some answers, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.

• Time Is On Payment Processors' Side As Deal Dynamics Shift

  

  As payment processors increasingly use timing and volume to gain leverage, merchants should negotiate payment processing agreements well before renewal or migration deadlines, ensuring proper benchmarking, reserve, data, termination and transition terms are in place, says James Alexander at Reed Smith.

• How Boards, Lenders Can View ABC Bankruptcy Alternative

  

  The broader adoption of the Uniform Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors Act, including Delaware's recent statute, gives boards and lenders a clearer framework for a familiar middle-market problem: companies too small to justify Chapter 11 economics but too complex for an unmanaged shutdown, says Jon Labovitz at Sherwood.

• How FTC's $20B Amazon Suit May Shake Up Ad Enforcement

  

  Gonzalo Mon at Kelley Drye discusses the significance of the Federal Trade Commission's recent suit against Amazon for allegedly overcharging advertising customers more than $20 billion, the company's potential defenses, and the context of rapidly evolving digital advertising technology.

• Series

  Law School's Missed Lessons: Cultivating Good Judgment

  

  Law schools generally overlook the role that solid judgment skills play in real-world practice, but attorneys can bridge the gap by strengthening their abilities to assess a case’s strengths and weaknesses, develop and execute effective strategies, and provide clear recommendations to clients, says Manny Caixeiro at Venable.

• Attorneys Using AI May Have Ethical Duty To Redact Docs

  

  The trajectory of legal ethics guidance in recent years strongly suggests that as redaction technology becomes more accessible, the failure to use it when uploading highly confidential materials into artificial intelligence tools will become increasingly difficult to defend as reasonable, say attorneys at Lewis Brisbois.