9th Circ. Suspends 2 Attys For 6 Months Over AI Hallucinations

By Rae Ann Varona

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday temporarily suspended two California immigration attorneys from practicing before the appellate court for filing briefs in a deportation relief case containing artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations, finding no excuse for their "extraordinary confession" of not vetting citations used by unlicensed brief writers.

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Court Reporter Shortage A 'Crisis,' Calif. Supreme Court Told

By Bonnie Eslinger

Two legal nonprofits urged the California Supreme Court to issue an order entitling low-income civil litigants to electronic recording if a live court reporter is not available, saying at a hearing Wednesday that a court reporter shortage in the Golden State has created a "crisis."

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'This Is Their Document': Jury Told J&J Docs Prove Talc Lies

By Craig Clough

Counsel for the families of three women who died of ovarian cancer delivered closing arguments Wednesday in their six-week-long bellwether lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, telling jurors that decades-old internal documents prove the company hid that its talc was contaminated with asbestos.

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Seagate Inks $175M Deal With Investors Over Illegal Sales

By Sydney Price

Data storage company Seagate Technologies has agreed to pay shareholders $175 million to end a class action alleging the firm misrepresented that it could sell products to a blacklisted Chinese company, leading to a $300 million fine from the federal government for breaching export laws.

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Ex-Pitcher, Philanthropist Owe $176M For Fatal Crash

By Cara Salvatore

A California jury said Wednesday a philanthropist and a former Major League Baseball pitcher should pay a total of $176 million over a car crash that killed two children as they crossed the road, after hearing allegations the defendants had been drinking and speeding.

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Google Can't Ditch Most Chrome Privacy Claims

By Lauren Berg

A California federal judge Tuesday largely denied Google's bid to dismiss several claims in long-running litigation that accuses the tech giant of surreptitiously collecting Chrome users' personal data, after the plaintiffs elected to move forward with individual claims following their failed class certification bid.

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BigLaw Insider Trading Defendants Have Big-Name Legal Help

By Chris Villani

An insider trading case involving nonpublic information prosecutors say was stolen from some of the largest law firms in the U.S. has ensnared more than two dozen defendants, many of whom have turned to lawyers with notable clients including Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Luigi Mangione.

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Blank Rome Beats DQ Bid In Cannabis Dispensary Loan Fight

By Jonathan Capriel

A married couple who operate a New Jersey cannabis dispensary cannot escape claims that they misused roughly half of a $1.6 million business loan, a California federal court ruled on Wednesday while also rejecting the entrepreneurs' attempt to disqualify the lender's law firm.

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Fireworks Cos. Settle Gender Reveal Wildfire Suit For $4M

By Mike Curley

An Ohio-based smoke bomb-maker, its subsidiary and a gender reveal company have agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle claims from the federal government over the 2020 El Dorado Fire, which burned nearly 23,000 acres and killed a firefighter.

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IVF Patients Say Natera Profited Off Ineffective Embryo Tests

By Mike Curley

A proposed class of in vitro fertilization patients are suing Natera Inc. in California federal court, alleging that it falsely advertised the efficacy and importance of its preimplantation genetic testing to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars from patients looking to conceive.

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Rocade Capital Buys LFG To Create Combined $2B Lit Funder

By Ryan Boysen

Rocade Capital LLC has acquired fellow litigation funder Law Finance Group LLC, creating a combined platform that has deployed more than $2.3 billion and specializes in $10 million to $50 million deals, including post-judgment financing, portfolio deals and lending to plaintiff's firms.

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Tech Industry Groups Back Apple High Court Bid In Epic Case

By Matthew Perlman

Several technology industry groups threw their support behind Apple Inc. on Wednesday, telling the U.S. Supreme Court an injunction issued in a case brought by Epic Games Inc. tries to alter the service Apple provides to millions of developers based on complaints from a single company.

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Samsung Can't Appeal Conflicting Alice Ruling In $78.5M Case

By Elliot Weld

A Texas federal judge has refused to let Samsung appeal a decision upholding two patents that resulted in a $78.5 million jury verdict against the South Korean tech giant after a different court found one of the patents invalid.

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Electronics Co. Sues Rival Over Plasma Patents Used In Chips

By Elliot Weld

A company that offers plasma systems for manufacturing semiconductors has sued a rival in New Hampshire federal court, saying the competitor was infringing four patents covering atmospheric-pressure plasma systems.

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Lithia Motors Can't Ship 401(k) Forfeiture Suit To Ore.

By Kellie Mejdrich

A California federal judge turned down an auto dealership company's bid for an Oregon transfer of an ex-worker's proposed class action alleging the company misallocated forfeitures from an employee 401(k) plan, and also rejected the company's bid to stay pleading deadlines in the case.

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Balwani Takes Theranos Conviction Challenge To Justices

By Lauren Berg

Former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his criminal fraud conviction and nearly 13-year prison sentence, arguing that the Ninth Circuit used the wrong review doctrine in rejecting his argument that prosecutors had failed to correct allegedly false testimony given by investor victims.

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DOJ Sets New Healthcare Fraud Convictions Record

By Phillip Bantz

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that its Health Care Fraud Unit secured six jury trial convictions across the country in less than three weeks, with the cases involving more than $1.1 billion in fraud losses.

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Feds Nab Calif. CEO For Allegedly Smuggling Tech To Iran

By Gina Kim

The CEO of an Iran-headquartered tech company is accused of shipping over 250 metric tons of networking equipment from Cisco, Juniper Networks, and others, to Iran's nuclear and military programs, including state-owned and private banks, and petrochemical and energy companies, in violation of U.S. sanctions, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

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Trump-Backed Firm Says Exec Can't Sue For Crypto Freeze

By Sydney Price

Trump family-tied crypto firm World Liberty Financial asked a California federal court to release it from crypto billionaire Justin Sun's suit accusing it of using backdoor mechanisms to hold Sun's tokens hostage after he invested $45 million in the project, arguing Sun wrongly attempts to assert claims over his businesses.

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FTC Looks For Input On X Petition To Set Aside Privacy Order

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Federal Trade Commission is asking for the public's input on a petition from X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, to set aside or modify its 2022 $150 million settlement stemming from charges it misled users about how their data was used.

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AGs Defend $10M Fee Bid In Kroger-Albertsons Merger Case

By Celeste Bott

Attorneys general from Illinois, California, the District of Columbia and six other states have pushed back on Kroger and Albertsons' challenge to them receiving nearly $10 million in attorney fees for a "minimal role" in blocking the grocery giants' proposed $24.6 billion merger, arguing that while the states may have worked in the background, they achieved "a tremendous result."

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Judge Questions Terms Of Student Loan Forgiveness Change

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge considering whether to block a new Trump administration rule that could kick millions of public sector and nonprofit employees out of a student loan forgiveness program repeatedly pressed a government lawyer Wednesday on the precise criteria the U.S. Department of Education would use to decide who is no longer eligible.

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Mass. Judge Says DOJ Trans Care Memo Suit Can Proceed

By Chris Villani

A challenge to a Trump administration directive calling for providers of gender-affirming care to be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice will proceed after a Massachusetts federal judge said Wednesday that the states that filed suit have already demonstrated harm from the federal government's actions.

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Tribes Renew $23.3B Boarding School Claims Against Feds

By Crystal Owens

A group of Indigenous nations has amended allegations against the federal government that seek an accounting of how much of Native American tribes' money was used in connection with federal Indian boarding school programs, telling the court that $23.3 billion barely scratches the surface of their losses.

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San Diego Ballot Measure For Empty Homes Tax Trailing

By Sanjay Talwani

A ballot measure in San Diego to tax vacant homes was failing Wednesday to win the majority of votes required for passage, according to unofficial preliminary results with most votes still uncounted.

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Revisiting TransUnion's Underused Standing Rule, 5 Years On

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent use of the U.S. Supreme Court’s now five-year-old TransUnion v. Ramirez rule specifying that the "mere risk of future harm" isn't concrete enough to support a damages claim presents an opportunity to revisit this underutilized standing rule, say attorneys at Horvitz & Levy.

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5 Things Associates Must Ask About Their Firm's Merger Plan

The associates who navigate law firm mergers best ask the right questions early, such as inquiring about partners' plans, to assess how the merger could affect their workflow and career path, says Jackie Bokser-LeFebvre at Major Lindsey.

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Why IPR Slowdown Has Not Led To More Patent Litigation

Despite sustained strength in patent application filings and a decline in inter partes review and post-grant review, 2026 has not seen the anticipated surge in patent litigation in district courts and at the U.S. International Trade Commission, potentially due to four reasons, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.

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Hueston Hennigan Follows Milbank's Lead In Associate Pay

By Tracey Read

The race to match Milbank LLP's attorney pay hikes is officially on, with trial firm Hueston Hennigan the latest to announce it will increase associate pay by $10,000 to $20,000 annually.

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Analysis

The Plaintiffs Atty Now 5-0 At High Court With No Dissents

By Jeff Overley

It's true that Jennifer Bennett is undefeated at the U.S. Supreme Court, but it's also an understatement. Bennett's five wins, including two recent ones, were all unanimous decisions. They showed that the plaintiffs bar can still persuade a conservative supermajority. And they turned the tide after a spree of decisions keeping workers and consumers out of court.

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Goldstein Cites Addiction To Avoid Time, DOJ Seeks 8 Years

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors recommended a 97-month prison sentence for convicted SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein, telling a Maryland federal court he has bilked the government out of more than $9.5 million in unpaid taxes. Goldstein, meanwhile, asked for a suspended sentence and supervised release, citing a "severe and longstanding gambling addiction."

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Tenn. Firm Gets AI Sanctions In Suit Against Baker Donelson

By Emily Sawicki

A Tennessee federal judge has sanctioned a Memphis, Tennessee, law firm over its misuse of artificial intelligence amid a malpractice suit against Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, ordering the regional firm to reimburse costs associated with the matter and report the misconduct to the state's disciplinary counsel.

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Feature

'Read The Cases': Conn. Judge Offers AI Advice To Attys

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut federal judge told a gathering of attorneys Tuesday that his law clerks are not allowed to use generative artificial intelligence for any purpose involving legal research, his interns are barred from using it at all, and lawyers must be careful when relying on the material that the tools produce.

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Atty Can't Shake $120M Verdict In RICO, Defamation Dispute

By Carolina Bolado

An Alabama federal judge refused to disturb a $120 million verdict against a former Conrad & Scherer LLP managing partner, ruling there was enough evidence at trial for a jury to find the attorney liable on Drummond Co.'s racketeering and defamation claims.

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Graham Pushes Federal Tort Path After DOJ Drops $1.8B Fund

By Courtney Bublé

The U.S. Department of Justice seemed, at least briefly, to support a Republican senator's alternative solution to the "anti-weaponization" $1.8 billion fund that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday the department is abandoning.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Dardarian Ho's Linda Dardarian

By Lynn LaRowe

Despite being on the other side of a disability rights case that will cost his municipality at least $150 million, Kevin McLaughlin, city attorney for Oakland, California, believes that if more lawyers were like Linda Dardarian, there would be far less lamenting about civility in the legal profession.

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