'Extraordinary Circumstances': Elon Musk Faces USAID Depo

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Maryland federal judge on Wednesday said billionaire Elon Musk must testify in litigation filed by U.S. Agency for International Development employees claiming he illegally dismantled the foreign aid agency while head of the advisory organization known as the Department of Government Efficiency, saying "extraordinary circumstances justify the deposition."

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Medtronic Owes $381M For Antitrust 'War Games,' Jury Told

By Craig Clough

An attorney for Applied Medical told a California federal jury Wednesday during closing arguments in an antitrust trial against Medtronic that internal documents from the medical device giant show it played illegal "war games" against his client and should pay up to $381 million. 

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Albright Axes Texas' Anti-ESG Law As Unconstitutional

By Lauren Berg

Texas' law restricting state investments with financial firms and businesses that want to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels is both "overbroad and unconstitutionally vague," a federal judge has ruled, handing a sustainability-focused business group a summary judgment victory.

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Stockholders Ask Del. Justices To Revive Bylaw Suits

By Jarek Rutz

Stockholders challenging advance notice bylaws at AES Corp. and Owens Corning urged the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday to revive their dismissed suits, saying boards should face fiduciary duty scrutiny the moment they adopt allegedly entrenching bylaws, not only after a proxy contest is triggered.

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Express Scripts Makes 'Fundamental Changes' In FTC Deal

By Bryan Koenig

Express Scripts on Wednesday agreed to what the Federal Trade Commission called a "landmark settlement" promising major changes to its drug formulary practices, allowing the company to duck out of a case accusing all three of the country's largest pharmacy benefit managers of inflating insulin prices through rebate schemes.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Wash. AG Defends 'Constitutional' Anti-Spam Law In Ulta Suit

By Ben Adlin

Washington's attorney general is defending the constitutionality of a state anti-spam law, denying arguments by beauty retailer Ulta that the statute is an undue burden on interstate commerce and runs afoul of federal law.

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SEC Cases May Rise After 'Unprecedented' 2025, Attys Say

By Jessica Corso

Following an "unprecedented" year in which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed the bulk of its crypto docket and filed few new lawsuits, former SEC staff members said Wednesday that there are signs that enforcement actions could begin to ramp up this year.

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Oracle Oversold AI Infrastructure Spending, Investor Says

By Lauren Berg

An Oracle Corp. shareholder has accused the company in Delaware federal court of overly promising that its increased spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure would accelerate revenue growth despite concerns about its increasing contractual reliance on OpenAI, saying OpenAI itself is beholden to "AI tailwinds continuing and its models being a market leader."

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Drugmakers Say Hagens Berman Responsible For Costs

By Emma Cueto

Drugmakers including GSK and Sanofi have told a Pennsylvania federal court that plaintiffs firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP should bear the costs for the special master tasked with sorting out long-running disputes in a since-dropped product liability suit.

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Wachtel Missry Settles Liability In $26M Atty Malpractice Case

By Emily Sawicki

A dispute over who is liable for a former Wachtel Missry LLP partner's alleged exploitation of an elderly client has been settled on the eve of trial, while the Brooklyn federal judge declined to consider recusing himself despite "inadvertently" meeting with the firm's founding partner before the matter was fully put to rest.

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Under Armour Wants 4th Circ. To Review $100M Coverage Cap

By Hope Patti

Under Armour asked the Fourth Circuit to review a recent ruling that capped its coverage for a securities class action, government investigations and derivative matters at $100 million, saying the panel overlooked the significance of an endorsement that essentially settled a dispute over when certain claims were made.

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Brief

Chancery Asked For 120-Day Stay Of Virgin Galactic Suit

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has been asked to temporarily pause a stockholder derivative suit accusing Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and other leaders of the spaceflight company of concealing safety risks while selling stock, as related litigation over similar allegations moves toward possible settlement in federal court.

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Ex-Pentagon GC Joins Bradley Arant's National Security Team

By Jack Rodgers

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has hired the former legal adviser to the National Security Council, who is joining the team in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., to work with the firm's Government Enforcement & Investigations and Defense & National Security teams, the firm announced Tuesday.

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Cooley, Ropes & Gray Transactional Attys Move To Latham

By Andrea Keckley

Latham & Watkins LLP announced Tuesday that it has hired two partners to help the firm meet evolving capital and growth demands — a Los Angeles-based emerging companies attorney from Cooley LLP and a New York-based capital markets attorney from Ropes & Gray LLP.

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Anticipating The SEC's Cybersecurity Focus After SolarWinds

While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent voluntary dismissal of its enforcement action against SolarWinds Corp. and its chief information security officer marks a significant victory for the defendants, it does not mean the SEC is done bringing cybersecurity cases, say attorneys at MoFo.

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Takeaways From The DOJ Fraud Section's 2025 Year In Review

Former acting Principal Deputy Chief Sean Tonolli of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section, now at Cahill Gordon, analyzes key findings from the section’s annual report — including the changes implemented to adapt to the new administration’s priorities — and lays out what to watch for this year.

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What An Uptick In Shareholder Activism Means For Banking

With increasing bank M&A activity, activists are becoming more focused on larger banking institutions, but there are ways banks can begin to prepare in case they need to defend against activist campaigns, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Resilience

Resilience is a skill acquired through daily practices that focus on learning from missteps, recovering quickly without internalizing defeat and moving forward with intention, says Nicholas Meza at Quarles & Brady.

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Paul Weiss' Karp Steps Back After Epstein Email Revelations

By Hailey Konnath and Aebra Coe

Longtime Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP chair Brad S. Karp has resigned from his leadership role, the firm announced Wednesday, a move that comes after the U.S. Department of Justice released numerous emails between Karp and Jeffrey Epstein.

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Baker McKenzie To Downsize Business Professional Jobs

By Tracey Read

Baker McKenzie, which has a legal services hub in Tampa, Florida, is in the process of downsizing business professionals' jobs, a firm spokesperson confirmed to Law360 Pulse on Wednesday.

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Ex-DLA Piper Partner Aims To Toss Claim He Raped Associate

By Jack Karp

Allegations that an ex-DLA Piper partner raped a former Boston-based associate in Delaware in 2022 should be tossed since the Massachusetts state court the case was filed in has no jurisdiction over the Delaware claim, according to the accused former partner.

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Goldstein Accountant Admits Tax Return Errors

By Jared Foretek

A star government witness and the top outside accountant for SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein and his law firm admitted to making mistakes on Goldstein's tax returns and offering the grand jury erroneous testimony, under cross-examination in the U.S. Supreme Court lawyer's tax fraud trial Wednesday.

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Analysis

Clemency Was 'Broken' Long Before Trump. Can It Be Fixed?

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump has transformed what has historically been a bureaucratic process for seeking federal pardons and commutations into a more freewheeling affair with few clear rules — and no easy solutions for reform, experts say.

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Ex-Fox News Host Decries Judge Pick's Arbitration Stance

By Courtney Buble

Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News anchor and a leading advocate for ending forced arbitration of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, has come out against a federal judicial nominee for Louisiana for her past comments on the issue.

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Trump Bid To Move NY Appeal Faces 'Fatal' Error, Judge Says

By Frank G. Runyeon

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday repeatedly aired doubts that President Donald Trump can upend the pending New York state appeal of his hush-money conviction by moving the case to federal court.

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