Roundup

Up Next At High Court: Pollution Lawsuits & Trans Athletes

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will kick off the new year by hearing disputes over the constitutionality of state laws banning transgender female athletes from female-only sports and whether state or federal courts are the proper forum for lawsuits seeking to hold major oil companies accountable for harm caused by their oil production activities along Louisiana's coast. 

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News Orgs. Want OpenAI Sanctioned In Copyright MDL

By Adam Lidgett

News organizations, including The New York Times, are sparring with OpenAI over allegations that the artificial intelligence company didn't properly maintain output logs of its ChatGPT chatbot in multidistrict copyright litigation in New York federal court.

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Mangione Says Defective Charges Doom Federal Murder Rap

By Stewart Bishop

Counsel for Luigi Mangione on Friday urged a Manhattan federal judge to throw out the most serious charges brought against the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, saying prosecutors have failed to allege crimes of violence as predicate offenses to support murder and weapons charges.

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NY Courts Open To Attys Using AI To Prep Filings

By Andrea Keckley

Lawyers should not be barred outright from using artificial intelligence tools to prepare court documents, a New York court system advisory committee said in its annual report on Thursday.

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Roundup

Real Estate Recap: Predicting '26

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on this past week's developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including key asset classes and pending litigation to watch in the new year.

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Goldberg Segalla Fights Ex-IP Co-Chair's $4M Arbitration Bid

By Theresa Schliep

An arbitration fight Goldberg Segalla LLP initiated against a former co-chair of its intellectual property group over proceeds from transferred cases spilled into New York state court, where the firm is seeking relief from his counterclaims that it shorted him nearly $4 million in compensation.

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Class Action Challenges Solitary Confinement For NY Youth

By Marco Poggio

A group of children and young adults currently and formerly detained in New York's juvenile justice system are accusing state officials of subjecting children to prolonged solitary confinement in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal disability law, in a proposed class action filed in federal court.

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Paramount Gets Early Win In 'Top Gun' Dispute

By Lauren Berg

A Manhattan federal judge Friday tossed a writer's remaining copyright infringement claim that alleged he wasn't credited for writing significant portions of the 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick" and kept alive Paramount's counterclaims for copyright infringement and fraud, saying the writer's copyright is invalid.

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Feds Seek To DQ Ex-Boxer's Atty Over Juror Bribery Probe

By Lauren Berg

Prosecutors urged a Brooklyn federal judge Friday to disqualify three attorneys who represent a former heavyweight boxer accused of participating in a $1 billion cocaine trafficking scheme, arguing that one of the lawyers is under investigation related to the alleged attempted bribery of a juror at his client's trial.

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Comey, James Fight DOJ Push To Combine Dismissal Appeals

By Jack Karp

Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are pushing back against federal prosecutors' effort to consolidate their currently separate appeals of the beleaguered prosecutions against the pair at the Fourth Circuit.

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Bruce Fein Unauthorized To Represent Maduro, Atty Says

By Rachel Rippetoe

When constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein entered an appearance as counsel for former Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro on Tuesday, it was without having ever spoken to the client, according to a Thursday filing by Maduro's attorney Barry Pollack seeking to remove Fein from the case.

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Justices To Consider DHS Authority Over Green Card Entries

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review whether the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can treat a lawful permanent resident returning from a trip abroad as an applicant for admission based solely on pending criminal charges.

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Rakoff Hints 'Baby Shark' Mail-Service Precedent Is Unpopular

By Pete Brush

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff on Friday critiqued a Second Circuit decision requiring mail service to alleged Chinese infringers of "Baby Shark" trademarks, which he said may slow Google's effort to shutter an alleged China-based global phishing scam.

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State Looks To Nix RealPage Case Over NY Rental Pricing Law

By Matthew Perlman

The New York attorney general's office urged a federal court Friday to toss a case from property management software company RealPage Inc. challenging a new state law that prohibits building owners from using software to collude on residential rental rates.

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Elliott, Morning Calm Complete City Office REIT Take-Private

By Georgia Kromrei

A joint venture of activist investor Elliott Investment Management and real estate investment firm Morning Calm Management completed its acquisition of Canada-based City Office REIT, in a take-private deal for $7 per share of common stock.

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Analysis

Is 9th Circ.'s Copyright Test Doomed After Kat Von D Verdict?

By Ivan Moreno

Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D's realistic tattoo of a famous Miles Davis photo on a friend's arm — and the jury ruling that it did not violate copyright law — could imperil a decades-old Ninth Circuit doctrine for assessing similarity between works, with potential review by a full panel of judges on the horizon.

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Nielsen's 'Coercive' National-Local Data Tying Blocked

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge preliminarily blocked Nielsen from conditioning full access to its nationwide radio data on also buying local data because that policy is more than just discounted bundling, according to a ruling unsealed Thursday.

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Oscar-Winning Writer Settles Publicist's Rape Case For $2M

By Hailey Konnath

Oscar-winning Hollywood writer and director Paul Haggis has agreed to pay just under $2 million to put to rest a civil case in which a publicist accused him of raping her more than a decade ago — meaning he'll pay far less than the $10 million verdict a jury hearing the case returned against him in 2022.

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Future Risk Not Enough To Save Verizon Pension Annuity Suit

By Grace Elletson

A New York federal judge tossed a suit from a group of retirees who claimed Verizon Communications Inc. and its independent fiduciary State Street Global Advisors Trust Co. illegally converted $6 billion in pension benefits to risky annuities, ruling that the workers hadn't shown that the annuity holders were unlikely to follow through on their benefits.

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AI Can Help Advisers With Proxy Voting, SEC Official Says

By Sarah Jarvis

Artificial intelligence can assist investment advisers with handling corporate proxy voting decisions, an official with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a speech decrying the proxy advisory landscape as dysfunctional.

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Ex-Doximity Exec Cops To $2.5M Insider Trading Scheme

By Sydney Price

The former chief revenue officer of publicly traded medical professional networking platform Doximity pled guilty Friday in New York federal court to securities fraud in connection to allegations that he illegally profited more than $2.5 million by trading on private information about the company's finances and layoff plans.

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SEC Drops Action Against Ex-Rio Tinto CFO After 8 Years

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday dropped an enforcement action accusing Rio Tinto PLC's former chief financial officer of violating accounting and auditing rules, bringing a close to long-running litigation the regulator launched against the mining giant in 2017.

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FINRA Fines Wells Fargo Unit $1.25M For Close-Out Failures

By Emilie Ruscoe

Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $1.25 million to resolve the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's claims that during a seven-year period, the bank's clearing and custody services unit left certain transactions in municipal securities unresolved for longer than it was supposed to.

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Carbone Owner Sues Pizza Co. For Trademark Infringement

By Craig Clough

The owners of the famous Manhattan eatery Carbone filed a trademark infringement suit in New York federal court Friday against Carbone Restaurant Group, which they say are collecting "pre-IPO" investments in a "Fast Fired By Carbone" pizza franchise by misleading the public into believing the two ventures are associated. 

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Nano Nuclear Beats Investor Suit Over Biz Prospect Claims

By Sydney Price

Nano Nuclear Energy Inc. has won dismissal of a shareholder class action accusing it of misleading investors about its progress toward regulatory approval and commercialization of its energy products, with the court finding the plaintiffs failed to show the company's statements were false or intentionally deceptive.

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Mylan, Aurobindo Must Face Generic Drug Price-Fixing Claims

By Hailey Konnath

A Connecticut federal judge on Friday refused to hand a quick win to Mylan Pharmaceuticals and Aurobindo Pharma USA in sprawling antitrust litigation against 26 total pharmaceutical companies, ruling that a coalition of states has enough evidence to raise a genuine dispute about whether the companies conspired to fix drug prices.

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States Cite Ed. Dept. Outsourcing In Revamped Suit

By Carolyn Muyskens

Democratic state attorneys general added fresh allegations Friday to an ongoing lawsuit over cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, saying the Trump administration has begun offloading some of the department's functions to other agencies.

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Buffalo Diocese Says It Needs Opt-Out Ch. 11 Releases

By Rick Archer

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo on Friday told a New York bankruptcy judge that a U.S. Trustee's Office proposal that it be required to obtain affirmative consent for claims releases in its Chapter 11 plan would doom more than $200 million in settlements.

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NY Groups Fight To Keep ICE Courthouse Arrest Suit Alive

By Ganesh Setty

Two providers of immigration services told a New York federal court this week that the Trump administration has misinterpreted prior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidance on courthouse arrests, saying extending them to immigration courthouses marks an "unprecedented expansion."

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Beveridge & Diamond Reelects Leader, Names Office Heads

By Lynn LaRowe

National environmental law firm Beveridge & Diamond PC has reelected its current managing principal to a second term and chosen new office leaders for shops in Texas, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

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Why 'Baby Shark' Floundered In Foreign Service Waters

The Second Circuit recently ruled that the "Baby Shark" company couldn’t use email to serve alleged infringers based in China under an international agreement prohibiting such service, providing several important lessons for parties in actions involving defendants in jurisdictions unwilling or unable to effectuate efficient service, say attorneys at Greenspoon Marder.

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Examining Privilege In Dual-Purpose Workplace Investigations

The Sixth Circuit's recent holding in FirstEnergy's bribery probe ruling that attorney-client privilege applied to a dual-purpose workplace investigation because its primary purpose was obtaining legal advice highlights the uncertainty companies face as federal circuit courts remain split on the appropriate test, say attorneys at Proskauer.

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Opinion

The Case For Emulating, Not Dividing, The Ninth Circuit

Champions for improved judicial administration should reject the unfounded criticisms driving recent Senate proposals to divide the Ninth Circuit and instead seek to replicate the court's unique strengths and successes, says Ninth Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace.

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Law Firms Closed 2025 With Continued 'Appetite For Hiring'

By Tracey Read

The legal sector continued to defy hiring expectations in spite of uncertainty in the U.S. economy as 2025 drew to a close.

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New Trade Group Joins Litigation Finance Lobbying Fight

By Ryan Boysen

A new trade group for litigation funders has launched with the aim of enlisting personal injury and mass tort attorneys in a fight against proposed federal laws that it says could threaten the $16 billion litigation finance industry.

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Jones Day To Help Restore David Bowie's Old London Home

By Jamie Lennox

Jones Day's charitable foundation will help to restore the childhood home of musical icon David Bowie before it opens to the public in late 2027, the historical trust leading the project said Friday.

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NJ Justices Nix Atty Registration Fee Hike After Bar Pushback

By Rose Krebs

The New Jersey Supreme Court has rejected a request to raise the annual registration fee for attorneys after the state's bar association complained that a proposed $27 hike for certain attorneys, following prior year increases, was too much at a time when they and their firms face "significantly increasing operational costs."

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Gov't Can't Use NYT Article As Evidence In Goldstein Trial

By Jared Foretek

A Maryland federal judge on Friday barred prosecutors from pre-admitting Thomas Goldstein's statements in a New York Times article as evidence in the SCOTUSblog co-founder's tax fraud trial, but she left open the possibility for the government to call either Jeffrey Toobin, the article's author, or a Times fact-checker, as a witness.

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Calif. Wage Suit Settles Months After Atty Admits To AI Mishap

By Emily Sawicki

A proposed wage and hour class action that drew the legal world's attention in November after the plaintiff's counsel admitted to using a half-dozen artificial intelligence tools to prepare a botched motion has now ended, with a Northern California federal judge granting a joint dismissal following a settlement agreement.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen a collapsed investment firm revive a $15 million dispute with a hedge fund, major Hollywood studios bring an IP claim against the U.K.'s largest internet providers over illegal streaming, and the Department of Health and Social Care sue the law firm and barrister representing it in a pharma competition damages case.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

In technology, the increasing use of artificial intelligence by legal departments will be a major concern for general counsel seeking to control costs in the New Year. And in labor matters, the National Labor Relations Board has a new general counsel along with a quorum and is ready to start deciding cases again.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed a ruling in which Apple beat claims it illegally blocked third-party access to Apple Watch medical data so it could create rival software.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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