Aerospace & Defense

  • January 15, 2026

    Google Worker In IP Theft Trial Impersonated Exec, Jury Hears

    An ex-Google engineer accused of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets to help China used a fake email account to impersonate a Google vice president that he'd listed as a business reference, and also had voice modification software on his computer, an FBI agent told jurors Thursday.

  • January 15, 2026

    DHS Blocked From 2nd Attempt To End TSA Union Deal

    A Washington federal court has again stopped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from canceling a collective bargaining agreement covering tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration workers, ruling Thursday that the federal government cannot get around a June injunction just by providing a fresh rationale.

  • January 15, 2026

    Air Force Asks Justices Not To Hear COVID Vax Back Pay Case

    The U.S. Air Force urged the U.S. Supreme Court to not hear a reservist's bid for back pay after he refused to follow its now-overturned COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds, arguing its sovereign immunity bars compensatory damages claims. 

  • January 15, 2026

    Gov't Contractor Says Insurers Wrongfully Inflated Premiums

    A contractor for the federal government said it should not have to pay an additional $1.7 million premium for workers' compensation policies issued by units of the Hartford, telling a Connecticut federal court that the retroactive charge was caused by the wrongful reclassification of hundreds of employees.

  • January 15, 2026

    Whistleblower Seeks Removal Of DOJ In Price-Gouging Case

    A whistleblower told the Fourth Circuit that the U.S. Department of Justice can be removed as a plaintiff from his False Claims Act suit accusing major defense contractors of price gouging because the agency has a conflict of interest.

  • January 15, 2026

    DOJ Backed US Operation To Capture Maduro, Memo Shows

    President Donald Trump's legal advisers at the U.S. Department of Justice concluded days before Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's capture by U.S. military that the operation "falls short of war in the constitutional sense," according to a memo recently made public.

  • January 15, 2026

    3M Brings Conn. Town's PFAS Case To Federal Court

    Pointing to immunity defenses for federal contractors and officers, 3M has removed to federal court a Connecticut town's claims that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from a U.S. Army reserve training facility and other sources contaminated local water supplies.

  • January 15, 2026

    Ex-WebAI Engineers Say Demos Were 'Faked' In Major Deals

    WebAI Inc. turned a blind eye to a company leader who not only targeted two successful technology engineers but imperiled high-stakes deals with Qantas Airways and the U.S. Department of Defense by allowing a "fake demo" and inaccurate presentations, former company engineers have told a North Carolina state court.

  • January 15, 2026

    Trump Admin Open To Settling Ill. National Guard Case

    An Illinois federal judge agreed to stay forthcoming deadlines in a suit over the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois, with the parties exploring a possible settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump can't federalize the Guard to aid in immigration enforcement.

  • January 15, 2026

    Nvidia Sued In Del. For US 'Tax' On Chip Deal With China

    Alleging possible company conflicts of interest and unlawful agreements involving the White House and Commerce Department, two NVIDIA Corp. stockholders sued the company late Wednesday for records involving company agreements to pay the U.S. Department of Commerce percentages of high-end graphics processing chip sales to buyers in China.

  • January 14, 2026

    US Lawmakers Push Bill To Curb China's Mineral Control

    A pair of lawmakers from California on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation seeking to boost the production and supply of critical minerals needed for military, renewable energy and communications technologies, and to reduce reliance on China.

  • January 14, 2026

    Military Fraud Case Against Fluor Moves To Trial

    Litigation brought by former military officers accusing Fluor Corp. of overcharging the U.S. Army is headed to trial, after a South Carolina federal judge couldn't rule out Wednesday whether the company willfully failed to comply with its contractual obligations.

  • January 14, 2026

    GAO Denies Protest Of $43.6M Navy Modular Building Award

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office said the U.S. Navy correctly found that the absence of a transportation security plan and other technical details from a modular construction company's building proposal constituted a weakness that gave the winning bidder the upper hand.

  • January 14, 2026

    Trump Imposes 25% Tariff On Select Semiconductor Imports

    President Donald Trump signed executive orders Wednesday taking action on semiconductor and mineral imports, choosing to impose a 25% tariff beginning Thursday on a narrow set of chips and their derivative products while emphasizing dealmaking to secure key minerals.

  • January 14, 2026

    FAA Worker's Suspension Not Race-Based, 11th Circ. Affirms

    The Eleventh Circuit backed an early win Wednesday for the Federal Aviation Administration in a discrimination suit from an air traffic controller, ruling that "all evidence in the record" supports the conclusion that he was disciplined for failing to complete workplace training on time.

  • January 14, 2026

    Ligado Judge To Issue Ruling On Inmarsat Satellite Row

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge said Wednesday he would issue an oral ruling "in very short order" on telecommunications group Ligado Networks LLC's bid to stop litigation launched by Viasat unit Inmarsat Global Ltd. over Ligado's request to the government to let it license out spectrum rights.

  • January 14, 2026

    Calif. Car Cos. Hit With $200M Chancery Fraud Suit

    Several California-based car companies, as well as their leader and current and former executives, orchestrated a fraudulent acquisition and asset transfer scheme designed to render a lucrative fuel trading contract worthless and shield a defense contractor from more than $200 million in liabilities, a lawsuit brought Wednesday in the Delaware Chancery Court says.

  • January 14, 2026

    Senate Bill Would Give FCC One Year For Satellite Licensing

    A bipartisan U.S. Senate bill unveiled Wednesday would speed up satellite applications by limiting their review at the Federal Communications Commission to one year.

  • January 14, 2026

    3rd Circ. Nixes Engineer's Plea For Sharing Navy Contract Info

    In a precedential opinion Wednesday, a split Third Circuit panel ruled that a lower court should not have accepted the guilty plea of a Navy engineer charged with disclosing bid information related to a contract for submarine propeller machinery, holding that prosecutors based the plea deal on shaky legal ground.

  • January 14, 2026

    Czech Co. Seeks $873M IPO On Defense Spending Wave

    Prague-based defense company Czechoslovak Group said Wednesday that it plans to raise some $873 million by listing on Euronext Amsterdam in the coming weeks in an initial public offering following rising defense spending from European and NATO governments.

  • January 14, 2026

    Trump Admin Drops Appeal In Transportation Funds Suit

    The Trump administration has dropped its First Circuit appeal of an order blocking it from tying billions of dollars in federal transportation funding to states' cooperation with its immigration crackdown.

  • January 14, 2026

    Boeing Settles Latest 737 Max Ethiopian Air Case Before Trial

    Boeing has agreed to settle the wrongful death case of a man who lost his parents and sister in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crash of 2019, striking a deal following the selection of a jury and just ahead of planned opening arguments in the Chicago trial on Wednesday morning.

  • January 13, 2026

    Ex-CIA Analyst Says FARA Case Is Flawed, Unconstitutional

    A former CIA analyst, White House official and foreign policy expert on Tuesday urged a Manhattan federal judge to throw out the criminal case accusing her of secretly acting as an agent of South Korea while in the United States, calling the charges defective and unconstitutional.

  • January 13, 2026

    Google Engineer Cut-And-Pasted To Evade Security, Jury Told

    A Google security manager took the stand Tuesday in the criminal trial of an engineer accused of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets, testifying that his investigation showed that Linwei Ding evaded Google's internal security systems by cutting and pasting the data in a way that stripped information identifying Google's authorship.

  • January 13, 2026

    GAO Denies Challenge To DOD Agency's $472M Support Deal

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office denied a protest challenging experience and cost evaluations that the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency relied on to award a $472 million contract aimed at modernizing a national background investigation system used to vet federal personnel.

Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • EU Space Act Could Stifle US Commercial Operators

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    The EU Space Act, proposed last month, has the potential to raise global standards for safety and sustainability in space, but the U.S. and EU need to harmonize their regulatory approaches to avoid imposing regulatory burdens that undermine commercial innovation and agility, say Jessica Noble and Adriane Mandakunis at Aegis Space Law.

  • Unpacking Enforcement Challenges Of DOJ's Bulk Data Rule

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    Now fully effective, the U.S. Department of Justice's new data security program represents the U.S.' first data localization requirement ripe for enforcement, but its implementation faces substantial practical challenges that may hinder the DOJ's ability for wide-ranging or swift action, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • Series

    Playing Mah-Jongg Makes Me A Better Mediator

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    Mah-jongg rewards patience, pattern recognition, adaptability and keen observation, all skills that are invaluable to my role as a mediator, and to all mediating parties, says Marina Corodemus.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Conflicts, Evaluations, Materiality

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    In this month's bid protest roundup, Brian Doll at MoFo examines three June decisions from the U.S. Government Accountability Office examining the U.S. Army’s handling of an impaired objectivity conflict of interest, the adequacy of oral evaluations, and whether a nonmaterial misrepresentation can sustain a protest.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Navigating Client Trauma

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    Law schools don't train students to handle repeated exposure to clients' traumatic experiences, but for litigators practicing in areas like civil rights and personal injury, success depends on the ability to view cases clinically and to recognize when you may need to seek help, says Katie Bennett at Robins Kaplan.

  • Opinion

    4 Former Justices Would Likely Frown On Litigation Funding

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    As courts increasingly confront cases involving hidden litigation finance contracts, the jurisprudence of four former U.S. Supreme Court justices establishes a constitutional framework that risks erosion by undisclosed financial interests, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

  • How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery

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    E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.

  • New FCPA Guidance May Flip The Whistleblowing Script

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s updated Foreign Corrupt Practices Act guidelines lay out a new incentive structure that may put multinational U.S.-based companies in an unusual offensive whistleblowing position, potentially spurring them to conduct external investigations of their foreign rivals, says Markus Funk at Perkins Coie.

  • Justices Rethink Minimum Contacts For Foreign Entities

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    Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Devas v. Antrix and Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, suggest that federal statutes may confer personal jurisdiction over foreign entities that have little to no contact with the U.S. — a significant departure from traditional due process principles, says Gary Shaw at Pillsbury.

  • New FCPA Guidance Creates 5 Compliance Imperatives

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    In light of new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act guidelines that mark a fundamental shift in enforcement priorities, companies should consider several specific steps to ensure compliance, from enhanced due diligence to robust whistleblower protections, says Andrew Wirmani at Reese Marketos.

  • Series

    Playing The Violin Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing violin in a string quartet reminds me that flexibility, ambition, strong listening skills, thoughtful leadership and intentional collaboration are all keys to a successful legal practice, says Julie Park at MoFo.

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