California

  • January 14, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Won't Revive Phone Security IP Suit Against Apple

    A California federal judge properly freed Apple from claims that its iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches infringe two cellular security patents, the Federal Circuit said Wednesday.

  • January 14, 2026

    Idaho Tribes Urge 9th Circ. To Uphold Land Swap Ruling

    The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are asking the Ninth Circuit to deny a bid by a global agribusiness and the federal government for an en banc panel rehearing on its decision to invalidate an Idaho land transfer, saying the petition doesn't raise any exceptional questions and ignores long-standing Supreme Court precedent.

  • January 14, 2026

    Calif. Bill Would Ban AI From Replacing Arbitrators' Analysis

    A bill introduced in the California state Senate seeks to regulate attorneys' use of generative artificial intelligence statewide, including banning lawyers from entering private client information into public AI systems and prohibiting arbitrators from utilizing AI in decision-making.

  • January 14, 2026

    Supreme Court Rejects Cigar Maker's Appeal Over Atty Fees

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear cigar maker Swisher International Inc.'s appeal in a long-running contractual and antitrust dispute with Trendsettah USA Inc., leaving intact a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived part of a jury verdict and more than $10 million in related attorney fee awards.

  • January 14, 2026

    Wilson Sonsini Creates Defense Tech Team, Hires Google Atty

    Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC announced Wednesday that it is launching a defense tech industry group with the hire of a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve who most recently worked as an enterprise account executive for Google Public Sector's national defense business.

  • January 13, 2026

    CoStar, Quinn Emanuel Spar Over Litigation Representation

    CoStar urged a California federal judge Tuesday to disqualify Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP from helping a rival commercial real estate platform pursue antitrust counterclaims in CoStar's copyright infringement suit, while the law firm moved to drop its representation of CoStar in separate litigation.

  • January 13, 2026

    States Lose Bid To Freeze EPA Solar Grant Funds, For Now

    A Seattle federal judge Tuesday denied a coalition of states' bid to preliminarily block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from cutting solar power grant programs as they challenge the agency's termination of its $7 billion Biden-era "Solar for All" program.

  • January 13, 2026

    Meta Shakes App Users' Location Data Privacy Suit, For Now

    A California federal judge has shut down a proposed class action accusing Meta Platforms Inc. of illegally collecting location data from users of third-party apps that installed the company's tracking software, finding that the plaintiffs hadn't plausibly alleged that Meta knew it didn't have permission to access this data.

  • 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

    Tech, AI Expert Tapped For Calif. Privacy Agency's Board

    A leading expert on data privacy, surveillance and artificial intelligence who has spearheaded major initiatives at UC Law San Francisco and the American Civil Liberties Union has been selected as the latest member of the California Privacy Protection Agency's five-member board.

  • January 13, 2026

    Wash. Officials Challenge 9th Circ.'s X Corp. Standing Ruling

    A group of current and former Washington state officials urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to review a man's proposed class action accusing X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, of violating a state telephone privacy law, telling justices that allowing the Ninth Circuit's ruling in the case to stand would erode state sovereignty and potentially lead to a circuit split.

  • January 13, 2026

    La. Moves To Extradite Calif. Doc Over Abortion Pill Trafficking

    Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday said he would authorize an extradition request for a California doctor accused of illegally mailing abortion pills to a Louisiana resident, further escalating a legal battle over the reach of state bans in the post-Roe era.

  • January 13, 2026

    OpenAI Chatbot Coached Man To Suicide, Calif. Suit Claims

    A Colorado man who confided in ChatGPT about his mental health struggles died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the chatbot turned into a "frighteningly effective suicide coach" and even composed a "suicide lullaby" for him shortly before his death, according to a lawsuit filed in California state court Monday.

  • January 13, 2026

    Meta Fights Authors', Entrepreneur Mag's Copyright Claims

    Meta Platforms has filed responses in two California cases where it is accused of unlawfully using copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence models, asking a court to reject an attempt from authors to update their pleadings and urging the same court to dismiss most of a separate complaint from Entrepreneur magazine.

  • January 13, 2026

    DOJ Again Demands That Pa. Turn Over Voter Data

    The U.S. Department of Justice again demanded that Pennsylvania turn over voters' driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, saying in Pennsylvania federal court that the information is required to be delivered under Title III of the Civil Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act.

  • January 13, 2026

    Epic Systems Alleges Data Cos. Stole Records To Sell To Attys

    Epic Systems, the nation's largest electronic health records company, told a California federal court on Tuesday that a health information network and a group of "bad actors" stole over 300,000 confidential patient records from health information exchange frameworks to illegally sell to third parties, including personal injury lawyers.

  • January 13, 2026

    9th Circ. Says Loggers' Suit Does Not Show A Monopoly

    The Ninth Circuit declined Tuesday to revive a lawsuit by a coalition of logging groups that accused a U.S. Forest Service contractor of monopolizing the industry in the Pacific Northwest, finding the plaintiffs' antitrust claims lacked adequate details.

  • January 13, 2026

    Blue States Say HHS Conditions Funding On Anti-Trans Bias

    A dozen Democratic state attorneys general sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, claiming the agency's threat to withhold billions of dollars in funding from states that don't hew to an executive order declaring that gender is immutable conflicts with antidiscrimination law.

  • January 13, 2026

    Google's $30M Kids' Data Deal OK'd As Class Attys Get $9M

    The California federal judge overseeing a long-running class action accusing Google and YouTube of illegally collecting children's data for targeted advertising granted final approval Tuesday to the tech giant's $30 million settlement, including $9 million in fees for class counsel, despite her concerns that millions of apparently fraudulent settlement claims have been submitted.

  • January 13, 2026

    Youths Urge 9th Circ. To Revive Trump Energy Orders Fight

    A group of young people asked the Ninth Circuit to revive their lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's energy-related emergency orders, arguing the lower court erred by saying it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

  • January 13, 2026

    'America's Coffee' Doesn't Mean Made In US, Black Rifle Says

    Black Rifle Coffee has urged a California federal judge to toss claims it deceives consumers into believing its beans are harvested in the U.S., arguing the American flag and slogan "America's Coffee" on its packaging don't indicate geographic origin, but rather invoke the company's patriotic mission and support for U.S. military vets. 

  • January 13, 2026

    College Baseball Player Latest To Sue NCAA Over Eligibility

    A pitcher attending Pepperdine University has asked a California federal judge to allow him to play for the baseball team despite NCAA rules barring him from doing so after transferring there from a non-NCAA school.

  • January 13, 2026

    USC Gould Law School, Akerman Launch Law+AI Initiative

    Akerman LLP is teaming with the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law to launch a Law+AI Initiative to help in developing the standards and regulatory path for full-scale artificial intelligence adoption across fields and industries.

  • January 13, 2026

    Gov't Didn't Allege Formula Was Contaminated, Abbott Says

    Abbott Laboratories has urged a Michigan federal judge to throw out a suit brought by the federal government over the 2022 infant formula shortage, saying the government is trying to recoup a "belated windfall" and no tainted formula left its plant's doors.

  • January 13, 2026

    Beasley Allen Talc Work Sends 'Bad Signal,' J&J Says

    Johnson & Johnson's talc unit told a New Jersey appeals panel on Tuesday that a lower court's ruling permitting Beasley Allen Law Firm attorneys to represent plaintiffs in multicounty litigation over its talc-based baby powder "sends a very bad signal" to the state bar.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Texas, One Year In

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    A year after the Texas Business Court's first decision, it's clear that Texas didn't just copy Delaware and instead built something uniquely its own, combining specialization with constitutional accountability and creating a model that looks forward without losing touch with the state's democratic and statutory roots, says Chris Bankler at Jackson Walker.

  • AG Watch: Illinois A Key Player In State-Level Enforcement

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    Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has systematically strengthened his office to fill federal enforcement gaps, oppose Trump administration mandates and advance state policy objectives, particularly by aggressively pursuing labor-related issues, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Educating Your Community

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    Nearly two decades prosecuting scammers and elder fraud taught me that proactively educating the public about the risks they face and the rights they possess is essential to building trust within our communities, empowering otherwise vulnerable citizens and preventing wrongdoers from gaining a foothold, says Roger Handberg at GrayRobinson.

  • How A 9th Circ. False Ad Ruling Could Shift Class Certification

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    The Ninth Circuit's July decision in Noohi v. Johnson & Johnson, holding that unexecuted damages models may suffice for purposes of class certification, has the potential to create judicial inefficiencies and crippling uncertainties for class action defendants, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • What To Know About Interim Licenses In Global FRAND Cases

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    Recent U.K. court decisions have shaped a framework for interim licenses in global standard-essential patent disputes, under which parties can benefit from operating on temporary terms while a court determines the final fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms — but the future of this developing remedy is in doubt, say attorneys at Fish & Richardson.

  • 5 Crisis Lawyering Skills For An Age Of Uncertainty

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    As attorneys increasingly face unprecedented and pervasive situations — from prosecutions of law enforcement officials to executive orders targeting law firms — they must develop several essential competencies of effective crisis lawyering, says Ray Brescia at Albany Law School.

  • Compliance Tips Amid Rising FTC Scrutiny Of Minors' Privacy

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    The Federal Trade Commission has recently rolled out multiple enforcement actions related to children's privacy, highlighting a renewed focus on federal regulation of minors' personal information and the evolving challenges of establishing effective, privacy-protective age assurance solutions, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.

  • Insights From Recent Cases On Navigating Snap Removal

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    Snap removal, which allows defendants to transfer state court cases to federal court before a forum defendant is properly joined and served, is viewed differently across federal circuits — but keys to making it work can be drawn from recent decisions critiquing the practice, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • Opinion

    It's Time For The Judiciary To Fix Its Cybersecurity Problem

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    After recent reports that hackers have once again infiltrated federal courts’ electronic case management systems, the judiciary should strengthen its cybersecurity practices in line with executive branch standards, outlining clear roles and responsibilities for execution, says Ilona Cohen at HackerOne.

  • Workday Case Shows Auditing AI Hiring Tools Is Crucial

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    Following a California federal court's recent decisions in Mobley v. Workday signaling that both employers and vendors could be held liable for discriminatory outcomes from artificial intelligence hiring tools, companies should consider two rigorous auditing methods to detect and mitigate bias, says Hossein Borhani at Charles River Associates.

  • Tips For Cos. Crafting Enforceable Online Arbitration Clauses

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    Recent rulings from the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California indicate that courts are carefully examining the enforceability of online arbitration clauses, so businesses should review the design of their websites and consider specific language next to the "purchase" button, say attorneys at DTO Law.

  • 7 Lessons From The Tractor Supply CCPA Enforcement Action

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    The California Privacy Protection Agency's recent enforcement action targeting Tractor Supply for alleged violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act provides critical insights into the compliance areas that remain a priority for the California regulator, including businesses with significant consumer interactions, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Parody Defendants Are Finding Success Post-Jack Daniel's

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    Recent decisions demonstrate that, although the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Jack Daniel's v. VIP Products did benefit trademark plaintiffs by significantly limiting the First Amendment expressive use defense, courts also now appear to be less likely to find a parodic work likely to cause confusion, says Andrew Michaels at University of Houston Law Center.

  • Series

    Writing Novels Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Writing my debut novel taught me to appreciate the value of critique and to never give up, no matter how long or tedious the journey, providing me with valuable skills that I now emphasize in my practice, says Daniel Buzzetta at BakerHostetler.

  • Trader Joe's Ruling Highlights Trademark Infringement Trends

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    The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Trader Joe's Co. v. Trader Joe's United explores the legal boundaries between a union's right to advocate for workers and the protection of a brand's intellectual property, and illustrates a growing trend of courts disfavoring early dismissal of trademark infringement claims in the context of expressive speech, say attorneys at Mitchell Silberberg.

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