California

  • May 15, 2026

    California Senate Confirms New State Bar Director

    The California State Senate confirmed longtime statewide courts administrator Laura Enderton-Speed as the state bar's new executive director Thursday, clearing the way for her to take on the unenviable task of rebuilding trust in an organization whose controversies culminated with the botched administration of last year's February bar exam.

  • May 15, 2026

    8th Circ. Wells Fargo Ruling Focuses On Establishing Injury

    The Eighth Circuit's recent decision affirming the dismissal of a proposed class action claiming Wells Fargo misspent 401(k) forfeitures won't dissuade workers from filing similar suits, attorneys say, but those plan participants will likely include more details on how they were allegedly hurt.

  • May 15, 2026

    GoPro Freed From $8.2M Verdict As Judge Axes Camera IP

    A California federal judge has freed camera giant GoPro from owing $8.2 million for infringing a claim in a video technology patent owned by Contour IP Holding LLC, finding that the claim was invalid.

  • May 15, 2026

    Colorado Passes Bill Banning Fee Sharing With Nonlawyers

    The Colorado Legislature has approved a bill to bar attorneys and law firms operating in the state from sharing fees and revenue with non-attorney-owned firms, known as alternative business structure firms, making Colorado the latest state to tamp down the practice.

  • May 15, 2026

    Kilpatrick Lands Calif. Patent Litigation Duo From Reed Smith

    Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP has expanded its patent litigation team in San Francisco with the addition of two partners from Reed Smith LLP.

  • May 15, 2026

    Mistrial In Weinstein Case As NY Jury Splits 9-3 To Acquit

    A Manhattan judge declared a mistrial Friday on a rape charge against Harvey Weinstein following a deadlock where most jurors voted to acquit the once-powerful Hollywood producer, ending a three-week trial that leaned heavily on the credibility of a single accuser and put questions of consent at the center of the case.

  • May 14, 2026

    'Who's Telling The Truth?' Musk-OpenAI Fight Goes To Jury

    Elon Musk's counsel urged a California federal jury during trial closings Thursday to find OpenAI breached its charitable trust aided by Microsoft Corp. and slammed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's credibility, while OpenAI's counsel argued Musk is trying to attack his competitor and urged jurors to ask themselves, "Who's telling the truth?"

  • May 14, 2026

    Authors' Attys Call Anthropic's $1.5B IP Deal Their 'Creation'

    Asked to justify a massive $187.5 million attorney fee request in litigation accusing Anthropic of copyright infringement, counsel for the plaintiff class of authors told a California federal judge Thursday that the resulting $1.5 billion settlement was "the creation of class counsel."

  • May 14, 2026

    Google Workers' Attys Get $12.5M In Race Bias Deal Final OK

    A California federal judge gave her final approval Thursday to a $50 million settlement that Google reached to resolve claims that it paid thousands of Black workers less than their white colleagues, and awarded the workers' attorneys their fee request of $12.5 million.

  • May 14, 2026

    IP Atty Gets $4.5M Over Fake Child Abuse Allegations

    A California state jury has hit the CEO of a sobriety app with a $4.5 million verdict over claims he made a false child abuse report against the mother of his child, a Los Angeles intellectual property attorney, in a bid to secure child support and full custody, according to the counsel for the mother.

  • May 14, 2026

    Meta Starts NM Defense As Midtrial Win Bid Fails

    A judge denied Meta a midtrial win Thursday morning over harm to underage social media users, prompting the social media giant to call an executive to begin building a defense case that platform changes requested by New Mexico's attorney general are unnecessary or even counterproductive.

  • May 14, 2026

    Takeda To Pay $13.6M Over Antidepressant Drug Kickbacks

    Takeda Pharmaceuticals will pay $13.6 million to end allegations that it caused false Medicaid claims by providing kickbacks to healthcare providers to push prescriptions of its antidepressant drug Trintellix, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Human Reproduction Proves Talc Can Reach Ovaries, Jury Told

    A medical oncologist on Thursday told a Los Angeles bellwether jury considering claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused three women's deadly ovarian cancer that the female reproductive system is an "open" system where talc can migrate to the ovaries, and that "we wouldn't exist" if that was not the case.

  • May 14, 2026

    Squires Walks Back 5 More IPR Grants Over Inconsistent Args

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has reversed earlier decisions granting five petitions for patent review, citing what he called the challengers' inconsistent positions in parallel proceedings and explaining that four petitions he denied in previous bulk orders were also rejected for the same reasons. 

  • May 14, 2026

    Google Says DOJ's Search Win Can't Help Yelp Suit

    Google urged a California federal judge on Wednesday not to let Yelp invoke the U.S. Department of Justice's D.C. search monopoly win in the local search provider's own antitrust case, arguing that the two lawsuits look at the interconnection between local and general search through fundamentally different lenses.

  • May 14, 2026

    Newsom's Budget Change Targets Credits, SaaS, LLC Tax

    California would make permanent its business tax credit limit, apply the sales tax to digital prewritten software and cut in half the $800 minimum tax for limited liability companies under a revised budget announced Thursday by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

  • May 14, 2026

    Farmworkers Lose Early Bid To Halt DOL H-2A Wage Rule

    A California federal judge declined Thursday to block a U.S. Department of Labor regulation reducing wages for H-2A seasonal farmworkers, ruling that United Farm Workers failed to show there is an immediate injury that warrants court intervention now.

  • May 14, 2026

    Ex-Newsom Aide Cops To Campaign Fund Theft, False Taxes

    A former chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom pled guilty in federal court in Sacramento for her part in a scheme to divert some $225,000 from a dormant political campaign to a former Biden administration official's chief of staff, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Calif. Cannabis Distributor Gets $1.35M In Delivery Row

    Cannabis company Magnolia Extracts LLC must pay a distributor $1.35 million for delivered products, a California state court judge has ruled, saying the retailer waived any opportunity to claim the products were defective after accepting the shipment and then reselling it.

  • May 14, 2026

    Honda Buyers Say 440K Odysseys Have Faulty Side Airbags

    Honda hid safety defects for years in its 2018-2022 Odyssey minivans where side airbag systems would suddenly deploy when traveling on flat roads, slowing down to a stop or going over a speed bump, according to a proposed class action filed in California federal court.

  • May 14, 2026

    Insider Trading Case Shows BigLaw Associate Vetting Gaps

    A BigLaw attorney who was able to move through three major firms while allegedly orchestrating a massive insider trading scheme may have been aided by relatively loose hiring practices for associates that firms may consider strengthening moving forward, recruiting experts told Law360.

  • May 14, 2026

    Fortive, Subsidiary Seek Early Win In Wrongful Firing Suit

    Technology company Fortive and a medical equipment subsidiary asked a Colorado federal judge for an early win in a former regional sales director's lawsuit alleging she was fired for raising concerns about compliance with anti-kickback rules, contending the subsidiary terminated her due to a restructuring and that Fortive wasn't her employer.

  • May 14, 2026

    OpenAI Seeks To Overturn Injunction In 'IO' TM Fight

    OpenAI is urging a California federal judge to overturn a preliminary injunction barring the company from using "IO" as a trademark for AI hardware, arguing it has abandoned all federal applications for the mark and has no plans to use it.

  • May 14, 2026

    Carbon Health Strikes $12M Creditor Deal In Ch. 11

    Urgent care facility operator Carbon Health Technologies has reached a $12 million settlement with its official committee of unsecured creditors, the debtor's counsel said Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Squires Ends AMD Challenges At PTAB Over Sotera Issues

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has terminated reviews of three data processing patents challenged by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. after finding AMD violated a stipulation to limit its invalidity arguments in court.

Expert Analysis

  • Prepping For White House's Proposed AI Framework

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    The artificial intelligence legislative framework issued by the White House last month reframes the policy landscape, creating a number of near-term developments for companies to track as congressional committees attempt to convert the framework into legislative text, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Opinion

    Apple Discovery Fight Could Revive DOJ's Antitrust Appetite

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    Winning discovery disputes in the ongoing federal antitrust litigation over Apple’s app store practices is a huge opportunity for the Justice Department to return to its once-vigorous pursuit of product tying by tech monopolies, catch up with foreign competition regulators and establish clear standards for digital markets, says Ediberto Roman at Florida International University.

  • Lockdown To Ledger: COVID Rulings Inform Crypto Coverage

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    As cryptocurrencies move deeper into mainstream financial markets, courts tasked with determining whether traditional insurance policies respond to digital asset losses have been evaluating coverage through the analytical framework of COVID-19 business interruption litigation, with one key recurring theme, say attorneys at Kennedys.

  • Opinion

    State Bars Need To Get Specific About AI Confidentiality

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    Lawyers need to put actual client information into artificial intelligence tools to get their full value, but they cannot confidently do so until state bars offer clear, formal authority on which plan tiers of the three most popular generative AI tools are safe to use when sharing specific client details, says attorney Nick Berk.

  • The Federal Circuit's Evolving View Of Trade Secrets

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    In recent years, the Federal Circuit's approach to defining "readily ascertainable" information and determining sufficiency of trade secret identification has shifted, trending away from other circuits and potentially presenting a higher bar for trade secrets plaintiffs, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • What Justices' Review Of Guam Case Will Mean For Permitting

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    In U.S. Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Guahan, the U.S. Supreme Court will address whether a federal agency's permit application is a final decision that courts can review — a question whose answer could reshape the timing and strategy of environmental litigation across the federal permitting landscape, say attorneys at Foley Hoag.

  • How Calif. Safety Worker Pension Bill Could Cost Employers

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    Public employers should carefully consider how pension costs and bargaining concerns could change under a California Legislature bill that would increase retirement benefits for safety employees like police and firefighters, which could erode previous efforts to fully fund the public retirement system without necessarily improving worker retention, says Michael Youril at Liebert Cassidy.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Restraint Anchors Constitutional Order

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    Contrasting opinions in two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Trump v. CASA and Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections — demonstrate how the judiciary’s constitutionally entrusted role can easily be preserved or disrupted, and invite renewed attention to the enduring importance of judicial restraint, says Ninth Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace.

  • The Evolution Of States' Workplace Violence Prevention Laws

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    Utah's new law requiring hospitals to implement comprehensive workplace violence reporting systems continues a broader trend of state efforts to expand workplace protections in the absence of sufficient federal regulations, say attorneys at Ogletree.

  • Series

    Alpine Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Skiing has shaped habits I rely on daily as an attorney — focus, resilience and the ability to remain steady when circumstances shift rapidly — and influences the way I approach legal strategy, client counseling and teamwork, says Isaku Begert at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Weighing The Practical Implications Of SC Kids' Privacy Law

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    South Carolina's recently enacted Age-Appropriate Code Design Act includes a unique provision: a private right of action for certain violations, but its practical effect remains uncertain, as courts and litigants grapple with complex questions of standing, causation and the definition of actionable harm, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Ohio Case Reflects States' Aggressive Criminal Antitrust Turn

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    The Ohio Attorney General's Office’s recent bid-rigging indictment of an online auctioneer is the latest signal that states, through attorneys general pursuing more kickback cases and legislators expanding the reach of antitrust laws, are shedding their historical reluctance to wield their criminal antitrust enforcement powers, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Telehealth Suit May Redraw Rules For Physician Classification

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    A new class action in California federal court, Cioppettini v. Mochi Medical, alleging a telehealth company misclassified providers as independent contractors, suggests that traditional markers of physician independence may not apply to telehealth, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Legal Theories In Social Media Verdicts Hold Clues On Impact

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    Although the two verdicts in cases in New Mexico and California involving Meta and Google are being lumped together, they rest on fundamentally different legal theories, and that distinction determines how their effects may be felt in other jurisdictions, says Mark Morgan at Day Pitney.

  • Opinion

    Wash. Amazon Ruling Should Reshape Suicide Liability

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    The Washington Supreme Court's reinstatement of negligence claims in Scott v. Amazon.com, brought by the families of people who died by suicide after purchasing chemicals online, signals a reckoning for digital commerce and the rejection of the defense that online marketplaces are merely passive technology platforms, says Donald Fountain at Clark Fountain.

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