California

  • February 26, 2026

    Judge Seems Poised To Keep Block On Trump Voting Order

    A Massachusetts federal judge Thursday appeared to hold fast to her two prior rulings that President Donald Trump lacks authority to change voting laws via an executive order requiring physical documentation of citizenship and voiding mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day.

  • February 26, 2026

    Justices Told 'Skinny Label' Case Puts Generic Drugs At Risk

    The U.S. government, one named sponsor of the Hatch-Waxman Act, a generic-drug industry group and more have warned the U.S. Supreme Court that a decision that allowed a patent case involving a so-called "skinny label" to proceed threatens the availability of low-cost generic drugs.

  • February 26, 2026

    Allbirds Investors' 'Kitchen-Sink' Strategy Dooms IPO Suit

    A California federal judge Thursday dismissed a putative securities fraud class action against Allbirds Inc. for a third time, giving shareholders who sued no more chances to amend their lawsuit, given what she called their "kitchen-sink" approach to pleading 60 allegedly false statements made ahead of the footwear company's 2021 stock launch.

  • February 26, 2026

    Musk, OpenAI Spar Over AG OKs, Altman Firing, AI Safety

    Elon Musk, OpenAI and Microsoft traded blows Wednesday in a series of California federal court briefs fighting over what a jury will see when the parties go to trial in late April on Musk's challenge to OpenAI's transition from the nonprofit structure he'd backed with $38 million in donations.  

  • February 26, 2026

    Tilray Says Hemp Protein Powder Label Suit Falls Flat

    Cannabis and hemp product maker Tilray Brands Inc. is urging a California federal court to throw out a proposed class action alleging that it misleads consumers on the amount of protein its "Just Hemp" powder contains, saying the suit is preempted by federal regulations.

  • February 26, 2026

    PacifiCorp Hit With $305M Verdict For Oregon Fire

    Multnomah County jurors have awarded a $305 million verdict to 16 people who sued electric power company PacifiCorp for damages stemming from a Santiam Canyon fire in Oregon.

  • February 26, 2026

    Willkie Lands A&O Shearman Corporate Finance Pros In Calif.

    Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP is boosting its transactional team, bringing in a pair of Allen Overy Shearman Sterling corporate finance aces as partners in its Silicon Valley office, one of whom will also become the new co-managing partner of that office.

  • February 26, 2026

    Are New Police Drone Programs A Big Help Or Big Brother?

    Police are increasingly using drones as first responders to 911 calls, a practice they say helps them respond to crises much faster with far fewer officers, but that privacy advocates warn could lead to mass, warrantless surveillance.

  • February 26, 2026

    9th Circ. Backs L3Harris In Fired Worker's PTSD Bias Suit

    The Ninth Circuit backed defense contractor L3Harris' win in a suit claiming it unlawfully fired a painter because of his post-traumatic stress disorder, finding he admitted in an application for disability benefits that he wasn't able to work by the time he was terminated.

  • February 26, 2026

    Walmart Will Pay Up To $100M To End FTC's Driver Pay Suit

    The Federal Trade Commission and 11 states have reached a $100 million deal with Walmart to settle claims the company misled its "Spark" delivery program drivers over the amount they would be paid, and deceived customers over how much of the tips they paid would go to their drivers, the agency announced Thursday.

  • February 26, 2026

    3 Federal Circuit Clashes To Watch In March

    The Federal Circuit will consider a pair of nine-figure patent cases next month, as ClearPlay seeks to revive a $469 million verdict against Dish Network that a judge threw out, while Netlist aims to preserve a $303 million finding that Samsung infringed its patents, and undo decisions invalidating them.

  • February 26, 2026

    Greenberg Traurig Adds Procopio Tax, Real Estate Pro In Calif.

    Greenberg Traurig LLP is growing its California team, bringing in a Procopio Cory Hargreaves & Savitch LLP tax and real estate expert as a shareholder in its San Diego office.

  • February 25, 2026

    'Back To The Future' Actor Choked 'Captive' Model, Suit Says

    A former British model accused "Back to the Future" actor Crispin Glover Wednesday of coercing her into a "captive, sexual relationship" after luring her to work as his assistant, telling a Los Angeles state court that Glover choked her in an "angry and agitated state," leaving a visible scar.

  • February 25, 2026

    Social Media Contributed To Mental Health Issues, Jury Hears

    A therapist who treated the plaintiff in a landmark bellwether trial alleging Instagram and YouTube harm children's mental health told a California jury Wednesday that social media use contributed to the plaintiff's struggles, while acknowledging that social media addiction is not a diagnosis formally recognized in her field.

  • February 25, 2026

    EPA's Cancellation Of Solar Program Is Illegal, States Say

    A coalition of states has urged a Washington federal court to bar the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from clawing back roughly $3 billion in federal funding for solar energy projects, arguing it can't rescind funds already obligated.

  • February 25, 2026

    Soho House Supervisor Drugged, Raped Bartender, Suit Says

    A bartender for a Los Angeles restaurant operating inside the private members-only club Soho House was drugged and sexually assaulted by her supervisor, according to an employment suit filed Wednesday in California state court.

  • February 25, 2026

    9th Circ. Upends $8M Asbestos Verdict Against BNSF

    The Ninth Circuit has ruled that BNSF Railway Co. cannot be held strictly liable under Montana law for transporting asbestos-containing vermiculite and letting vermiculite dust collect on tracks and its railyard, upending the $8 million jury verdict awarded to the estates of two former Libby, Montana, residents who developed mesothelioma.

  • February 25, 2026

    Nvidia Says YouTubers' AI Scraping Suit Undermines Fair Use

    Nvidia urged a California federal judge to nix a lawsuit alleging it circumvented measures to scrape data from YouTube videos to train its AI model, arguing Monday the Digital Millennium Copyright Act doesn't prohibit circumvention of measures that prevent copying — which allows the public to make fair use of copyrighted works. 

  • February 25, 2026

    $17.9M Drug Price-Fixing Deal Advances Despite Objections

    A Connecticut federal judge on Wednesday advanced a $17.9 million generic drug price-fixing settlement between 48 states and territories and pharmaceutical companies Bausch Health US LLC, Bausch Health Americas Inc. and Lannett Co. Inc., sidelining objections by consumers suing separately in a Pennsylvania multidistrict litigation case.

  • February 25, 2026

    Netflix Swaps Out Latham For Munger Tolles In Antitrust Suit

    Latham & Watkins LLP withdrew Wednesday as defense counsel for Netflix in a proposed consumer class action in Illinois federal court claiming Meta cut an illegal deal ceding the video streaming market to Netflix, which is now represented by Munger Tolles & Olson LLP.

  • February 25, 2026

    FBI Searches LAUSD Headquarters, Superintendent's Home

    The FBI on Wednesday searched Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho's home and the headquarters of the United States' second-largest school district, which said it is cooperating with the investigation.

  • February 25, 2026

    IP Co. Investors Sue Over AI-Focused Acquisition Losses

    Executives and directors of semiconductor technology company Synopsys Inc. were hit with a shareholder's derivative suit accusing them of misleading investors about the operational challenges faced by one of its segments following a $35 billion acquisition of an artificial intelligence company made in 2024.

  • February 25, 2026

    'Do Not Lie To Me': Calif. Judge Panel Agrees Credibility Is Key

    California federal judges speaking at a Federal Bar Association panel in San Francisco have urged attorneys to protect their credibility in the courtroom, with one judge bluntly telling lawyers "do not lie to me" and another revealing it's "shocking" how frequently judges share notes about lawyers.

  • February 25, 2026

    Ex-LA Fire Chief Slams Mayor's Budget 'Cover-Up' Amid Fires

    After the Palisades Fire broke out in January 2025, and Los Angeles was criticized for having cut fire department resources, former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley says in a new lawsuit that Mayor Karen Bass removed her in retaliation for her refusal to lie about the budget cuts that jeopardized public safety.

  • February 25, 2026

    9th Circ. Undoes $278M Eli Lilly Payment In Insulin Case

    The Ninth Circuit ruled against a lower court Wednesday in saying pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly does not owe $278 million in royalties to an Arizona company for insulin-brands sales, saying an agreement between the companies did not cover insulin products Eli Lilly made using a certain yeast expression technology.

Expert Analysis

  • What Recent Dataset Suits Signal For AI Training Litigation

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    Plaintiffs are moving away from abstract debates about artificial intelligence at large and toward dataset provenance, and three filings illustrate how provenance is pled using public dataset documentation, archives and discovery‑ready allegations about copying, retention and downstream handling, says Yulia Leshchenko at Name & Fame.

  • Planning For M&A Complexity After New State 'Mini-HSR' Laws

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    After the recent enactment of California's mini-HSR law, and with Indiana poised to pass its own, requiring the submission of Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notifications to state attorneys general, practitioners should expand their deal planning to include state-by-state reportability as more states adopt similar mandatory merger-notification requirements, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • What New Packaging Waste Laws Mean For Franchisors

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    With states ramping up laws establishing extended producer responsibility programs for packaging materials, paper products and single-use food service ware, restaurant and hospitality franchisors face special compliance challenges as they navigate a delicate balance between conflicting priorities, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • What's Next After NLRB Dismissal Of SpaceX Suit

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    Though the National Labor Relations Board’s recent decision to dismiss its long-running unfair labor practice complaint against SpaceX on jurisdictional grounds temporarily resolves a circuit split over injunctions, constitutional and employee-classification questions remain, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Series

    Playing Piano Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing piano and practicing law share many parallels relating to managing complexity: Just as hearing an entire musical passage in my head allows me to reliably deliver the message, thinking about the audience's impression helps me create a legal narrative that keeps the reader engaged, says Michael Shepherd at Fish & Richardson.

  • AI Trade Secret Conviction Highlights Espionage Risks

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    A California federal court's conviction last month of an ex-Google engineer who stole artificial intelligence trade secrets for the benefit of China is the latest in a series of foreign economic espionage cases and illustrates the urgent need for U.S. companies to implement robust security measures, says attorney Peter Toren.

  • Rebuttal

    Substantial Legal Grounds Supported HPE-Juniper Challenge

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    A recent Law360 guest article argued that the Hewlett Packard-Juniper Networks settlement was part of a trend of antitrust agencies reanchoring themselves in evidence by resisting ill-founded merger challenges, but the complaint against HPE-Juniper actually relied on substantial legal grounds and modern analytical frameworks, says attorney Richard Wolfram.

  • NY RAISE Act Raises The Bar For Frontier AI Developers

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    For organizations developing or substantially modifying highly capable artificial intelligence models, the New York Responsible AI Safety and Education Act represents a meaningful escalation beyond California's S.B. 53, even though it applies to a narrower group of developers, so companies should expect additional obligations, particularly around accelerated incident reporting, say attorneys at Kilpatrick.

  • Opinion

    A TVPRA Safe Harbor Would Boost Antitrafficking Efforts

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    Adding a well-thought-out safe harbor measure to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which is currently up for amendment and reauthorization, would motivate proactive cooperation from hotels and other businesses to combat sex trafficking, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • AI-Generated Doc Ruling Guides Attys On Privilege Risks

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    A New York federal court's ruling, in U.S. v. Heppner, that documents created by a defendant using an artificial intelligence tool were not privileged, can serve as a guide to attorneys for retaining attorney-client or work-product privilege over client documents created with AI, say attorneys at Sher Tremonte.

  • The Law Firm Merger Diaries: Leadership Strategy After Day 1

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    For law firm leaders, ensuring a newly combined law firm lives up to its promise, both in its first days of operation and well after, includes tough decisions, clear and specific communication, and cheerleading, says Peter Michaud at Ballard Spahr.

  • Monetizing EV Charging Stations For Long-Term Success

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    An electric vehicle charging station's longevity hinges on monetizing operations through diverse revenue streams, contractual documentation of charge point operators' and site hosts' rights and responsibilities, and ensuring reliability and security of facilities, says Levi McAllister at Morgan Lewis.

  • Calif.'s Civility Push Shows Why Professionalism Is Vital

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    The California Bar’s campaign against discourteous behavior by attorneys, including a newly required annual civility oath, reflects a growing concern among states that professionalism in law needs shoring up — and recognizes that maintaining composure even when stressed is key to both succeeding professionally and maintaining faith in the legal system, says Lucy Wang at Hinshaw.

  • Locations, Permits And Power Are Key In EV Charger Projects

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    To ensure the success of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects, developers, funders, site hosts and charge point operators must consider a range of factors, including location selection, distribution grid requirements and costs, and permitting and timeline impacts, says Levi McAllister at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Trivia Competition Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing trivia taught me to quickly absorb information and recognize when I've learned what I'm expected to know, training me in the crucial skills needed to be a good attorney, and reminding me to be gracious in defeat, says Jonah Knobler at Patterson Belknap.

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