Expert Analysis

• Series

  Playing Magic: The Gathering Makes Me a Better Lawyer

  

  The competitive card game Magic: The Gathering offers me a training ground for the strategic thinking skills crucial to litigation, challenging me to adapt to oft-updated rules, analyze text as complicated as any statute and anticipate my opponent’s next moves, says Christopher Smith at Lash Goldberg.

• Improving Well-Being In Law, 10 Years After Landmark Study

  

  An important 2016 study revealed significant substance abuse and mental health issues among lawyers, and while the findings helped normalize the conversation around these topics, a decade later, structural change is still needed, says Denise Robinson at PLI.

• How To Gear Up For Trump's Pharma Tariffs

  

  President Donald Trump's proclamation establishing tariffs on certain pharmaceutical products holds a few areas of ambiguity that companies should review and prepare for before the tariffs come into effect later this year, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

• Initial Virginia AG Actions Signal Focus On Multistate Efforts

  

  Now that Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has reached the 100-day mark in office, his first set of actions reveals a clear preference for coalition with regional and national counterparts, which means the primary risk for businesses is no longer just the fact of enforcement, but the speed at which investigations can escalate, says Lauren Cooper at Hogan Lovells.

• Opinion

  Exxon's Retail Voting Program Is A Trap For Retail Investors

  

  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Exxon Mobil's first-of-its-kind proxy voting program last September, but ahead of the company's annual shareholder meeting next month, it's clear that retail shareholders have delegated their voice to the entity their vote exists to check, says Christina Sautter at Southern Methodist University.

• What Cos. Must Know As Energy Star Shifts To DOE Oversight

  

  Congress saved the Energy Star program last year despite the Trump administration's attempt to defund it — but as its management shifts from one federal agency to another, industry participants need to track what's changing to stay abreast of compliance obligations, say attorneys at HWG.

• GHG Endangerment Finding Repeal Brings New Legal Risks

  

  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2009 determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare anchored a matrix of regulation across multiple sectors — and the recent repeal of that finding has fundamentally destabilized the legal landscape governing industrial emissions, corporate liability and climate-related risk management, says Tanya Nesbitt at Thompson Hine.

• Series

  Officiating Football Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Though they may seem to have little in common, officiating football has sharpened many of the same skills that define effective lawyering in management-side labor and employment: preparation, judgment, composure, credibility and ability to make difficult decisions in real time, says Josh Nadreau at Fisher Phillips.

• Prediction Market Platform Probes Merit Strategic Responses

  

  As the battle over the regulation of prediction markets is being waged between states and the federal government, investigations into insider trading allegations are increasingly originating from inside the exchanges themselves, creating obvious risks for market participants — as well as opportunities, say attorneys at Kobre & Kim.

• Series

  Law School's Missed Lessons: How To Draft Pleadings

  

  Most law school graduates step into their first jobs without ever having drafted a complaint, answer, motion or other type of pleading, but that gap can be closed by understanding the strategy embedded in every filing, writing with clarity and purpose, and seeking feedback at every step, says Eric Yakaitis at Haug Barron.

• Legal And Regulatory Keys To Sustainable Building Projects

  

  While the federal government continues to roll back environmental regulations, market momentum toward high-performance, energy-efficient commercial real estate as a defining driver of long-term value remains robust — so developers should understand how applicable standards and regulatory frameworks will affect projects, say attorneys at CGS3.

• E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On ESI Control

  

  Several recent federal court decisions have perpetuated a split over what constitutes “control” of electronically stored information — with judges divided on whether the standard should turn on a party's legal right or practical ability to obtain the information, say attorneys at Sidley.

• Calif. Truck Regs Now Require Multiple Compliance Strategies

  

  California's various vehicle and truck emissions programs now move on different legal tracks, impose different obligations and create different business risks on different timelines — so companies that treat them as one package subject to a federal Clean Air Act waiver risk missing deadlines and mispricing contracts, says Thierry Montoya at FBT Gibbons.

• A Data-Driven Guide For Navigating The 2026 Oil Price Shock

  

  With the Iran war disrupting tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, oil price volatility has soared, and this extreme price dislocation is likely to generate complex legal disputes — but companies can protect themselves by preserving every scrap of market data available, say Peter Niculescu and Leslie Rahl at Capital Market Risk Advisors.

• 2 Discovery Rulings Break With Heppner On AI Privilege Issue

  

  While a New York federal court’s recent ruling in U.S. v. Heppner suggests that some litigants’ communications with AI tools are discoverable, two other recent federal court decisions demonstrate that such interactions generally qualify for work-product protection under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, says Joshua Dunn at Brown Rudnick.