Expert Analysis

• DOE Energy Efficiency Rollbacks Portend Clashes With States

  

  With the U.S. Department of Energy proposing rollbacks of energy efficiency regulations for numerous appliance types, backstop provisions in many states could come into play to preserve existing standards — but disputes over antibacksliding provisions in federal law and the limits of preemption mean court battles are likely, say attorneys at HWG.

• Enviro Marketing Lessons From NY Greenwashing Ruling

  

  A New York state appeals court recently affirmed the dismissal of a New York City suit accusing BP, Exxon and Shell of corporate and product greenwashing, providing practical lessons for framing comparative environmental claims carefully by ensuring that environmental claims are accurate, properly qualified and presented in context, say attorneys at V&E.

• How Cos. Should Prepare For Democratic Oversight

  

  Companies should begin preparing now for a new, Democratic-majority Congress — understanding how the oversight landscape has changed in recent years and monitoring leadership elections, new rules and potential select committees, say attorneys at Wiley.

• What 3 Cases Reveal About Solar Co. Financial Disclosures

  

  Three recent securities suits involving Nextracker, SolarEdge and Enphase illustrate the challenges of evaluating financial representations in the solar industry, raising a common issue: Financial projections cannot be fully understood without examining the operating information and assumptions supporting them, says Rand Manasse at Green Lane Partners.

• Series

  Open-Water Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Swimming long distances in open waters is not necessarily an escape from my intellectual property practice, but a complementary discipline that similarly rewards sustained attention, intellectual curiosity, resilience and the ability to pursue a distant objective without losing command of the immediate task, says Christina MacDougall at Morgan Lewis.

• Opinion

  The Invisible AI Danger That May Undermine Legal Profession

  

  A public database tracking cases involving hallucinations generated by artificial intelligence recently surpassed 2,200 entries, but the bigger risk underlying attorneys’ use of such tools is that they will slowly surrender their judgment to AI and lose analytical skills, says Massachusetts District Court Associate Justice Brian Palmucci.

• Consistency Is Key In Pipeline Incident Investigations

  

  A pipeline release that causes worker injury does not trigger one investigation, but five or more, running on different timetables, under different statutes, and new federal procedures may soon add more complexity — but companies must maintain one centralized record to ensure consistency throughout, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

• 9th Circ. Waters Ruling Shows Sackett's Ripple Effects

  

  The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Inland Empire Waterkeeper v. Corona Clay demonstrates that the U.S. Supreme Court's "waters of the U.S." ruling in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can reopen cases already tried to verdict, thus changing expectations around citizen suits and stormwater enforcement in California, says Jacob Lubarsky at Rogers Joseph.

• How AI Could Help Judges Spot Their Own Biases

  

  In close cases where there’s room for discretion, artificial intelligence could challenge judges’ implicit biases by running counterfactual tests at scale — but any judicial use of such tools would need guardrails, say Arnold Peter at Peter Law and Nancy Rapoport at University of Nevada.

• West Point Prof's Suit Tests Public Employee Speech Limits

  

  A recent complaint in New York federal court alleging that West Point unlawfully terminated a professor who challenged a directive banning references to human causes of climate change could illuminate how academic freedom and public employee speech protections apply at a military academy, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

• Va. Data Center Order Shows State Air Permit Limits

  

  A consent order over data center air pollution violations proposed by Virginia, which Microsoft recently agreed to, demonstrates why an emergency situation may not excuse state air permit noncompliance, and why emergency power reliability and environmental compliance cannot be evaluated in isolation, says Sanaa Chakibi at SICPA Securink.

• How To ID And Respond To 5 Types Of Misleading Witnesses

  

  Witnesses can mislead fact-finders using a variety of tactics — from strategic amnesia to manufactured ignorance — but lawyers can learn how to identify and expose this testimony to come out on top, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

• Where Species And Wetlands Reg Rollbacks Leave Cos.

  

  The current administration's rollbacks of regulations covering waters of the U.S. and endangered species may ease permitting burdens and shorten approval timelines, but those potential benefits are tempered by state-level protections, likely legal challenges and possible reversals by a future administration, say attorneys at White & Case.

• 3 Strategies To Reduce AI Sycophancy In Legal Work

  

  The tendency of generative artificial intelligence models to tell users what they want to hear can reinforce attorneys’ confirmation bias when testing the strength of arguments, and it can’t simply be prompted away — but a few practices can help mitigate it, says Michael Ott at Ice Miller.

• Opinion

  Justices' Climate Ruling Should Preserve State Tort Claims

  

  As recent oral arguments in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County demonstrated, the case hinges on long-standing principles of federalism that allow state and local governments to protect their resources and citizens — and if the justices rule based on precedent, Suncor should lose, says William Buzbee at Georgetown University Law Center.