As the architectural, engineering and construction industry increasingly utilizes building information modeling software, which shifts some risk to contractors, users should take steps to avoid legal risks, while enhancing projects' production and progression, says Ivan Sarkissian at McConaughy & Sarkissian.

As more states legalize cannabis cultivation, manufacture and use — which remains illegal federally — there may be a wave of new workers in the industry, and businesses will need to consider what law will govern the employer-employee relationship and what role unions will play, say Gabriel Jiran and Sarah Westby at Shipman & Goodwin.

The Federal Trade Commission's recent move to limit noncompete provisions in an acquisition agreement for 60 gas stations reaffirms the importance of narrowly tailoring an M&A noncompete with a scope that is needed to reasonably protect the investment, say Greg Heltzer and Alex Grayson at McDermott.

The Copan v. Puritan Medical patent decision on swabs used for COVID-19 tests has made the District of Maine the first court to face the question of whether immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act extends to claims of patent infringement, but it's unlikely to be the last, say Matt Rizzolo and Keyna Chow at Ropes & Gray.

In light of new U.S. Department of Justice requirements that chief executive and compliance officers certify the effectiveness of their companies' ethics and compliance programs, these executives should keep several considerations in mind to avoid undue personal liability, say advisers at StoneTurn.

Many charitable organizations offer attorneys board positions to benefit from their specialized legal knowledge, but there are ethical considerations and liability dangers that demand lawyers set boundaries about their roles and responsibilities, says Patrick Sturm at LexisNexis.

A recently signed bill raising the debt limit back to $7.5 million for those electing treatment under the Small Business Reorganization Act provides a sigh of relief for small companies, but debtors should consider whether filing a Subchapter V case by the end of this year is advantageous, say attorneys at Michael Best.

The high-profile California federal court dispute between Kobe Bryant's widow and Los Angeles County over emotional distress is an important one for understanding the ability to use mental health records and the psychotherapist-patient privilege in a lawsuit, say Lee Brenner and Ethan Ames at Venable.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Ruan v. U.S., demanding rock-solid proof of intentional impropriety to convict a prescriber under the Controlled Substances Act, provides reassurance to opioid prescribers, but the U.S. Department of Justice is unlikely to back down on CSA prosecutions, say Janelle Pelli and Michelle Peirce at Hinckley Allen.

Due to ambiguity in the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Gallardo v. Marstiller and an outright mistake in the parties' briefs incorporated into the dissent, it remains unclear whether Medicaid and Medicare can recover past and future medical expenses from settlements, judgments and awards, say David Farber and Arlene Hennessey at King & Spalding.

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, concerning a coach who prayed on the football field during school games, addressed the free speech and religious expression rights of public employees in the workplace, but employers must keep in mind that this decision is only the opening salvo in a developing law of public employee expression, says David Urban at Liebert Cassidy.

Attorneys at Jenner & Block answer 10 key questions about how the newly effective Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act affects companies, best practices for monitoring supply chains and how to overcome presumed noncompliance if U.S. Customs and Border Protection withholds goods on entry.

U.S. practitioners should take note of a unique avenue of restructuring in Ireland, as highlighted by recent international bankruptcy cases that culminated in examinership petitions to the Irish courts, says Sam Saarsteiner at Clark Hill.

Maine has been a nationwide trendsetter in regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and given the state's recent sweeping legislative actions against PFAS, companies operating in Maine must consider their compliance strategies carefully, say Patrick Gwinn at Integral Consulting, and Lisa Gilbreath and Sara Murphy at Pierce Atwood.

A number of public and private carbon offset credit schemes are in the works, but creating a global market on which credits can be traded will require verifying that offsets are genuine and have not been double-counted, and establishing common qualifications, rules and procedures for valuing credits, say attorneys at Shearman.

A third of all patent cases filed in the U.S. over the last year were in two Texas federal courts, but that dominance may be ending soon, as judicial assignment reform has high-profile support from Congress and U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, says Dabney Carr at Troutman Pepper.

The recent Fifth Circuit decision in Jarkesy v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely have a limited effect on the SEC’s enforcement program, but could portend a very significant impact for other agencies, especially those relying on administrative machinery to impose money penalties, say Daniel Walfish and Rachel Penski Fissell at Walfish & Fissell.

Recent prohibitions on ransom payments and other public policy measures vastly underestimate the breadth and complexity of the ransomware problem and will only work if organizations adopt basic cyber defenses, says Kate Margolis at Bradley.

The U.K. government’s recent report on the National Security and Investment Act, covering its first three months since it came into force in January, suggests that the regime may not be leading to a surge in benign notifications and that the government is responding quickly, which is good news for businesses, say attorneys at Cooley.