Illinois

  • January 20, 2026

    Comulate Alleges Anticompetitive Tactics By Applied Systems

    A maker of software for insurance brokers has further escalated its dispute with rival Applied Systems Inc., lodging a new lawsuit in Illinois federal court over an alleged campaign to eliminate a competitor it was unable to acquire.

  • January 20, 2026

    Ill. Panel Scraps Ex-Smollett Attys' Malicious Prosecution Suit

    An Illinois appellate panel upheld a trial court's decision to permanently dismiss a malicious prosecution suit by the law firm that once represented Jussie Smollett, citing failure to allege special injury from the defamation lawsuit filed by the brothers accused of staging a hate crime with the "Empire" actor.

  • January 20, 2026

    Suit Says Grubhub Failed To Protect Private Info From Breach

    Grubhub was sued in Illinois federal court Monday by a potential class of diners and drivers who say the food delivery giant failed to adequately safeguard their sensitive personal information against recent data breaches.

  • January 16, 2026

    Law360 Names Practice Groups Of The Year

    Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2025, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and significant transaction work that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.

  • January 17, 2026

    Real Estate Recap: Cannabis Landlords, Global Deals, ACREL

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including how potential changes to federal marijuana regulation could affect landlords, the largest global real estate deals of 2025, and a chat with the new president of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

  • January 16, 2026

    'Egregious' Judge Shopping Sanctioned In Ill. TM Case

    An Illinois federal judge has permanently thrown out a "Schedule A" trademark case, chastising the plaintiff for once again trying to lump together defendants that multiple judges have already held cannot be lumped together in one suit, calling it "an egregious form of forum shopping."

  • January 16, 2026

    7th Circ. Scraps 'Pizza Puff' TM Block Against Little Caesars

    The Seventh Circuit reversed a ruling Friday that blocked Little Caesars from using the term "pizza puff" to describe its "Crazy Puffs" muffin-pizza products, finding that a Chicago food-maker failed to show "Pizza Puff" is not generic term, or that it could beat Little Caesars fair use defense.

  • January 16, 2026

    White House Backs State Govs In Push For PJM Changes

    The Trump administration on Friday joined an effort by 13 state governors to force the nation's largest regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to fix the issue of escalating power prices amid data center-fueled increases in electricity demand.

  • January 16, 2026

    Flight Attendant Fights Southwest's Bid To Toss OT Suit

    An Illinois federal judge should preserve a proposed class action accusing Southwest Airlines of systematically depriving flight attendants at Chicago Midway International Airport of overtime pay, a former flight attendant said, fighting Southwest's argument that the Railway Labor Act preempts the claims because the flight attendants are unionized.

  • January 16, 2026

    7th Circ. Won't Revive Investment Cos.' VIX-Fix Claims

    The Seventh Circuit on Thursday affirmed the dismissal of two investment companies' volatility index manipulation claims against Barclays, Morgan & Stanley Co. and other financial institutions, agreeing with a lower court that one lacked standing and the other missed a statutory deadline.

  • January 15, 2026

    Ill. Biz Owner Gets 6 Years For $55M Bank Scams, PPP Fraud

    An Illinois businessman has been sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay over $23.3 million in restitution in connection with claims that he defrauded banks through applications for commercial loans, lines of credit and the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program.

  • January 15, 2026

    ICE Facility Suit Could Be 'Tightened Up,' Ill. Judge Says

    An Illinois federal judge urged immigrant detainees on Thursday to give "serious consideration" to streamlining their complaint over a Chicago-area holding facility's allegedly inhumane conditions, saying "there's something to" the government's argument that their current pleading is too long to advance.

  • January 15, 2026

    Ill. Judge Halts Policy Conditions DOJ Tied To Safety Grants

    An Illinois federal judge on Thursday halted the Trump administration's renewed effort to tack allegedly unlawful immigration and other policy-related conditions onto certain public safety grants for sanctuary cities, and blocked the government from enforcing the conditions while two cities' legal challenge plays out.

  • January 15, 2026

    Dems Push SEC To Pursue Crypto Case Against Justin Sun

    Three House Democrats on Thursday pressed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to reinvigorate its paused enforcement case against Tron founder Justin Sun and address their concerns that the agency's wave of crypto case dismissals coincided with considerable industry donations to President Donald Trump.

  • January 15, 2026

    Trump Admin Defies Funding K-12 Mental Health Grants

    The Trump administration is fighting an effort by a coalition of U.S. states to preserve at least six months of funding for K-12 mental health grants meant to help students process gun violence, arguing that an earlier court ruling doesn't require the feds to fund the grants.

  • January 15, 2026

    Trump Admin Open To Settling Ill. National Guard Case

    An Illinois federal judge agreed to stay forthcoming deadlines in a suit over the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois, with the parties exploring a possible settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump can't federalize the Guard to aid in immigration enforcement.

  • January 15, 2026

    PTAB Denials, Reexams & New Patent Suits Rose In 2025

    The volume of Patent Trial and Appeal Board petitions dropped last year, while requests for ex parte reexaminations surged with a 66% increase from those in 2024, according to a new report from Unified Patents.

  • January 15, 2026

    7th Circ. Backs $22M Restitution For Convicted Fraudster

    The Seventh Circuit on Wednesday affirmed a lower court's order that a man convicted of a fraudulent investment scheme causing investors to lose roughly $23 million must fork over $21.6 million in restitution, finding he had waived his challenge to the amount the district judge credited for what had already been recovered.

  • January 15, 2026

    Ambulance Co. Will Pay $225K To Settle OT Suit

    An Illinois ambulance services company will pay $225,000 to end a suit alleging it violated wage law by only paying employees overtime when they worked more than 80 hours in a two-week period, according to a federal judge's order approving the deal.

  • January 14, 2026

    Call Vendors Skirt Wiretap Suit Over AI Transcription Tool

    An Illinois federal judge has released dental support organization Heartland Dental LLC and its contractor from a proposed class action accusing them of illegally using an artificial intelligence-powered note-taking tool to record and analyze patient calls, finding that they couldn't be held liable because their alleged electronic interceptions were made for legitimate business purposes.

  • January 14, 2026

    Dover Launches RICO Suit Over Skyrocketing Insulin Prices

    Manufacturing conglomerate Dover Corp. hit insulin manufacturers including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk and several pharmacy benefit managers with civil racketeering claims in Illinois federal court, accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme that allowed prices to rise dramatically in exchange for preferential treatment on the benefit managers' formularies.

  • January 14, 2026

    University Of Phoenix Must Face Student's Pixel Tracking Suit

    An Illinois federal judge on Tuesday refused to release the University of Phoenix from a proposed class action claiming it uses third party tracking tools to share students' video-viewing behavior with Meta, finding it plausibly alleges that third parties can intercept those communications in real-time directly from students who visit the school's site.

  • January 14, 2026

    Freight Broker Tells Justices Negligence Claims Preempted

    Broker and logistics giant C.H. Robinson told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that federal law unequivocally shields freight brokers from state-based negligence and personal injury claims, saying the plaintiffs bar is pushing for patchwork liability standards that would upend interstate commerce and the supply chain.

  • January 14, 2026

    Trump Admin Drops Appeal In Transportation Funds Suit

    The Trump administration has dropped its First Circuit appeal of an order blocking it from tying billions of dollars in federal transportation funding to states' cooperation with its immigration crackdown.

  • January 14, 2026

    Software Co. Loses Trade Secrets Appeal At 7th Circ.

    The Seventh Circuit has refused to revive claims that an energy management services company stole trade secret information from an appointment booking software application and incorporated its features into a new platform.

Expert Analysis

  • How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery

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    E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.

  • Capital One Deal Approval Lights Up Path For Bank M&A

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    The federal banking regulators' recent approval of Capital One's acquisition of Discover signals the agencies' willingness to approve large transactions and a more favorable environment generally for bank mergers under the Trump administration, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Series

    Playing The Violin Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing violin in a string quartet reminds me that flexibility, ambition, strong listening skills, thoughtful leadership and intentional collaboration are all keys to a successful legal practice, says Julie Park at MoFo.

  • State, Fed Junk Fee Enforcement Shows No Signs Of Slowing

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    The Federal Trade Commission’s potent new rule targeting drip pricing, in addition to the growing patchwork of state consumer protection laws, suggest that enforcement and litigation targeting junk fees will likely continue to expand, says Etia Rottman Frand at Darrow AI.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Self-Care

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    Law schools don’t teach the mental, physical and emotional health maintenance tools necessary to deal with the profession's many demands, but practicing self-care is an important key to success that can help to improve focus, manage stress and reduce burnout, says Rachel Leonard​​​​​​​ at MG+M.

  • Birthright Opinions Reveal Views On Rule 23(b)(2) Relief

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    The justices' multiple opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27 decision in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. CASA, shed light on whether Rule 23(b)(2) could fill the void created by the court's decision to restrict nationwide injunctions, says Benjamin Johns at Shub Johns.

  • ABA Opinion Makes It A Bit Easier To Drop A 'Hot Potato'

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    The American Bar Association's recent ethics opinion clarifies when attorneys may terminate clients without good cause, though courts may still disqualify a lawyer who drops a client like a hot potato, so sending a closeout letter is always a best practice, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Latest Influencer Marketing Class Actions Pinpoint 5 Themes

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    Several recent deceptive marketing class actions against both brands and influencers attempt to transform arguably routine business practices into a new focus area for consumer complaints, suggesting a coordinated approach to test what could become an increasingly popular area of litigation, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    My Opera And Baseball Careers Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Though participating in opera and the world of professional baseball often pulls me away from the office, my avocations improve my legal career by helping me perform under scrutiny, prioritize team success, and maintain joy and perspective at work, says Adam Unger at Herrick Feinstein.

  • 8 Ways Lawyers Can Protect The Rule Of Law In Their Work

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    Whether they are concerned with judicial independence, regulatory predictability or client confidence, lawyers can take specific meaningful actions on their own when traditional structures are too slow or too compromised to respond, says Angeli Patel at the Berkeley Center of Law and Business.

  • 3 Cautionary Tales For Cos. Using Facial Recognition Tech

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    Whether a business intends to develop its own facial recognition applications or contract with another company to use such services, three recent case studies should be kept in mind to help lower the risk of litigation or regulatory enforcement, says Adam Nyenhuis at Hilgers Graben.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Communicating With Clients

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    Law school curricula often overlook client communication procedures, and those who actively teach this crucial facet of the practice can create exceptional client satisfaction and success, says Patrick Hanson at Wiggam Law.

  • How State AG Consumer Finance Enforcement Is Expanding

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    As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau becomes less active, state attorneys general are increasingly shaping the enforcement landscape for consumer financial services — and several areas of focus have recently emerged, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • What Businesses Need To Know To Avoid VPPA Class Actions

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    Divergent rulings by the Second, Sixth and Seventh Circuits about the scope of the Video Privacy Protection Act have highlighted the difficulty of applying a statute conceived to regulate the now-obsolete brick-and-mortar video store sector in today's internet economy, say attorneys at DTO Law.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From US Rep. To Boutique Firm

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    My transition from serving as a member of Congress to becoming a partner at a boutique firm has been remarkably smooth, in part because I never stopped exercising my legal muscles, maintained relationships with my former colleagues and set the right tone at the outset, says Mondaire Jones at Friedman Kaplan.

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