Northwell Health inched closer to escaping a proposed class action alleging the hospital system hid cuts to workers' pension plans when converting to a cash-balance plan in the late 1990s, after a New York federal magistrate judge held disclosures about plan changes complied with federal benefits law.
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Northwell Health Should Beat Pension Plan Suit, Judge Says

By Kellie Mejdrich

Northwell Health inched closer to escaping a proposed class action alleging the hospital system hid cuts to workers' pension plans when converting to a cash-balance plan in the late 1990s, after a New York federal magistrate judge held disclosures about plan changes complied with federal benefits law.

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DOL To Investigate Calif. Unemployment Insurance Program

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Labor has announced it is deploying a "specialized strike team" to look into potential fraud and improper payments within California's unemployment insurance program, according to a statement from the agency.

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Trader Joe's Wants To Check Out Of 401(k) Class Claims

By Carolyn Muyskens

Trader Joe's asked a Massachusetts federal judge to free it from a class action claiming mismanagement of an employee retirement plan, saying participants haven't shown they were harmed by fees or one mutual fund option that had posted lackluster returns.

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Brief

Northrop Grumman 401(k) Suit Dropped For 4th Circ. Appeal

By Kellie Mejdrich

A Virginia federal judge dismissed a suit Thursday against Northrop Grumman from workers who alleged misspending of 401(k) forfeitures, a step that followed the parties settling a final claim in anticipation of workers' Fourth Circuit appeal of the court's December order tossing most claims in the dispute.

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Fidelity National Investors Get Initial OK For $210M Deal

By Emilie Ruscoe

Investors in fintech Fidelity National Information Services have gotten an initial green light for their $210 million deal to settle allegations the company mischaracterized the business prospects of its multibillion-dollar acquisition of payment processor Worldpay.

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PRACTICE GROUPS OF THE YEAR

Benefits Group Of The Year: Goodwin

By Irene Spezzamonte

Goodwin Procter LLP scored a full defense verdict for Natixis while also winning a class action appeal at the Eleventh Circuit against John Hancock Life Insurance Co., earning the firm a spot among the 2025 Law360 Benefits Groups of the Year.

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LITIGATION

Mylan Investors Ink $60M Deal In Quality Control Suit

By Matthew Santoni

Investors in the former Mylan NV have reached a $60 million settlement with the company over claims the drugmaker manipulated quality control measures at a West Virginia facility and lied to shareholders, the investors told a federal court this week.

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NYC Pension Funds Sue AT&T Over Proxy Proposal Exclusion

By Sarah Jarvis

Several New York City pension funds have sued AT&T over what they say is the illegal exclusion of their shareholder proposal requesting a corporate diversity report from the telecom giant's corporate ballot, following an indication that regulators would allow the exclusion.

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Alcoa Fights Retirees' Win In Life Insurance Dispute At 7th Circ.

By Emily Brill

Alcoa USA Corp. is looking to erase its retirees' win in a class action that claimed the aluminum manufacturer illegally cut off their life insurance benefits, telling the Seventh Circuit that the retirees owe their victory to an Indiana federal judge misreading their union contract.

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Target Ends Chicken Price-Fixing Claims Against Tyson

By Lauren Berg

Target Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc. told an Illinois federal judge Thursday that they have reached an agreement to resolve the retailer's claims accusing the food company of conspiring with other poultry producers to fix broiler chicken prices.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Series

Trivia Competition Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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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LEGAL INDUSTRY

McGlinchey Stafford Files Ch. 7 With Over $10M In Liabilities

By Lauren Berg

New Orleans-based firm McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, which announced last month that it's winding down operations after more than half a century, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with more than $10 million in liabilities owed to former staff and attorneys, workplace vendors, financial institutions and other creditors.

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Judge Nixes DOJ Fine In ICE Case, But Blasts 'Radio Silence'

By Hailey Konnath

A Minnesota federal judge said Friday that a U.S. Department of Justice attorney won't be fined after an immigrant's identification documents were finally returned to him, yet she tore into the DOJ's excuses and said she will "not tolerate what happened here: disobedience and radio silence from the government."

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Analysis

Deportation Policy Pushes Texas Federal Bench To The Brink

By Courtney Bublé

Texas has suffered through a shortage of judges for its federal courts for a while now, but the recent influx of immigration cases is pushing the system to the brink.

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Michigan Federal Judge Faces State's 'Super Drunk' Charge

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Michigan federal judge facing trial on drunken driving charges crashed his car on the night he was arrested, registered a 0.27% blood alcohol level and told a state trooper who asked him to recite the alphabet, "A, B, C, D, F, U," according to a police report recently made public.

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Boies Schiller Partner Faces Possible Sanctions For AI Errors

By Emily Sawicki

A Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner must explain why he should not face monetary sanctions for filing a brief containing artificial intelligence-generated citation errors amid his representation of women who allege the Church of Scientology harassed them for reporting convicted actor Danny Masterson's sexual assaults.

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Epstein's Advisers Ink $35M Deal With Sex Trafficking Victims

By Katryna Perera

A class of victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking scheme has asked a New York federal judge to grant the first OK in a settlement reached with Epstein's lawyer and accountant, who allegedly aided him in the scheme.

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Va. Judges Name New US Atty, But Blanche Says 'You're Fired'

By Lauren Berg

The federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday unanimously appointed veteran litigator James W. Hundley to serve as interim U.S. attorney, a decision immediately met with derision from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who purported to fire Hundley in a social media post.

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Class Attys Allege Lead Counsel Is Hoarding $75M Sutter Fees

By Dorothy Atkins

Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP has urged a California federal magistrate judge to enforce the $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million deal resolving a decade-long antitrust fight, arguing lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP "unilaterally" and "arbitrarily" cut SWCK's fees by nearly $800,000 while boosting its own.

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Beasley Allen Can't Pause NJ Talc DQ Order, Judge Rules

By George Woolston

The Beasley Allen Law Firm can't delay an order disqualifying it from representing hundreds of women who claim their ovarian cancer was caused by Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder while it seeks review from the New Jersey Supreme Court, a state judge ruled on Friday.

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Fake Attys, Judges, Hearings: DOJ Alleges Immigration Scam

By Hailey Konnath

A group of Colombian immigrants scammed clients out of $100,000 by pretending to be immigration lawyers at a fake firm and orchestrating phony hearings in which they pretended to be judges and federal agents, complete with fake judicial robes and uniforms, federal prosecutors in New York said Friday.

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6th Circ. Chief Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

Chief Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton announced on Friday that he will take senior status on Oct. 1 after more than 20 years on the bench.

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Judiciary Preps Training On National Injunction Limits

By Courtney Bublé

Seven months after the budget reconciliation bill was enacted, the federal judiciary is making progress on the provisions to rein in what Republicans deem abuse of nationwide injunctions targeting the Trump administration's initiatives.

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Analysis

Valve's Anti-Troll Law Win Could Open New Doors

By Dani Kass

The first jury verdict in the U.S. finding a patent owner violated state law meant to curb bad faith patent suits had unique circumstances that will be hard to repeat, but attorneys say Tuesday's decision still has them considering the little-used laws more closely.

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Florida AG Defends $100K Teaching Side Gig Amid Scrutiny

By Jake Maher

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been on defense amid scrutiny over a reported $100,000-per-year teaching gig at the University of Florida law school, just as he sought to roll out a new anti-corruption unit.

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Attys Regret Unnoticed ChatGPT Errors In Conn. Court Filings

By Tracey Read

Attorneys ordered to explain errors in two January Connecticut Supreme Court briefs said ChatGPT altered legal arguments that counsel did not notice when they asked the artificial intelligence software to help limit duplicate passages, meet word count rules and format the filings.

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Brief

2nd NJ Defendant Joins Bid To Disqualify US Atty Leadership

By Carla Baranauckas

A second defendant in a New Jersey federal criminal case on Friday joined a pending bid to disqualify the three assistant U.S. attorneys overseeing the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, escalating a constitutional challenge to the office's leadership structure.

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Beltway Moves: Baker McKenzie, Armstrong & Bradylyons

By Alison Knezevich

The deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division returned to Baker McKenzie, while two former DOJ fraud prosecutors launched a new white collar boutique, in some of the latest legal industry happenings in Washington, D.C.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

The last week in London saw the founders of Getir sue investment fund Mubadala for more than $700 million tied to alleged breaches during the company's restructuring, the Welsh Rugby Union face a claim by Swansea Council over a proposed takeover of Cardiff Rugby, and Euro Car Parks target the Competition and Markets Authority after it was fined by the watchdog. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Several pension funds in New York City sued AT&T, alleging the illegal exclusion of their shareholder proposal requesting a corporate diversity report from the telecom giant's corporate ballot. In the meantime, the DOJ said the Trump administration is investigating federal contractors and grant recipients for potentially engaging in discrimination, rather than for their DEI programs. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis Elefterakis & Panek lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a New York federal judge denied the NFL's bid to force a class of National Football League coaches into arbitration.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Promo that reads 2025 Practice Groups of the Year

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

A&O Shearman

Actuate Law

Alston & Bird

Armstrong Teasdale

Axinn Veltrop

Baker Donelson

Baker McKenzie

Ballard Spahr

Barnes & Thornburg

Bartko Pavia

Beasley Allen

Berk Brettler

Bernstein Litowitz

Boies Schiller

Bracewell LLP

Briglia Hundley

Bristows LLP

Brown Rudnick

Buchanan Ingersoll

CMS Cameron McKenna

Capital Law Ltd.

Capozzi Adler PC

Cheng Cohen

Cleary Gottlieb

Clyde & Co

Constantine Cannon

Cooley LLP

Covington & Burling

Cozen O'Connor

David Boies

Dinsmore & Shohl

Duane Morris

Elefterakis Elefterakis

Epstein Becker

Epstein Law Firm

Faegre Drinker

Feinstein Doyle

Fieldfisher

Finnegan

Foley Hoag

Freedman Firm PC

Gateley PLC

Gibson Dunn

Goodwin Procter

GrayRobinson

Greenberg Traurig

Hanna & Jarbo

Hanson Bridgett

Haynes Boone

Hogan Lovells

Horvitz & Levy

Howes Percival

Hugh James

Hughes Hubbard

Jones Day

K&L Gates

Keoghs LLP

Kessler Topaz

Kirkland & Ellis

Knights PLC

Labaton Keller

Latham & Watkins

Leach & Walker

Lester Aldridge

London & Naor

Longhorn IP

McGovern Weems

McGuireWoods

McKool Smith

Meyler Legal

Morgan Lewis

Morrison & Foerster

Moses & Singer

Nabarro LLP

Norton Rose

O'Melveny & Myers

Orrick Herrington

Patterson Belknap

Paul Hastings

Penningtons Manches

Pinsent Masons

Quinn Emanuel

Reed Longyear

Reed Smith

Roy Petty & Associates

Schneider Wallace

Sidley Austin

Sills Cummis

Slaughter and May

Squire Patton

Steffes Firm

Sterne Kessler

Sullivan & Cromwell

TLT LLP

Thomas & Solomon

Torridon Law

Troutman

Trowers & Hamlins

Veale Wasbrough

Venable LLP

Vogel Slade

White & Case

Whiteford Taylor

Whiteman Osterman

Wigdor LLP

Williams & Connolly

Willkie Farr

WilmerHale

Wilson Sonsini

Winston & Strawn

Zimmer Law Group

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

A.P. Moller-Maersk

AT&T Inc.

Actuate Corporation

Agri Stats Inc.

Alcoa Corp.

Alphabet Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

Apple Inc.

Bank of America Corp.

Bayer AG

Bessemer Group Inc.

Blueprint Medicines Corp.

Buffalo Wild Wings Inc.

Chick-fil-A Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Coinbase Global Inc.

Connecticut Legal Services

Cottrell Inc.

Danaher Corp.

FTI Consulting Inc.

Federal Bar Association

Fidelity National Information Services Inc.

Foster Farms

Foster Wheeler AG.

Found

Gerson Lehrman Group Inc.

Google LLC

Harvard University

Instagram Inc.

Intel Corp.

International Business Machines Corp.

International Finance Corp.

John Hancock Life Insurance Co. USA

John Wood Group PLC

Johnson & Johnson

Keystone Foods LLC

Koch Foods

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

Major Lindsey & Africa LLC

Mar-Jac Poultry

Masimo Corp.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

Miami Dolphins

Miami Herald Media Co.

Michigan State University

Micron Technology Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. Ltd.

Monsanto Co.

NFL Enterprises LLC

National Rifle Association of America

Natixis SA

Nintendo Co. Ltd.

Northrop Grumman Corp.

Northwell Health Inc.

Ohio State University

Otis Worldwide Corp.

Patent Asset Management

Perdue Farms Inc.

RELX PLC

Relativity ODA LLC

Ricoh Co. Ltd.

Sanderson Farms Inc.

Sanofi

Simmons Foods Inc.

SoftBank Group Corp.

Stanford University

Starbucks Corp.

Sutter Health

Target Corp.

The Economist Newspaper Ltd.

Thomson Reuters Corp.

Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. Ltd.

Trader Joe's Co.

Tyson Foods Inc.

UBS Group AG

Uber Technologies Inc.

United Steelworkers

Valve Corp.

Viatris Inc.

Worldpay LLC

YouTube Inc.

easyJet plc

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

City of New York

Companies House

Competition and Markets Authority

Delaware Court of Chancery

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

European Union

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Judicial Center

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

HMRC

Internal Revenue Service

National Labor Relations Board

New Jersey Supreme Court

New York Attorney General's Office

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia

State of Michigan

U.S. Army

U.S. Attorney's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

U.S. Department of Energy

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. District & Bankruptcy Courts of Southern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota

U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court

UK High Court

Unified Patent Court

Virginia Attorney General's Office