DC Circ. Panel Likely To Keep AP Out Of Press Pool

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. Circuit panel appeared likely to end an injunction barring the White House from keeping the Associated Press out of press pool events Monday, with two judges suggesting that there's room for the president to discriminate on viewpoint in certain events.

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OpenAI Attys Must Share Internal Comms In Copyright MDL

By Hailey Konnath

A New York federal magistrate judge on Monday ordered OpenAI's in-house attorneys to share their internal communications regarding deleted training datasets with authors suing over the alleged use of copyrighted works to train ChatGPT, rejecting OpenAI's argument that the communications are privileged.

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Video Service Cameo Wins Order Against OpenAI In TM Row

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge has granted celebrity video service Cameo a temporary restraining order barring OpenAI from using the Cameo mark during a trademark dispute, saying Cameo had shown it is likely to succeed in the case and would suffer harm without court intervention.

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Pittsburgh Paper Can't Beat Healthcare Order As Strike Ends

By Braden Campbell

Workers who returned to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Monday after a three-year strike must be reverted to their old healthcare plans, as the Third Circuit denied the company a stay of an order making it comply with a National Labor Relations Board ruling.

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Google Calls Rumble's Recusal Bid Irrelevant To Its Appeal

By Andrea Keckley

Google is urging the Ninth Circuit to disregard concerns Rumble has raised about the trial judge's relationship with the tech giant's litigation vice president, saying Friday that the information is irrelevant to the YouTube rival's appeal of the court's ruling that its antitrust lawsuit was filed too late.

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Amazon Says Digital Film Sales Are Not Like Owning DVDs

By Ben Adlin

Amazon has urged a Seattle federal court judge to toss a proposed class action alleging the company lies to customers about whether they actually own movies purchased on its Prime Video platform, arguing the e-commerce giant clearly informs buyers that "content might potentially become unavailable" later on.

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Author Claims Snowflake Used Pirated Books To Train AI

By Ivan Moreno

Montana-based AI developer Snowflake Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action from an author who accuses the company of using his published books to train a series of large language models.

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Calif. AG Notches $1.4M Privacy Deal With Mobile App Maker

By Allison Grande

California's attorney general is continuing to build on his enforcement efforts under the state's data privacy law, announcing a new $1.4 million settlement with a mobile gaming developer that allegedly failed to offer consumers a way to opt out of the sale and sharing of their personal information and that disclosed data belonging to users under 16 without proper permission.

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Meta Buried Own Research On Youth Harm, Schools Say

By Emily Field

School districts are alleging that Meta clamped down on internal research showing that the mental health of young users suffered from compulsive use of its social media platforms, even as staff likened themselves to drug pushers.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court last week delivered a packed mix of fraud allegations, merger fallout, corporate-governance reforms and jurisdictional fights, while a new academic report ignited debate over attorney fee awards in Delaware's influential corporate forum.

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Brief

NCAA Votes To Keep Ban On Pro Sports Betting For Athletes

By Elaine Briseño

The NCAA Division I member schools, with a two-thirds vote, rescinded a rule change that would have allowed student-athletes and staff to bet on professional sports.

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Apple Fights Bid To Recertify 200 Million IPhone Buyer Class

By Bonnie Eslinger

Apple has urged the Ninth Circuit to deny a petition from customers seeking to restore certification of a consumer class plaintiffs say reaches "upwards of 200 million" with a collective $20 billion in damages, in litigation claiming that the tech giant violated antitrust laws with its App Store policies.

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Anti-Disinformation Nonprofit Latest To Buck FTC Subpoena

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission has revealed another challenger that is contesting its subpoenas looking for potential group boycotts of advertising on disfavored platforms.

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NBA Coach Chauncey Billups Denies Mob-Linked Poker Con

By Stewart Bishop

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups on Monday pled not guilty in New York federal court to charges tied to a purported scheme to use Mafia-backed, rigged poker games to cheat unsuspecting players out of millions of dollars.

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Phoenix Suns Minority Owners Lob Mismanagement Claims

By Lauren Berg

Minority owners of the NBA's Phoenix Suns on Monday filed counterclaims of mismanagement and misconduct in a Delaware Chancery Court suit brought by majority owner Mat Ishbia, alleging he has "decimated the company's finances" since purchasing the team in 2023 while refusing to disclose the terms of significant transactions.

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Judges Question Limits On FCC Power To Rework 4.9 GHz

By Christopher Cole

Washington, D.C., Circuit judges sounded unconvinced Monday that the Federal Communications Commission lacked authority to effectively hand control of 4.9 gigahertz airwaves to FirstNet during arguments from some band users' challenge to last year's controversial FCC revamp of the spectrum.

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Comcast To Pay $1.5M Over Hack Of Debt Collector, FCC Says

By Gina Kim

Comcast will pay $1.5 million and change its vendor oversight practices to resolve the Federal Communications Commission's investigation related to a 2024 data breach of a now-defunct debt collection company, which leaked the information of over 230,000 current and former Comcast customers, the agency announced on Monday.

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FCC To Update Rules For Low Power TV Stations

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission will consider next month whether to update the regulatory regime for low power TV broadcasters and adopt new rules to ensure anti-robocall compliance.

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How Brand-Entertainment Collabs Are Reshaping IP Strategy

As storytelling and commerce become increasingly intertwined, brand and entertainment collaborations demand equal parts creativity and legal precision, and rightsholders that proactively align their IP, clearance and ownership strategies will be best positioned to capture opportunity while mitigating risk, says Bess Morgan at Loeb & Loeb.

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Key Risks For Cos. As MAHA Influences Food Regulation

As the Make America Healthy Again movement alters state and federal legislative and regulatory priorities, measures targeting ultra-processed foods, front-of-package labeling requirements and restrictions on schools are creating new compliance and litigation risks for food and beverage manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, retailers and digital advertisers, say attorneys at Kelley Drye.

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Series

The Law Firm Merger Diaries: Making The Case To Combine

When making the decision to merge, law firm leaders must factor in strategic alignment, cultural compatibility and leadership commitment in order to build a compelling case for combining firms to achieve shared goals and long-term success, says Kevin McLaughlin at UB Greensfelder.

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Bonus Spotlight

5 BigLaw Firms Match Prevailing Year-End, Special Bonuses

By Anna Sanders

BigLaw continues to dole out extra cash for attorneys just in time for the holidays, with five more firms matching the year-end and special bonuses previously announced by their peers.

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Feds' Claim Against Judge Weighing Trans Troops Ban Tossed

By Lauren Berg

The D.C. Circuit's chief judge tossed the U.S. Department of Justice's misconduct complaint against the federal judge overseeing litigation challenging the Trump administration's ban on transgender troops serving in the military, saying judicial misconduct proceedings are not the appropriate avenue to address concerns about a judge's impartiality.

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Comey, James Defeat Charges Over Halligan's Appointment

By Ryan Boysen

A federal judge on Monday dismissed the headline-grabbing indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding the controversial prosecutor handling both cases was not properly appointed.

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Calif. Personal Injury Law Firm Sued Over Ransomware Attack

By Gina Kim

A former Adamson Ahdoot LLP client lodged a proposed class action in California state court on Friday over a Nov. 3 ransomware attack, alleging the law firm failed to protect his personal information despite touting on its website that it follows industry standards to do so.

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Feature

Prep, Panic & Poise: Inside An Associate's First Oral Argument

By Jeff Overley

Fraser M. Holmes followed a long professional path to a Texas court's lectern. He'd been a baseball blogger, travel writer and social studies teacher before appellate law beckoned. After years of toil, a milestone moment — his first oral argument — finally arrived, but as justices took the bench, his heart sank: "Oh, my God. I think I've just forgotten my entire argument."

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Oversight Chair Seeks USPTO Briefing On Litigation Funding

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is seeking a briefing by the end of the month from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on third-party litigation funding and reforms the agency is working on.

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8th Circ. Won't Force Judge's Recusal In Pork Price-Fixing Case

By Matthew Perlman

The Eighth Circuit has denied a mandamus petition from Agri Stats Inc. and major pork producers who are seeking a Minnesota federal judge's recusal in price-fixing litigation based on a law clerk's previous work on a related case.

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