Pipe Maker Names 2nd Firm In Asbestos RICO Suit

By Emily Field

A Los Angeles pipe manufacturer has added Massachusetts-based Sokolove Law to its civil racketeering lawsuit in Illinois federal court accusing Simmons Hanly Conroy LLP and others of orchestrating a scheme to fill the law firms' coffers by bringing baseless asbestos claims, alleging the Sokolove firm acted to find the cases.

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J&J Bellwether Trial Over Talc Cancer Risks Kicks Off In LA

By Craig Clough

An attorney for one of two women who claim Johnson & Johnson's talcum products caused their ovarian cancer told a Los Angeles jury Thursday during opening statements in a bellwether trial that decades-old internal documents prove J&J knew its talc products contained toxic levels of asbestos but hid that information.

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Tesla Fatal Crash Trial Delayed Over Discovery Disputes

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida state judge granted a request Thursday to push back the trial date of a suit against Tesla over a fatal crash and said he would be appointing a magistrate judge to handle the discovery disputes delaying the case.

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2nd Circ. Upholds NY's Ban On Selling Diet Pills To Minors

By Dorothy Atkins

The Second Circuit on Thursday rejected a trade group's bid to block a New York law that bars companies from selling weight loss and muscle-building supplements to minors, finding the group likely won't win its First Amendment challenges and retailers' "speculative predictions" of lost sales aren't enough to show irreparable harm.

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NY Judge Declines Sanctions For Citation Errors — Again

By Emily Sawicki

For the second time in as many months, a Manhattan federal judge has stopped short of sanctioning an attorney for including false case citations in a filing, warning the lawyer in an order that he had better not allow errors again.

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Analysis

Hemp Policy At Crossroads After Government Reopening Bill

By Sam Reisman

Hemp industry advocates are pledging to use the one-year gap between enactment and implementation of the government funding agreement, which effectively recriminalized most hemp-derived THC products, to craft new regulatory legislation that stops short of a full ban.

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Fla. Hospitals Didn't Prove Opioid Conspiracy, Jurors Told

By David Minsky

Walgreens told a state court jury on Thursday that Florida hospitals haven't proven that the company conspired with Walmart, CVS and pharmaceutical manufacturers to illegally dispense opioids through their pharmacies, arguing that the corporations shouldn't be liable for $1.5 billion in damages for contributing to an epidemic of opioid-addicted patients. 

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Cancer Patient Was Severely Addicted, Tobacco Jury Told

By Cara Salvatore

The youngest daughter of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer testified Thursday at trial against Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds that her mother went to emotional and behavioral extremes to get her "fix."

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Tribe Scores Early Win Against Michigan Fruit Processor

By Joyce Hanson

A Michigan federal judge has ruled that a fruit-processing company illegally discharged millions of gallons of untreated wastewater into wetlands that feed Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay, granting an early win to a Native American tribe and two local environmental nonprofit groups.

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Brief

CVS Reaches Deal In 'Non-Drowsy' Labeling Class Action

By Jonathan Capriel

A woman has agreed to settle her proposed class action against CVS Pharmacy accusing it of deceptively marketing its flu medicine as "non-drowsy" when it contained a drug known to cause drowsiness.

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Brief

Weight-Loss Drug MDL In Pa. Grows With 3 New Jersey Cases

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Three New Jersey cases were grouped into multidistrict litigation accusing Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk of downplaying alleged side effects of weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Trulicity, according to a transfer order filed in Pennsylvania federal court.

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Injured Riders Ask Justices To Block NJ Transit's Immunity

By Carla Baranauckas

Three injured riders from Pennsylvania and New York asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject New Jersey Transit's bid to escape two negligence suits on interstate sovereign immunity grounds, arguing that the transit agency is legally distinct from the State of New Jersey and should not be insulated from being sued in courts outside the state.

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Series

Building With Lego Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Building with Lego has taught me to follow directions and adapt to unexpected challenges, and in pairing discipline with imagination, allows me to stay grounded while finding new ways to make complex deals come together, says Paul Levin at Venable.

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New California Bar Leader Aims To Rebuild Public Trust

By Tracey Read

After less than two weeks on the job, Laura Enderton-Speed, the California State Bar's new executive director, is already busy working to strengthen trust in the organization following the botched administration of the February bar exam.

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Roundup

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Freeths face a professional negligence claim from a Scottish car dealership, Rolls-Royce sue logistics giant Kuehne + Nagel, and a team of Oberon Investments Group investment managers sued by their former employer.  

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Experts say it will likely take at least a month for the thousands of SEC employees now back to work after the government shutdown to catch up with submissions for initial public offerings. Meanwhile, clean energy developers are increasingly looking to privately held investors amid a race to beat a July 2026 cutoff to maintain eligibility for clean electricity investment and production tax credits. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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Buchalter Won't Be Sanctioned For 'Hallucinated' AI Citations

By Rose Krebs

An Oregon federal judge has decided not to sanction Buchalter PC and other counsel representing an environmental nonprofit in a trademark infringement dispute for submitting "hallucinated" case citations generated by an artificial intelligence tool, saying he is satisfied with "remedial actions" already done or to be taken.

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King & Spalding, Atty Move To End Bias Suit At 4th Circ.

By Grace Elletson

King & Spalding LLP and an attorney who complained that she didn't apply to a summer associate program as a straight, white woman because the firm sought diverse applicants have agreed to end her bias case, according to a filing in the Fourth Circuit.

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Manning Kass Hit With Age Bias Suit In Calif.

By Christine DeRosa

Manning & Kass Ellrod Ramirez Trester LLP is facing an age bias lawsuit in California state court alleging a firm leader has made ageist comments at employees over 40 and is trying to drive those workers out of the firm.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Sidley Austin LLP and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Washington federal jury cleared Novo Nordisk of allegations that it defrauded the state's Medicaid and Medicare systems by paying kickbacks and promoting off-label use to illegally boost prescriptions of its hemophilia drug NovoSeven.

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Non-Attys Could Help Close Georgia's Civil Justice Gap

By Emily Johnson

Low-income Georgians and rural Georgians face several barriers to accessing legal services, including living in a legal desert, according to a Georgia Supreme Court committee’s report. The panel's proposal allowing "limited licensed legal practitioners" to assist with civil housing and consumer debt matters could improve access to justice across the state.

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House Eyes Vote To Repeal Provision On Senators' Lawsuits

By Courtney Bublé

A House bill to repeal a controversial provision tucked into the government funding package that would allow senators investigated by former special counsel Jack Smith to sue for damages is listed for possible consideration on the schedule for the week of Nov. 17.

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Northern NY US Atty To Defend DOJ In Maurene Comey Suit

By Jack Karp

The U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of New York has agreed to defend the U.S. Department of Justice against a lawsuit from former FBI Director James Comey's daughter over what she calls her illegal firing, that office informed a New York federal judge this week.

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DOJ Official Among Trump Picks For District Courts

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced judicial nominees for federal courts in Tennessee, Indiana and Missouri on Friday, including a current U.S. Department of Justice official.

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Frequent DEI Foe Takes Aim At Mich. Law Firm's Scholarships

By Madison Arnold

American Alliance for Equal Rights, a group known for challenging diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships, has set its sights on Michigan personal injury firm Buckfire & Buckfire PC for alleged discrimination via the firm's scholarship programs for minorities.

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NC, Utah Attorneys General Launch Nationwide AI Task Force

By Matt Perez

Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson and Republican Utah Attorney General Derek Brown have announced the formation of a nationwide artificial intelligence task force in collaboration with developers OpenAI and Microsoft, as well as the Attorney General Alliance, a nonprofit group of bipartisan state attorneys general.

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How To Kill A Person: A Legal Battle Over Execution Methods

By Marco Poggio

As botched executions pile up and states reach for untested methods like nitrogen hypoxia, prisoners are turning to the courts for a say in how they will die — and are being met with a legal framework stacked against finding execution methods unconstitutional.

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Perkins Coie Sued By Omani Co. Over Trade Case Defense

By Rachel Riley

An Omani screw manufacturer has launched a legal malpractice suit in Washington state court accusing Perkins Coie LLP of a "series of deadly mistakes" while representing the Middle Eastern company in a U.S. Department of Commerce probe, allegedly leading to steep penalties and tariffs that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Analysis

Feds' Use Of AI In Permitting, Rulemaking Raises Concerns

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

Federal government agencies with environmental responsibilities have begun using artificial intelligence tools, but attorneys say information about exactly why, how and when they are being used has been hard to get, leading to uncertainty about their effectiveness and shortcomings.

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'Constitutional Word Salad': Judge Rips Suit Over Mascot Ban

By Bonnie Eslinger

A New York federal court judge denied a Long Island school district's bid to amend claims in a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on Indigenous mascots, calling proposed changes a "constitutional word salad," but said a district parent could add First Amendment claims to the litigation.

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