Texas Justices Broaden Protections For Road Contractors

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that contractors doing work superintended by the state Department of Transportation may be able to avoid personal injury liability, reasoning that an appellate panel erroneously found the department had to hire the contractors for the statute's protections to apply.

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Boeing Unit Owes $2.5M In Employment Bias Trial

By Cara Salvatore

A Kansas federal jury has said Spirit AeroSystems Inc. must pay a former employee, a white mechanic, $2.5 million for firing him after a period of sustained conflict with a Hispanic employee that eventually led the mechanic to call the police.

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First Brands Seeks Access To $250M As DIP Loans Drop

By Alex Wittenberg

Struggling auto parts maker First Brands said on Friday it needs quick access to $250 million in cash that's being held by customers or stuck in segregated accounts, telling a Texas bankruptcy judge a decline in the trading prices of its Chapter 11 loans has sparked "unfounded concerns" about its health.

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Azul's Opt-Out Releases Will Be Approved, Judge Signals

By Alex Wittenberg

A New York bankruptcy judge said Friday he would toss an objection the U.S. Trustee's Office had raised against Brazilian airline Azul's third-party releases, clearing a key hurdle to confirmation of the debtor's plan to cut more than $2 billion of debt under a Chapter 11 plan.

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Brief

Delta Retirees' Pension Dispute Paused For Mediation Efforts

By Kelcey Caulder

A Nevada federal judge Thursday froze a proposed class action accusing Delta Air Lines Inc. of shorting married pensioners on retirement benefits by miscalculating lump-sum payouts, giving the airline and the former workers behind the suit a chance to try and reach a deal. 

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PrimaLend's Parent Co. Files Ch. 11 With Equity Holder OK

By Hilary Russ

PCAP Holdings LP, the parent company of bankrupt auto dealership lender PrimaLend Capital Partners, itself filed for Chapter 11 protection on Friday after PrimaLend's noteholders complained that the parent was not also included in the initial bankruptcy case.

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Mass. Rail Co. Says Insurers Must Cover Asbestos Deal

By Hope Patti

A Massachusetts-based freight railway company said its insurers have unreasonably refused to reimburse it for the balance of an asbestos injury settlement, telling a state court that the insurers must pay their share of the deal on an all sums basis.

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Ex-Driver Says Ga. Delivery Co. Stiffs Workers

By Chart Riggall

A former driver for an Atlanta-area FedEx delivery contractor has hit the company with a proposed collective action in Georgia federal court, accusing the firm of paying its drivers what amounted to a flat wage when they were entitled to overtime.

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Autonomous Vehicle Liability Trends To Watch In 2026

With autonomous vehicles increasingly making their own decisions, the liability landscape for AVs has changed over the past year — highlighting a number of important issues that companies and practitioners should keep a close eye on in 2026, says Farid Yaghoubtil at Downtown LA Law Group.

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Suncor Is Justices' Chance To Rule On Climate Nuisance Suits

If the U.S. Supreme Court chooses to hear Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, Colorado, it will have the chance to resolve whether federal law precludes state law nuisance claims targeting interstate and global emissions — and the answer will have major implications for climate litigation nationwide, say attorneys at Liskow & Lewis.

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Tariffs And Trade Volatility Drove 2025 Bankruptcy Wave

The Trump administration's tariff regime has reshaped the commercial restructuring landscape this year, with an increased number of bankruptcy filings showing how tariffs are influencing first‑day narratives, debtor-in-possession terms and case strategies, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

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Opinion

Supreme Court Term Limits Would Carry Hidden Risk

While proposals for limiting the terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices are popular, a steady stream of relatively young, highly marketable ex-justices with unique knowledge and influence entering the marketplace of law and politics could create new problems, say Michael Broyde at Emory University and Hayden Hall at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

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Bonus Spotlight

Axinn Veltrop's Bonuses Reach Up To $240K

By Andrea Keckley

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP is giving out bonuses of up to $240,000 for its associates, according to an in-house memo seen by Law360 Pulse.

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Watchdog Sues White House For Records On Law Firm Deals

By Emily Sawicki

A Washington-based nonprofit watchdog has sued the Trump administration, seeking records related to deals BigLaw firms struck to provide an estimated nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal services to further the administration's priorities, following the president's executive orders to withhold security clearances and investigate the firms.

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Analysis

2025 Sees State Courts Diverge From Federal Criminal Norms

By Brandon Lowrey

Some of this year's most notable criminal appellate rulings homed in on differences between state and federal constitutional protections against the most serious punishments, with movement in Michigan, bucking the trend in Wyoming, and an ambiguous but potentially earthshaking decision out of Texas.

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US Atty Nominee For Wyo. Was Outside Capitol On Jan. 6

By Courtney Bublé

One of President Donald Trump's U.S. attorney nominees, who was on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and recently told senators he still thinks "there were imperfections" in the 2020 election process, has been advanced toward Senate confirmation.

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Del. US Atty Resigns Citing 'Politics,' Successor Appointed

By Rose Krebs

The acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware said Friday that she is resigning, citing "a highly politicized, flawed blue-slip tradition" for nominees and saying she "fully" supports her first assistant, who has been appointed by a federal judge to succeed her.

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Dems Demand Release Of 2nd Jack Smith Report

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday demanding she release the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents after he left office the first time.

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Alex Jones Atty's Pared-Down Suspension Upheld On Appeal

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut appeals court on Friday upheld the two-week suspension of former Alex Jones lawyer Norm Pattis, agreeing that a trial court judge was within her discretion to bench the attorney over his law firm's handling of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims' medical records.

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DOJ Shake-Up Keeps Criminal Tax Meetings, Ex-Official Says

By Kat Lucero

The U.S. Department of Justice — despite recently eliminating its Tax Division as part of a broad restructuring — continues to meet with practitioners representing clients who may face federal criminal tax charges, the former division chief said Friday.

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Wash. Justices Retroactively Lower Bar Exam's Passing Score

By Ben Adlin

As Washington state is preparing to transition to a new bar exam, its Supreme Court has ordered a retroactive adjustment to the current exam's minimum passing score, making an estimated hundred-plus law school graduates who narrowly failed in recent years newly eligible for admission to practice law.

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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 Shell hit with a climate change claim from 100 survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines, London Stock Exchange-listed Oxford Nanopore bring legal action against its co-founder, and the editors of Pink News sue the BBC for defamation following its investigation into alleged sexual misconduct at the news site.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

President Donald Trump issued an executive order to review the influence that proxy adviser firms have, and law firms saw a 9.8% increase in compensation expenses along with a similar increase in billable rates. ​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

Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Ninth Circuit handed Epic Games Inc. a partial win by mostly affirming an injunction blocking Apple Inc. from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its systems.

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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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