Expert Analysis

• Looking At Drake's Diss Track Appeal Through An IP Lens

  

  Though Drake's pending Second Circuit appeal over UMG's promotion of Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" is formally about defamation, it shows that IP considerations can help identify records showing how a work traveled, which may guide courts when deciding context, says attorney Abdul Abdullahi.

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  Bass Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Landing a trophy striped bass and closing a big deal both require cultivating the patience to finesse — not force — your way to desired outcomes, changing course when your old approach isn’t working and learning from the ones that got away, says Jon Ruiss at Alston & Bird.

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  NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

  

  The year's second quarter brought several notable banking law developments to New York, including a proposal to align state stablecoin rules with the federal Genius Act, fresh fair lending and cybersecurity guidance from state regulators, and a significant Second Circuit holding on preemption, say attorneys at Ashurst Perkins Coie.

• Fighting The Evidentiary Risks Of Deepfakes In Court

  

  Though courts and federal rules are only slowly developing frameworks for assessing digital evidence that could have been created or generated by artificial intelligence, litigators should understand what steps they'll likely need to take to successfully challenge potentially deepfaked exhibits — and fight questions about the authenticity of their own, say attorneys at MoFo.

• Immigration Ruling Maps Alternative To Universal Injunctions

  

  A Rhode Island federal court's decision in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS vacating policies that froze key immigration adjudications for nationals of 39 countries, and paused asylum applications altogether, suggests how practitioners might press for the Administrative Procedure Act's bad faith exception to record review and seek vacatur as a viable alternative to universal injunctions, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

• 5 Rulings Clarify Limits On Chapter 15 Public Policy Exception

  

  Recent bankruptcy decisions from New York and Delaware federal courts distinguish between relief a U.S. bankruptcy court may grant in a domestic case and relief it may recognize under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code when a foreign court has entered the order, say attorneys at Pierson Ferdinand.

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  Choral Singing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Singing in the New York City Bar Chorus — a hobby partly inspired by the late U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, who infused my clerkship year with opera music — has improved my legal career by refining my abilities to listen, exude confidence and develop emotional intelligence, says Bonnie Baker at Friedman Kaplan.

• Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

  

  As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

• NY Defamation Carveout Hinges On Causation, Not Labels

  

  A New York federal court's decisions in two cases involving tortious interference claims, and the recent Second Circuit ruling in Satanic Temple v. Newsweek Digital, highlight that the dispositive question for alleged defamation is whether injury flows through reputation or through direct interference with a relationship, says attorney Andrea Natale.

• Prediction Market Case Will Test US Insider Trading Reach

  

  The insider trading case recently brought against Google employee Michele Spagnuolo may help clarify the extraterritorial reach of the Commodity Exchange Act and U.S. agencies' ability to police foreign trading in prediction markets, say attorneys at Akin.

• The Hidden Settlement Problem In Complex Securities Cases

  

  The Second Circuit's recent decision in Knapp v. Barclays is a reminder that in securities cases with complex corporate records, the tracing picture is rarely as settled as the complaint suggests, and that conversations in the early stages require everyone to work from the same underlying facts, says Peter Kamminga at JAMS.

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  Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

  

  Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

• 2 Prediction Market Cases Will Test Insider Trading Theory

  

  Prosecutors in two recent Southern District of New York cases have filed separate charges against two defendants who used confidential information gathered from each employer to place prediction market bets, but each prosecution must overcome different legal hurdles established by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Circuit, says John Siffert at Lankler Siffert.

• Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

  

  An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

• Google Antitrust Case Puts Spotlight On De Facto Exclusivity

  

  Mozilla's recent amicus filing in U.S. v. Google arguing that its agreement to make Google the default search engine did not amount to de facto exclusivity highlights the growing debate over traditional indicators of exclusivity, with implications for any business that uses rebates, preferred contracts or volume incentives, says Chris Gowen at WilmU Farnan School of Law.