North Carolina

  • June 23, 2026

    Several Democrats Challenge FCC Political Ad Guidance

    Democratic candidates and officeholders, including former Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Jon Ossoff, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, have asked the Fourth Circuit to strike down Federal Communications Commission guidance they say unlawfully expands discounted political advertising rates to party committees and joint fundraising groups.

  • June 22, 2026

    No Trial For Splenda Maker, Scientist In Defamation Suit

    Splenda maker TC Heartland LLC and the scientist whom it accused of defamation were sent packing from North Carolina federal court Monday, after a judge found neither had offered evidence to overcome the other's First Amendment right to talk about scientific research.

  • June 22, 2026

    4th Circ. Says Allied Need Not Cover 'Beer Olympics' Injury

    A man who claims that he was paralyzed in an auto crash caused by alcohol provided to guests at a "Beer Olympics" party cannot recover from the host homeowners' insurance provider, the Fourth Circuit ruled on Monday, saying the policy's motor vehicle exclusion bars coverage.

  • June 22, 2026

    Fire Chiefs Must Face Union President's Retaliation Claims

    Two men who served as fire chief in the city of High Point, North Carolina, must face a firefighter's claims that they retaliated against him for speaking up about workplace issues in his capacity as union president, a North Carolina federal judge ruled, denying the men's motion for summary judgment.

  • June 22, 2026

    Judge Slashes 'Excessive' Atty Fee Bid In PHH Mortgage Deal

    A North Carolina federal judge granted the green light to a $1.5 million settlement to resolve claims from borrowers alleging PHH Mortgage Corp. sent notice of default letters containing "false threats" to speed up loan foreclosure, but reduced the attorney fees by nearly half, calling the requested amount "excessive."

  • June 22, 2026

    Lowe's $10M Coverage Clash With Chubb Unit Heads To Trial

    A federal jury will decide whether a Chubb unit was wrong to refuse to pay $10 million as part of a wrongful death settlement following a fatal crash involving a Lowe's employee after a North Carolina judge Monday found there are disputed issues of material fact in the case.

  • June 22, 2026

    States Defend Live Nation Jury Verdict In Antitrust Case

    State enforcers have urged a New York federal court to reject Live Nation's bid to upend a jury verdict finding the company monopolized key parts of the live entertainment industry, telling the court the jury carefully considered ample evidence and should not be second-guessed.

  • June 18, 2026

    Asbestos Spinoff Battles Bid For Trustee Takeover In Ch. 11

    The chief legal officer of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall admitted Thursday that the company is exploring more bankruptcy filings, but denied the contention by asbestos claimants waiting on settlements that it's going to abandon the nearly 9-year-old Chapter 11 case.

  • June 18, 2026

    German Co. Defends Audio Patents In Dispute With Lenovo

    A German nonprofit research organization tried Wednesday to persuade a North Carolina federal court not to hand Lenovo and its subsidiary Motorola a pretrial win, arguing that the organization's asserted patents for wireless audio communications are inventive and offer specific technical solutions.

  • June 18, 2026

    Blackstone's LivCor Cuts $7M Rent-Fixing Deal With 9 States

    Blackstone subsidiary LivCor LLC has agreed to pay North Carolina, California and seven other states $7 million in penalties to resolve allegations against it in a sprawling antitrust lawsuit alleging major landlords used software company RealPage to fix rent prices, according to documents filed in North Carolina federal court Thursday.

  • June 18, 2026

    Skadden, Troutman Lead First Carolina Bank's $69M IPO

    First Carolina Financial Services, a community bank with branches in several southeastern states, began trading its shares on Thursday after pricing a $69 million initial public offering below its target range, guided by Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP and underwriters' counsel Troutman Pepper Locke LLP.

  • June 18, 2026

    DirecTV, AGs Tell 9th Circ. Not To Curb Nexstar-Tegna Block

    DirecTV and a coalition of state attorneys general urged the Ninth Circuit not to narrow a district court preliminary injunction blocking Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, arguing the only way to preserve competition while the case proceeds is a full block, not one restricted to 31 overlapping broadcast markets.

  • June 18, 2026

    NC Legislators OK 90% Property Tax Break For Builders

    North Carolina would allow local governments to create specialized districts and provide significant tax exclusions for developers to incentivize new property improvements under a bill now on the governor's desk.

  • June 18, 2026

    Otter Tail To Pay $30M To Settle PVC Price-Fix Claims

    Otter Tail has agreed to pay $30 million to resolve certain claims in litigation alleging it and two subsidiaries conspired with other polyvinyl chloride pipe producers to fix prices, the company said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

  • June 18, 2026

    BofA Exits Biden-Era OCC Order Over Pandemic Relief Lapses

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated a 2022 consent order with Bank of America NA over its handling of prepaid unemployment benefit cards during the COVID-19 pandemic, closing out a key part of a Biden-era joint enforcement action against the bank.

  • June 18, 2026

    Liberty Mutual Says It's Owed $1.5M In School Bond Row

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. told a North Carolina federal court that a construction company owes about $1.5 million for losses Liberty incurred in connection with the contractor's work on a school construction project for which Liberty executed bonds.

  • June 18, 2026

    5 Big ERISA Litigation Developments From 2026's First Half

    The U.S. Supreme Court's acceptance of a petition challenging Intel's 401(k) investment lineup and a Fourth Circuit ruling unraveling a class of Genworth Financial retirement plan participants headlined the court developments that caught benefits attorneys' attention in the first six months of 2026. Here, Law360 looks at those and other noteworthy ERISA decisions.

  • June 18, 2026

    Wells Fargo Must Face Finance Manager's Bias Claims At Trial

    Wells Fargo has lost its bid for summary judgment in a finance manager's disability bias lawsuit, with a North Carolina federal judge ruling that a material dispute remains over whether she suffered an adverse action for her retaliation and discrimination claims.

  • June 17, 2026

    Mental Health Co. To Face Wage Class Damages Trial

    A North Carolina federal judge ruled Wednesday that the mental healthcare company JMJ Enterprises LLC must face a second-phase damages trial after a jury found in February in favor of a collective of employees claiming that the company willfully broke federal and state wage laws by underpaying workers at group homes.

  • June 17, 2026

    NC County Liable For Highest PFAS Levels In State, Suit Says

    A grassroots environmental group asked a North Carolina federal court to prohibit a county from polluting local waters with forever chemicals, contending that the county knows that thousands of residents are imperiling their health by drinking PFAS-laden water but has refused to do anything about it.

  • June 17, 2026

    4th Circ. Won't Revive Journalists' Social Media Bias Suits

    The Fourth Circuit refused Wednesday to reopen lawsuits alleging two journalists were fired by a U.S.-funded Middle Eastern media network because they're Iraqi, concluding they couldn't overcome the organization's explanation that the employees violated its social media policy requiring neutrality.

  • June 17, 2026

    NC Biz Court Narrows Fight Over Flopped Development Deal

    A private lender and its top brass have shaved a host of claims from a dispute with the part-owners of a real estate development project that never got off the ground, with a North Carolina Business Court judge finding that many of the allegations against them were too "thin" to advance.

  • June 17, 2026

    NC Clinic, School District Must Face COVID Vax Challenge

    A North Carolina state appeals panel issued its second opinion in a lawsuit from the mother of a teenager who alleged he was vaccinated for COVID against his will, finding Wednesday that she adequately put forward constitutional claims and can pursue allegations against a school district and medical society clinic in trial court.

  • June 16, 2026

    Nationwide Aims To Decertify 50K ERISA Class Ahead Of Trial

    Nationwide urged an Ohio federal judge to cut down a class of 50,000 401(k) plan participants who claimed the company mismanaged a fund in its retirement plan, pointing to a recent Fourth Circuit ruling that said defined contribution plans require too many individual assessments to earn class certification.

  • June 16, 2026

    Oral Arguments In Comey, James Appeal Set For September

    The Fourth Circuit has scheduled in-person oral arguments for the Trump administration's appeal of the dismissals of indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James for Sept. 15-18.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Studying Foreign Languages Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Studying Italian and Japanese has shown me that learning a new language can benefit a legal career in several ways, including by demonstrating the importance of approaching problems from a fresh perspective and the value of practicing patience with colleagues and clients, says Anna King at Genworth Financial.

  • 6th Circ. Ruling Broadest So Far In Wave Of Habeas Decisions

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    The Sixth Circuit’s recent opinion in Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft provides the most developed structural reasoning among rulings in a widening circuit split over mandatory detention after undocumented entry into the U.S., and supplies immigration practitioners a template for due process arguments in favor of habeas relief, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • NIL Contracts Test Limits On College Football Transfers

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    College football's new legal era of direct payments to players and fewer transfer restrictions has put contractual provisions in play, and stipulations such as termination clauses and repayment obligations require added scrutiny as the name, image and likeness system evolves, says Kevin Paule at Hill Ward Henderson.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • A Framework For Habeas Relief After 5th Circ. Bond Ruling

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    Following the Fifth Circuit’s recent Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi decision foreclosing statutory bond for detained nonimmigrants not deemed admitted to the U.S., lawyers should adopt a framework that requests habeas relief pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • 4th Circ. Ruling Will Rewrite Class Action Litigation Strategies

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Oliver v. Navy Federal Credit Union is the first from a federal circuit court to hold that motions to strike are inappropriate vehicles for challenging class allegations at the pleading stage, invalidating a tactic that had been used for decades, says Jim Francis at Francis Mailman.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Nexstar Offers A Cautionary Tale On State-Level Deal Scrutiny

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    State-enforcement challenges to the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger remind legal practitioners that federal approval isn't always sufficient to deliver certainty on closing, integration and timetable assumptions, says Brett Story at Britehorn Securities.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

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    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • Where The Preemption Fight Over Prediction Markets Stands

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    While the Third Circuit's recent ruling in Kalshi v. Flaherty remains a significant win for the federal government in its quest to regulate prediction markets, the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits appear more skeptical, indicating that this fight is likely headed for the Supreme Court, says Johnny ElHachem at Holland & Knight.

  • 4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

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    Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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