Trials

  • December 12, 2025

    2025 Sees State Courts Diverge From Federal Criminal Norms

    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.

  • December 11, 2025

    LA Bellwether Jury To Decide If J&J Hid Talc Risk For Decades

    An attorney for one of two women who claim Johnson & Johnson's talcum products caused their ovarian cancer told a California jury Thursday in a bellwether trial's closing arguments that the company hid the health risks of talc for decades, while the company's attorney insisted the science is on their side.

  • December 11, 2025

    Ex-Abercrombie CEO Headed For Competency Hearing

    A New York federal judge said Thursday she will hold a competency hearing for former Abercrombie & Fitch Co. CEO Michael Jeffries to see whether he can stand trial on sex trafficking charges, following recent findings that he's overcome his earlier incompetency.

  • December 11, 2025

    Colo. Appeals Court Backs New Reasonable Doubt Instruction

    A split Colorado appeals court Thursday upheld the use of a new model jury instruction on a reasonable doubt standard that a man convicted of possessing child sexual abuse material said lowered the burden for prosecutors to prove that a defendant is guilty.

  • December 11, 2025

    Ill. State Sen. Fends Off Bribery Retrial With Government Deal

    A sitting Illinois state senator who was set for a criminal bribery retrial has agreed instead to enter a deferred prosecution agreement that will see his federal case dismissed next year as long as he follows certain conditions without issue and pays the U.S. government $6,800.

  • December 11, 2025

    Samsung Gets PTAB To Ax Patent Claim From $12.5M Verdict

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found that Samsung was able to prove the invalidity of one claim in an Empire Technology Development LLC cellphone signal patent tied to a $12.5 million verdict against the South Korean electronics giant.

  • December 11, 2025

    Judge Slams Eaton Expert For Offering Legal Analysis

    A report submitted by one of Eaton's expert witnesses in its acquisition financing trial overstepped the limits of an expert's role, offering legal rather than economic analysis and seeming to advocate for the company​​​​, a U.S. Tax Court judge said Thursday.

  • December 11, 2025

    5th Circ. Backs Man's Convictions In $3.6M Fraud Scheme

    The Fifth Circuit upheld conspiracy convictions for a Dallas man accused of fleecing a bank out of $3.6 million in renewed business loans, after rejecting his argument that the jury's learning of his brother's guilty plea tainted his case, ruling Wednesday that the plea did not directly implicate the man in the conspiracy.

  • December 11, 2025

    Agri Stats Says DOJ Wants To 'Leapfrog' Pork Pricing Claims

    Agri Stats urged a Minnesota federal court to reject the Justice Department's bid to "leapfrog" a set of private antitrust cases involving pork prices by using a scheduled May trial for its information sharing claims against the data firm instead.

  • December 11, 2025

    EDTX Jury Finds TV Ad Tech Patent Invalid In Win For Taiv

    A Texas federal jury on Thursday cleared Canadian smart TV box company Taiv Inc. of infringement allegations by MyChoice LLC over a television advertising technology patent, and also found the patent was invalid.

  • December 11, 2025

    FTC, Amazon Want To Delay Antitrust Trial By 7 Weeks

    As they try to get back on track after the government shutdown, the Federal Trade Commission and Amazon asked a Washington federal judge Wednesday to push back the start of the antitrust trial accusing the online retail giant of creating an artificial pricing floor.

  • December 11, 2025

    NASCAR Inks Midtrial Antitrust Deal With Teams

    NASCAR has agreed to give its race teams permanent contracts as part of an otherwise confidential settlement that cut short a high-profile antitrust trial in which two teams — including one owned by retired NBA star Michael Jordan — accused it of illegally maintaining a monopoly on premier stock car racing.

  • December 10, 2025

    DOJ Gets Another OK To Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Docs

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday secured another Manhattan federal judge's permission to unseal grand jury and other evidentiary materials related to the investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with the judge saying that a new law Congress passed "unequivocally" intends for the materials to be public.

  • December 10, 2025

    Pelosi Attack Footage Unfairly Swayed Jurors, 9th Circ. Told

    David DePape urged the Ninth Circuit Wednesday to vacate his conviction and 30-year prison sentence for attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assaulting her husband, arguing the trial judge committed multiple errors, including admitting prejudicial footage of Pelosi's husband lying in a pool of blood.

  • December 10, 2025

    'Crazy' To Link Talc With Ovarian Cancer, J&J Expert Says

    Johnson & Johnson rested its defense Wednesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims its talc products caused two women's ovarian cancer, with a gynecologic oncologist appearing as its last witness and telling the jury the idea of talc used for feminine hygiene reaching the ovaries is "crazy."

  • December 10, 2025

    Ex-NY Gov Aide Rips Dearth Of Fact Witnesses In FARA Trial

    Counsel for an aide to two New York governors on Wednesday tore into allegations that she secretly acted as an agent of the People's Republic of China, telling a Brooklyn federal jury that the government's case rests on nothing more than out-of-context chats and little relevant testimony.

  • December 10, 2025

    Feds Drop 2 FIFA Bribery Cases Despite Appellate Win

    Brooklyn federal prosecutors are dropping criminal cases against a former 21st Century Fox executive and an Argentine sports marketing company in the long-running FIFA corruption probe, just months after successfully appealing the dismissal of their honest-services fraud conspiracy convictions.

  • December 10, 2025

    VLSI, PQA Square Off Again Over Conspiracy Claims In Va.

    A Virginia state judge spent two hours Wednesday working through whether VLSI Technology LLC should be able to proceed with its claims that Patent Quality Assurance LLC violated state law during its successful challenge to a VLSI chip patent.

  • December 10, 2025

    PacifiCorp Owes $39M In Latest Wildfire Trial

    An Oregon jury awarded $39.3 million in noneconomic damages Wednesday to a group of people who fled wildfires that the utility PacifiCorp had been found liable for starting, including an elderly woman who ended up living in a trailer park for four years and a man who lost the ability to keep his disabled wife in their home for the last three years of her life.

  • December 10, 2025

    Judge Probes IRS Expert On Method For Eaton's Credit Rating

    A U.S. Tax Court judge asked an IRS expert Wednesday about his calculation of a standalone credit rating for Eaton's U.S. group in 2012, when it acquired an Irish entity and inverted, noting that the expert, unlike ratings agency Standard & Poor's, factored in Eaton's debt to the Irish parent.

  • December 10, 2025

    Fla. Jury Awards $779M To Family Of Guard Killed In Robbery

    A Florida jury returned a $779 million wrongful death verdict for the family of a security guard who was shot during an armed robbery at an internet café that the family said was also running an illegal gambling operation.

  • December 10, 2025

    High Court Mulls IQ Standards In Death Penalty Cases

    Alabama on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to let the state execute a man whose IQ test scores placed him just above the state's cutoff for intellectual disability — a designation that would forbid his execution as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

  • December 10, 2025

    Guilty Budget Official's Legal Bill Battle Sent To Magistrate

    A Connecticut federal judge on Wednesday tapped a magistrate judge to dig into an apparent billing dispute between former state budget official Konstantinos Diamantis and his criminal defense attorney, but he refused to delay a looming bribery trial until he decides whether to allow the lawyer to withdraw.

  • December 10, 2025

    Akerman Hires DOJ Civil Division Lawyer For Healthcare Team

    Akerman LLP has brought on a former member of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division, who will be joining the healthcare practice group as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., office, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

  • December 10, 2025

    Ill. Jury Convicts Ex-Police Chief Of Taking, Covering Bribe

    Federal jurors in Chicago convicted a former suburban police chief Wednesday of accepting a $10,000 cash bribe and splitting the money with a former municipal employee before trying years later to cover the payment up as a loan.

Expert Analysis

  • A Simple Way Courts Can Help Attys Avoid AI Hallucinations

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    As attorneys increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence for legal research, courts should consider expanding online quality control programs to flag potential hallucinations — permitting counsel to correct mistakes and sparing judges the burden of imposing sanctions, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and Connors.

  • Strategies For ICE Agent Misconduct Suits In The 11th Circ.

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    Attorneys have numerous pathways to pursue misconduct claims against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Eleventh Circuit, and they need not wait for the court to correct its misinterpretation of a Federal Tort Claims Act exception, says Lauren Bonds at the National Police Accountability Project.

  • How Securities Defendants Might Use New Wire Fraud Ruling

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    Though the Second Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Chastain decision — vacating the conviction of an ex-OpenSea staffer — involved the wire fraud statute, insider trading defendants might attempt to import the ruling’s reasoning into the securities realm, says Jonathan Richman at Brown Rudnick.

  • Cos. Must Tailor Due Diligence As Trafficking Risks Increase

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    As legislators, prosecutors and plaintiffs attorneys increasingly focus on labor and sex trafficking throughout the U.S., companies must tailor their due diligence strategies to protect against forced labor trafficking risks in their supply chains, say attorneys at Steptoe.

  • Series

    Creating Botanical Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Pressing and framing plants that I grow has shown me that pursuing an endeavor that brings you joy can lead to surprising benefits for a legal career, including mental clarity, perspective and even a bit of humility, says Douglas Selph at Morris Manning.

  • Supreme Court's Criminal Law Decisions: The Term In Review

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    Though the U.S. Supreme Court’s criminal law decisions in its recently concluded term proved underwhelming by many measures, their opinions revealed trends in how the justices approach criminal cases and offered reminders for practitioners, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.

  • Opinion

    The Legal Education Status Quo Is No Longer Tenable

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    As underscored by the fallout from California’s February bar exam, legal education and licensure are tethered to outdated systems, and the industry must implement several key reforms to remain relevant and responsive to 21st century legal needs, says Matthew Nehmer at The Colleges of Law.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Relevance Redactions

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    In recent cases addressing redactions that parties sought to apply based on the relevance of information — as opposed to considerations of privilege — courts have generally limited a party’s ability to withhold nonresponsive or irrelevant material, providing a few lessons for discovery strategy, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Opinion

    Section 1983 Has Promise After End Of Nationwide Injunctions

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the practice of nationwide injunctions in Trump v. Casa, Section 1983 civil rights suits can provide a better pathway to hold the government accountable — but this will require reforms to qualified immunity, says Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice.

  • Reel Justice: 'Oh, Hi!' Teaches Attys To Return To The Statute

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    The new dark comedy film “Oh, Hi!” — depicting a romantic vacation that turns into an inadvertent kidnapping — should remind criminal practitioners to always reread the statute to avoid assumptions, meet their ethical duties and finesse their trial strategy, says Veronica Finkelstein at Wilmington University School of Law.

  • Series

    Playing Soccer Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Soccer has become a key contributor to how I approach my work, and the lessons I’ve learned on the pitch about leadership, adaptability, resilience and communication make me better at what I do every day in my legal career, says Whitney O’Byrne at MoFo.

  • What To Do When Congress And DOJ Both Come Knocking

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    As recently seen in the news, clients may find themselves facing parallel U.S. Department of Justice and congressional investigations, requiring a comprehensive response that considers the different challenges posed by each, say attorneys at Friedman Kaplan.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure

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    While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice — but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.

  • How Courts Are Addressing The Use Of AI In Discovery

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    In recent months, several courts have issued opinions on handling discovery issues involving artificial intelligence, which collectively offer useful insights on integrating AI into discovery and protecting work product in connection with AI prompts and outputs, says Philip Favro at Favro Law.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From ATF Director To BigLaw

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    As a two-time boomerang partner, returning to BigLaw after stints as a U.S. attorney and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, people ask me how I know when to move on, but there’s no single answer — just clearly set your priorities, says Steven Dettelbach at BakerHostetler.

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