Washington

  • May 30, 2025

    DHS Targets Sanctuary Cities In Noncompliance Notice

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has put hundreds of cities and counties in 35 states and the District of Columbia on notice for being what the department deems as unlawful safe havens for undocumented immigrants, advancing the Trump administration's April vow to target sanctuary cities.

  • May 30, 2025

    Radar Co. Saves Trade Secret Claims In Suit Against Ex-Exec

    A Washington federal judge has preserved a radar company's claims that a former executive stole confidential information as he left to start his own company, while dismissing other breach of contract claims against the executive and another former employee.

  • May 30, 2025

    Former Pfizer Atty, Motley Rice Adviser Joins DiCello Levitt

    A former Pfizer vice president and assistant general counsel, who last June entered into a consulting agreement with Motley Rice LLC, is joining DiCello Levitt as a partner as part of the firm's Washington, D.C., public client practice group, the firm recently announced.

  • May 30, 2025

    Trump Admin Says States Can't Fight Wind Permit Pause

    The Trump administration said a Massachusetts federal judge should reject states' push to block a decision to pause permitting for wind energy projects, saying their claims amount to nothing more than a policy disagreement with no place in court.

  • May 29, 2025

    ZoomInfo Wants Out Of Investors' Accounting Fraud Claims

    Software company ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. urged a Washington federal judge to toss a proposed investor class action accusing it of making missteps in an effort to retain new pandemic-era customers, claiming the "fraud-by-hindsight" allegations are inactionable.

  • May 29, 2025

    DOT Calls States' EV Charging Funding Suit Premature

    The U.S. Department of Transportation urged a Washington federal judge to reject an attempt by 16 states to block the Trump administration from cutting off funding for electric vehicle charging projects, saying their claims aren't yet ripe for review.

  • May 29, 2025

    Monsanto Won't Get Damages Offset In $100M PCB Tort Loss

    A Washington state judge has denied Monsanto's bid to reduce the latest $100 million verdict in a chemical poisoning tort series that's yielded more than $1 billion in punitive damages, concluding that the agro-chemical giant hid the health dangers of PCBs for decades in pursuit of profit.

  • May 29, 2025

    Split 9th Circ. Says Spa's Rule On Certain Trans Women Biased

    A divided Ninth Circuit refused to reinstate a Korean spa's constitutional challenge against the Washington State Human Rights Commission and ordered it to rescind its policy denying admission to trans women without gender-affirming surgery, noting Thursday the policy violated state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

  • May 29, 2025

    FTC Seeks To Push Amazon Antitrust Trial To 2027

    The Federal Trade Commission and Amazon on Wednesday fought over the agency's proposal to push back an antitrust trial into 2027 to account for the e-commerce giant's alleged efforts to obstruct discovery, with Amazon telling a Washington federal judge that it was the FTC that insisted on a burdensome discovery.

  • May 29, 2025

    Judge Finds Epic Verdict Means One Patent Claim Invalid

    A Washington federal judge has found that part of a jury's decision clearing Epic Games Inc. of patent infringement through its Fortnite game platform meant that one of the claims in the patent wasn't patent eligible.

  • May 29, 2025

    DOJ Officially Files To Drop Boeing 737 Max Conspiracy Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday formally moved to drop its criminal conspiracy case against Boeing over the deadly 737 Max 8 crashes and asked a Texas federal judge to vacate the June 23 trial date, saying a $1.1 billion nonprosecution agreement is a meaningful resolution that holds the company accountable.

  • May 29, 2025

    Amazon Says Class Too Complex To Certify In Antitrust Suit

    Amazon has told a Washington federal judge in a newly unsealed filing that a proposed class of nearly 300 million customers would be far too unwieldy for certification and defining the market in a suit accusing the company of inflating prices of items sold on its platform.

  • May 29, 2025

    Big Oil Caused Woman's Heat Wave Death, Novel Suit Says

    The daughter of a Seattle woman who died during a 2021 heat wave filed a first-of-its kind wrongful death suit in Washington state court Thursday against oil and gas giants — including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell — alleging the companies knew for decades their fossil fuel products would one day "claim lives."

  • May 29, 2025

    Wash. Justices Upend Cannabis Co. Win In Wage Suit

    Washington state's Department of Labor and Industries does not need to issue a formal letter demanding an employer pay a specific sum to employees before launching a wage and hour lawsuit, the state's supreme court held Thursday, upending a cannabis company's win in a lawsuit the agency launched against it.

  • May 29, 2025

    NYT, Amazon Reach Licensing Deal To Use Content For AI

    The New York Times and Amazon have reached a licensing deal for the tech and online retail giant to use the newspaper's editorial content on its artificial intelligence platforms, the companies announced Thursday.

  • May 28, 2025

    16 States Sue Trump Admin Over Cuts To Science Grants

    A coalition of 16 state attorneys general have sued the Trump administration in New York federal court on Wednesday to stop it from cutting millions of dollars in grant funds from the National Science Foundation for scientific research and programs aimed at enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM fields and environmental justice.

  • May 28, 2025

    5-Hour Energy Price Discrimination Suit Falls Short Again

    A California federal judge ruled Wednesday that family-owned wholesalers proved competition with Costco in their price-discrimination suit against the maker of 5-Hour Energy and that the energy "shot" company offered Costco disproportionate promotions, but the wholesalers did not prove that this discrimination caused them antitrust injury.

  • May 28, 2025

    Feds Tell Justices 9th Circ. Wrongly OK'd CWA Citizen Suit

    The federal government is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to sink an environmental group's Clean Water Act citizen suit seeking to enforce the terms of a Washington state-issued pollutant-discharge permit that is stricter than the law requires.

  • May 28, 2025

    20 State AGs Urge 9th Circ. To Resume Refugee Admissions

    Attorneys general from 20 states, as well as former federal immigration officials, have chimed in to support reinstatement of U.S. refugee admissions amid a pending legal challenge to President Donald Trump's indefinite suspension of the program, according to briefs recently filed with the Ninth Circuit.

  • May 28, 2025

    Feds Won't Appeal Offshore Fish Farming Permit Decision

    The federal government will not appeal a decision to set aside a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' permit intended to speed up industrial aquaculture in public ocean waters, ending the dispute and any future use of the structures off the country's eastern and western coasts.

  • May 28, 2025

    Distiller Denied New Shot At Wash. State Alcohol Sales Regs

    A federal judge in Washington state gave short shrift to a bid for reconsideration from a New York distillery and two Washington whiskey drinkers who lost their challenge to the Washington state liquor board's rules requiring a physical in-state presence to sell online.

  • May 28, 2025

    Justices Seek SG's Take On Falun Gong Case Against Cisco

    The U.S. Supreme Court has asked the solicitor general to weigh in on an Alien Tort Statute suit revived by the Ninth Circuit and lodged by a class of Falun Gong practitioners alleging that Cisco Systems aided in the Chinese government's crackdown on the religious movement.

  • May 28, 2025

    Amazon Seeks To End FTC's Prime Subscription Case

    Amazon and the Federal Trade Commission have both asked a Washington state federal court to hand them wins ahead of trial in the agency's case accusing the e-commerce giant of trapping consumers into Prime subscriptions.

  • May 28, 2025

    Wash. Court Blocks Atty From Sharing Nonparty Client's File

    A Washington appeals court says an Evergreen State attorney may not disclose a client's confidential file for in-camera review to support his defense in an estate's legal malpractice case, finding the disclosure would go against the state's professional conduct rules.

  • May 27, 2025

    Musk, DOGE Fail To Nix States' Suit Against 'Limitless' Power

    Fourteen states can proceed in their lawsuit challenging Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency's influence in the federal government after a D.C. federal judge Tuesday refused to toss their suit, rejecting the government's contention that Musk wasn't subject to the U.S. Constitution's appointments clause.

Expert Analysis

  • Disability Ruling Guides On Cases With Uncertain Causation

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    In Dime v. MetLife, a Washington federal court’s recent ruling in favor of a disability claimant instructs both claimants and insurers on the appropriate standard for establishing and making a disability determination when there is limited medical evidence explaining the disability’s cause, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • CFPB's Message To States Takes On New Weight Under Trump

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's January guidance to state enforcers has fresh significance as the Trump administration moves to freeze the bureau's work, and industry should expect states to use this series of recommendations as an enforcement road map, say attorneys at Brownstein Hyatt.

  • Series

    Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Likely Doomed CFPB Contract Rule Still Has Industry Pointers

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    While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's January proposal on consumer financial contract provisions is unlikely to be finalized under the new administration, its provisions are important for industry to recognize, particularly if state attorneys general decide to take up the enforcement mantle, say attorneys at Saul Ewing.

  • Imagine The Possibilities Of Openly Autistic Lawyering

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    Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law, who was diagnosed with autism about midway through her career, discusses how the legal profession can create inclusive workplaces that empower openly autistic lawyers and enhance innovation, and how neurodivergent attorneys can navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with disclosing one’s diagnosis.

  • Series

    Documentary Filmmaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Becoming a documentary filmmaker has allowed me to merge my legal expertise with my passion for storytelling, and has helped me to hone negotiation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are important to both endeavors, says Robert Darwell at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Litigation Funding Disclosure Debate: Strategy Considerations

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    In the ongoing debate over whether courts should require disclosure of litigation funding, funders and plaintiffs tend to argue against such mandates, but voluntarily disclosing limited details about a funding arrangement can actually confer certain benefits to plaintiffs in some scenarios, say Andrew Stulce and Marc Cavan at Longford Capital.

  • State AG Enforcement Is Poised For Another Pivot In 2025

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    Backed by a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the Trump administration intends to make substantial policy changes, and attorneys general of both parties around the country are preparing their response playbooks, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Del. Dispatch: Lessons From Failed Albertsons-Kroger Merger

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    The allegations in Albertsons' lawsuit against Kroger following the grocery stores' blocked merger demonstrate how a target company can best ensure that a buyer timely and effectively complies with its obligations to pursue the necessary regulatory approvals for a deal, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Series

    Adventure Photography Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Photographing nature everywhere from Siberia to Cuba and Iceland to Rwanda provides me with a constant reminder to refresh, refocus and rethink the legal issues that my clients face, says Richard Birmingham at Davis Wright.

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