Washington

  • November 07, 2025

    Supreme Court Temporarily Pauses Full SNAP Payments

    The U.S. Supreme Court Friday evening temporarily paused a Rhode Island federal judge's orders compelling the Trump administration to fully fund November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and transfer roughly $4 billion by the end of the day, hours after the First Circuit denied the administration's emergency request.

  • November 07, 2025

    Real Estate Recap: Mamdani, Immigration, Q3 Debrief

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including real estate reactions to the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, how condo attorneys are bracing for a surge in immigration enforcement and third-quarter takeaways across asset classes.

  • November 07, 2025

    Wash. Justices To Review Cafe Fire Insurance Dispute

    The Washington Supreme Court will review a state appeals court's decision finding that a Liberty Mutual unit owes no coverage over a restaurant kitchen fire because of the building owners' failure to fully comply with protective safeguard requirements in their policy.

  • November 07, 2025

    Seattle Pot Shop Slapped With Site Tracking Pixel Privacy Suit

    A Seattle cannabis dispensary has been hit with a proposed class action in Washington federal court by a customer who claims the retailer shared his private information about medical marijuana appointments and pot purchases with Google and other third parties by using online browser tracking tools on its website.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Pushed To Revive Suit Over $3.8B Failed Tech Merger

    A California federal judge erred in finding that investors in semiconductor company MaxLinear Inc. had no standing to sue it over what they say were misrepresentations about a $3.8 billion merger plan with chipmaker Silicon Motion Technology Corp., they told the Ninth Circuit in a bid to revive their suit.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Sides With Calif. In Tribal Cigarette Tax Fight

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday backed California in a dispute it brought to enforce cigarette taxes against a tobacco company owned and operated by a federally recognized Native American tribe, holding that the tribal leader defendants can't claim sovereign or qualified immunity exempts them from the federal tax law.

  • November 07, 2025

    Ex-CFO Convicted Of Bilking Startup To Fund Fintech Co.

    A Seattle federal jury convicted a software startup's former executive of wire fraud on Friday, after prosecutors accused him of siphoning $35 million in company funds into his personal fintech project and then losing the money in a cryptocurrency collapse weeks later.

  • November 07, 2025

    Vegas Hotels Say 9th Circ. Shouldn't Rethink Price-Fixing Suit

    Several Las Vegas hotel operators, two software companies and Blackstone all told the Ninth Circuit to reject a rehearing petition for its August decision for a proposed price-fixing class action that accused hotel operators and Blackstone of conspiring to use the software companies' GuestRev software to set prices for Las Vegas hotel rooms.

  • November 07, 2025

    Jury Clears Novo Nordisk Of Medicaid Fraud Over Blood Drug

    A Tacoma federal jury cleared Novo Nordisk on Friday of allegations that it defrauded Washington state's Medicaid and Medicare systems by paying kickbacks and promoting off-label use to illegally boost prescriptions of its hemophilia drug NovoSeven.

  • November 06, 2025

    'Send A Message' To Novo Nordisk Over Kickbacks, Jury Told

    Counsel for a whistleblower claiming Novo Nordisk paid illegal kickbacks to boost off-label prescribing of its hemophilia drug NovoSeven urged jurors during closing arguments Thursday to "send a message" to the drugmaker, saying it defrauded Washington state's Medicaid and Medicare systems out of nearly $100 million.

  • November 06, 2025

    'Restore Coherence': Trump Admin Told To Fully Fund SNAP

    The Trump administration must fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in full this month, a Rhode Island federal judge ruled Thursday while admonishing the government for "entrenching delay" of benefits for the 42 million low-income Americans who rely on food assistance.

  • November 06, 2025

    T-Mobile Fairly Canceled $27M In Phone Orders, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit isn't going to disturb a ruling tossing out a cellphone manufacturer's $27 million lawsuit against T-Mobile accusing it of reneging on purchase orders, after finding that the mobile behemoth had the right to unilaterally end their agreement.

  • November 06, 2025

    Wash. Justices Spurn Alaska Airlines' Worker Illness Stance

    The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday sided with an Alaska Airlines employee who caught COVID-19 while traveling on the job, rejecting the employer's attempt to distinguish an occupational disease covered by state workers' compensation law from any sickness that develops during a work trip.

  • November 06, 2025

    Insurer Says No Defense For Dog Care Co. In Suits, AG Probe

    A dog training and grooming business's insurer told a Washington federal court it should owe no coverage for two cases and a civil investigative demand from the state attorney general's office relating to customers' purchase of service dogs and the business's employment practices, pointing to a raft of exclusions.

  • November 06, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs NLRB Ruling On Nurses' Pandemic Pay Fight

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed the National Labor Relations Board's order finding a trio of Southern California hospitals violated federal labor law by unilaterally implementing a COVID-19 pandemic pay program without first bargaining with a Service Employees International Union affiliate representing registered nurses and professional workers. 

  • November 06, 2025

    Food Co. Can't Keep Worker's Wage Suit In Federal Court

    A food and beverage company wrongly assumed that all its employees were subject to overtime violations alleged in a worker's proposed class action, a Washington federal court ruled, remanding the case to state court on the grounds that the company overestimated the amount of money at stake.

  • November 06, 2025

    FEMA Says States 'Mistaken' On Disaster Mitigation Program

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday urged a Massachusetts federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by 22 states and the District of Columbia over the future of a program that funds infrastructure-hardening projects to mitigate the effects of natural disasters.

  • November 05, 2025

    Crypto Thief Or 'Scapegoat'? Jury To Decide Ex-CFO's Fate

    Prosecutors urged a Washington federal jury Wednesday to convict a software startup's ex-executive for pumping $35 million from company coffers into his fledgling cryptocurrency project, while defense counsel accused the government of pursuing a baseless case because the company needed someone to "scapegoat" for an investment loss.

  • November 05, 2025

    Helium Financial Says Fired Employees Nabbed Trade Secrets

    Two former employees of Washington-based Helium Financial Group LLC stole trade secrets and used them to start their own wealth management firm after they were fired, allowing them to create "a 'clone' of Helium's business model in startup form," Helium claimed in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Seattle federal court

  • November 05, 2025

    1st Circ. Questions Trump Admin On NIH Indirect Cost Cuts

    A First Circuit panel seemed poised on Wednesday to uphold a district court decision finding that the Trump administration lacks the authority to cap indirect costs for research grants at the National Institutes of Health. 

  • November 05, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs LA In Shop Destroyed In Police Raid

    Los Angeles won't foot the bill for a retail store damaged by police who fired tear gas into the shop during a standoff with an armed fugitive, the Ninth Circuit ruled in a published opinion, saying "just compensation" isn't necessary because the assault was done to protect the public.

  • November 05, 2025

    Ex-SEC Attys Urge Full 9th Circ. Review of Zillow Decision

    Law professors and two former general counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have voiced support for Zillow Group Inc.'s bid for the Ninth Circuit to take a second look at its high-profile securities case, arguing that the full court should review a September ruling that upheld class certification in an investor suit over the real estate site's now-shuttered home-buying program.

  • November 05, 2025

    Microsoft Wants To Weigh In On Google Search Fixes, Too

    Microsoft is urging a D.C. federal court to make sure that the limits imposed on Google in the U.S. Department of Justice's search monopolization case prevent the search giant from inking multiyear default agreements and that they reach new types of generative artificial intelligence products.

  • November 05, 2025

    Hanes Juiced Sales With False 'Last Day' Email Ads, Suit Says

    Advertising emails sent by Hanes about apparently limited-time deals violated a Washington state law barring commercial emails with false or misleading subject lines, a Thurston County woman claimed in a proposed class action removed to federal court in Spokane on Wednesday.

  • November 05, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Rehear Biotronik Whistleblower Revival

    The Ninth Circuit has rejected a petition to send its September ruling reviving a whistleblower suit against Biotronik Inc. before the full court, rejecting Biotronik's petition for a rehearing en banc.

Expert Analysis

  • Rebutting Price Impact In Securities Class Actions

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    Defendants litigating securities cases historically faced long odds in defeating class certification, but that paradigm has recently begun to shift, with recent cases ushering in a more searching analysis of price impact and changing the evidence courts can consider at the class certification stage, say attorneys at Katten.

  • 7 Document Review Concepts New Attorneys Need To Know

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    For new associates joining firms this fall, stepping into the world of e-discovery can feel like learning a new language, but understanding a handful of fundamentals — from coding layouts to metadata — can help attorneys become fluent in document review, says Ann Motl at Bowman and Brooke.

  • Agentic AI Puts A New Twist On Attorney Ethics Obligations

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    As lawyers increasingly use autonomous artificial intelligence agents, disciplinary authorities must decide whether attorney responsibility for an AI-caused legal ethics violation is personal or supervisory, and firms must enact strong policies regarding agentic AI use and supervision, says Grace Wynn at HWG.

  • Series

    Being A Professional Wrestler Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Pursuing my childhood dream of being a professional wrestler has taught me important legal career lessons about communication, adaptability, oral advocacy and professionalism, says Christopher Freiberg at Midwest Disability.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Adapting To The Age Of AI

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    Though law school may not have specifically taught us how to use generative artificial intelligence to help with our daily legal tasks, it did provide us the mental building blocks necessary for adapting to this new technology — and the judgment to discern what shouldn’t be automated, says Pamela Dorian at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Ch. 11 Ruling Voiding $2M Litigation Funding Sends A Warning

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    A recent Texas bankruptcy court decision that a postconfirmation litigation trust has no obligations to repay a completely drawn down $2 million litigation funding agreement serves as a warning for estate administrators and funders to properly disclose the intended financing, say attorneys at Kleinberg Kaplan.

  • Demystifying The Civil Procedure Rules Amendment Process

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    Every year, an advisory committee receives dozens of proposals to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, most of which are never adopted — but a few pointers can help maximize the likelihood that an amendment will be adopted, says Josh Gardner at DLA Piper.

  • FTC, CoStar Cases Against Zillow May Have Broad Impact

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    Zillow's partnerships with Redfin and Realtor.com have recently triggered dual fronts of legal scrutiny — an antitrust inquiry from the Federal Trade Commission and a mass copyright infringement suit from CoStar — raising complex questions that reach beyond real estate, says Shubha Ghosh at Syracuse University College of Law.

  • Parenting Skills That Can Help Lawyers Thrive Professionally

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    As kids head back to school, the time is ripe for lawyers who are parents to consider how they can incorporate their parenting skills to build a deep, meaningful and sustainable legal practice, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses seven decisions pertaining to attorney fees in class action settlements, the predominance requirement in automobile insurance cases, how the no mootness exception applies if the named plaintiff is potentially subject to a strong individual defense, and more.

  • Series

    Teaching Trial Advocacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Teaching trial advocacy skills to other lawyers makes us better litigators because it makes us question our default methods, connect to young attorneys with new perspectives and focus on the needs of the real people at the heart of every trial, say Reuben Guttman, Veronica Finkelstein and Joleen Youngers.

  • 9th Circ. Finding That NFTs Are Goods Will Change TM Law

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    The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling in Yuga Labs v. Ripps establishes that NFTs have real, commercial value under U.S. federal trademark law, a new legal precedent that may significantly influence intellectual property enforcement and marketplace policies regarding digital assets going forward, say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From Texas AUSA To BigLaw

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    As I learned when I transitioned from an assistant U.S. attorney to a BigLaw partner, the move from government to private practice is not without its hurdles, but it offers immense potential for growth and the opportunity to use highly transferable skills developed in public service, says Jeffery Vaden at Bracewell.

  • Advice For 1st-Gen Lawyers Entering The Legal Profession

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    Nikki Hurtado at The Ferraro Law Firm tells her story of being a first-generation lawyer and how others who begin their professional journeys without the benefit of playbooks handed down by relatives can turn this disadvantage into their greatest strength.

  • How 9th Circ. Customs Ruling Is Affecting FCA Litigation

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    The Ninth Circuit’s recent Island Industries decision holding that the U.S. Court of International Trade doesn’t have exclusive jurisdiction over whistleblower suits involving import duties has set the stage for the False Claims Act to be a key weapon on the customs enforcement battlefield, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

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