Expert Analysis

• Opinion

  The Invisible AI Danger That May Undermine Legal Profession

  

  A public database tracking cases involving hallucinations generated by artificial intelligence recently surpassed 2,200 entries, but the bigger risk underlying attorneys’ use of such tools is that they will slowly surrender their judgment to AI and lose analytical skills, says Massachusetts District Court Associate Justice Brian Palmucci.

• What Axing ERISA Exhaustion Rule Means For Plan Sponsors

  

  The Eleventh Circuit’s recent reversal of a 40-year precedent requiring plaintiffs to exhaust administrative remedies before filing statutory Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims eliminates a common threshold defense in fiduciary breach suits, making it important for plan sponsors to reassess their internal review and litigation strategies, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.

• Washington Email Law Still Puts Marketers At Litigation Risk

  

  Despite legislative efforts to curtail abusive litigation after the 2025 Brown v. Old Navy decision extending Washington's Commercial Electronic Mail Act to misleading email subject lines, CEMA can still trigger class actions with statutory damages, even for national campaigns run by companies with no physical presence in Washington, say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

• How AI Could Help Judges Spot Their Own Biases

  

  In close cases where there’s room for discretion, artificial intelligence could challenge judges’ implicit biases by running counterfactual tests at scale — but any judicial use of such tools would need guardrails, say Arnold Peter at Peter Law and Nancy Rapoport at University of Nevada.

• Tracking Texas: When Counterclaims Start The Removal Clock

  

  The Texas Business Court's recent decision in Bakery v. Naterra International clarifies that, when the original claims do not meet the court's amount-in-controversy threshold, a presuit threat to bring high-value counterclaims does not itself make those unfiled claims part of the action, say attorneys at Greenberg Traurig.

• 3 Strategies To Reduce AI Sycophancy In Legal Work

  

  The tendency of generative artificial intelligence models to tell users what they want to hear can reinforce attorneys’ confirmation bias when testing the strength of arguments, and it can’t simply be prompted away — but a few practices can help mitigate it, says Michael Ott at Ice Miller.

• DOJ Directive Gives Contractors A Fraud Risk Road Map

  

  For government contractors, the 10 factors described in the U.S. Department of Justice's recent corporate fraud enforcement directive function as a de facto scoring rubric for internal audits that mirrors what prosecutors will prioritize, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

• 2nd Circ. EFAA Ruling Shifts Employer Litigation Strategy

  

  In Diaz-Roa v. Hermes Law, the Second Circuit recently held that, under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, employers can't carve out nonharassment claims and send them to arbitration, which has implications for discovery, litigation costs and resolution strategy in EFAA-covered disputes, say attorneys at Krevolin Horst.

• 4 Steps For Cos. Amid Russia Sanctions Law Uncertainty

  

  Russian companies, their U.S. subsidiaries and businesses with Russian commercial relationships should take concrete steps to determine their exposure under ambiguous provisions of legislation that recently expanded the scope of U.S. sanctions, notwithstanding an Oct. 16 executive order waiving most of its restrictions, say attorneys at Wilk Auslander.

• Frozen Potato Ruling Highlights Data-Sharing Antitrust Risk

  

  A recent Illinois federal court decision allowing key claims against frozen potato producer competitors to proceed illustrates the vulnerability of highly concentrated industries to antitrust exposure through aggregated data sharing, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

• Southern Glazer's Deal Tests FTC's Robinson-Patman Push

  

  A California federal court's recent decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Southern Glazer's secures a rare Robinson-Patman Act pricing limitations agreement, but conditions attached to the decision indicate that practitioners may only see a handful of new private RPA cases a year, says Steven Cernak at Bona Law.

• Series

  Being In The Peace Corps Made Me A Better Lawyer

  

  When I served in the Peace Corps, the people of the West African village where I was stationed helped me acclimate to my new surroundings and enabled me to develop problem-solving, teamwork and empathy skills that have bolstered my legal practice far beyond the ability to offer technical advice, says Brian Bewley at McGuireWoods.

• Industry On The Rocks: 5 Options For Distressed Alcohol Cos.

  

  As the U.S. alcohol industry, long regarded as recession-resistant and reliably profitable, confronts an unprecedented convergence of headwinds, producers, distributors and retailers must assess their financial position and explore the range of available options, including out-of-court restructuring, bankruptcy protection and strategic transactions, say attorneys at Adams & Reese.

• Tariffs Could Be Behind Surge In FTZ Production Filings

  

  As tariffs reshape production sourcing decisions, manufacturers are seeking foreign trade zone production authority at more than twice last year's pace, making it important to consider the potential duty and export benefits, along with review delays and restrictions that can curb savings, say attorneys at Sidley.

• 2nd Circ. Eases Employer Defense Of Dress Code Rules

  

  The Second Circuit recently sided with Starbucks in a ruling that makes it easier for companies to defend dress code policies against unfair labor practice challenges, but employers shouldn't read it as a license to ban union insignia, say attorneys at Shipman & Goodwin.