Expert Analysis

• 5 Things Associates Must Ask About Their Firm's Merger Plan

  

  The associates who navigate law firm mergers best ask the right questions early, such as inquiring about partners' plans, to assess how the merger could affect their workflow and career path, says Jackie Bokser-LeFebvre at Major Lindsey.

• 2 'Rocket Dockets' And The Rules That Propel Them

  

  The fastest civil trial courts in the country are currently in the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Florida, and their chief judges provide insights into the court rules that keep them ahead, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

• Retailer Risk Reduction Tips As Email Marketing Suits Surge

  

  Amid a flood of email marketing lawsuits following last year's Washington Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Old Navy, retailers seeking to avoid high litigation costs can take several steps to reduce risks by focusing on their email subject lines advertising sales, says Gonzalo Mon at Kelley Drye.

• Calif. Ruling Lowers Bar For Health Data Breach Claims

  

  The California Supreme Court's ruling in J.M. v. Illuminate Education offers protection for non-healthcare companies that maintain health-related data but also adopts a new and more plaintiff-favorable standard for breach of confidentiality that companies maintaining any health-related data should address, say attorneys at Cooley.

• How Gambling Cos. Can Defend 'Addictive Design' Suits

  

  Following the recent wave of addictive design litigation against video game companies and social media platforms, it appears that the gambling industry may soon face similar claims — but operators may have stronger legal defenses available to them, say attorneys at White & Case.

• Your Next Litigation Hold Should Cover AI Chat Logs

  

  The Delaware Chancery Court’s recent decision in Fortis Advisors v. Krafton to treat a CEO’s artificial intelligence chats as substantive evidence is being read as a discovery warning to litigators, but there is a second duty-to-preserve lesson that is especially pertinent to in-house counsel, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

• Musk-OpenAI Verdict Shows Value Of Early-Stage Governance

  

  A California federal court's ruling last week in Musk v. Altman preserves the status quo at OpenAI, but signals to the technology industry at large that courts will not relitigate the governance decisions of early-stage organizations on a founder's competitive timetable, surfacing questions that will outlast the litigation, says attorney Alan N. Walter.

• Opinion

  International Patent Licensing System Must Be Maintained

  

  As foreign approaches to patent enforcement threaten to distort the licensing markets that underpin modern technology, courts and policymakers must take action to ensure that the standard essential patent framework is preserved, says Brian O'Shaughnessy at Dinsmore.

• Series

  Studying Foreign Languages Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  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.

• 'Anderson Method' Ruling Shows Copyright Limits In Fitness

  

  The Ninth Circuit's ruling in Tracy Anderson Mind and Body v. Megan Roup, finding that sequences of exercises developed and recorded by Tracy Anderson were not copyrightable choreographic works, is a reminder that even highly creative fitness programming can fall outside the scope of copyright protection, says Meredith Bobber Strauss at Michelman & Robinson.

• Series

  NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

  

  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.

• Submitting Ideas To AI Platforms May Affect Patent Rights

  

  Recent judicial developments suggest that disclosing an invention to a consumer artificial intelligence platform constitutes public disclosure, making disciplined use of such tools and early filing strategies essential to preserving patent rights, say attorneys at Day Pitney.

• Series

  Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

  

  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

  

  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.

• Nielsen Appeal Tests Antitrust Limits Of Pricing And Bundling

  

  In Cumulus v. Nielsen, the Second Circuit is considering a structural pattern in which a monopolist exploits upstream market power to foreclose downstream competition, which could potentially offer broad insight into how courts will assess exclusionary bundling and pricing defenses under antitrust law, says Luke Hasskamp at Bona Law.