New Hires Beget New Horizons, Plus More Lateral Moves

On August 21, 2026, the Tenth Circuit granted the NCAA’s stay request in Wisne v. NCAA, temporarily restoring the NCAA’s age-based eligibility rules pending resolution of the appeal. Three weeks earlier, Judge Sweeney of the District of Colorado had issued a nationwide injunction that permitted athletes in the Class of 2022 to pursue a fifth year of eligibility.

The top ten largest class action settlements in securities cases in the U.S. have recouped tens of billions of dollars in damages.

This monthly newsletter examines critical developments in product liability and mass tort litigation, including FDA guidance on PFAS in medical devices, state-level AI regulation in legal practice...

A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling harshly criticizes a federal district judge for relying on AI-generated content in legal orders, revealing fabricated facts and poor legal analysis. The decision raises critical questions about the use of generative AI in legal practice and whether lawyers who adopt such technology are compromising their ethical obligations of competence, confidentiality, and integrity.

Two federal courts have reached opposing conclusions on whether expert witnesses must disclose their AI prompts during discovery. While one court treats prompts as discoverable methodology, another protects them as mental impressions while requiring disclosure of AI-generated outputs the expert consulted.

On the morning of July 4, 2025, catastrophic flooding on the Guadalupe River took 135 lives across the Texas Hill Country. Twenty-eight of them—25 school-aged campers, two young counselors and the camp's co-executive director—were at Camp Mystic, a century-old girls' camp near Hunt.

A federal court in California denied preliminary approval of a $2.3 million data breach settlement affecting over 220,000 individuals, finding seven critical deficiencies in the proposed agreement. The decision highlights the rigorous scrutiny courts apply to class action settlements, particularly regarding claims-made distribution processes, inadequate documentation of settlement value, and unexplained disparate treatment among class members.

A federal court rejected TikTok's attempt to use two prior nationwide class action settlements—totaling over $93 million—to dismiss new privacy claims brought by minors alleging violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The ruling hinged on whether the current plaintiffs were demonstrably members of the earlier settlement classes based solely on the pleadings, raising critical questions about the scope and enforceability of broad settlement releases in successive privacy litiga

The U.S. Supreme Court will review a constitutional challenge to an 1868 federal law banning home distilleries, creating an opportunity to resolve a circuit split between the 5th and 6th Circuit Courts of Appeals. The case centers on whether the prohibition violates the Constitution's Taxation Clause or represents a legitimate exercise of congressional power to prevent tax evasion.

An ICC tribunal has ruled in favor of Galp in its dispute with Venture Global over the Calcasieu Pass LNG facility, finding that Venture Global breached its obligation to declare the facility operational in a timely manner. This decision adds to a series of contrasting outcomes in similar disputes involving other buyers, with damages yet to be determined in a hearing scheduled for 2027 or 2028.

Scott L. Vernick was quoted in The Legal Intelligencer article, "Did UPMC Data Breach Ruling Lock Plaintiffs Out of State Court?" on January 23, 2017.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just published its Health Products Compliance Guidance ("Guidance"), which it issued to replace an advertising guide from 1998 focused on dietary supplements.

Fox Rothschild was among three first-time entrants into the Am Law 100 this year, jumping up 10 spots from a year ago.

Earlier today, the Department of Justice announced that construction conglomerate Odebrecht SA and its affiliate Braskem SA have pleaded guilty to their maintenance of an elaborate bribery scheme...

Christopher J. Pippett was featured in the Credit Union Times article, "Feds Uncover New Details in CFO Embezzlement."

Mossack Fonseca. Before April 2016, most of us had never even heard of a Panamanian law firm by that name.

A new law signed by Governor Newsom, AB 1609, requires large private businesses to disclose when the customer service agent they are using is an AI bot and provide customers with timely access to quality customer service.

Beginning January 1, 2027, consumers will be able to request deletion of covered personal information that a business collected “from or about” them. This is a significant expansion from the current CCPA language that only applies to information collected “from” the consumer. This may include appended contact information, demographic data, marketing segments, identity-resolution data and other information used to enrich a consumer profile.

We reported previously on DreamWorks Animation's payment of $50 million to settle a class action antitrust suit.

Joshua Horn's blog post, "Why The SEC Does Not Want The Free Lunch," originally posted the firm's Securities Compliance Sentinel, was mentioned as one of the top postings for October 19, 2015.