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Massachusetts

  • August 01, 2025

    Normal Wear Is On Landlord's Dime, Not Renters', Court Says

    Massachusetts' highest court on Friday concluded that landlords cannot ding a tenant's security deposit for normal wear and tear like scuffs on walls, nor can they force a tenant to pay for professional cleanings during a moveout.

  • August 01, 2025

    States Urge High Court To Keep NIH Grant Funds Flowing

    A coalition of 16 states pressed the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to reject the Trump administration's push to resume the mass termination of scientific research grants, saying a district judge had authority to pause the cuts.

  • August 01, 2025

    1st Circ. Doubtful Of Trump's Stance On Birthright Citizenship

    The First Circuit on Friday seemed inclined to say that the children of unauthorized immigrants are citizens if they were born on U.S. soil, citing both the 14th Amendment and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling and pushing back on an argument by President Donald Trump's administration.

  • August 01, 2025

    Senate Dem Pitches Way To Keep TikTok Online Without Sale

    U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is floating a proposal that would require TikTok to be transparent about how it displays content and limit foreign access to user data in order to allow the app to escape a legislative mandate to cut ties with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban.

  • August 01, 2025

    Mass. Judge Can't Dismiss Assault Case Via Sanction

    A Massachusetts appeals court has determined that a trial court judge abused her discretion in dismissing an assault and battery case with prejudice as the result of a sanction on the prosecution for dragging its feet in discovery.

  • August 01, 2025

    4 Mass. Rulings You May Have Missed In July

    A cannabis company in the process of going out of business cannot rely on a state court receivership to shield it from creditors in other states, and the owners of shuttered Norwood Hospital can't renew an expired permit issued to bankrupt Steward Health.

  • August 01, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Skadden, Wachtell, Latham

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Union Pacific Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. announce megamerger plans, Palo Alto Networks acquires identity security company CyberArk, Brookfield buys British life insurer Just Group, and Duke Energy sells its Piedmont Natural Gas Tennessee local distribution business to Spire Inc.

  • August 01, 2025

    Hub Hires: Holland & Knight, Nutter, Prince Lobel

    Boston tends to slow down during the summer months, as the area's colleges and universities empty out for the season, but there was still some movement in the Hub's legal community in July, including a late-career move by a well-known partner and a former attorney general's jump to a startup.

  • July 31, 2025

    3 DOJ Attys Face Bar Complaints Over ÃÛÌÒÊÓÆµ Representation

    A legal watchdog group Thursday lodged bar complaints against a trio of U.S. Department of Justice lawyers, accusing them of making misleading and false statements in court filings while defending the Trump administration in litigation over its attempt to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

  • July 31, 2025

    DraftKings' $10M Deal With NFT Buyers Gets Final Green Light

    Sports betting giant DraftKings Inc. and purchasers of certain nonfungible tokens it offered have gotten a judge's final sign-off for their $10 million deal ending claims the tokens ran afoul of securities laws.

  • July 31, 2025

    Dems Press OCC Head On Regulating Trump's Crypto Biz

    Top Senate Democrats on banking and financial committees urged the Comptroller of the Currency Thursday to detail how he will address the potential for interference by President Trump now that the agency is charged with regulating stablecoins like the one the president's family has launched.

  • July 31, 2025

    Witness' Use Of 'Fraud' Doesn't Cancel TV Sports Exec's Verdict

    The First Circuit rejected arguments by a former executive at the cable channel for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins that a witness' use of the word "fraud" and testimony about his lavish spending tainted the jury that convicted him of a fake invoice scheme.

  • July 31, 2025

    Dept. Head Ends Claim Of Being Forced To Work After Injuries

    Scientific Systems Company Inc., a Massachusetts-based military contractor, and a former department head have agreed to dismiss a Connecticut federal employment discrimination lawsuit that claimed the company forced its ex-employee to work with a spinal injury and broken fingers after he fell during a travel assignment.

  • July 31, 2025

    Mass. Court Allows Consecutive Resentencing In Murder Case

    Massachusetts' highest court has ruled that prosecutors may seek two consecutive life sentences with parole eligibility in a double murder case after outlawing life without parole sentences for defendants who committed crimes between the ages of 18 and 20-years-old.

  • July 31, 2025

    1st Circ. Denies Marathon Bomber's Bid To DQ Trial Judge

    The First Circuit on Thursday denied a request by convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to have the judge who presided over his 2015 trial removed from conducting a probe into whether some of the jurors who sentenced him to death were biased.

  • July 31, 2025

    Judge Questions Gov't Objection To Shielding FEMA Funds

    A Massachusetts federal judge Thursday questioned the Trump administration's assertion that it has not redirected funds allocated by Congress for natural disaster mitigation efforts toward other Federal Emergency Management Agency programs, even as the government was objecting to states' narrow request to protect the funds for now.

  • July 30, 2025

    8th Circ. Tosses Ruling Striking Binding NEPA Regulations

    The Eighth Circuit has granted blue states' bid to vacate a ruling that faulted the White House Council on Environmental Quality for issuing binding regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act, following the Trump administration's decision to withdraw those regulations.

  • July 30, 2025

    'Peace Promoter's' Bitcoin Sentencing Upheld At 1st Circ.

    A church founder and self-described "peace promoter" must serve an eight-year sentence, the First Circuit affirmed, rejecting his argument that the U.S. Department of the Treasury overstepped its bounds by charging him with tax evasion and a slew of other crimes tied to a Bitcoin operation he founded in 2014.

  • July 30, 2025

    Trump Official Denies Shutting Down FEMA Disaster Program

    The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told a Massachusetts federal judge that President Donald Trump's administration has not decided whether to end the agency's flagship natural disaster protection program, despite a lawsuit by 20 states claiming it had been shut down.

  • July 30, 2025

    Dem Senators Press 9th Circ. Pick On Gender Role Beliefs

    Eric Tung, a partner at Jones Day and nominee for the Ninth Circuit, faced questions from Democratic senators during his nomination hearing Wednesday about his views on gender roles, based on remarks he gave to the Yale Daily News in 2004, when he was in college.

  • July 30, 2025

    Housing Groups Want $30M Grant Case Kept In District Court

    A coalition of housing advocacy groups challenging the termination of $30 million in federal antidiscrimination grants asked the First Circuit on Wednesday to let the Massachusetts federal district court keep jurisdiction over the case, if only to keep it alive long enough to figure out next steps.

  • July 30, 2025

    4 Firms Steer Palo Alto Networks' $25B CyberArk Buy

    Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks revealed plans Wednesday to acquire identity security company CyberArk in a cash-and-stock megadeal valued at $25 billion and built by four law firms.

  • July 29, 2025

    States Sue To Block Feds' Demand For Benefit Recipient Data

    Nearly two dozen state attorneys general are fighting the USDA's directive for states to turn over private information about millions of food assistance benefit recipients, arguing in a new lawsuit filed in California federal court that this demand violates multiple privacy laws and the U.S. Constitution.

  • July 29, 2025

    Mass. Appeals Court Won't Overturn $6.6M Fatal Stroke Award

    A Massachusetts appellate panel on Tuesday declined to toss a $6.6 million medical malpractice award in a suit accusing a physician of causing a patient's fatal stroke, saying certain instructions did not unfairly influence the jury.

  • July 29, 2025

    J&J Owes $43M For 30-Year Talc User's Mesothelioma

    A Massachusetts state court jury ordered Johnson & Johnson Tuesday to pay more than $42.6 million to a former talc user with mesothelioma and his wife, following a trial in which the man's lawyer told jurors the alleged cancer-causing effects of the company's baby powder were its "dirty little secret."

Expert Analysis

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • While On Firmer Ground, Uncertainty Remains For SEC's ALJs

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    The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's recent opinion in Lemelson v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission affirmed the legitimacy of the SEC's administrative proceedings, but pointedly left unanswered the constitutional merits of tenure protection enjoyed by SEC administrative law judges — potentially the subject of future U.S. Supreme Court review, says Dean Conway at Carlton Fields.

  • FDA's Hasty Policymaking Approach Faces APA Challenges

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    Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has abandoned its usual notice-and-comment process for implementing new regulatory initiatives, two recent district court decisions make clear that these programs are still susceptible to Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Rachel Turow at Skadden.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Series

    Playing Mah-Jongg Makes Me A Better Mediator

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    Mah-jongg rewards patience, pattern recognition, adaptability and keen observation, all skills that are invaluable to my role as a mediator, and to all mediating parties, says Marina Corodemus.

  • Calif. Air Waivers Fight Fuels Automakers', States' Uncertainty

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    The unprecedented attempt by Congress and the Trump administration to kill the Clean Air Act waivers supporting California's vehicle emissions standards will eventually end up in the U.S. Supreme Court — but meanwhile, vehicle manufacturers, and states following California's standards, are left in limbo, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Navigating Client Trauma

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    Law schools don't train students to handle repeated exposure to clients' traumatic experiences, but for litigators practicing in areas like civil rights and personal injury, success depends on the ability to view cases clinically and to recognize when you may need to seek help, says Katie Bennett at Robins Kaplan.

  • Opinion

    4 Former Justices Would Likely Frown On Litigation Funding

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    As courts increasingly confront cases involving hidden litigation finance contracts, the jurisprudence of four former U.S. Supreme Court justices establishes a constitutional framework that risks erosion by undisclosed financial interests, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

  • Quantifying Trading-Based Damages Using Price Impact

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely increasingly rely on price impact analyses to demonstrate pecuniary harm from trading-related misconduct, meaning measuring price impact will be helpful in challenging SEC disgorgement, determining appropriate remedies, and assessing loss causation and damages in private litigation, says Vyacheslav Fos at Boston College and Erin Smith at Compass Lexecon.

  • State Law Challenges In Enforcing Arbitration Clauses

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    In recent cases, state courts in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Jersey have considered or endorsed heightened standards for arbitration agreements, which can mean the difference between a bilateral arbitration and a full-blown class action in court, says Fabien Thayamballi at Shapiro Arato.

  • How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery

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    E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.

  • Series

    Playing The Violin Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing violin in a string quartet reminds me that flexibility, ambition, strong listening skills, thoughtful leadership and intentional collaboration are all keys to a successful legal practice, says Julie Park at MoFo.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Self-Care

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    Law schools don’t teach the mental, physical and emotional health maintenance tools necessary to deal with the profession's many demands, but practicing self-care is an important key to success that can help to improve focus, manage stress and reduce burnout, says Rachel Leonard​​​​​​​ at MG+M.

  • Birthright Opinions Reveal Views On Rule 23(b)(2) Relief

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    The justices' multiple opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27 decision in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. CASA, shed light on whether Rule 23(b)(2) could fill the void created by the court's decision to restrict nationwide injunctions, says Benjamin Johns at Shub Johns.

  • ABA Opinion Makes It A Bit Easier To Drop A 'Hot Potato'

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    The American Bar Association's recent ethics opinion clarifies when attorneys may terminate clients without good cause, though courts may still disqualify a lawyer who drops a client like a hot potato, so sending a closeout letter is always a best practice, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

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