Sharp thinking from the front lines.

Showing 23 of 186 articles

• July 24, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Hyperlinks, Short Messages, and Generative AI: What James v. Cerebras Systems Demands of Your ESI Protocol

  In James v. Cerebras Systems Inc., the Northern District of California entered a single stipulated ESI protocol governing cloud-hosted hyperlinked documents, short message data, and generative AI workflows — the first order to combine modern-attachment handling with explicit AI-governance obligations. In-house counsel and litigators operating under legacy ESI protocols should treat this ruling as a checklist-level prompt for immediate review.

• July 13, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Collaborative Artifacts, Concrete Obligations: What Microsoft Purview's Loop and Copilot Pages Indexing Means for eDiscovery

  As of July 2026, Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) reached general availability with full-text indexing and HTML-export support for Microsoft Loop components and Copilot Pages — meaning that collaborative AI-generated artifacts are now fully searchable ESI. In-house counsel and litigators must update litigation hold frameworks, ESI inventories, and production workflows immediately.

• July 7, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Hyperlinks Are Not Attachments, and Slack Is Not Email: The James v. Cerebras ESI Protocol That Rewrites Modern Discovery Defaults

  A Northern District of California court in James v. Cerebras Systems Inc. entered a stipulated ESI protocol that resolves three of the most contested modern-data disputes in eDiscovery — hyperlinked documents, chat threading, and GenAI workflow disclosure — through order rather than adversarial motion practice. In-house counsel and litigators should treat the protocol as a template for what courts will now expect.

• June 4, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  After SolarWinds: The SEC's Narrowed Cyber Enforcement Posture and What It Really Means for CISO Personal Liability

  The SEC's with-prejudice dismissal of its landmark action against SolarWinds and CISO Timothy Brown has reshaped the personal-liability calculus for security executives — but the four-business-day disclosure rules remain operative, private claims are unaffected, and board-level fiduciary exposure is intensifying. This article maps what changed, what did not, and what in-house counsel should do now.

• June 2, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  AI Without Guardrails Is a Liability: Building the Governance Framework Your Organization Actually Needs

  Enterprises racing to deploy AI and machine learning are generating new categories of legal and regulatory risk faster than their governance structures can absorb them. The organizations that get this right are not the ones moving fastest — they are the ones that built the compliance architecture first.

• June 2, 2026 · Digital Forensics

  The Courtroom Can't Believe Its Eyes: How Deepfakes Are Rewriting Evidence Law

  AI-generated fabrications are no longer a hypothetical threat to litigation — they are arriving in courtrooms today. A look at the authentication challenge, where the Federal Rules of Evidence fall short, and what counsel must do right now.

• June 2, 2026 · eDiscovery

  eDiscovery Meets AI: What Every Litigator and ADR Practitioner Needs to Know Right Now

  AI-assisted review has moved from experimental to expected in large-scale litigation, and its role in arbitration and mediation is growing. The practitioners who understand how these tools work — and where they fail — are positioned to win on the merits. Those who do not are taking risks they may not recognize until sanctions are already on the table.

• June 2, 2026 · Digital Forensics

  The Expert Who Works for the Truth: How Forensic Neutrals Cut the Cost and Risk of Complex Disputes

  In complex commercial disputes involving trade secrets, data breaches, and massive ESI sets, the traditional battle-of-the-experts model wastes time and money while producing less reliable outcomes. Forensic neutrals — who serve the proceeding rather than either party — are changing that calculus.

• June 2, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  Ransomware's Legal Minefield: Why Paying Up Can Be Just the Beginning of Your Problems

  Ransomware victims face a layered legal crisis that begins — not ends — with the ransom decision. OFAC sanctions exposure, SEC disclosure obligations, and insurance coverage disputes create a gauntlet that organizations must navigate in hours, not days. Here is the legal playbook.

• June 2, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  The Board's New Cyber Mandate: SEC Disclosure Rules, the Attestation Chain, and the Case for Independent Audits

  The SEC's 2023 cybersecurity rules turned oversight into a documented chain that runs from the security team, through the boardroom, and into a company's public filings. For directors, that chain is now the exposure surface — and independent audits are what make it defensible.

• June 2, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  Your Vendors Are Your Weakest Link: The Legal Strategy for Third-Party Cyber Risk

  Organizations spend billions hardening their own perimeters while their vendors — who hold sensitive customer data, process transactions, and operate inside enterprise networks — often run at a fraction of that security maturity. The legal consequences of that asymmetry land on the organizations that hired them, not the vendors that failed.

• May 28, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Federal Courts Split on Whether Using Public GenAI Tools Waives Privilege — And Issue First AI-Specific Protective Order Mandates

  Four federal courts issued sharply diverging rulings in early 2026 on whether using consumer generative AI platforms during litigation destroys attorney-client privilege and work product protection. The emerging framework draws a critical line between consumer-tier AI tools and enterprise platforms with contractual data safeguards — a distinction every litigator and in-house counsel must understand before discovery begins.

• May 18, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Expert's AI Prompts Are Discoverable Under Rule 26, Federal Court Rules

  A Connecticut federal magistrate judge has ruled that AI prompts used by an expert witness to cull documents for review are discoverable under Rule 26 and cannot be shielded by a parties' discovery-limiting agreement. Litigators and in-house counsel must now reckon with the evidentiary footprint that generative AI leaves behind at every stage of expert preparation.

• April 28, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Copy-Paste Discovery: Court Rules AI Is Not a Substitute for Good Lawyering — And Sanctions Follow

  A federal court sanctioned plaintiff's counsel in April 2026 after finding he had copy-pasted AI-generated analysis directly into a meet-and-confer email without independent legal review, signaling that courts will no longer treat "the AI said so" as a substitute for good-faith lawyering.

• April 15, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Federal Enforcement Pause on Ephemeral Messaging Is a False Signal: Civil Spoliation Sanctions and State/International Risk Remain Fully Live

  The Trump Administration's effective pause on SEC and CFTC off-channel messaging enforcement since January 2025 has created a dangerous compliance illusion. Civil spoliation sanctions, state investigations, and international regulatory actions remain fully live — and in-house counsel who mistake federal quiet for universal permission are building liability on a foundation of sand.

• April 2, 2026 · eDiscovery

  Ephemeral and Off-Channel Messaging Hits a Tipping Point: Courts and Regulators Treat Auto-Delete as a Spoliation Choice, Not a Technical Default

  A converging line of 2025–2026 rulings and regulatory actions has settled a once-debated question: allowing auto-deletion to run on Signal, WhatsApp, or Google Chat after litigation is reasonably anticipated is now treated as an affirmative choice to destroy evidence. In-house counsel who have not yet named these platforms explicitly in their litigation holds are operating on borrowed time.

• February 20, 2026 · Cybersecurity

  Deepfake Defense: Securing Real Estate Transactions in the Age of AI

  AI voice and video deepfakes are turning real estate closings into prime targets for wire fraud and impersonation. Here is how to verify identity and defend the funds flow.

• January 15, 2026 · Privacy

  Smaller Firms, Big Obligations: What the Amended Reg S-P Now Demands

  The SEC's amended Regulation S-P now requires broker-dealers and advisers to maintain incident-response programs and notify customers after a breach. Here is what smaller firms must do.

• October 22, 2025 · Article

  Think Like a Hacker; Plan Like a Lawyer

  Cybersecurity is a critical concern for all businesses, including small law firms and solo practitioners.

• April 3, 2025 · Digital Forensics

  Authenticating AI-Generated Evidence in the Courtroom

  As AI-generated and AI-altered exhibits enter the courtroom, counsel and judges must rethink how authentication frameworks, provenance, and forensic analysis establish reliability.

• February 13, 2025 · Article

  In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

  The attorney-client privilege is a cornerstone of legal practice, designed to foster open and honest communication between clients and their attorneys.

• February 11, 2025 · eDiscovery

  AI-Generated Metadata Hallucinations: A New Risk for Attorneys

  Generative AI can fabricate not only text but the metadata that lawyers rely on to authenticate it. Here is how to spot AI-induced metadata hallucinations and verify before you offer evidence.

• January 28, 2025 · Investigations

  The Power of Neutrality: Special Masters and Common Benefit Fund Distributions in Mass Tort Litigation

  In MDLs and mass torts, neutral special masters administer common benefit funds, allocate fees fairly across firms, and protect the process from conflicts and litigation.