United States: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration

Facing a deposition can be daunting whether you're a party to a case or a potential witness. Understanding the deposition process, knowing how to prepare effectively, and learning key strategies for providing testimony under oath can make the difference between a successful deposition and a problematic one.

Oregon's civil discovery rules diverge sharply from federal practice by eliminating interrogatories and generally prohibiting compelled pretrial disclosure of retained expert testimony. Understanding these procedural differences and adapting discovery strategy accordingly can mean the difference between building a winning record and discovering critical gaps too late to address them.

The Texas Business Court recently clarified who qualifies as an attorney when dealing with confidential and attorney's eyes only designations in discovery. In a case involving alleged trade secret misappropriation between rival transformer manufacturers, the court examined whether attorneys from India representing the plaintiff in other matters could access protected documents in the Texas state court case...

For families with substantial wealth, estate planning is often designed to prevent disputes. Trusts are carefully drafted. Assets are placed into entities or trusts. Professional fiduciaries may be appointed to manage property. Succession plans are developed for family businesses.

On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision further clarifying the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). In an opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court in Jules v. Andre Balazs Properties clarified that federal courts retain jurisdiction to confirm or vacate arbitral awards where the underlying action was properly stayed pending arbitration under Section 3 of the FAA, which requires a court to stay the case and send the dispute to arbitration when it falls within a valid arbitration agreement.

When Frontier AI – the industry term for test systems progressing toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – crosses sentient human guardrails, the rule of law must engage. In July 2026, two Frontier AI systems (OpenAI's AI agent and Anthropic's Claude models) broke out of laboratory containment and hacked company networks over the open Internet. It is a tipping point for the rule of law to enter the frontier and bring order when an autonomous system jailbreaks and attacks an unsuspecting victim.

The Ninth Circuit's reversal in Rusoff v. The Happy Group examines whether egg carton labels claiming "free range" and "pasture raised on over 8 acres" can support class certification when plaintiffs fail to prove a dominant industry standard exists.

The Federal Trade Commission achieved a landmark victory by securing a permanent injunction to block Henkel's $725 million acquisition of Liquid Nails manufacturer A-Paint, marking the first successful use of the FTC's new strategy to pursue merger challenges exclusively in federal court.

Facing a deposition can be daunting whether you're a party to a case or a potential witness. Understanding the deposition process, knowing how to prepare effectively, and learning key strategies for providing testimony under oath can make the difference between a successful deposition and a problematic one.

For hundreds of years, the world’s sovereign nations refused to allow any other foreign sovereign to be sued in their courts without the sovereign’s consent. The guiding principle was “absolute sovereign immunity,” an outgrowth of the ancient legal precept rex non potest peccare, understood to mean “the king can do no wrong.” The principle also was recognized as wise foreign policy because it extended "grace and comity" to other sovereigns.

The Texas Supreme Court's decision in Paxton v. City of Austin reveals a procedural trap for businesses suing the government: winning the right to be heard can paradoxically freeze the entire case. When governmental defendants challenge a court's jurisdiction and lose, they can immediately appeal, putting all proceedings on hold—potentially for months or years.

WilmerHale partners analyze three pivotal Supreme Court rulings from the 2025-2026 term that reshape the landscape for transnational litigation, examining how these decisions affect corporate liability...