Federal Rules

Subscribe to Federal Rules via RSS

At the end of 2025, amendments were made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that fundamentally change when and how litigators must address privilege issues in federal court. These amendments followed an important decision in the Sixth Circuit in In re FirstEnergy Corp., 154 F.4th 431 (6th Cir. 2025), which provided practitioners fresh guidance for protecting privileged materials early in the litigation. Understanding these developments and beginning to plan around privilege at the outset of a case is essential for anyone litigating in federal court today.

Courts issued two seemingly conflicting rulings on whether AI generated materials are protected. Heppner (S.D.N.Y.) found that documents created with a consumer version of Claude AI were not privileged or work product because the tool exposed data to a third party provider. Warner (E.D. Mich.) reached the opposite result the…

Abigail Slater resigned as Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ Antitrust Division on February 12, 2026—an exit widely reported as a forced ouster after the White House requested her resignation. Her departure is significant because it comes at a moment when antitrust enforcement is both high-stakes and politically salient. The Division is weeks away from trial in Live Nation/Ticketmaster, where reported settlement discussions in the days before her resignation highlighted divisions between the Antitrust Division and senior DOJ officials. Simultaneously, the division continues to manage conduct litigation against major technology companies and scrutiny of major transactions.  From the defining moves of her tenure to the forces behind her departure, this change in leadership marks a pivotal moment in U.S. competition enforcement at a time when “private bar attorneys are on high alert, questioning how federal competition laws will be enforced and which merger deals will be challenged.” To be sure, Slater’s resignation sets the stage for what (and who) comes next.

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a shutdown plan dated September 29, 2025, outlining how it will operate during this lapse in appropriations.

FTC Commissioners are presidential appointees and are excepted from furlough during the shutdown. According to the shutdown plan, furloughs will be issued on a rolling basis for…

The rapid expansion of biometric technologies in sports has created both significant opportunities and complex legal challenges. The proliferation of wearable devices and data collection tools has ushered in what amounts to a “gold rush” for athletes, teams, universities, and companies seeking to use or commercialize biometric data. Heart rate variability, fatigue indicators, movement efficiency, and other performance metrics are increasingly captured in real time and treated as valuable commercial assets.

The California legislature’s efforts to streamline the discovery process, promote transparency and fairness in civil proceedings, and reduce discovery abuse began in 2019, when California Code of Civil Procedure (C.C.P.) § 2016.090 was amended to provide for initial disclosures, but only if the parties stipulated to such an exchange. Unsurprisingly, the rule change had little impact, as very few parties agreed to make the exchange. In 2023, legislation was passed to make the exchange potentially involuntary—now every party to the action must make initial disclosures so long as any other party demands them. 

The forum defendant rule normally bars removing a state case to federal court when there is a forum defendant, even if the parties are otherwise diverse. A rarely-used method is the exception to this rule. Using a procedure called snap removal, defendants can avoid the forum defendant rule by removing before the forum defendant is served.