Appellee MIT has asked the First Circuit for summary disposition in appeal No. 26-1510, a procedural move designed to end the appeal without full merits briefing or oral argument. In practical terms, the motion argues that the appellant’s position is so clearly foreclosed—whether by settled law, lack of appellate jurisdiction, waiver, or obvious deficiencies on the record—that the court can dispose of the case now.

While the docket entry does not spell out the underlying dispute, the filing itself is notable because summary disposition motions are not routine.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Eli Lilly’s constitutional challenge to the False Claims Act’s qui tam mechanism, preserving one of the government’s most potent civil fraud enforcement tools. The petition arose from litigation brought by whistleblower Ronald Streck, who accused Lilly of misconduct tied to Medicaid drug rebate reporting.

By denying review, the Court leaves in place lower-court rulings that allowed the case to proceed and, more broadly, avoids reopening a recurring defense-side attack on the False Claims Act’s structure.

A May 15 filing in Daitona Carter, Federal Circuit No. 26-1721, spotlights one of the most consequential forms of interim appellate relief: an emergency stay pending appeal.

A federal judge has closed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury, but not without raising pointed questions about how the case ended and whether it ever presented a conventional adversarial dispute.

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening PTAB proceeding IPR2026-00364 on May 15, 2026. At this stage, the filing itself is the key development: the petition signals that Palo Alto Networks is seeking to invalidate claims of an asserted patent through the Board’s administrative trial process rather than litigating patentability exclusively in district court.

The currently available docket information identifies Palo Alto Networks, Inc. as the petitioner, but practitioners will want to watch closely for the patent owner’s appearance, the specific patent number at issue, and the claim set Palo Alto Networks has targeted.

A D.C. Circuit panel appeared deeply skeptical of the Justice Department’s effort to revive Trump-era executive orders targeting WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, Jenner Block, and Susman Godfrey—an unusually direct clash between presidential power and the independence of major law firms.

At issue are executive actions that, according to the firms, penalize them for past client representations, internal employment and policy choices, and perceived political affiliations.

Apple Inc. has launched a new inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, filing IPR2026-00316 on May 18, 2026. As of the initial docket entry, the proceeding is styled simply under Apple’s name, and practitioners will want to watch for the petition, mandatory notices, and any patent owner preliminary response to flesh out the dispute. You can track the docket here: View full case on Docket Alarm.

At this early stage, the publicly available case caption confirms the petitioner—Apple Inc.—but the docket details provided here do not yet identify the challenged patent number or the patent owner by name.

Illinois lawmakers are advancing a bill that would place new guardrails between law firms and outside capital providers, a notable development in the broader national debate over who can influence — and profit from — the delivery of legal services. The proposal is aimed at preserving attorney independence by creating ethical firewalls between firms and entities such as private equity investors, management service organizations, and other nonlawyer business partners.

At its core, the legislation responds to a growing concern: even where formal ownership rules prohibit nonlawyers from owning law firms, financial arrangements can still give outside investors significant leverage over operations, staffing, compensation, and strategic decisions.

Meta Platforms, Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00347 on May 13, 2026. At this early stage, the PTAB docket reflects the filing of the petition, but practitioners should expect the key details—most importantly the specific patent being challenged, the patent owner’s identity, and the precise prior-art combinations—to come into sharper focus as the docket develops.

Even from the initial filing, this is a proceeding worth watching.

A May 16 filing in the Federal Circuit shows appellant Daitona Carter moving for an emergency stay pending appeal under Rule 8/18—an aggressive form of interim relief that can quickly become the most important dispute in an appeal’s early days. View full case on Docket Alarm

At a basic level, a stay pending appeal asks the appellate court to pause the effect of a lower tribunal’s order while the appeal proceeds.

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has filed a new inter partes review petition at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, opening IPR2026-00364 on May 15, 2026. At this stage, the case is notable less for any Board rulings—which have not yet issued—and more for what it may signal about the company’s broader patent defense strategy and the types of prior art and validity theories likely to be tested at the PTAB.

Based on the currently available docket information, Palo Alto Networks is the named petitioner.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on May 18, 2026 that it has rescinded Rule 202.5(e), ending the agency’s long-standing practice of requiring settling parties not to publicly deny the SEC’s allegations. The change marks a notable shift in enforcement policy and is likely to alter the leverage, messaging, and negotiation dynamics in SEC resolutions going forward.

For decades, the SEC’s settlement framework allowed defendants to resolve cases without admitting wrongdoing in many instances, but it also prohibited them from later publicly disputing the agency’s allegations.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has proposed a settlement with Agri Stats to resolve allegations that the company facilitated unlawful information-sharing among competing meat processors. The case, pending in the District of Minnesota, centers on claims that Agri Stats collected and distributed detailed price, output, and cost data in ways that allowed poultry, pork, and turkey producers to coordinate behavior rather than compete independently.

According to the government, the proposed settlement is designed to restore competitive conditions in protein markets that affect both upstream producers and downstream purchasers.

Shutterstock has agreed to pay $35 million to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that it used deceptive subscription and cancellation practices, adding to a growing line of enforcement actions targeting so-called “negative option” marketing. According to the FTC, Shutterstock obscured important terms tied to annual subscription and content-pack plans and made it harder for customers to cancel than to sign up.

While the dollar amount is notable, the broader significance lies in what the case signals about the FTC’s enforcement priorities.

Monday’s legal news cycle was notable less for a single blockbuster ruling than for a concentrated burst of federal enforcement activity that reinforces a broader trend: the Department of Justice continues to use press announcements, charging decisions, and coordinated policy moves to signal aggressive expectations around corporate compliance, individual accountability, and cross-agency enforcement.

For legal professionals, that matters because DOJ activity often functions as an early warning system.