LJN Newsletters

Driven by elevated interest rates, tightening credit markets, and sustained demand for logistics and manufacturing capacity, industrial operators have increasingly turned to sale-leasebacks to monetize owned real estate, improve balance sheets and free up capital for core operations — all without surrendering operational control of mission-critical facilities.

This article discusses three open issues following Dubin v. United States: How appellate courts have been interpreting the “at the crux” language; an emerging circuit split as to whether district courts must specifically instruct juries on the “at the crux” test; and questions not answered in Dubin that will be subject to further development.

Lex Machina released earlier this year its 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report, a retrospective trends report chronicling the rise in federal trade secret litigation, highlighting a subspecialty of civil litigation that is more active, more federalized, and less prone to early resolution than other case types. But beneath those headline findings, additional data points reveal a quieter transformation in how these cases are litigated, valued, and decided.

The legal profession prides itself on precision, rigor, and the relentless pursuit of the right answer. And yet, for decades, it has been structured in ways that quietly sideline some of the most precisely wired, rigorously focused, and creatively determined minds available. People who are neurodivergent.

Rights of publicity now sit in a structural mismatch with the generative AI technology around them. Each unauthorized commercial use would in theory violate the right of publicity — but in practice, detecting it, identifying its source, and obtaining a remedy costs more than almost any individual claim is worth. And the volume keeps multiplying.

In In re 33 Mako, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York addressed the issue of whether an oversecured creditor may recover post-petition default interest under Section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. In denying the debtor’s motion, the opinion offers meaningful guidance on the application of the five-factor equitable test used to evaluate default interest claims and clarifies how courts should weigh each factor.

The modern CLO is expected to understand technology shifts in legal, be a change champion, a transformation driver, and a strategic business partner. In many organizations, the CLO is no longer viewed solely as the senior legal advisor to the business, but as the executive responsible for redesigning how legal services are delivered across the enterprise.

In commercial real estate transactions, delivery of the original promissory note is typically a closing requirement, but originals can be misplaced, lost in transit, or separated from the loan file. A missing note is not fatal to enforcement —it simply changes the plaintiff’s burden.