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In the minds of your clients, trust and security are intertwined. As stewards of confidential client information, law firms must go beyond minimum compliance, setting a gold standard that safeguards data, builds confidence and differentiates forward-looking practices from the rest. The following seven strategies, drawn from real-world experience in legal technology, outline actionable ways law firms can fortify their defenses while making security a pillar of client trust and firm reputation.

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The federal judiciary’s electronic case management system, known as CM/ECF, was hacked in large-scale cyberattacks this summer. Although court officials are mum on the possible perpetrators, news reports have said investigators suspect that the hacking could possibly have been perpetrated by Russian state-linked actors. The far-reaching breach has exposed the identities of cooperating witnesses and victims.

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A new lawsuit against Perplexity AI claims responses generated by the artificial intelligence platform violate the trademarks of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster by attributing false information to their widely esteemed brands. The complaint alleges Perplexity’s generative AI “answer engine” violates the plaintiffs’ copyrights and also cites them as sources of false or incomplete information.

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When it comes to structuring a real estate deal, one of the most fundamental questions is whether the land should be leased under a long-term ground lease or sold outright. At first glance, the distinction may seem simple: a ground lease allows a landowner to retain ownership, and the tenant is permitted to use and improve the land, while a sale conveys fee title to the purchaser. But the legal, financial, and practical consequences of this choice are significant and can shape the future of a property for decades.

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The financial and human cost on individuals of arguable “overcriminalization” is enormous, and defense counsel certainly wonder whether that damage can be justified in light of the ultimate legal outcomes of the white-collar dramas we witness.

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The continued, rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technologies comes with increasing risks for businesses, demanding that they navigate such issues more carefully than ever. Considering recent privacy class action trends detailed in this article, companies that utilize AI in their business operations should immediately review and modify their compliance programs as necessary to mitigate legal risk and liability exposure.

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In August, the Federal Circuit issued a surprisingly self-critical ruling in the long-standing dispute between Erik Brunetti and the USPTO over Brunetti’s efforts to register the term F*CK for a wide variety of goods and services. The Federal Circuit concluded that the Board’s decision in In re Brunett lacked sufficient clarity and therefore vacated it for further proceedings, which although facially unremarkable, may not only prove to be a boon to Brunetti, it may also be highly beneficial to many trademark owners who have been forced to wrestle with failure-to-function refusals.

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A federal judge in the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval on September 25 to a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and a class of authors who alleged that the artificial intelligence company used their copyrighted works to train its chatbot Claude without their consent. The settlement is the largest copyright settlement of all time, covering 482,460 works and paying authors slightly more than $3,000 per work infringed.