Law

Clio's 2026 Legal Trends Report projects utilization rising to 42.2% from 39.1%, with AI-adopting firms recording about 8% more revenue per lawyer. The author attributes the gains to clearing backlog, reduced admin work and better timekeeping, and notes the data is observational, vendor-sourced and that clients expect lower prices.

— via Above the Law, Stephen Embry

EFF's newsletter reports a recent win in its lawsuit over the federal government giving DOGE federal workers' confidential personnel files, and also covers a Safari tracker blocker and a net neutrality call to action in California.

— via EFF Deeplinks, Hudson Hongo

Civil liberties and trade groups filed an amicus brief urging a federal appeals court to scrutinize grand jury subpoenas used to unmask an anonymous Reddit user who commented on an immigration officer. DHS withdrew an earlier administrative subpoena, then the government obtained the grand jury one.

— via EFF Deeplinks, Mario Trujillo

Meta's recent moderation failures, including a suspended political Instagram account during an early voting push, show why platforms need stronger safeguards. The piece urges human oversight, transparency, bias audits and appeals under the Santa Clara Principles 2.0.

— via EFF Deeplinks, Corynne McSherry

A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty after a jury found its public statements deceptive, while other states keep suing tech firms. The author argues the statements were largely accurate and that Section 230 is being sidestepped.

— via TechDirt, Mike Masnick

A GAO report found ICE lacks controls to ensure officers turn on body cameras when policy requires it. ICE rejected the recommendation to adopt auto-activation, citing operational risks like false activations, while its camera rollout lags behind its 2024 plan.

— via TechDirt, Tim Cushing

An EFF analysis argues that ID-based age verification laws exclude people without government documents, citing roughly 850 million people worldwide with no ID. It says this disproportionately affects women, stateless groups and low-income countries, undermining access to information and free expression.

— via TechDirt, Jillian York and Sheila B. Lalwani

Quad9, a nonprofit privacy-focused DNS resolver, will stop serving France on November 24 after a court ordered it to block sites accused of infringing a sports broadcaster's copyrights. It says about 20 similar lawsuits are pending, and the article argues the case should warn U.S. lawmakers weighing site-blocking bills.

— via EFF Deeplinks, Joe Mullin

Reporting from NetDocuments' Inspire conference argues law firms will need AI orchestrators, which route each request to a suitable model, because per-query pricing makes lawyer-chosen models costly. NetDocuments' context graph and benchmark are positioned as the data foundation for such routing.

— via Above the Law, Joe Patrice

At the International Astronautical Congress, SpaceX's Michael Nicolls complained that operators who maneuver without sharing ephemeris data cause near-collisions with Starlink. The article ties this to weakened U.S. space regulation and notes Starlink makes about 1,000 avoidance maneuvers daily.

— via TechDirt, Karl Bode

Legal leaders buying technology should judge a provider by how it works through real implementation problems, not just by demos. The piece urges naming responsible people, tying promised outcomes to delivery milestones and acceptance criteria, and agreeing in advance how surprises and scope changes get handled.

— via Above the Law, Olga V. Mack

A Fortune 500 healthcare company asked Spellbook whether its AI agent could negotiate contracts and send redlines with no human involved. The author warns of risks, including prompt injection flagged by Morgan Lewis, while arguing human-in-the-loop AI tools better improve outcomes.

— via Above the Law, Joe Patrice

Ofcom's first statutory report under the Online Safety Act found no significant change in children's exposure to most categories of harmful content in the nine months after the child safety duties began in July 2025. Ofcom nonetheless recommends adding body stigma and depression content to the priority categories.

— via TechDirt, Mike Masnick

The piece lays out a multi-part plan for overhauling the federal judiciary through statute, arguing that adding Supreme Court seats is not enough. It begins with revising procedural rules, and would also realign circuits, regulate judges, and set removal mechanisms, with no amendments required.

— via TechDirt, Cathy Gellis

A preview of ClioCon 2026, a two-day legal tech conference starting October 26 at Boston's Hynes Convention Center, covering the keynotes (Gladwell, Mollick, Dickerson, Jack Newton), educational sessions on AI and firm strategy, and the planned evening parties.

— via Above the Law, Stephen Embry

Judge Denise Cote ruled that OPM violated the Privacy Act by giving DOGE agents broad access to sensitive data on tens of millions of federal employees without a demonstrated need. She rejected the claim that the case is moot, noting that OPM timed its policy changes to litigation deadlines; remedies remain to be decided.

— via TechDirt, Mike Masnick

Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, has cleared the House of Commons and sits before the Canadian Senate. It would let the government compel digital services to assist surveillance, permit backdoor orders, and require metadata retention for up to a year. CCLA and Citizen Lab call for withdrawing Part 2.

— via EFF Deeplinks, Joe Mullin

In the closing essay of a ten-part series, Konstantinos Komaitis argues the internet's future depends less on which company dominates next than on whether technological power answers to users, courts, regulators and civil society. He frames accountability, not smaller tech, as the alternative to concentrated platform power.

— via TechDirt, Konstantinos Komaitis

The Fifth Circuit ruled that the FCC had no legal authority in 1997 to create the Universal Service Administrative Co., the body that runs the roughly $9 billion Universal Service Fund for rural and low-income broadband. The three-judge panel held that Congress never specifically authorized the company, so the agency violated the Government Corporation Control Act.

— via TechDirt, Karl Bode