AB 2773, effective January 1, 2026, requires California law enforcement agencies to publicly disclose use-of-force incident reports — including body-worn camera footage, officer identification, and sustained finding status — within 45 business days of a sustained finding or final adjudication. For criminal defense attorneys, the law creates both a new investigative tool and a procedural question about how these disclosures interact with Brady and Pitchess discovery obligations.
Florida's 2023 overhaul of its child custody statutes eliminated the presumption in favor of equal time-sharing — and in doing so, it recalibrated the entire relocation analysis that courts apply when a parent wants to move with a child after dissolution. Parents seeking to relocate or resist relocation in 2026 are operating under a framework that rewards careful documentation and penalizes reactive filings.
USCIS's October 2025 policy memorandum on "specialty occupation" substantially narrowed the categories of positions eligible for H-1B classification, driving denial rates back toward 2019 highs for technology, consulting, and financial analysis roles. Employers with pending or planned H-1B petitions in 2026 face a materially different adjudicatory environment than they encountered even 18 months ago.
The Corporate Transparency Act's beneficial ownership reporting requirements survived their constitutional challenges and are now in full enforcement mode for New York LLCs, with civil penalties reaching $591 per day for non-filers. New York's own LLC Transparency Act, which took effect January 1, 2026, adds a parallel state-level layer that requires public disclosure of member names — going further than the federal regime in ways that will reshape how New York entities are structured.
Congress permanently raised the Subchapter V debt eligibility limit to $7.5 million in the Small Business Reorganization Act amendments enacted in early 2026, making streamlined Chapter 11 reorganization accessible to a significantly larger universe of distressed businesses. For owners who previously had to navigate full Chapter 11 proceedings — with their trustee requirements, disclosure statement hearings, and creditor-class voting — the expanded threshold changes the strategic calculus entirely.
Texas House Bill 4502, signed into law in June 2026, eliminates the noneconomic damages cap in wrongful death cases where the decedent was under the age of 18. The change overturns a limitation that had effectively capped the grief and loss of a child's life at $500,000 — a figure many families and practitioners found impossible to defend.
California's Labor Commissioner launched targeted enforcement sweeps in Q1 2026, issuing over $18 million in wage orders against companies that continued classifying workers as independent contractors after AB 5. If your business uses gig workers, staffing platforms, or project-based freelancers in California, the window for voluntary compliance has effectively closed.
New York City's landmark law requiring bias audits of automated employment decision tools has moved from grace period to active enforcement, with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection issuing its first significant penalties in 2025. Employers relying on AI-driven screening software for New York City roles face concrete audit obligations and public summary requirements that many are still misunderstanding. This article unpacks what the law demands, what auditors actually look for, and the compliance gaps regulators are citing most often.
California's 2021 SB 447 restored prejudgment interest on personal injury and wrongful death damages, while the 2022 MICRA reform raised the non-economic damages cap in medical malpractice cases for the first time since 1975. Together, these changes have meaningfully shifted settlement dynamics and trial valuations in California tort litigation. Plaintiffs' and defense counsel alike must understand how the two reforms interact — and where they still conflict.
New York's 2019 criminal discovery reform replaced the Rosario rule with a sweeping automatic disclosure mandate under CPL Article 245, requiring prosecutors to turn over all discoverable material within strict statutory deadlines. Three years of litigation have produced a complex body of case law on what constitutes a "willful" disclosure failure, when dismissal is warranted, and how courts are policing prosecutorial compliance. Defense attorneys need to know the current state of the doctrine.
Texas restructured key elements of its franchise (margins) tax in the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions, and the Comptroller's office issued updated apportionment guidance in early 2026 that significantly affects how out-of-state and multi-location businesses calculate their Texas taxable margin. The changes to cost of goods sold (COGS) deductions and single-factor revenue apportionment have both expanded planning opportunities and created new compliance traps. Here is what advisors and in-house counsel need to understand before the next filing cycle.
The Fifth Circuit's 2023 ruling in Texas v. United States struck down DACA as unlawful while preserving a limited injunction that allows current recipients to renew but bars new applications — leaving roughly 580,000 active recipients in legal limbo. For California's large DACA population, the practical implications for work authorization, travel, and long-term status planning are significant. This article explains where the program stands today and what recipients and employers in California need to know.
California AB 1098, effective January 1, 2025, strengthened the evidentiary standards governing the domestic violence presumption under Family Code section 3044, making it harder for abusive parents to rebut the presumption against sole or joint custody. Family law practitioners are still working through how courts are applying the new rebuttal factors and what documentation is most effective in contested custody proceedings. This article breaks down the statutory changes and their practical effect on litigation strategy.
Florida's landmark SB 4-D, passed in a May 2022 special session following the Surfside condominium collapse, imposed the most sweeping condominium inspection and reserve funding mandates in the state's history. Associations with buildings three stories or higher face mandatory milestone inspections, structural integrity reserve studies, and fully funded reserves — with hard deadlines now either passed or approaching. Boards and owners who have not yet complied are in legally precarious territory.
California AB 1885, effective January 1, 2021, overhauled the state's homestead exemption by replacing the prior fixed amounts with a formula tied to the county median home sales price — resulting in exemptions that now commonly exceed $600,000 in high-cost areas. For debtors filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy in California, this dramatically changes whether home equity is reachable by a bankruptcy trustee. Five years of case law have refined the calculation and application rules that practitioners must know.