We are pleased to introduce the 2025 edition of Weil’s Litigation Trends Report. We often remark during production of the Report about the staggering pace of the changes impacting business, government, and the entire legal industry. This past year was no exception. Our litigators remain as committed as ever to providing clients with advice about evolving business risks and opportunities. Weil’s global Litigation Department, as well as the Firm as a whole, has undergone tremendous positive change over the past year. We have welcomed new litigation leaders with fresh perspectives across the Firm, promoted outstanding new homegrown partners and counsel, and continued to enhance our platform through strategic lateral acquisitions. These are fitting developments, with the Firm fast approaching the 100th anniversary of its founding, as well as important milestones in our Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley offices, which will soon celebrate 50th and 35th anniversaries, respectively. These practitioners and offices have played a large role in preparing this year’s Report, particularly our new features on the Sports industry and the fast evolving topic of ESG – both topics of intense focus and specialization across the Firm. For example, our Sports experts examine how all key stakeholders in the sports ecosystem, including teams, leagues, unions, and players, are increasingly using litigation to challenge and disrupt established norms of league governance, compensation, and player wellbeing. They also assess, among other issues, the business risks facing regional sports networks and their implications for teams and leagues that have stood to benefit from their revenue streams. In the ESG space, a global team of litigators, regulatory experts, and corporate counselors explores the rise of regulatory “greenwashing” enforcement actions and a possible shift of these cases from U.S. federal to state courts. They also examine global ESG litigation risks and liabilities, particularly potential exposure caused by forward-looking or aspirational corporate statements regarding sustainability, and multi-faceted disputes playing out in English, Dutch, and U.S. courts focusing on responsibility for carbon emissions and labor conditions in companies’ global supply chains. Reading on, you will find the practical analysis you have come to expect from across Weil’s Dear Colleagues and Friends practice groups, much of it focused on our predictions about federal regulatory enforcement, as well as related carry-over effects at the state enforcement level and in private litigation. We hope you and your inhouse teams will review the entire Report, but we have excerpted some highlights below: ▪ Antitrust: We foresee consistent, if not heightened, enforcement at the U.S. federal level, including in merger enforcement and monopolization cases. But don’t overlook the potential for state AG enforcement activity to increase as well, either independently or as a result of shifting federal priorities; and be mindful of a growing surge of opt-out collective actions in the UK, underscored by the first trial of such a case since the passage of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. ▪ A ppeals and Strategic Counseling: Though the U.S. Supreme Court issued several seminal decisions in what our appellate lawyers term a “banner” year for administrative law, and a “generationally significant” bankruptcy decision, we analyze the High Court’s otherwise shrinking commercial docket and reluctance to rule in potentially broad-impact cases, epitomized by its dismissal of two important securities law matters. ▪ Class Actions: We canvass some of the most important multi-plaintiff risk centers today, including those arising from so-called “hidden fees,” the use of advertising technology, and allegedly toxic ingredients, which can ensnare a broad range of companies and, coupled with related and uncertain regulatory risks, present potentially staggering litigation costs and liabilities. ▪ C omplex Commercial Litigation: Our commercial litigators assess how companies have adjusted to the plaintiff bar’s innovative use of mass arbitrations to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court’s David Lender Drew Tulumello John Neuwirth LITIGATION TRENDS 2025
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