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The Daily Docket

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

By Caitlin Tremblay

Good morning. The U.S. Supreme Court adopted new tech to help ID conflicts of interest. Plus, Mark Zuckerberg will face questioning at a landmark trial over youth social media addiction; Bayer proposed a $7.25 billion plan to settle Roundup cancer cases; and closing arguments are expected in Tom Goldstein’s criminal tax trial. Here’s a look at some of the best Skeleton helmet art from the Olympics. We’ve already slid into midweek. Let’s get going.

U.S. Supreme Court adopts new technology to help identify conflicts of interest

REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

The U.S. Supreme Court is getting a tech upgrade. The court adopted new software to assist in identifying whether a case poses a potential conflict of interest for the justices. Here’s what to know:

The Court’s IT team built software that scans parties and lawyers in each case against information supplied by the justices—essentially an automated double‑check on conflicts.
It’s the latest step since the Court adopted its first ethics code in 2023, though critics note the justices still continue to police their own recusals.
Starting March 16, lawyers will have to provide beefier disclosures, including fuller party lists and any relevant stock tickers, to feed the new system.
Read more here.

Coming up today

Litigation: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to take the stand at trial in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms.
Products liability: The 2nd Circuit will hear an appeal of a 2024 bankruptcy court ruling in Revlon’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan that blocked over 40 lawsuits alleging Revlon’s talc products caused asbestos-related injuries.
Criminal: Closing arguments are expected today in the criminal tax prosecution of former U.S. Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein. Goldstein has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from his side career playing multimillion-dollar poker games around the world.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

More top news

Industry insight

U.S. law firm Lehotsky Keller Cohn sued a special committee of cryptocurrency miner Rhodium Enterprises’s board and an investor group, accusing them of interfering with an $11 million legal fee and waging an “assault” on the firm’s reputation amid Rhodium’s bankruptcy.
Uber is owed attorney fees after a plaintiffs lawyer used and shared confidential corporate information he obtained in litigation in other lawsuits against the rideshare giant, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Cisneros in San Francisco ruled.

$7.25 billion

That’s how much Bayer’s Monsanto unit has proposed to pay to establish a long-term claims program in a class settlement aimed at resolving current and future claims that its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer. The proposed settlement covers the bulk of the lawsuits, but will need a judge's approval. Read more here.

In the courts

The American Academy of Pediatrics filed a lawsuit accusing the FTC of launching an investigation concerning its support of gender-affirming care for transgender youth as part of an effort by the Trump administration to retaliate against the medical group. Read the complaint.
Groups representing park conservationists, historians and scientists filed a lawsuit in Boston federal court seeking to prevent President Trump's administration from scrubbing information from parks and monuments, after exhibits touching on topics like slavery and climate change were recently removed. Read the complaint.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee in San Jose blocked OpenAI from using the name "Cameo" in connection with its video generation app Sora, handing celebrity video platform Cameo a preliminary win in a trademark lawsuit against the artificial intelligence giant. Read the ruling.
Texas has filed a lawsuit against TP Link Systems for allegedly marketing its networking devices deceptively and allowing Beijing to access American consumers' devices. Read the complaint.
AT&T was sued by four New York City public pension funds, which accused it of wrongly refusing to let shareholders vote on their proposal to require the telecommunications company to disclose the breakdown of its 133,000-person workforce by race, ethnicity and gender. Read the complaint.

Attorney Analysis

John Bandler, an adjunct professor at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, examines how to maintain and improve your firm’s cybersecurity program.