2026 Business Litigation Outlook

Seyfarth Shaw’s sixth annual industrial litigation outlook examines how companies are confronting authorized, financial and technological pressures in an surroundings outlined by fast change and competing priorities. The report attracts on insights from industrial litigation attorneys throughout key apply areas to offer sensible steering for 2026 and past.

Main traits coated embrace:

• AI’s concrete authorized impression on discovery, proof and mental property, as courts grapple with authenticating AI-generated content material and companies battle to guard possession rights in materials that’s neither solely human nor machine-made.
• Privateness enforcement gaining momentum as states step in with increasing frameworks round information assortment, biometric info and transparency, creating vital compliance burdens at the same time as courts impose greater bars for proving damage.
• Financial pressures driving sustained monetary pressure throughout industries, with chapter filings anticipated to extend notably amongst franchisees and in industrial actual property and healthcare as rates of interest and pandemic-era help applications reshape the panorama.
• The shift in restrictive covenant legislation pushed by state-level exercise, making a patchwork that calls for cautious jurisdiction-specific calibration as distant work and cloud collaboration expose weaknesses in commerce secret protections.