2026 Essentials of Business Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how employers recruit, screen, and select candidates. Automated employment decision tools (AEDTs), résumé-parsing and ranking systems, natural language-processing (NLP) screeners, and AI-assisted video interview scoring are increasingly used to manage applicant volumes and purportedly improve predictive accuracy. At the same time, state and local governments have begun to adopt rules that impose new transparency, audit, recordkeeping, and anti-discrimination obligations on employers and vendors using such systems. This CLE paper surveys the major state and local rules trending as of November 2025 that restrict or regulate AI in employment decisions, analyzes how the proposed revisions to the Federal Rules of Evidence may affect the admissibility and weight of AI-generated proof offered as a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason (LNDR) for an employment action, and compares Texas’s recently enacted and proposed statutes to the regulatory approaches taken elsewhere.

When entering into business, individuals must make decisions about the type of business entity to establish, whether intentionally or by default. This discussion does not cover scenarios involving investors who do not participate in the business, as such situations involve securities laws, which fall outside the scope of this presentation. The focus here is twofold: (1) how to create effective governing documents tailored to the specific characteristics of business entities and (2) what to look for in governing documents during litigation discovery. Effective governing documents should leverage the fundamental attributes of the selected entity type. When forming an entity or drafting governing documents for an existing one, it is crucial to begin by identifying potential conflicts of interest and determining who the client is. With single owner entities, it is better to represent the individual so that the governing documents can include a waiver of the duties owed by an owner to the entity. With multiple owners, this would not be appropriate. If the entity is the client, this avoids a conflict of interest if there are multiple owners who get into a dispute. If an individual is the client, and there are multiple owners, there can be conflicts of interest among the members or with the entity. Obtaining a waiver of this conflict may be appropriate, depending on the scope of representation.

This handout covers the most common foundational issues transactional attorneys need to know when reviewing or drafting healthcare agreements. A well-written agreement cannot cure a structurally illegal arrangement, and many enforcement actions arise not from “bad contracts,” but from improperly designed relationships.

For centuries, the foundational pillars of legal practice rested on a familiar triumvirate: tort, property, and contract. These doctrines governed the disputes that mattered most in agrarian and industrial economies—physical injuries, land ownership, and commercial bargains. Yet the third industrial revolution, beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century and accelerating into the present, has fundamentally reordered legal priorities. In an economy where a company's most valuable assets may exist entirely as code, algorithms, trade secrets, and brand recognition, intellectual property law has migrated from the periphery of legal practice to its center. Today, disputes over patent portfolios can determine the fate of companies, copyright questions shape the information ecosystem, and trade secret litigation increasingly resembles corporate warfare. Understanding intellectual property is no longer a specialization—it is a prerequisite for competent legal counsel in virtually every sector of the modern economy. Business lawyers today operate in an environment where intellectual property law intersects with data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI) governance. Copyright and trade secret protections, once viewed as separate domains, now require integrated strategic planning. This primer addresses the fundamental principles of copyright and trade secret law while demonstrating how data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, and AI governance considerations shape modern intellectual property protection strategies. The cases, regulatory developments, and real-world scenarios discussed herein illustrate why contemporary counsel must understand these interconnected legal landscapes.

This paper equips business lawyers with practical intellectual property fundamentals, focusing on patents and trademarks as drivers of valuation, risk management, and strategic leverage. It highlights issue-spotting, diligence considerations, and how early, informed IP decisions shape financing, growth, and exit outcomes.

For companies looking to combine capital and expertise, or share risk, a joint venture entity (a “JV”) can be an efficient and effective vehicle for achieving their strategic goals. JVs enable unrelated investing companies to partner together to broaden the scope of their individual resources and expand their market access, while maintaining certain aspects of their independence. However, JVs can quickly become complicated, and without thorough consideration at the outset of potential operational, financial, and legal issues, companies investing in a JV (“JV partners”) can be exposed to risks, liabilities, or obligations beyond tolerable levels. To ensure that a JV succeeds and that the JV partners’ interests remain aligned, JV partners must pay careful attention to the JV’s governance, ongoing management, and exit strategies. This article covers five major areas that require careful consideration when structuring a JV as they provide a strong foundation for the life of the JV. These include (1) governance and control, (2) equity interests and distributions, (3) business planning and budgeting, (4) material breaches and remedies, and (5) termination triggers and exit rights. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, and there are other items outside the scope of this article that investors should consider when committing to a JV, such as tax provisions and management compensation. This article also generally assumes that the JV entity is a limited liability company, since that is the mos popular form in Texas, but the areas covered here can be adapted to other types of JV entities, such as partnerships.

This paper is intended to provide a current update in the real legislation and law that occurred in 2025 and though the date of this presentation.. This paper is intended to be a resource guide. Attorneys should access the specific case law and legislation for more information. With the one-hour presentation we will highlight important areas.

Texas in 2023 created a new system of specialty trial courts (the “Business Court”) to hear significant business related disputes and a special intermediate court of appeals to hear appeals from the Business Court. Legislation to create the Business Court was passed by the 88th Texas Legislative Session, which ended on May 29, 2023, and was signed on June 9, 2023 by Governor Greg Abbott. The Business Court was created by House Bill 19 (“HB 19”) as a new chapter 25A (“§ 25A.001 et seq” or “Chapter 25A”) to the Texas Government Code (the “Government Code” or “Gov. Code”) with judges to be appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate. The Business Court provisions of the Government Code were further amended in the 89th Texas Legislative Session, which ended on June 3, 2025 (the “2025 Legislative Session”) by House Bill 40 (“HB 40”) effective September 1, 2025. A separate bill (“SB 1045”) amended § 22.201 of the Government Code to create a Fifteenth Court of Appeals (“15th Court of Appeals”) to hear appeals from the Business Court. Both HB 19 and SB 1045 became effective September 1, 2023, but became operational only for actions commenced on or after September 1, 2024, which allowed time for appointing judges, arranging facilities, retaining staff and adopting procedural rules. The Business Court is initially seated in the major metropolitan areas of Texas (see map attached as Appendix A) with the expectation that the Texas Legislature will ultimately expand the Business Court for the rest of Texas. The creation of the Business Court followed a long and winding road that commenced in 2015, and has from the beginning been strongly supported by the Texas Business Law Foundation (“TBLF”). Prior efforts stalled in previous legislative sessions due largely to opposition from trial lawyer-focused organizations. HB 19, which ultimately garnered bipartisan support, addresses the growing need for specialized Texas state courts to handle complex business litigation. The Business Court is designed to handle a wide range of business disputes, including contract disputes, fiduciary duty claims, and other corporate governance issues. In creating a dedicated venue for resolving business disputes, the Legislature sought to expedite proceedings, install judges with specialized expertise, deliver more predictable outcomes for business disputes, and ultimately attract more businesses to Texas. Any challenges to the constitutionality of the Business Court will be decided by the Texas Supreme Court, which has been given exclusive and original jurisdiction over any such disputes