The U.S. Supreme Court isn't the only place where jurists are grappling with the tough issues provoked by employment class actions. In a pair of major rulings in the last few days, two federal district courts have come to very different conclusions about purported wage and hour classes.

A San Francisco federal district court judge offered further evidence of Concepcion's limits when he ruled that arbitration agreements can still be thrown out if they're found to be unreasonable.

If the dust-up between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle had gone to trial, Robert Shwarts of Orrick would have been sitting at Mark Hurd's table.

Skimming scams, in which thieves install special equipment on point-of-sale debit card readers in order to steal customers' bank account and PIN information, are a nightmare for retailers and their customers. Whether or not the scams will turn out to be a blessing for class action plaintiffs lawyers is still an open question.

Partner Andrew Pincus, who has argued more than 20 cases before the high court, convinced the majority to overturn a Ninth Circuit decision and allow AT&T to enforce a ban on class arbitrations in a contract with its customers.

Handing a major victory to GlaxoSmithKline and its lawyers at Bancroft PLLC and Paul Hastings, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that pharmaceutical companies don't owe overtime wages to sales representatives that hawk drugs to doctors.

Siding with lawyers at Jones Day and Faegre Baker Daniels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit broke with the Second Circuit and ruled that FLSA overtime rules don't apply to sales representatives for Abbott and Eli Lilly, just as the U.S. Supreme Court is mulling GlaxoSmithKline's obligations to sales reps in a similar case.