State AG Litigation: Emerging Risks and Enforcement Priorities Requiring a Unique Litigation Playbook (Presented by Troutman Pepper Locke)

This session examines how modern state Attorneys General have evolved from career-capstone positions to stepping stones for higher office, fundamentally changing enforcement priorities. Attendees will explore the AG’s unique role as consumer protection advocate, their constitutional authority, and how regulatory gap-filling in areas like AI and data privacy creates new compliance challenges for businesses.

Discover the key factors driving AG investigations, from consumer complaints and disruptive business models to policy goals and political motivations. This session covers the one-way discovery process, multistate coordination dynamics, the growing role of outside contingency counsel, and critical intelligence-gathering techniques for anticipating enforcement actions.

Learn practical approaches for responding to civil investigative demands, including when to educate versus when to litigate aggressively. This session explores offensive litigation options like the First Choice case, removal strategies to federal court, challenging legal theories such as public nuisance claims, and leveraging discovery as a two-way street to demonstrate actions are not in the public interest.

Panelists forecast emerging priorities including AI regulation, algorithmic pricing scrutiny, healthcare AI bias concerns, and increased private equity oversight in healthcare settings. The session addresses how AGs are shifting toward filing litigation without prior investigation and provides guidance on achieving global peace in settlements across multiple sovereign states.