ATLAS/BRIEFINGLaw, organized for consequential decisions.

ALL BRIEFS · PAGE 8

Brief index

Every ATLAS brief, in desk order. Use the desk rail to filter by practice area, or the research console for a direct query.

IMMImmigration Strategy & StatusIMM desk →FINFinancial Regulation & Digital AssetsFIN desk →CORPCorporate Operations & RiskCORP desk →LITLitigation & Dispute ResolutionLIT desk →EMPEmployment & WorkforceEMP desk →FAMFamily TransitionsFAM desk →PROPProperty & DevelopmentPROP desk →PRIVPrivacy, Cyber & AIPRIV desk →IPIntellectual Property & MediaIP desk →ESTEstate, Tax & SuccessionEST desk →CRIMConsumer & Criminal ProcedureCRIM desk →

PROP-05 · 99

Environmental Liability in Property Transfers: CERCLA and the Defences

9 MIN · PROP

Buying contaminated land can make the buyer liable for cleanup it did nothing to cause. This brief sets out how that happens, which federal defences exist, and what each one costs to keep.

  • CERCLA liability is strict, joint and several, and retroactive: a current owner can be held responsible for contamination caused entirely by someone else, decades earlier.
  • The bona fide prospective purchaser, innocent landowner, and contiguous property owner defences all require All Appropriate Inquiries completed before acquisition — never afterwards.
  • Each defence carries continuing obligations after closing. Ignoring land-use restrictions or refusing site access can forfeit a status that was validly earned at purchase.
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PROP-06 · 100

Water Rights and Drainage Disputes Between Neighbouring Owners

8 MIN · PROP

Two different fights hide under the word water: who may use it, and who must accept it when it runs downhill. The governing rule is state law, and it changes at the state line.

  • Most western states allocate water by prior appropriation — first in time, first in right, conditioned on continued beneficial use — while most eastern states apply riparian doctrine.
  • Groundwater runs on its own doctrines, which include rule of capture, reasonable use, correlative rights, and appropriation, and often differ from the surface rule in the same state.
  • Unwanted surface drainage follows one of three rules: common enemy, civil law, or reasonable use, and many states apply a modified version of whichever they nominally follow.
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PROP-07 · 101

Purchase Options and Rights of First Refusal in Real Property

8 MIN · PROP

An option is fired at the holder's choosing. A right of first refusal only wakes up when someone else makes an offer. Confusing the two produces most of the litigation in this area.

  • An option is exercisable whenever the holder elects during its term; a right of first refusal stays dormant until a third-party offer the owner will accept appears.
  • Options generally need a stated term, a price or a price mechanism, and consideration; without those, courts treat them as revocable offers or as unenforceably indefinite.
  • Rights of first refusal live or die on the transfer definition: affiliate transfers, foreclosure, condemnation, gifts and portfolio sales are commonly carved out.
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PROP-08 · 102

Payment Bonds and Miller Act Claims on Public Projects

8 MIN · PROP

Public property cannot be liened, so the payment bond is the unpaid contractor's security. This brief sets out who it covers, the two deadlines that control, and where state versions diverge.

  • Federal property cannot be encumbered by a mechanics' lien, so the Miller Act payment bond is the substitute security for those who furnish labour or materials.
  • A claimant without a direct contract with the prime must give written notice within 90 days of its last labour or material, or the bond claim is lost.
  • Every Miller Act suit must be filed within one year of the claimant's last labour or material, in the federal district where the contract was performed.
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PROP-09 · 103

Operating Expense Reconciliation: Auditing a Commercial Landlord's Charges

8 MIN · PROP

A reconciliation statement is an arithmetic conclusion drawn from a lease. This brief works backwards from the invoice to the clauses that produced it, and to the audit clock that closes the argument.

  • Operating expense disputes are lease-interpretation disputes: the inclusion list, the exclusion list, the pro rata share definition, and the cap language decide the answer.
  • Gross-up provisions adjust variable expenses to an assumed occupancy level; applied to a comparison year but not the base year, they inflate the pass-through.
  • Caps only bite if the lease says they are cumulative and compounding, and most caps exclude taxes, insurance and utilities as non-controllable expenses.
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PROP-10 · 104

Development Agreements, Exactions, and Impact Fees

9 MIN · PROP

Approval conditions are where most of a project's cost is set. This brief separates what a local government may lawfully require from what a developer agrees to buy peace.

  • Approval conditions fall into three families — dedications of land, required off-site improvements, and money — and each is tested slightly differently.
  • A condition must have an essential nexus to a legitimate government interest and be roughly proportional to the project's actual impact, on an individualised assessment.
  • The Supreme Court held in 2024 that this scrutiny is not avoided merely because a fee is imposed by legislation rather than by an official's discretion.
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PRIV-05 · 105

Privacy and Data Protection Assessments: When They Are Required

8 MIN · PRIV

State privacy laws require a written assessment before high-risk processing begins. This brief identifies the trigger categories, the contents that hold up under scrutiny, and who can compel production.

  • Most state comprehensive privacy laws require a documented assessment for targeted advertising, sale of personal data, profiling with significant effects, and sensitive data.
  • The assessment must weigh benefits against risks and record mitigation, not merely describe the processing; a data inventory is not an assessment.
  • In most states nothing is filed; the assessment is produced on the attorney general's demand, usually through a civil investigative demand.
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PRIV-06 · 106

Dark Patterns and Consent Interfaces: Design as a Legal Question

8 MIN · PRIV

Consent is a legal conclusion about an interface, not a checkbox. This brief sets out the design choices regulators treat as subverting choice, and the theories they charge them under.

  • California's privacy statute states directly that agreement obtained through a dark pattern does not constitute consent, making interface design an element of compliance.
  • State rules require symmetry in choice: refusing should take no more steps or effort than accepting, and defaults cannot presume agreement.
  • The FTC charges manipulative design under Section 5 as deception or unfairness, and under ROSCA for negative-option enrollment and cancellation.
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PRIV-07 · 107

Cyber Insurance: Coverage Triggers, Exclusions, and Claim Disputes

8 MIN · PRIV

A cyber tower is many small policies stapled together, and the fights are predictable. This brief maps the coverage grants, the four denial theories that recur, and the notice steps that protect a claim.

  • Cyber policies are claims-made and modular; each insuring agreement has its own trigger, retention, and sublimit, so a covered incident can still be mostly uninsured.
  • War and hostile-act exclusions drove the NotPetya litigation, and standalone cyber policies have since been rewritten with state-backed-attack exclusions that remain largely untested.
  • Applications and security warranties become coverage conditions; an inaccurate answer about multifactor authentication or backups is a common rescission and denial theory.
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PRIV-08 · 108

Ransomware: Response Decisions and the Legality of Paying

8 MIN · PRIV

Paying a ransom is a legal decision before it is a business one. This brief sets out the sanctions analysis, the reporting expectations, and the obligations that continue whether or not payment is made.

  • OFAC has warned that facilitating a ransom payment to a sanctioned actor risks strict-liability sanctions exposure, meaning intent and knowledge are not defenses.
  • Timely and complete reporting to law enforcement, and cooperation with it, are treated by OFAC as significant mitigating factors in any enforcement analysis.
  • CISA urges reporting a ransomware incident regardless of whether the organization pays, and separate federal reporting duties take effect through implementing rules.
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PRIV-09 · 109

Data Retention Schedules and Deletion Obligations

8 MIN · PRIV

Retention duties come from statute, contract, and litigation holds. Deletion rights pull the other way. This brief shows how to reconcile them in a schedule that actually runs.

  • Retention duties come from three independent sources — statute, contract, and the litigation-hold obligation — and each can override the schedule the business prefers.
  • State privacy laws give consumers deletion rights subject to enumerated exceptions, including legal compliance, security incidents, and existing legal claims.
  • A legal hold beats a deletion request: the exceptions exist precisely so that preservation duties are not violated by honoring a consumer's request.
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PRIV-10 · 110

Health Data Outside HIPAA: Apps, Wearables, and Consumer Health Rules

8 MIN · PRIV

HIPAA follows the entity, not the data. This brief maps the rules that reach health information held by apps, wearables, and consumer services, and where the private-suit risk sits.

  • HIPAA applies to covered entities and business associates, so most apps, wearables, and consumer health services fall entirely outside it.
  • The FTC reaches that data through Section 5 and the Health Breach Notification Rule, amended in 2024 to cover health apps and connected devices explicitly.
  • Washington's My Health My Data Act carries a private right of action, which makes it the highest-exposure consumer health statute in the country.
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IP-04 · 111

Challenging a Patent: Inter Partes Review and PTAB Practice

8 MIN · IP

Inter partes review is a narrow, fast, expensive way to kill patent claims — and it closes doors permanently. This brief maps the timing gates, the grounds limit, and the estoppel that follows a final written decision.

  • An inter partes review petition may generally be filed once nine months have passed since the patent issued or was reissued.
  • Grounds are limited to anticipation and obviousness, and only on prior art consisting of patents and printed publications.
  • Service of an infringement complaint starts a one-year clock; after it runs, 35 U.S.C. 315(b) bars the petition entirely.
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IP-05 · 112

Cease-and-Desist Letters: Strategy, Risk, and Declaratory Judgment

8 MIN · IP

A demand letter is not a warning shot. It can create federal jurisdiction for the recipient, start damages clocks, and trigger preservation duties on both sides at once.

  • A letter that creates a substantial, immediate controversy can give the recipient standing to sue first, in a forum of its choosing.
  • Wording controls that risk: identifying a patent, a product, and a demand moves a letter toward jurisdiction; an open licensing enquiry moves away.
  • Sending or receiving a demand triggers preservation duties, so routine deletion has to stop before anyone drafts a reply.
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