2026 Commercial Litigation Outlook

Seyfarth Shaw’s sixth annual commercial litigation outlook examines how businesses are confronting legal, economic and technological pressures in an environment defined by rapid change and competing priorities. The report draws on insights from commercial litigation attorneys across key practice areas to provide practical guidance for 2026 and beyond.

Major trends covered include:

• AI’s concrete legal impact on discovery, evidence and intellectual property, as courts grapple with authenticating AI-generated content and businesses struggle to protect ownership rights in material that is neither entirely human nor machine-made.
• Privacy enforcement gaining momentum as states step in with expanding frameworks around data collection, biometric information and transparency, creating significant compliance burdens even as courts impose higher bars for proving injury.
• Economic pressures driving sustained financial strain across industries, with bankruptcy filings expected to increase particularly among franchisees and in commercial real estate and healthcare as interest rates and pandemic-era support programs reshape the landscape.
• The shift in restrictive covenant law driven by state-level activity, creating a patchwork that demands careful jurisdiction-specific calibration as remote work and cloud collaboration expose weaknesses in trade secret protections.