Schedule & Agenda

Registration & Information Desk

Breakfast

AI and the Judgment Gap

AI is moving faster than the legal, governance, and business frameworks built to manage it. For retail legal leaders, the challenge is no longer simply tracking the next wave of AI regulation or considering how the technology may change legal work. It is helping the enterprise make sound decisions where technical possibility, legal uncertainty, customer trust, and business pressure collide. Bringing together perspectives from law, technology, and governance, this conversation will examine what companies must consider as they govern AI, put it to use across the business, and prepare for new ways customers may interact with brands.

The Modern Retail CLO

The role of the retail CLO continues to expand, but no two leaders step into it or experience it in quite the same way. Three retail CLOs at different points in the role will offer short individual reflections on the demands of the job, what they have learned along the way, and how they lead beyond the legal function. They will then come together for a candid conversation about what the role requires now.

The *Dynamic* Price is Right!

Through an interactive game show format, this session will help you understand how to raise and lower prices to meet demand and maximize profits and how to advertise variable price while staying compliant with emerging laws and enforcement priorities on algorithmic pricing, benchmarking, all-in pricing and junk fee advertising, sales price advertising, and information sharing. Stay ahead of DOJ, FTC, state AG investigation and enforcement trends, as well as private class actions, while understanding the antitrust and consumer protection practical risk areas that come with variable pricing rewards.

Worker Activism, Unionization, and the NLRB – 2026 and Beyond

A constantly changing labor landscape creates new challenges for employers. Join this session for an analysis of current unionization trends, anticipated NLRB activity, and growing state-level divergence in labor regulation. Attendees will learn proactive strategies for employee relations, risk mitigation, and compliance with emerging laws.

Navigating Credit Card Costs, Compliance, and Co-Brand Renewals

As retailers confront the high costs of credit card acceptance, co-branded and private label credit card (PLCC) programs have become critical tools to offset interchange expense, drive loyalty, and create enterprise value. This session will examine the legal, financial, and strategic considerations for launching and renewing these programs amid shifting market and regulatory conditions. Panelists will discuss best practices for negotiating co-brand agreements, current trends impacting renewals, and key developments shaping the industry, including changes at the CFPB, the rescission of the proposed late-fee cap, and the implications of the Visa/Mastercard interchange litigation settlement for merchant leverage and cost strategy in 2026 and beyond.

Business Break

Targeted Advertising: Cookies & Pixels Were Just the Beginning …

Retailers have spent years focused on cookies and pixels, but regulators and plaintiffs are expanding their scrutiny to new forms of targeted advertising and consumer tracking. This session will explore the technologies driving today's advertising ecosystem, including server-side tracking, custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and mobile app SDKs. Attendees will learn practical compliance strategies, understand emerging litigation risks, and prepare for evolving regulatory requirements, including California's upcoming certification and data protection assessment obligations.

Private Label Legal Risks: Building and Protecting Your In-House Brand

Private labels enjoy enviable customer loyalty and margin advantages but operate in an extremely complex legal and regulatory landscape. This session explores the expanding set of risks associated with building and protecting a high-visibility in-house brand, from product liability exposure and supply chain transparency obligations to trademark strategy, marketing claims, and the evolving regulatory scrutiny around “look alike” packaging and sustainability messaging. Attendees will hear real world examples, learn about emerging enforcement trends, and practical frameworks for partnering with business teams to scale private label programs without inviting unnecessary legal risk and leave with a sharper understanding of how to future proof their brand strategy while maintaining consumer trust and regulatory compliance.

Retail Class Action Situation Room: Real-Time Risk Decisions for In-House Counsel

Retailers are facing an unprecedented surge in class action litigation in 2026, targeting pricing practices, promotional strategies, privacy and data collection, and checkout transparency. This interactive situation-room–style session places participants in the role of General Counsel to a hypothetical retailer navigating a fast-moving series of legal crises — including deceptive pricing, shelf-price discrepancies, data privacy and tracking claims, and alleged junk fees introduced at checkout. Participants will leave with practical frameworks for recognizing emerging class action risks, understanding how early decisions affect litigation and reputation, and making strategic decisions under pressure.

Lunch

Loyalty on Trial: The Antitrust and Consumer Litigation Reckoning for Rewards

Loyalty programs are under fire from both antitrust enforcers and consumer class actions, raising the stakes for retailers whose member-only pricing, tiered rewards, and data practices now draw scrutiny under exclusionary conduct theories and deceptive practices claims alike. This session cuts through the complexity, equipping retail counsel with practical frameworks for assessing antitrust and consumer protection exposure in loyalty programs. Panelists will deliver actionable guidance on auditing existing programs and preparing organizational responses to regulatory inquiries in today's aggressive enforcement environment.

Leave Your Wallet at Home: Best Practices for Having Suppliers Live Up to Their Indemnity Obligations

When a consumer claim, demand letter, or lawsuit targets a retailer, the path from tendering the claim to a supplier through resolution can be fraught with legal, business, and strategic challenges. This session will provide practical guidance on structuring and enforcing indemnity provisions, navigating insurer and supplier relationships, managing conflicts of interest, and maximizing recovery in high-stakes litigation, including class actions and MDLs. Attendees will gain actionable insights on negotiating indemnity obligations, coordinating with internal stakeholders, and protecting the business when disputes with suppliers arise.

California Employment Litigation Trends for Retailers: What’s Changed, What’s Trending, and What to Do Now

The California employment litigation landscape continues to evolve quickly, and retailers are facing pressure from multiple directions, including PAGA reform and the LWDA’s proposed regulations, persistent wage-and-hour class and PAGA claims, expanding pay equity and pay-data obligations, and high-exposure single-plaintiff lawsuits. This session will cover key litigation trends in these areas, with a practical focus on what plaintiffs are filing, what courts and regulators are scrutinizing, and what retail employers can do now to reduce risk. Attendees will leave with practical guidance for identifying and mitigating high-risk practices, strengthening compliance and documentation, and making strategic decisions when California class, PAGA, pay equity, or single-plaintiff claims arise.

Business Break

Turning the Tide: Tactical Blueprints for Shipping Act Litigation

Since the COVID-19 pandemic turned the logistics world upside down, importers’ rights under the federal shipping laws have moved from the fringes to the core of retail logistics strategy. This "Litigation War Room" session will walk attendees through the key tactical and strategic moves of a successful Shipping Act litigation. Real-world illustrations from winning cases, as well as an analysis of critical recent decisions and guidance from the Federal Maritime Commission and the courts will be covered.

Beyond the Algorithm: Defending the Next Wave of Pricing Transparency Litigation

As retailers move from AI experimentation to full-scale deployment, they face a rapidly evolving legal landscape shaped by new state laws, regulatory enforcement, and emerging class action litigation. This session will examine the latest requirements governing algorithmic and dynamic pricing, AI-driven shopping assistants, and the use of consumer data, while highlighting key litigation and enforcement trends. Attendees will learn how to identify regulatory risks, navigate dynamic pricing and AI-related legal challenges, and reduce the risk of becoming a target for plaintiffs' attorneys and state attorneys general.

Beyond the Fine Print: Strategic Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy Disclosures to Mitigate Class Action and Mass Arbitration Risk

Join this interactive discussion to learn how to best draft and deploy consumer terms and conditions (website terms of use, sale terms & conditions, text terms, and gift card terms) and privacy policy disclosures to maximize enforceability and provide protections across consumer-facing claims in class actions and mass arbitration.

A Changing Court: The Supreme Court Today

The Supreme Court is not only deciding consequential cases—the institution itself is changing in ways that affect advocacy, business certainty, public trust, and legal strategy. This session will offer a closer look at how the Court functions today, what has shifted, and what to watch in the term ahead.

Registration & Information Desk

Navigating Privacy AI in Youth Marketing

Join this presentation for a discussion of the challenges retailers face marketing to tweens due to the cross section of privacy, AI, safety and unfair competition laws aimed at protecting minors on the Internet. The panelists will provide a summary of the trends and regulations when it comes to marketing to tweens, as well as practical guidance for effective (and lawful!) marketing to tweens.

In-House Legal Teams are the Secret to eCommerce Revenue and Profitability

Retailers all over the world are leaning more heavily into eCommerce. Online marketplaces, agentic commerce, DTC, Google Shopping and other channels are all platforms that must be effectively harnessed for success. The lynchpin to your business’s performance is the amount of control you have over your brand sales, which is inherently legal. By implementing holistic brand control programs that identify and resolve disruption to the eCommerce revenue chain, in-house legal leaders can deliver transformative commercial impact to their business stakeholders. Attendees will learn the key components of the Channel Integrity Framework, the KPIs most relevant to commercial success and the system needed to drive success at-scale.

Laying It All Out There: A Law Firm's AI Evolution

No one has this figured out yet – including us. Through candid case studies with a law firm and its retail clients, this session will go beyond "how to" guides and tackle the question everyone keeps asking, “where are the cost savings?” It will explore how AI is actually used, and where this can diverge from expectations. In the process, we see how litigation outcomes actually improve through sharper arguments, more consistent strategy, higher-quality product. We’ll also discuss how AI lowers the barriers to entry for plaintiffs, how that has altered the risk calculus, and what can be done about it with and without AI. Most importantly, we’ll talk about how companies and firms can partner and collaborate to extract the most valuable uses from these developing and industry changing tools.

Business Break

Keeping OSHA Out of Your Aisles: Strategies for Large Retailers

OSHA can pick apart a store, but can it understand the underlying challenges of logistics, warehousing, and transportation? Want to learn how OSHA thinks and moves? Experts on both sides share strategies to get compliance officers to move along.

Placing Ads in AI Chatbots

Companies are starting to offer ad placements in chatbots, raising novel questions at the intersection of technology, law, and user trust. This session will explore emerging models for integrating advertising into conversational AI, from sponsored responses and product placements to affiliate recommendations, while examining how these practices differ from traditional digital advertising, potential notice obligations, transparency design, and evolving regulatory expectations from agencies like the FTC and global counterparts. Attendees will gain practical insights on how companies can responsibly monetize AI interfaces while preserving user trust and meeting legal and ethical standards.

Fighting Back Against the Plaintiff’s Bar: A Defense-Side Playbook on Offensive Tactics

While the plaintiff's bar coordinates openly on legal theories, targets, and outcomes, the defense bar has more options than it often realizes (within the bounds of confidentiality obligations) to push back collectively. This session examines which offensive tactics against plaintiff's counsel have succeeded and which have failed, from direct suits and sanctions efforts to ethics-based challenges and bar reporting obligations. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for evaluating when regulators fall short, what ethical lines govern engagement with plaintiff's counsel, and which emerging strategies are worth testing in their own practice.

Inside the EEOC: A Conversation with Chair Andrea Lucas

Retailers operate some of the largest and most complex workforces in the country. This conversation will offer a direct perspective on federal workplace enforcement, how priorities are set, and what companies should understand about the evolving employment law landscape.

Ethics and Professional Responsibility for In-House Counsel

This interactive ethics CLE program will examine current professional responsibility issues affecting in-house counsel, including conflicts of interest, confidentiality and privilege, and the ethical implications of generative AI use in legal departments. The session will use recent cases and practical scenarios to help retail legal teams navigate ethical questions that arise in fast-moving corporate environments.