Public Policy

  • November 20, 2024

    Washington State, DC District Court Picks Secure Seats

    The Senate on Wednesday voted 50-48 to confirm Washington Court of Appeals Judge Rebecca L. Pennell to the Eastern District of Washington and 50-49 to confirm Amir Ali, former president and executive director of the MacArthur Justice Center and co-director of the Criminal Justice Appellate Clinic at Harvard Law School, to the District of Columbia.

  • November 20, 2024

    Flint School Atty Can't Get Immunity In Defamation Case

    Outside counsel for Flint Community Schools who accused her predecessor of overcharging the public school district is not entitled to a form of immunity that shields government officials from liability for statements made during official proceedings, a state appellate court panel ruled on Tuesday.

  • November 20, 2024

    Biden Bank Regulators Punt Big-Ticket Rulemakings To Trump

    Top Biden administration banking regulators told House lawmakers on Wednesday that they don't plan to move forward on efforts to strengthen banks' requirements for capital, liquidity or long-term debt before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, although the Federal Reserve's supervision chief said he's not leaving anytime soon. 

  • November 20, 2024

    Boston Mayor Touts Property Tax Relief Bill Before Panel

    Massachusetts lawmakers should allow Boston to adjust its property tax calculations to stabilize the share borne by residences, mitigating an impending tax hike, and boost a business personal property tax exemption, Boston's mayor told a legislative panel Wednesday.

  • November 20, 2024

    Mass. Gov. Nominates 3 To Probate And Family Court

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday nominated three judicial candidates to the state's Probate and Family Court, which handles divorce, child custody, guardianship and estate matters.

  • November 20, 2024

    Bill Aimed At Creating Ga.'s First National Park Moves Ahead

    The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources voted Tuesday to advance a bill that would establish Georgia's first national park, upgrading the ancestral home of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma from its national monument status while also offering protections for Native American burial mounds.

  • November 20, 2024

    Calif. Judicial Nominee Asked About Race, Parenting Writings

    A California judicial nominee's previous writing about the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which sparked a national reckoning on race, was the subject of debate during a Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday.

  • November 20, 2024

    Calif. Voters Reject Minimum Wage Hike In Rare Outcome

    A slim majority of California voters shot down a ballot measure that would have raised the state's minimum wage to $18 an hour, the first time such a proposal has failed in any state in nearly three decades.

  • November 20, 2024

    Trump Wants 'Immediate Dismissal' Of NY Hush Money Case

    President-elect Donald Trump's legal team told the New York judge who presided over his hush money trial that his conviction should be thrown out due to his "overwhelming victory" at the polls, according to a filing released Wednesday.

  • November 20, 2024

    Bankman-Fried Tech Deputy Who Parsed Code Avoids Prison

    A Manhattan federal judge allowed tech expert Zixiao "Gary" Wang to avoid jail Wednesday for his role in the $11 billion FTX fraud, crediting his effort to detail programming "back doors" that enabled Sam Bankman-Fried to loot the bankrupt crypto exchange.

  • November 19, 2024

    Monsanto's Bid To Pause PCB Trial Again Shot Down

    A Washington state appellate commissioner on Friday again refused to undo a trial court's decision not to pause a chemical poisoning tort trial playing out in Seattle, rejecting Monsanto's contention that the court committed "obvious error" in letting the trial proceed while the state's highest court decides a similar case.

  • November 19, 2024

    High Court Urged To Let Courts Scrutinize Agency Rulings

    District courts should be allowed to question rather than grant "absolute deference" to the Federal Communications Commission's interpretation of key statutory terms in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a chiropractic group contended Monday in calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to revive a junk fax class action.

  • November 19, 2024

    Vets' Attys Want Nonprofit To Get $63M Of Agent Orange Funds

    Counsel representing a class of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange and their survivors in litigation that settled 33 years ago urged a California federal judge on Tuesday to hand $63 million in unclaimed funds to a legal nonprofit, a request the federal government has contested.

  • November 19, 2024

    Keep Colo. Interest Rate Opt-Out Law Blocked, 10th Circ. Told

    A coalition of organizations representing the financial services industry has urged the Tenth Circuit to uphold a district court's injunction against a Colorado interest rate opt-out law, arguing the state's attempt to reframe the federal provision allowing the opt-out as a consumer protection measure ignores the underlying statute's history as rooted in federalist principles.

  • November 19, 2024

    11th Circ. Weighs Whether Tornado Cash Sanctions Overreach

    An Eleventh Circuit panel on Tuesday dove deep into the mechanisms of cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash as the judges weighed whether government sanctions intended to curb illicit finance on the protocol are permitted under the law.

  • November 19, 2024

    10th Circ. Judge Asks If PLO Activity Enough For US Suit

    A Tenth Circuit judge hearing arguments Tuesday about whether federal courts have jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization asked an attorney representing the entities whether the group "conducting activity" in the U.S. was enough for courts here to consider the case.

  • November 19, 2024

    USPTO Urged To Revamp Computer Image Design Patent Rule

    Intellectual property law groups and Apple Inc. have recommended that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office allow design patents on computer icons shown using new technologies like holograms and augmented reality, saying a rule limiting protection to images on display screens is outdated.

  • November 19, 2024

    Wash. Tribe Looks To Ax Wildlife Refuge Protection Suit

    A Washington state tribe is looking to dismiss a challenge by three environmental groups to the federal government for failing to protect a national wildlife refuge from an industrial aquaculture operation, arguing that the true purpose of the case is to restrict its members from farming in their historic homeland.

  • November 19, 2024

    All States Now Approved For Feds' Broadband Program

    Everyone who is eligible for a slice of the $42.5 billion BEAD Program pie has officially had their broadband deployment plans approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the agency revealed Tuesday.

  • November 19, 2024

    CFPB's Medical Debt Guidance Faces Industry Injunction Bid

    Debt collectors asked a D.C. federal court on Monday to put an immediate hold on recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidance aimed at the medical debt collection market, escalating their challenge to the document ahead of its looming effective date.

  • November 19, 2024

    Calif. Judge OKs Biggest Family Separation Settlement Yet

    A California federal judge has approved a final settlement for minors in a lawsuit seeking damages for emotional distress caused by family separations under the Trump administration's zero tolerance border policy, saying the settlements "appear to represent the largest amounts achieved thus far by plaintiffs in family separation cases."

  • November 19, 2024

    Doc Says Idaho Abortion Bans Sow 'Fear' In 2nd Week Of Trial

    In the trial over Idaho's strict abortion bans, a rural-based doctor testified Tuesday that the laws are leaving doctors stuck in "confusion and fear," leading to delayed care that's affecting patient safety. 

  • November 19, 2024

    Trump DOT Pick Puts Highway, Road Rebuilds Back In Focus

    President-elect Donald Trump's selection of former Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy to serve as his secretary of transportation would send a savvy communicator to liaise with Capitol Hill and refocus the federal government's infrastructure investment priorities more on highways, roads and bridges and less on renewables and clean-energy initiatives, experts say.

  • November 19, 2024

    Senate Confirms 5th Lame-Duck Judge

    The Senate voted 50-44 on Tuesday evening to confirm Sarah French Russell, law professor and director of the Legal Clinic at Quinnipiac University School of Law, to become a judge in the District of Connecticut.

  • November 19, 2024

    Neb. AG Expands Electric Trucks Fight To Volvo, Daimler

    However a federal court challenge to California's phaseout of gasoline and diesel trucks plays out, Nebraska's attorney general wants to make sure that Volvo, Daimler and other semitruck giants don't eliminate traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles, filing a Nebraska state court antitrust suit Tuesday describing phaseout commitments as anticompetitive collusion.

Expert Analysis

  • 4 Ways To Prepare For DOD Cyber Certification Rule

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    Given the U.S. Department of Justice's increased scrutiny of contractor compliance with cybersecurity requirements, it is critical that contractors take certain steps now in response to the U.S. Department of Defense's proposed Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification implementation rule, say Townsend Bourne and Lillia Damalouji at Sheppard Mullin.

  • FTC Focus: How Scrutiny Of PBMs And Insulin May Play Out

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    Should Express Scripts' recent judicial challenge to the Federal Trade Commission succeed, any new targets could add litigation and choice of forum to their playbooks, and potential FTC court action on insulin could be forced to parallel venues as the issues between the commission and PBMs evolve, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Opinion

    AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys

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    The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.

  • A Look At How De Minimis Import Rules May Soon Change

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    The planned implementation of executive actions focused on the de minimis rule as it applies to shipments means companies should use this interval to evaluate the potential applicability and impact of Section 301, Section 201 or Section 232 duties on their products, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • Key Takeaways From DOJ's New Corp. Compliance Guidance

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s updated guidance to federal prosecutors on evaluating corporate compliance programs addresses how entities manage new technology-related risks and expands on preexisting policies, providing key insights for companies about increasing regulatory expectations, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • What's In The Cards For CFTC's Election Betting Case

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    A D.C. federal judge's Sept. 12 ruling, allowing KalshiEx to offer derivative contracts trading on the outcome of the U.S. congressional elections over objections from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, could mark a watershed moment in the permissibility of election betting if upheld on appeal, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • What To Know About Latest Calif. Auto-Renewal Law Update

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    While businesses have about nine months to prepare before the recently passed amendment to California's automatic renewal law takes effect, it’s not too early to begin working on compliance efforts, including sign-up flow reviews, record retention updates and marketing language revisions, say Gonzalo Mon and Beth Chun at Kelley Drye.

  • The Key Changes In Revised FDIC Hiring Regulations

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    Attorneys at Ogletree break down the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s new rule, effective Oct. 1, that will ease restrictions on financial institutions hiring employees with criminal histories, amend the FDIC's treatment of minor offenses and clarify its stance on expunged or dismissed criminal records.

  • FDIC's Cautious Approach To Industrial Banks, Reaffirmed

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    Although the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently approved an industrial loan company's deposit insurance application and proposed new rules regarding parent companies, these developments do not represent a liberalization or modernization of the FDIC's regulatory framework, say Max Bonici and Andrew Bigart at Venable.

  • How Lucia, Jarkesy Could Affect Grocery Merger Challenge

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    While the Federal Trade Commission is taking a dual federal court and administrative tribunal approach to block Kroger's merger with Alberstons, Kroger's long-shot unconstitutionality claims could potentially lead to a reevaluation of the FTC's reliance on administrative processes in complex merger cases, say attorneys at Saul Ewing.

  • How NLRB Memo Balances Schools' Labor, Privacy Concerns

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    Natale DiNatale at Robinson & Cole highlights the recent National Labor Relations Board advice memorandum that aims to help colleges reconcile competing obligations under the National Labor Relations Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act as university students flock toward unionization.

  • Taking Stock Of FCC's New Spectrum Rule For Drones

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    While an order recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission is intended to provide drones with rapid access to a limited amount of spectrum in the 5030-5091 megahertz band, the commission envisions an incremental approach to full usage that will play out over the course of the coming months and years, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • Basel Endgame Rules: A Change Is Coming

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    The Federal Reserve Board's recently announced recalibration of the Basel endgame proposal begins a critical chapter in the evolution of not only the safety and soundness of U.S. banks, but also of banks' abilities to lend and support American businesses and consumers, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • Ruling On Foreign Dividend Break Offers 2 Tax Court Insights

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    In Varian v. Commissioner, the U.S. Tax Court allowed a taxpayer's deduction for dividends from foreign subsidiaries, providing clarity on how the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision may affect challenges to Treasury regulations, and revealing a potential disallowance of foreign tax credits, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

  • How Loper Bright Is Affecting Pending FCC Litigation

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    Pending challenges against Federal Communications Commission orders at the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright highlight that counsel must be familiar with the statutes, regulations and precedent relevant to the FCC to best navigate the rapidly changing compliance landscape, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

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