Public Policy

  • December 06, 2024

    DC Circ. Upholds TikTok Sale-Or-Ban Law

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday upheld a federal law giving TikTok until January to cut ties with its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the U.S., ruling that the statute survives constitutional scrutiny.

  • December 05, 2024

    Trump Taps Musk Ally David Sacks As 'AI & Crypto Czar'

    President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has selected David O. Sacks, a tech investor who worked alongside Elon Musk and entrepreneur Peter Thiel in the early days of PayPal, to be the newly created "White House AI & Crypto Czar."

  • December 05, 2024

    Internet Archive Won't Take E-Book Fair Use To Justices

    The Internet Archive on Wednesday said it will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on whether its practice of distributing copyrighted e-books for free without permission from some of the world's biggest publishers is excused by the Copyright Act's fair use doctrine.

  • December 05, 2024

    Feds Defend Asylum Rule And 'Manifestation' Standard

    The Biden administration on Wednesday defended its recent rule curtailing asylum at the southern border, telling a D.C. federal court that it acted reasonably in putting the "onus" on noncitizens to express a fear of persecution or torture.

  • December 05, 2024

    Texas Lt. Gov. Wants Ban On Hemp-Derived THC Products

    Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has unveiled legislation that looks to ban all forms of consumable THC, including hemp products that "might include unremovable, nonintoxicating trace amounts of delta-9 THC."

  • December 05, 2024

    Ally Visa Seekers Say Feds Are Trying To Add Delay To Delay

    A certified class of Afghans and Iraqis who aided U.S. troops and are waiting for the government to process their already unreasonably delayed special immigrant visas told a D.C. federal judge on Wednesday the government shouldn't be able to add even more time to the plan to deliver their visas.

  • December 05, 2024

    Rocket Mortgage Sues HUD, Hits Back At DOJ Race Bias Suit

    Rocket Mortgage, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, has punched back against housing discrimination claims brought by the U.S. government, countersuing in Colorado federal court to challenge what it argues are "conflicting and irreconcilable" mandates at play.

  • December 05, 2024

    Frontier Pays $3.5M To End Calif. AG's Illegal Dumping Probe

    The California subsidiary of telecom company Frontier Communications will pay $3.5 million to end an investigation into the improper disposal of batteries, aerosol cans and other hazardous waste at warehouses and field service facilities dating back to 2008, the Golden State's attorney general announced Thursday.

  • December 05, 2024

    CFTC Flags AI Compliance Obligations In New Advisory

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday issued a staff advisory outlining its registrants' compliance obligations under the Commodity Exchange Act regarding the myriad of ways they may be using artificial intelligence, with the agency's chair painting the guidance as a first step ahead of potential policies.

  • December 05, 2024

    Freddie Mac Beats Suit Over Payoff Statement Fees, For Now

    A Washington federal judge has tentatively let Freddie Mac off the hook in borrowers' proposed class action alleging loan servicer Nationstar Mortgage illegally charged fees for payoff statements, ruling Thursday that Freddie Mac can't be liable for conduct it didn't authorize — even if it did own one loan at issue.

  • December 05, 2024

    'Texas Two-Step,' Exec Bonus Bankruptcy Bills Reintroduced

    Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate this week renewed efforts to pass two bankruptcy bills that would bolster rights for employees and crack down on the controversial use of so-called Texas two-step bankruptcies.

  • December 05, 2024

    Vidal Sends Nokia's Patent Challenges Back To PTAB, Again

    The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has again vacated a Patent Trial and Appeal Board refusal to hear three patent challenges by Nokia, saying the board needs to take a look at the case a third time.

  • December 05, 2024

    DOJ Is Eyeing Foreign Patent Litigation Funding, GAO Says

    The U.S. Department of Justice is examining the role foreign countries might be playing in funding patent litigation in the U.S., the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday exploring the benefits and pitfalls of the proliferation of third-party intellectual property litigation financing.

  • December 05, 2024

    Providers' $2.8B BCBS Antitrust Deal Gets Judge's Initial OK

    An Alabama federal judge has given his initial approval for a $2.8 billion settlement inked between Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and a proposed class of medical providers in a more than 12-year-old antitrust case targeting association rules.

  • December 05, 2024

    Gov't Efficiency Push Is A 'New Day,' House Speaker Says

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., spoke excitedly Thursday about the new government efficiency operation helmed by billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and touted the budding bipartisan lineup of a congressional caucus that will work with it.

  • December 05, 2024

    Amazon Says Section 230 Shields Against Casino App Suit

    Amazon said Wednesday a federal judge should toss a proposed class action accusing the e-commerce giant of promoting and selling "social casino" apps that enable illegal gambling, arguing the company is immune under a federal law regulating internet content because it did not create the games.

  • December 05, 2024

    Man Says NC Failed To Prove He Had Cannabis, Not Hemp

    A North Carolina man is appealing his conviction for possession and intent to distribute cannabis, saying the state failed to show evidence that the material they seized from him was cannabis as opposed to legal hemp.

  • December 05, 2024

    Colo. Sheriff Says County Worker Rights Law Can't Touch Him

    A Colorado sheriff is suing the state to challenge application of a collective bargaining law to him, arguing in a complaint filed Wednesday in Denver District Court that applying the law to sheriffs interferes with their legal authority and independence.

  • December 05, 2024

    Okla. Court Says Tulsa Can Prosecute Indian Country Crime

    An Oklahoma Criminal Appeals Court will not dismiss a challenge by the city of Tulsa that questions its jurisdictional rights on reservation lands, saying the municipality's ability to prosecute crimes is centered in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said states can prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians on tribal land.

  • December 05, 2024

    3rd Circ. Unsure Pa. Regulator Had Right To Deny Project

    Third Circuit judges appeared wary on Thursday of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's argument that its take on the necessity of a transmission project trumps a federal agency's determination, at one point questioning how any such project could be completed if the court accepted its argument.

  • December 05, 2024

    Wash. Gov.'s Executive Order Backs Tribal Salmon Initiative

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has, in an executive order, directed state agencies to cooperate with four sovereign tribal nations and Oregon to fulfill commitments to the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, which aims to protect salmon and steelhead populations.

  • December 05, 2024

    Utah Defends Effort To Wrest Land From Feds At High Court

    Utah told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that its proposed lawsuit accusing the government of unconstitutionally hoarding and profiting from public lands in the state belongs before the justices and that the government's recent response strengthens its case.

  • December 05, 2024

    NC Town Sues Duke Energy Over Climate Change 'Deception'

    A small town in North Carolina is suing Duke Energy for what officials characterized as a decades-long "deception campaign" about climate change, including allegedly misleading residents about the dangerous effects of fossil fuels and delaying the transition to cleaner energy.

  • December 05, 2024

    Detroit Needs More Evidence In Census Row, Judge Says

    A Michigan federal judge gave the city of Detroit another chance Thursday to prove the U.S. Census Bureau undercounted the city's population and negatively impacted its federal funding, telling the city it wouldn't have standing to sue the federal government without such evidence.

  • December 05, 2024

    Migrants Told 'Asylum No Longer Exists,' Report Says

    U.S. border agents are mistreating asylum-seeking families under President Joe Biden's June border restrictions, denying them access to asylum and returning them to Mexico in violation of domestic and international law, Human Rights Watch said Thursday in a new report.

Expert Analysis

  • How Cos. Can Build A Strong In-House Pro Bono Program

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    During this year’s pro bono celebration week, companies should consider some key pointers to grow and maintain a vibrant in-house program for attorneys to provide free legal services for the public good, says Mary Benton at Alston & Bird.

  • Series

    Home Canning Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Making my own pickles and jams requires seeing a process through from start to finish, as does representing clients from the start of a dispute at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board through any appeals to the Federal Circuit, says attorney Kevin McNish.

  • CFPB School Lunch Focus Could Expand E-Payment Scrutiny

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent spotlight on payment processing systems used to add funds to school lunch accounts shows its continued ambitions to further expand its supervisory power in the payments industry, all the way down to the school lunch market, says Tom Witherspoon at Stinson.

  • A Narrow Window Of Opportunity To Fix Energy Transmission

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    A post-election effort of the coming lame-duck congressional session may be the only possibility to pass bipartisan legislation to solve the national grid's capacity deficiencies, which present the greatest impediment to realizing state and federal energy transition and emissions reduction goals, says David Smith at Manatt.

  • How Project 2025 Could Upend Federal ESG Policies

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    If implemented, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy playbook for a Republican presidential administration, would likely seek to deploy antitrust law to target ESG initiatives, limit pension fund managers' focus to pecuniary factors and spell doom for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate rule, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Compliance Pointers For Amended Pa. Data Breach Law

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    Recent updates to the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act include a requirement that organizations alert the state's attorney general of certain consumer data breach notifications, and several incident response and cybersecurity considerations will be necessary to ensure compliance, say Matthew Meade and Laura Decker at Eckert Seamans.

  • Smith's New Trump Indictment Is Case Study In Superseding

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    Special counsel Jack Smith’s recently revised Jan. 6 charges against former President Donald Trump provide lessons for prosecutors on how to effectively draft superseding indictments in order to buttress or streamline their case, as necessary, says Jessica Roth at Cardozo Law School.

  • Opinion

    FDIC's Foray Into Index Fund Rules Risks Regulatory Chaos

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    A proposed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rule concerning control over passive index fund investments in banks is outside the agency's remit, clashes with an existing Federal Reserve process and would inhibit competition in the index fund sector, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.

  • Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

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    Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

  • Opinion

    Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code

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    As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.

  • What To Make Of Dueling Corporate Transparency Act Rulings

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    Although challenges to the Corporate Transparency Act abound — as highlighted by recent federal court decisions from Alabama and Oregon taking opposite positions on its constitutionality — the act is still law, so companies should comply with their filing requirements or face the potential consequences, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

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    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • California's AI Safety Bill Veto: The Path Forward

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's veto of a bill that sought to impose stringent regulations on advanced artificial intelligence model development has sparked a renewed debate on how best to balance innovation with safety in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, say Bobby Malhotra and Carson Swope at Winston & Strawn.

  • Staying Off The CFPB's Financial Services Offender Registry

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's soon-to-launch registry of financial services companies that have faced public enforcement orders is designed to ratchet up long-term scrutiny of entities that could become repeat offenders, so companies should take their new compliance and filing requirements seriously, say Andrea Mitchell and Chris Napier at Mitchell Sandler.

  • New TCPA Rule Faces Uncertain Future Post-Loper Bright

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    The Federal Communications Commission's new rule aiming to eliminate lead generators' use of unlawful robocalls is now in doubt with the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, and the Eleventh Circuit's Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC is poised to be a test case of the agency's ability to enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act post-Chevron, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

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