Public Policy

  • November 13, 2024

    New Medical Exams No Longer Needed For Afghan Allies

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Wednesday that Afghans who arrived as part of Operation Allies Welcome won't need to get new medical exams when they apply for their green cards.

  • November 13, 2024

    NLRB Outlaws Captive Audience Meetings

    The National Labor Relations Board issued an eagerly awaited decision Wednesday curbing a go-to tactic for employers battling union drives, holding that so-called captive audience meetings violate federal labor law. 

  • November 13, 2024

    Gibson Dunn 'Titan,' Ex-Solicitor General Theodore Olson Dies

    Theodore B. Olson, the founder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP's appellate and constitutional law practice group and a former U.S. solicitor general, died Wednesday, the law firm announced.

  • November 12, 2024

    Ex-FDIC Head Urges Banks To 'Push Back' Against Examiners

    A former top Trump banking regulator on Tuesday called for bank executives to show "backbone" and push back when they are challenged with bad exam findings from their regulators, urging resistance as an antidote to perceived excesses in bank oversight.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trump Taps Elon Musk To Head New 'Gov't Efficiency' Dept.

    President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a newly created "Department in Government Efficiency" for his administration come January.

  • November 12, 2024

    Idaho Says Any Health Risk Could Be Used To Justify Abortion

    In his opening statement Tuesday in a trial weighing whether Idaho's abortion bans are forcing women to carry dangerous, nonviable pregnancies to term, a state attorney hypothetically quipped that to abortion rights advocates, even stepping on a "rusty nail" could be considered a health risk that could require an abortion.

  • November 12, 2024

    Future of Anti-Deepfake Federal Law Is Murky, Panel Says

    Panelists at a Los Angeles intellectual property conference that included attorneys and representatives of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Copyright Office and Microsoft agreed Tuesday that any federal legislation on deepfake technology must strike the difficult balance of punishing bad actors without stifling innovation.

  • November 12, 2024

    DC Circ. Mulls Legality Of Gag Orders On X Corp. Subpoenas

    A D.C. Circuit panel grappled Tuesday with the federal government's authority to obtain sweeping nondisclosure orders preventing social media companies from notifying users when their accounts are targeted by subpoenas, with X Corp. arguing that such gag orders are illegal.

  • November 12, 2024

    Ga. Judge Tosses Feral Horses Island Enviro Suit

    A Georgia federal judge encouraged the National Park Service to better manage the feral horses of Cumberland Island, even as she dismissed a lawsuit alleging federal and state agencies mistreated the animals and allowed them to trample the habitat, eggs and nests of endangered sea turtles and piping plovers.

  • November 12, 2024

    5th Circ. Won't Reopen CFPB Payday Rule Fight

    The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday denied a bid from a lender to reopen an industry legal challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday loan rule that previously foundered at the U.S. Supreme Court, clearing the way for the rule to take effect.

  • November 12, 2024

    Illinois Judge First Confirmation Of Lame Duck Session

    Kicking off the lame duck session, the Senate voted 51-44 on Tuesday night to confirm April Perry, a senior counsel at GE HealthCare, to the Northern District of Illinois.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trump Pick To Lead EPA Is Loyal, Would Learn On The Job

    President-elect Donald Trump prioritized loyalty and a demonstrated ability to carry out his priorities with his announcement that he intends to nominate a former congressman from New York state to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trump Gathers Nat'l Security Team For Border, Defense Roles

    President-elect Donald Trump has chosen a slate of loyalists with hawkish approaches toward foreign policy and securing the U.S. border, creating a team of ideologically aligned officials as he seeks to ramp up deportations and end the war in Ukraine. Law360 takes a look at seven of his national security picks and the impact they will have on defense, immigration and foreign relations with rival nations.

  • November 12, 2024

    FTC Doubts It Overstepped On Editing Meta Decree

    The FTC spent its morning mulling whether it overstepped in trying to modify a 2020 consent decree with Facebook to impose new restrictions on the social media titan now known as Meta after finding that the company hadn't been keeping its data privacy promises.

  • November 12, 2024

    Wireless Group Backs Verizon In Fight Over FCC Privacy Fine

    A major wireless industry group has urged the Second Circuit to deep-six the Federal Communications Commission's nearly $47 million fine against Verizon for selling customers' location data, arguing the FCC read its authority to penalize the mobile giant too broadly.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trump Taps Ex-Jones Day Partner For White House Counsel

    President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that William J. McGinley, a former Jones Day partner who worked as assistant to both the president and Cabinet secretary during Trump's first term, will serve as White House counsel during the upcoming term.

  • November 12, 2024

    Fed Bans Ex-Bank Leaders Over Alleged COVID Relief Fraud

    The Federal Reserve Board of Governors announced Tuesday that it has prohibited two former top brass with Nano Banc from future participation in the banking industry, alleging they fraudulently obtained loans and grants through the federal CARES Act.

  • November 12, 2024

    Colo. Justices Pass On School ADA Fight Over Veteran's Dog

    The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a bid by a state university to review an appellate finding that the school may have pried too deeply with its inquiries into a veteran's service dog and relied on an outdated rationale for seeking additional info.

  • November 12, 2024

    Comerica Sues CFPB To Stop 'Ultra Vires' Benefits Card Probe

    Comerica Bank has sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a Texas federal court, accusing it of carrying out an overreaching and unlawful investigation into the bank's handling of a government program for distributing federal benefits via debit cards.

  • November 12, 2024

    Don't Let Broadband Maps Overstate Rural Overlap, FCC Told

    Rural telecoms are again urging the Federal Communications Commission to beware of overstated provider overlap in its National Broadband Map when allocating federal deployment funding, arguing that the map should be used as part of a holistic process to determine where money should be spent and not the sole determinant.

  • November 12, 2024

    SEC Quietly Shelves Private Fund Rules After 5th Circ. Loss

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has formally withdrawn rules that would have increased agency oversight of hedge funds and private equity funds after declining to appeal a Fifth Circuit decision that vacated the rules, which would have required fund advisers to disclose detailed information about their operations.

  • November 12, 2024

    Split DC Circ. Says White House Can't Issue NEPA Regs

    A divided D.C. Circuit determined Tuesday that the White House Council on Environmental Quality lacks the authority to issue legally binding regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, finding there is no statutory language showing Congress empowered it to do so.

  • November 12, 2024

    Mich. High Court Snapshot: 3M's PFAS Fight, Detroit Fire Fees

    The Michigan Supreme Court returns to the bench Wednesday in a packed oral argument sitting, including a major case on the viability of state PFAS regulations in a challenge brought by 3M Co.

  • November 12, 2024

    Ex-ComEd Exec Asked If Madigan Hires Truly An 'Exchange'

    Defense attorneys got their chance Tuesday to grill an ex-Commonwealth Edison executive who testified the utility hired people who did little to no work at the behest of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, asking if it truly traded those jobs for Madigan's action on ComEd legislation or if the company was just building goodwill with a key decision-maker.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trump Ally Bannon Seeks Delay Of 'We Build The Wall' Trial

    Former Trump administration strategist Stephen Bannon on Tuesday sought to delay his criminal trial on New York state charges stemming from an alleged scheme to con donors seeking to fund a southern U.S. border wall, two weeks after he wrapped up his federal prison sentence for contempt of Congress.

Expert Analysis

  • Increased Scrutiny Raises Int'l Real Estate Transaction Risks

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    Recently proposed regulations expanding the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' oversight, a White House divestment order and state-level legislative efforts signal increasing scrutiny of real estate transactions that may trigger national security concerns, say Luciano Racco and Aleksis Fernández Caballero at Foley Hoag.

  • Navigating Cybersecurity Rule Changes For Gov't Contractors

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    As federal contractors evaluate the security of their IT systems, they should keep in mind numerous changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulations and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement recently promulgated to meet new cyber threats, says William Stowe at KBR.

  • Financial Incentives May Alleviate Affordable Housing Crisis

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    There is a wide array of financial incentives and assistance that the government can provide to both real estate developers and individuals to chip away at the housing affordability problem from multiple angles, say Eric DeBear and Madeline Williams at Cozen.

  • How Fund Advisers Can Limit Election Year Pay-To-Play Risks

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    With Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz now the Democratic candidate for vice president, politically active investment advisers should take practical steps to avoid triggering strict pay-to-play rules that can lead to fund managers facing mutli-year timeouts from working with public funds after contributing to sitting officials, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • FTC Focus: What Access To Patent Settlements Would Mean

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    Settling parties should adopt a series of practice tips, including specifying rationales to support specific terms, as the Federal Trade Commission seeks to expand its access to settlements before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, say Shannon McGowan and David Munkittrick at Proskauer.

  • Why Attorneys Should Consider Community Leadership Roles

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    Volunteering and nonprofit board service are complementary to, but distinct from, traditional pro bono work, and taking on these community leadership roles can produce dividends for lawyers, their firms and the nonprofit causes they support, says Katie Beacham at Kilpatrick.

  • How NJ Temp Equal Pay Survived A Constitutional Challenge

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    The Third Circuit recently gave the New Jersey Temporary Workers' Bill of Rights a new lease on life by systematically dismantling multiple theories of the act's unconstitutionality brought by staffing agencies hoping to delay their new equal pay and benefits obligations, say attorneys at Duane Morris.

  • Firms Must Offer A Trifecta Of Services In Post-Chevron World

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision overturning Chevron deference, law firms will need to integrate litigation, lobbying and communications functions to keep up with the ramifications of the ruling and provide adequate counsel quickly, says Neil Hare at Dentons.

  • Opinion

    CFPB's AI Stance Backslides On Innovation Issues

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent response to a Treasury Department's request for information about artificial intelligence in the financial services sector uses alarmist rhetoric about the technology's risks, ceding an opportunity to help shape this important discussion, says Mike Silver at Husch Blackwell.

  • Strategies To Defend Against Healthcare Nuclear Verdicts

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    The healthcare industry is increasingly the target of megaclaims, particularly those alleging medical malpractice, but attorneys representing providers can use a few tools to push back on flimsy litigation and reduce the likelihood of a nuclear verdict, says LaMar Jost at Wheeler Trigg.

  • 5 Tips To Succeed In A Master Of Laws Program And Beyond

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    As lawyers and recent law school graduates begin their Master of Laws coursework across the country, they should keep a few pointers in mind to get the most out of their programs and kick-start successful careers in their practice areas, says Kelley Miller at Reed Smith.

  • Opinion

    Portland's Gross Receipts Tax Oversteps City's Authority

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    Recent measures by Portland, Oregon, that expand the voter-approved scope of the Clean Energy Surcharge on certain retail sales eviscerate the common meaning of the word "retail" and exceed the city's chartered authority to levy tax, say Nikki Dobay at Greenberg Traurig and Jeff Newgard at Peak Policy.

  • Series

    After Chevron: SEC Climate And ESG Rules Likely Doomed

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    Under the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright, without agency deference, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure and environmental, social and governance rules would likely be found lacking in statutory support and vacated by the courts, says Justin Chretien at Carlton Fields.

  • NYC Wage Info Bill Highlights Rise In Pay Transparency Laws

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    With New York City the latest to mull requiring companies to annually report employee wage data, national employers should consider adapting their compliance practices to comply with increasingly common pay transparency and disclosure obligations at state and local levels, says Kelly Cardin at Littler Mendelson.

  • Assessing Whether Jarkesy May Limit FINRA Prosecutions

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Jarkesy v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, holding that civil securities fraud defendants are entitled to jury trials, may cause unpredictable results when applied to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority prosecutions, say Barry Temkin and Kate DiGeronimo at Mound Cotton.

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