Public Policy

  • July 31, 2024

    Historical Association Backs Tribes In SunZia Power Line Row

    The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers is asking the Ninth Circuit to intervene in a challenge by a coalition of Native American tribes and environmentalists seeking to block SunZia Transmission from routing a 520-mile power line through important cultural and historical sites in the San Pedro Valley.

  • July 31, 2024

    Sens. Reveal Bipartisan Trade Bill Streamlining Customs Laws

    Two senators from opposite sides of the aisle released a discussion draft and bill Wednesday of their proposed Customs Facilitation Act of 2024, which seeks to modernize U.S. customs laws and streamline processing goods and services crossing U.S. borders.

  • July 31, 2024

    Final DOI Report Finds Nearly 1,000 Died At Boarding Schools

    Nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died while attending federal government-run boarding schools, according to the Department of Interior's second — and final — report that follows a three-year investigation into harsh conditions the students were forced to endure over the course of more than a century.

  • July 31, 2024

    Mich. Justices Ask, Again, If Auto Reforms Cover Old Policies

    The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday asked parties in a crash insurance dispute to address a question on which it had already heard arguments earlier this year: whether no-fault reforms enacted in 2019 apply to preexisting policies or just to those issued after the reforms took effect.

  • July 31, 2024

    Wash. Court To Rethink Gas Chain's Tax Duty On Fuel Cards

    A Washington state appeals court said it would reconsider its May decision that a Pacific Northwest gas station chain that issued fuel cards to customers must pay the state business and occupation tax when holders of those cards purchase gas from other participating gas station chains.

  • July 31, 2024

    Separate Easement Contribution Docs Critical, IRS Atty Says

    Conservation easement donors must always keep separate documents from their donees that acknowledge the gifted property to qualify for a charitable tax deduction in the event the IRS requests such information during an audit, according to an agency counsel Wednesday.

  • July 31, 2024

    SEC Asked For Public Tax Reporting By Group With $2.3T

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was asked Wednesday to begin a rulemaking procedure to require public country-by-country reporting of tax by nearly 90 investment funds, labor unions, activists and others with combined assets over $2.3 trillion.

  • July 31, 2024

    5th Circ. Pause Spells Doom For DOT Airline Fees Rule

    The Fifth Circuit gave the airline industry a temporary reprieve from a new U.S. Department of Transportation rule requiring carriers to more clearly disclose add-on fees upfront, a decision that stands to embolden opponents of the Biden administration's more aggressive consumer-focused policies.

  • July 31, 2024

    Black Worker Says PBGC Didn't Promote Him Due To His Race

    The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. passed over a Black worker for a senior director role in favor of a less qualified white woman and retaliated against him for a previously filed race discrimination complaint, a lawsuit filed in D.C. federal court said.

  • July 31, 2024

    NC Defense Attys Say Virus Law Case Can 'Unsettle' Immunity

    A North Carolina defense attorney group asked to jump into a medical malpractice suit in the state's high court Wednesday, offering what it described as a warning that if a decision stands on a COVID-19 law, immunity from lawsuits will be "unsettled."

  • July 31, 2024

    Corteva Unit Ordered To Search 110K Boxes For PFAS Docs

    A former North Carolina Superior Court judge in charge of ironing out a dispute between the state and a Corteva Inc. subsidiary over allegedly missing documents ordered the company to search through 110,000 boxes for information related to "forever-chemicals," finding it failed to give assurance the boxes were thoroughly searched.

  • July 31, 2024

    Age Limits On Owning Senior Units Unlawful, NJ Panel Says

    A New Jersey appellate panel on Wednesday backed a lower court's finding that a Garden State municipality's ordinance limiting property ownership in senior housing communities to those 55 years old or older violated the federal Fair Housing Act and state Law Against Discrimination, holding that both statutes prohibit discrimination based on familial status.

  • July 31, 2024

    PayPal Alum Joins Forensic Consultancy As Crypto Leader

    Compliance consultancy and investigations firm Forensic Risk Alliance said Wednesday that it's hired an alum of PayPal and Paxos to direct its global cryptocurrency investigations and compliance practice.

  • July 31, 2024

    Minn. Tax Court Agrees Parking Lot's Value Is $4M, Not $10M

    A Minneapolis parking lot would be best valued as a buy-and-hold investment property and thus its assessed value should be lowered from $10.3 million to $3.9 million, the Minnesota Tax Court said.

  • July 31, 2024

    Minn. Shopping Center's $97M Value Upheld By State Justices

    A Minnesota shopping center was correctly valued for tax purposes at nearly $97 million, the state Supreme Court said Wednesday, rejecting the property owner's argument that the valuation should consider a calculation of effective rent instead of market rent.

  • July 31, 2024

    Pa. Court Says Mail-In Ballot Images Are Public Records

    Scanned copies of Pennsylvanians' absentee and mail-in ballots are public records subject to the state's Right-to-Know Law, even though copies of votes cast in person are not, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday.

  • July 31, 2024

    Where Trump's 4 Criminal Cases Could Stand On Election Day

    A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, a dismissal order from a trial judge in Florida and scandal in Georgia threaten to derail state and federal criminal cases that had been moving full steam ahead against Donald Trump just a few months ago.

  • July 31, 2024

    Copyright Office Warns Of 'Urgent Need' For Deepfakes Law

    The U.S. Copyright Office said Wednesday that "there is an urgent need" for new federal legislation to tackle the proliferation of deepfakes created through artificial intelligence, saying in a long-awaited report with recommendations to Congress that "an era of sophisticated digital replicas has arrived."

  • July 31, 2024

    Ex-Chicago Alderman Should Serve Full Supervision, Feds Say

    A former Chicago alderman and attorney convicted of tax crimes should not be allowed an early reprieve from his court-ordered supervision because it has become his main form of punishment following his compassionate release from prison, the government has told an Illinois federal court.

  • July 31, 2024

    Attys Can Seek Security Clearance In Cuellar Bribery Case

    Attorneys for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar can apply for a security clearance to facilitate potential discussions of classified information in connection with bribery charges against the congressman, a Texas federal judge said Wednesday, remarking multiple times that federal prosecutors had taken "inconsistent" positions on classified material connected to the case.

  • July 31, 2024

    NC Sens. Continue Fight Against 4th Circ. Nom

    Ryan Young Park, the solicitor general of North Carolina and nominee for the Fourth Circuit, defended his record and commitment to the law on Wednesday amid attacks from North Carolina's U.S. senators, who oppose his nomination and claim they were not properly consulted on his selection.

  • July 31, 2024

    5 Trials To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2024

    Upcoming high-profile trials over star lawyer Tom Girardi's alleged fraud, Hunter Biden's taxes and Washington state's "patent troll" law are among the cases to watch in the latter half of the year.

  • July 31, 2024

    Judge Won't Undo IRS' Pause On Worker Retention Credits

    An Arizona federal judge rejected a tax advisory firm's request to lift the IRS' pause on processing claims for the pandemic-era employee retention credit, saying he wasn't eager to stop the agency from addressing the fraud it alleges has been widespread.

  • July 31, 2024

    Mich. High Court Restores Strengthened Wage, Leave Laws

    The Michigan Supreme Court put back in place higher minimum wage and broader paid sick leave laws on Wednesday, finding the laws were unlawfully amended by the state Legislature in a controversial move to keep a $12 minimum wage law off the ballot.

  • July 31, 2024

    5th Circ. Slams Injunction Against Texas In Buoy Fight

    The majority of the full Fifth Circuit ruled that a Texas federal court abused its discretion by ordering Texas to move a 1,000-foot buoy barrier meant to deter migrants in the Rio Grande to its own riverbank.

Expert Analysis

  • How Congress Is Tackling The US Healthcare Shortage

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    With healthcare shortages continuing across the U.S. despite industry efforts to improve patient access to care, increased Medicare support for graduate medical education could be a crucial component of the solution, say Sarah Crossan and Miranda Franco at Holland & Knight.

  • How Justices' Chevron Ruling May Influence Wind Projects

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    Parties both for and against the development of East Coast offshore wind development are watching the U.S. Supreme Court closely for its anticipated ruling challenging long-standing principles of agency deference that may subject decision making based on that precedent to upheaval, say attorneys at Robinson & Cole.

  • Gov't Contractors Shouldn't Skip Steps In Rush To Adopt AI

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    Government contractors that may be tempted to deploy artificial intelligence in day-to-day operations like billing and data protection should first take time to consider and address the specific risks that come with using AI tools, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • 6 Tips For Maximizing After-Tax Returns In Private M&A Deals

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    With potential tax legislation likely to spur a surge in private business sales, sellers can make the most of after-tax proceeds with strategies that include price allocation and qualified investment options, say Isaac Grossman and Daniel Studin at Morrison Cohen.

  • Opinion

    Why The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act Can Spur Progress

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    Patent practitioners have long wrestled with the effects of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have muddied the waters of what can be patented, but the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act can change that, and those not involved with patents on a day-to-day basis can help get this act passed, says John White at Harness IP.

  • Lower Courts May Finally Be Getting The Memo After Ciminelli

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    A year after the U.S. Supreme Court again limited prosecutors' overbroad theories of fraud in Ciminelli v. U.S., early returns suggest that the message has at least partially landed with the lower courts, spotlighting lessons for defense counsel moving forward, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.

  • After A Brief Hiccup, The 'Rocket Docket' Soars Back To No. 1

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    The Eastern District of Virginia’s precipitous 2022 fall from its storied rocket docket status appears to have been a temporary aberration, as recent statistics reveal that the court is once again back on top as the fastest federal civil trial court in the nation, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

  • Protecting Trade Secrets In US, EU Gov't Agency Submissions

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    Attorneys at Mintz compare U.S. and European Union trade secret laws, and how proprietary information in confidential submissions to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency is protected in the face of third-party information requests under government transparency laws.

  • Big Banks Face Potential Broader Recovery Plan Rules

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    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent call for potentially subjecting more banks to recovery planning standards would represent a significant expansion of the scope of the recovery guidelines, and banks that would be affected should assess whether they’re prepared, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • New Laws, Regs Mean More Scrutiny Of Airline Carbon Claims

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    Recent climate disclosure laws and regulations in the U.S. and Europe mean that scrutiny of airlines' green claims will likely continue to intensify — so carriers must make sure their efforts to reduce carbon emissions through use of sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen and carbon offsets measure up to their marketing, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Recruitment Trends In Emerging Law Firm Frontiers

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    BigLaw firms are facing local recruitment challenges as they increasingly establish offices in cities outside of the major legal hubs, requiring them to weigh various strategies for attracting talent that present different risks and benefits, says Tom Hanlon at Buchanan Law.

  • How Uyghur Forced Labor Law Affects Importing Companies

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    Amid a growing focus on forced labor in supply chains and a likely increase in enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, companies may face costly import delays unless they develop and implement compliance best practices, say Thad McBride and Lauren Gammer at Bass Berry.

  • Series

    Glassblowing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    I never expected that glassblowing would strongly influence my work as an attorney, but it has taught me the importance of building a solid foundation for your work, learning from others and committing to a lifetime of practice, says Margaret House at Kalijarvi Chuzi.

  • What Employers Need To Know About Colorado's New AI Law

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    The Colorado AI Act, enacted in May and intended to regulate the use of high-risk artificial intelligence systems to prevent algorithmic discrimination, is broad in scope and will apply to businesses using AI for certain employment purposes, imposing numerous compliance obligations and potential liability, say Laura Malugade and Owen Davis at Husch Blackwell.

  • What DOL Fiduciary Rule Means For Private Fund Managers

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    Attorneys at Ropes & Gray discuss how the U.S. Department of Labor's recently released final fiduciary rule, which revises the agency's 1975 regulation, could potentially cause private fund managers' current marketing practices and communications to be considered fiduciary advice, and therefore subject them to strict prohibitions.

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