Public Policy

  • June 21, 2024

    Ex-Chicago Alderman Burke Can't Delay Sentencing

    Former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke can't postpone his Monday sentencing on charges of racketeering, extortion and bribery to await a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the scope of federal bribery law, an Illinois federal judge ruled Friday, saying that decision will have "little or no impact" on Burke's fate.

  • June 21, 2024

    Atty Convicted Of Pot Bribe Wins Bail At 1st Circ.

    A suspended Massachusetts attorney convicted last fall of attempting to bribe a police chief to help his client secure a cannabis license will remain free pending his appeal, the First Circuit ruled Friday, reversing a district judge's decision.

  • June 21, 2024

    Feds Seek To Nix Atty's Charges As 2nd Atty Heads To Prison

    Prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss charges against a Georgia attorney for fraudulently obtaining federal pandemic-relief loans meant for businesses, with the pending dismissal — based on her completion of a pretrial diversion program — coming after a Florida attorney and alleged accomplice received a prison sentence of more than six years.

  • June 21, 2024

    5th Circ. Knocks Out National Block On ACA Preventive Care

    The Fifth Circuit on Friday struck down a national injunction against Affordable Care Act requirements forcing insurers to cover a range of preventive treatments, but kept a block in place that prevents its application to the individuals and businesses in Texas that sued.

  • June 21, 2024

    Pa. Justices Will Weigh If 'Skill Games' Are Slot Machines

    The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will take up a case and decide whether the "Pennsylvania Skill Games" that combine a chance-based game mode with a secondary memory game fall under the state's definition of "slot machines," potentially affecting many storefronts and bars where the game machines have proliferated.

  • June 21, 2024

    Rebar Co. Says Feds Spurned Data For Info 'On The Internet'

    A Turkish rebar company pressed the U.S. Court of International Trade to order U.S. trade officials to reassess its countervailing duties, saying officials incorrectly excluded a commissioned study from the review for a report posted online.

  • June 21, 2024

    Ex-Mass. Pol Hit With New Charges In COVID Fraud Case

    A former Massachusetts state senator already accused of pandemic-related fraud has been charged alongside his sister with attempting to cover up a scheme to make him eligible for unemployment benefits, the U.S. attorney's office announced Friday.

  • June 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Says Counties Not On Hook For Mich. Dam Collapse

    A Sixth Circuit panel agreed that two Michigan counties can't be forced to compensate homeowners for destructive flooding caused by a dam's collapse, finding Thursday that the counties did not cause the damage to the homeowners' properties.

  • June 21, 2024

    Sens. Introduce 'Complementary' Bill To TikTok Ban

    A bipartisan bill introduced Thursday would require websites and apps to disclose to their users if they are owned wholly or partially by China, North Korea, Russia or Iran or if data collected through those sites or apps is accessible to those countries.

  • June 21, 2024

    5 ERISA Cases To Watch In 2024's Second Half

    The U.S. Department of Labor will be playing defense in the second half of 2024, battling injunction bids in Texas seeking to halt the agency's recently finalized retirement security regulations, as well as fighting to uphold a DOL rule tackling social and environmental factors in retirement plan investment decisions. Here, Law360 looks at five Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases that attorneys say they will have on their radar.

  • June 21, 2024

    Feds Offer $850M To Slash Methane From Oil And Gas

    The Biden administration on Friday unveiled the latest prong of its multifaceted plan to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector: $850 million worth of federal funding for projects that monitor, measure and reduce emissions from oil and gas infrastructure.

  • June 21, 2024

    High Court Opens Expert Testimony Basis To Confrontation

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that Arizona prosecutors may have violated a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses testifying against him by presenting a substitute expert witness at trial, and sent the case back down to state court for further proceedings.

  • June 21, 2024

    Justices Keep Domestic Abusers Disarmed, Clarify Bruen

    The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas man's constitutional challenge to a federal law prohibiting people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms Friday, providing limited guidance to lower courts on how to apply the high court's Second Amendment historical analogue test.

  • June 21, 2024

    Justices Strengthen Jury Trial Rights For Stiffer Sentences

    The constitutional rights to due process and trial by jury extend to a pivotal prong of a prominent sentencing enhancement for recidivism, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a Friday decision that casts doubt on many incarcerations and promises to reshape future trials.

  • June 21, 2024

    Justices Say No Feds, No Dice In Texas-NM Water Deal

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that Texas, New Mexico and Colorado improperly excluded the federal government from an agreement that resolved a Rio Grande water sharing dispute, rejecting the states' argument that the conflict was theirs alone to settle.

  • June 20, 2024

    TikTok Says Alternatives To 'Dangerous' Ban Were Ignored

    TikTok said Thursday that federal lawmakers likely didn't even consider its "exhaustive, multi-year efforts" to address national security concerns before deciding to ban the social media platform, slamming the law as "unprecedented" and warning that it sets "a dangerous precedent."

  • June 20, 2024

    Del. House Sends Controversial Corp. Law Changes To Gov.

    Delaware legislation that would allow corporate boards to cede some governance rights to chosen stockholders cleared the state's House by a wide margin late Thursday, heading to Gov. John Carney after debate that saw dire predictions for either outcome.

  • June 20, 2024

    Colo. Prosecutor Says Ex-DA Undermined Her Leadership

    An elected Colorado prosecutor facing disciplinary charges regarding her handling of a high-profile murder case pushed back on charges she was a negligent manager, telling a disciplinary panel Thursday she inherited a backlog of cases from a predecessor she said tried to undermine her office.

  • June 20, 2024

    Menendez Jury Sees Slides Lowell Presented To SDNY Brass

    Sen. Robert Menendez's lawyers grilled a witness in his bribery trial Thursday about a meeting in which Abbe Lowell, the politician's ex-lawyer, tried to convince U.S. Attorney Damian Williams not to indict Menendez — but were stymied by flurries of objections.

  • June 20, 2024

    Ex-DEA Heads Echo GOP AGs' Call For Pot Rescheduling Hearing

    A group of former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration leaders and Republican attorneys general have formally requested administrative hearings on the U.S. attorney general's proposal to reschedule cannabis, according to separate letters sent this week that distinctly echo each other.

  • June 20, 2024

    Patent Owners, Challengers Spar Over PTAB Rule Proposal

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's scaled-back package of Patent Trial and Appeal Board rules has drawn a mixed reaction from legal and industry groups, which offered praise and concern about both the proposal and the topics it does not address.

  • June 20, 2024

    5th Circ. Starts Clock For Redo Bid In CFPB Payday Rule Case

    The Fifth Circuit said Wednesday that payday lender trade groups will have an opportunity to ask for another shot at litigating the validity of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending rule after their constitutional challenge fell flat at the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • June 20, 2024

    Trump Calls For Engoron's Recusal In Civil Fraud Case

    Former President Donald Trump and other defendants fighting a $465 million civil fraud judgment called on New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to recuse himself Thursday in light of a once-suspended real estate attorney's recent judicial misconduct claims, which have since sparked a judicial investigation.

  • June 20, 2024

    FDIC Expands Requirements For Big-Bank Resolution Plans

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Thursday adopted expanded resolution-planning requirements for large banks and approved a measure intended to cut down on delays in the agency's handling of bank merger applications.

  • June 20, 2024

    Colo.'s Opt-Out Interest Rate Law Halted In Trade Group Suit

    A Colorado federal judge has temporarily barred the state from imposing more restrictive interest rate caps on consumer loans made by banks located outside of Colorado, siding with a coalition of lending groups seeking to invalidate a 2023 law aimed at reining in high-cost online loans.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    DOJ Messaging App Warnings Undermine Trust In Counsel

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    The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's increasingly ominous warnings to defense and in-house counsel about the consequences of not preserving ephemeral messaging and messages sent using collaboration tools could erode confidence and cooperation, says Mark Rosman at Proskauer.

  • Using A Children's Book Approach In Firm Marketing Content

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    From “The Giving Tree” to “Where the Wild Things Are,” most children’s books are easy to remember because they use simple words and numbers to tell stories with a human impact — a formula law firms should emulate in their marketing content to stay front of mind for potential clients, says Seema Desai Maglio at The Found Word.

  • A Changing Regulatory Landscape For Weight Loss Drugs

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    As drugs originally approved to treat diabetes become increasingly popular for weight loss purposes, federal and state regulators and payors are increasing their focus on how these drugs are prescribed, and industry participants should pay close attention to rapidly evolving compliance requirements, say attorneys at Goodwin.

  • The State Of Play In DEI And ESG 1 Year After Harvard Ruling

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    Almost a year after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, attorney general scrutiny of environmental, social and governance-related efforts indicates a potential path for corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to be targeted, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Compliance Considerations For New Data Protection Law

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    Sam Castic at Hintze Law discusses how to determine if your organization is covered by the newly enacted Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, the scope of the law's restrictions, and how to go about compliance as its June 23 effective date approaches.

  • Proposed Semiconductor Buy Ban May Rattle Supply Chains

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    The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's recent proposed rulemaking clarifies plans to ban government purchases of semiconductors from certain Chinese companies, creating uncertainty around how contractors will be able to adjust supply chains that are already burdened and contracted to capacity, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • CFPB Poised To Up The Ante After Supreme Court Victory

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically ruled last week that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure did not violate the Constitution, the agency boasted that it was "here to stay," signaling that it is moving full steam ahead with its regulatory, enforcement and supervisory agenda, says Jim Sandy at McGlinchey Stafford.

  • Opinion

    NEPA Final Rule Unlikely To Speed Clean Energy Projects

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    A recent final rule from the White House Council on Environmental Quality purports to streamline federal environmental reviews to accelerate the construction of renewable energy infrastructure — but it also expands consideration of climate change and environmental justice, creating vast new opportunities for litigation and delay, says Thomas Prevas at Saul Ewing.

  • Diving Deep Into Sweeping NY Financing Bill — And Its Pitfalls

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    A New York bill seeking to impose state usury limits onto a broader variety of financing arrangements and apply lender licensing requirements to more diverse entities would present near-insurmountable compliance challenges for lenders and retailers, say Kate Fisher and Tom Quinn at Hudson Cook.

  • Opinion

    USPTO's Proposed Disclaimer Rule Would Harm Inventors

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    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s recently proposed rule on terminal disclaimers will make the patent system less available to inventors and will unfairly favor defendants in litigation, say Stephen Schreiner at Carmichael IP and Sarah Tsou at Omni Bridgeway.

  • What The FTC Report On AG Collabs Means For Cos.

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    The Federal Trade Commission's April report on working with state attorneys general shows collaboration can increase efficiency and consistency in how statutes are interpreted and enforced, which can minimize the likelihood of requests for inconsistent injunctive relief that can create operational problems for businesses, say attorneys at Kelley Drye.

  • New Crypto Reporting Will Require Rigorous Recordkeeping

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    The release of a form for reporting digital asset transactions is a pivotal moment in the Internal Revenue Service's efforts to track cryptocurrency activities that increases oversight by requiring brokers to report investor sales and exchanges, say Shaina Kamen and Max Angel at Holland & Knight.

  • A Comparison Of FDIC, OCC Proposed Merger Approaches

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    Max Bonici and Connor Webb at Venable take a closer look at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's respective bank merger proposals and highlight certain common themes and important differences, in light of regulators continually rethinking their approaches to bank mergers.

  • Series

    Being An EMT Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While some of my experiences as an emergency medical technician have been unusually painful and searing, the skills I’ve learned — such as triage, empathy and preparedness — are just as useful in my work as a restructuring lawyer, says Marshall Huebner at Davis Polk.

  • Behind Court Challenges To The FTC's Final Noncompete Rule

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    The Federal Trade Commission's recent final rule banning noncompetes may not go into effect any time soon amid a couple of Texas federal court challenges seeking to bar the rule's implementation, which will likely see appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, says Michael Elkins at MLE Law.

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