Public Policy

  • May 15, 2026

    IRS Asks Fed. Circ. To Overturn COVID-Era Deadline Ruling

    The IRS announced Friday that it will ask the Federal Circuit to overturn a claims court decision allowing a California business owner to recover penalties and interest he had tried to get refunded during the COVID-19 pandemic, challenging an interpretation that offered potential relief for others. 

  • May 15, 2026

    Lawmakers Decry USDA Plan To End Roadless Forest Rule

    Federal Democratic lawmakers are backing environmental and tribal advocacy groups' opposition to the Trump administration's plan to rescind the long-standing Roadless Area Conservation Rule, arguing the rollback will cause widespread harm to public lands, wildlife, frontline communities and regional economies.

  • May 15, 2026

    8 Questions For Rural Broadband Advocate Mike Romano

    Several developments in rural connectivity, from a cascade of federal grants to legislative efforts to shore up the Universal Service Fund, means a crowded plate for the NTCA's new boss, Mike Romano. Here, Law360 catches up with Romano to hear more about his plans as he settles into his role.

  • May 15, 2026

    Michigan Says DOE Lacked Crisis To Extend Coal Plant Life

    A D.C. Circuit panel attempted Friday to find the limit on the U.S. Department of Energy's emergency authority to keep power plants running without a regional utility's request, with Michigan arguing that no emergency existed to justify the federal government's orders to keep a Consumers Energy plant online.

  • May 15, 2026

    DOJ Says Grant Condition Stay Must Stop At 3 Programs

    The U.S. Department of Justice told a Rhode Island federal judge that a stay blocking grant conditions tied to immigration status and diversity efforts should apply only to several programs and that a nonprofit coalition is improperly trying to expand its reach.

  • May 15, 2026

    9th Circ. Won't Revisit Wash. Professor Free Speech Ruling

    The Ninth Circuit won't revisit a decision saying the University of Washington violated a computer science professor's First Amendment rights after he voiced opposition to the school's policy that acknowledges Indigenous tribes as the traditional caretakers of the campus' land.

  • May 15, 2026

    Senators Seek Info From SBA On Tariff Loan Gap

    The top Democratic lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Finance and Senate Small Business committees asked the Small Business Administration for information regarding loans for companies seeking assistance following increased tariff costs, according to a letter made public Friday.

  • May 15, 2026

    Texas Justices Revive Anti-SLAPP Bid In Abortion Fund Suit

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday revived a woman's anti-SLAPP bid in an abortion fund's suit against her, holding that the suit was filed in response to the woman's earlier attempt to investigate the fund's deputy director for potential violations of state abortion law.

  • May 15, 2026

    6th Circ. Upholds $10M Verdict Against Detective In Brady Suit

    The Sixth Circuit has upheld a $10 million jury verdict for a Michigan man who spent more than six years in prison before prosecutors concluded he was not guilty of murder, ruling that a Detroit detective could not use the man's vacated conviction to block his civil rights suit.

  • May 15, 2026

    Bankers Group Backs Stricter Robocalls Regs

    The American Bankers Association is backing a Federal Communications Commission effort to ensure that companies routing outgoing robocalls know that the communications are legitimate.

  • May 15, 2026

    Judge Blocks Part Of Texas Migrant Arrest Law Once More

    A Texas federal judge blocked key provisions of a state law criminalizing unauthorized entry or reentry of noncitizens into the state Thursday, ruling for the second time in less than three years that the legislation likely intrudes on an area of law controlled by the federal government.

  • May 15, 2026

    Sherwin-Williams Hit With Nuisance Suit Over Pa. Paint Plant

    Sherwin-Williams has been hit with proposed class claims in Pennsylvania federal court alleging noxious odors have been spewing out of one of its western Pennsylvania manufacturing plants, causing nuisance to nearby residents.

  • May 15, 2026

    Buddhists' Fla. Temple Suit Is Moot, Army Corps Says

    The Army Corps of Engineers asked a Florida federal court Friday to either pause or dismiss Buddhists' lawsuit alleging environmental and religious violations, arguing that an Everglades restoration project surrounding a temple was paused because of funding reallocation and because relief isn't possible since some construction was already completed.

  • May 15, 2026

    Trade Probes Likely To Be Strong Bulwark For Trump's Tariffs

    President Donald Trump will likely deploy new tariffs this summer across numerous countries under a law that provides the federal government with its strongest legal footing yet in federal court for a global tariff regime.

  • May 15, 2026

    New Jersey AG Traces Her Path To Public Service

    New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport talked shop at the State Bar Association's annual meeting, dishing on what it was like to get the call to be the state's top law enforcement officer, how her time as general counsel for a public utility informs her new role and what it's like to be both friend and foe to the federal government. The Cape May County native also revealed her favorite diner.

  • May 15, 2026

    Detroit Says Robinhood Sports Contracts Imperil Its Economy

    The city of Detroit has urged a Michigan federal court to deny Robinhood Derivatives LLC's bid to block the state from enforcing its state gaming laws, arguing the company's sports-related event contracts threaten Detroit's tax revenue and local economy.

  • May 15, 2026

    Va. Resentencing Law Provides Relief To Cannabis Offenders

    The governor of Virginia signed a bill Friday enacting resentencing legislation that will allow people who are serving sentences for marijuana-related convictions to seek reductions for conduct that, since 2021, wasn't a chargeable offense in the state, her office said.

  • May 15, 2026

    4 Key Takeaways From SEC's Semiannual Reporting Proposal

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently put forth a plan that could allow publicly traded companies to move from a quarterly to a semiannual reporting schedule, but whether they choose to do so and how that could impact both the growth of the public markets and insider-trading plans for corporate leaders remains up for debate.

  • May 15, 2026

    Renters Seek Approval For $218M In RealPage Landlord Deals

    A class of renters asked a Tennessee federal court to preliminarily approve more than $218 million worth of settlements that aim to resolve antitrust claims against a group of multifamily landlords accused of using property management software company RealPage Inc.'s technology for rent price-fixing.

  • May 15, 2026

    Girardi Trial Judge Josephine Staton To Take Senior Status

    The California federal judge who sentenced disgraced trial attorney Tom Girardi to prison for wire fraud last year has announced that she'll be taking senior status in the fall, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint her successor.

  • May 15, 2026

    EEOC Poised To Scuttle EEO-1 Reporting Requirement

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is close to ending its annual collection of workplace demographic data now that a proposed rule that would rescind employers' reporting requirements has been sent to the White House for approval.

  • May 14, 2026

    'Who's Telling The Truth?' Musk-OpenAI Fight Goes To Jury

    Elon Musk's counsel urged a California federal jury during trial closings Thursday to find OpenAI breached its charitable trust aided by Microsoft Corp. and slammed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's credibility, while OpenAI's counsel argued Musk is trying to attack his competitor and urged jurors to ask themselves, "Who's telling the truth?"

  • May 14, 2026

    AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Join Forces To End 'Dead Zones'

    AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have reached an agreement in principle to form a new joint venture aimed at ending wireless dead zones in the U.S. by pooling resources to increase capacity, according to an announcement made Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Squires Lays Out Principles For Patent Review Discretion

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John A. Squires issued a precedential decision Thursday outlining the principles underlying his discretion in instituting America Invents Act reviews, emphasizing that Congress intended such reviews to be an alternative to costly and lengthy litigation.

  • May 14, 2026

    Meta Starts NM Defense As Midtrial Win Bid Fails

    A judge denied Meta a midtrial win Thursday morning over harm to underage social media users, prompting the social media giant to call an executive to begin building a defense case that platform changes requested by New Mexico's attorney general are unnecessary or even counterproductive.

Expert Analysis

  • How Calif. Safety Worker Pension Bill Could Cost Employers

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    Public employers should carefully consider how pension costs and bargaining concerns could change under a California Legislature bill that would increase retirement benefits for safety employees like police and firefighters, which could erode previous efforts to fully fund the public retirement system without necessarily improving worker retention, says Michael Youril at Liebert Cassidy.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Restraint Anchors Constitutional Order

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    Contrasting opinions in two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Trump v. CASA and Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections — demonstrate how the judiciary’s constitutionally entrusted role can easily be preserved or disrupted, and invite renewed attention to the enduring importance of judicial restraint, says Ninth Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace.

  • 'Made In America' Rules Raise Stakes For Gov't Contractors

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    The convergence of widely varying "buy American" requirements, increased enforcement efforts and continuing regulatory attempts to limit foreign sourcing suggests that government contractors should carefully review their supply chain and country-of-origin compliance to remain competitive, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Human Authorship Is Still Central To Copyright Eligibility

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    In declining to review the D.C. Circuit's ruling in Thaler v. Perlmutter — holding that a work purely generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted — the U.S. Supreme Court has reinforced the human authorship requirement, so it is critical for creators of AI-assisted projects to document their involvement, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Recent Bank Resolution Filings Stress Readiness Over Docs

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    Against the backdrop of banking regulators' recent emphasis on institutional readiness in the event of a bank failure, a review of more than a dozen public resolution plan submissions points to an immediate future in which regulators and banks alike prioritize operational preparedness over extensive documentation, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Series

    Alpine Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Skiing has shaped habits I rely on daily as an attorney — focus, resilience and the ability to remain steady when circumstances shift rapidly — and influences the way I approach legal strategy, client counseling and teamwork, says Isaku Begert at Marshall Gerstein.

  • 3 Federal Policy Trends Shaping Data Center Power

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    With the White House, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Congress each pushing energy policies that will influence how data centers are sited, powered and interconnected for years to come, industry stakeholders should understand compliance obligations, consider possible downstream effects, and evaluate off-grid and self-supply energy options, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • NY Tax Talk: Calculating Tiered Partnership Income

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland discuss how the potential impact recent New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal decision in Matter of Cantor Fitzgerald holding that the entity approach should be used by tiered partnerships to compute unincorporated business tax liability, why the issue of the proper approach remains unsettled and the broader implications for federal conformity and administrative agency deference.

  • FDA Guidance May Move Goalposts For Form 483 Responses

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    New draft guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides formal insight on how drug manufacturers are expected to respond to Form 483s, raising some concerns about the agency's timelines and expectations, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Understanding The SEC's Consequential Crypto Guidance

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent interpretive release — its most comprehensive statement ever on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto-assets — reimagines the Howey test to resolve long-standing questions over what is a security, but leaves many issues unresolved, say attorneys at Cahill.

  • Ohio Case Reflects States' Aggressive Criminal Antitrust Turn

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    The Ohio Attorney General's Office’s recent bid-rigging indictment of an online auctioneer is the latest signal that states, through attorneys general pursuing more kickback cases and legislators expanding the reach of antitrust laws, are shedding their historical reluctance to wield their criminal antitrust enforcement powers, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Justices' Geofence Ruling May Test 4th Amendment's Future

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court decides in Chatrie v. U.S. whether law enforcement may use geofence warrants to compel Google to disclose location history data, the ruling is likely to become an important statement about the future of Fourth Amendment law in data-driven investigations, says Duncan Levin at Levin & Associates.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1

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    In the first quarter of 2026, New York's banking developments were headlined by initiatives to expand oversight of financial institutions and strengthen consumer protection laws, including a new framework for buy now, pay later lenders, a sweeping debt collection rule and a revised corporate self-disclosure program for financial crimes, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Seeking A Policy Fix As Merger Reporting Fight Continues

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    A recently announced request by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for public comment on the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger reporting requirements, as litigation challenging the commission's updated requirements continues, suggests the government's willingness to address how best to support modern merger enforcement without unduly burdening filing parties, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • What New Fla. Citizens Bill Means For Surplus Lines Insurers

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    A Florida bill recently passed by the Legislature as part of a continued effort to depopulate Citizens Property Insurance, the state's insurer of last resort, creates an additional pathway for commercial policies to be written by surplus lines insurers, but also presents concerns of unnecessary regulation, say attorneys at Troutman.

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