Public Policy

  • August 11, 2026

    Feds Say Snapper Suit Moot After Permits Were Nixed

    A lawsuit challenging expanded recreational red snapper fishing permits the National Marine Fisheries Service issued to four states is "dead in the water" now that the permits have been canceled, the U.S. Department of Commerce told a D.C. federal judge.

  • August 11, 2026

    Virginia Says Hemp Cos. Can't Block New THC Limits

    The day before a court hearing on a motion for a temporary restraining order, Virginia officials are urging a federal judge not to halt enforcement of the state's new THC potency caps, saying the hemp businesses' request to do so "rests on a distorted premise."

  • August 11, 2026

    DOJ Says Executive Privilege May Apply To Private Advisers

    The president's communications with outside advisers may be shielded by executive privilege, so long as they are confidential and relate to official decision-making, the U.S. Department of Justice said in its latest advisory opinion.

  • August 11, 2026

    911 Providers Push FCC For Uniform Next-Gen Framework

    Emergency response organizations are urging the FCC to let 911 authorities drive interoperability between state systems rather than impose stand-alone federal testing mandates.

  • August 11, 2026

    Ohio Justices Advance Possible Ashville Data Center Vote

    An emergency resolution the village of Ashville passed to support a data center project failed to spell out any actual emergency justification for the measure, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, clearing a path for a possible voter referendum.

  • August 11, 2026

    Blue States Say OCC Overstepped On Escrow Interest Rules

    An Oregon-led coalition of nearly a dozen states sued Tuesday to overturn the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent rules that exempt national banks from state laws requiring the payment of interest on homeowners' escrow account funds.

  • August 11, 2026

    Hemp Co. Vireo Aims To Toss Ownership Contract Claims

    Hemp and THC beverage maker Vireo Growth Inc. and its affiliates are asking a Minnesota federal court to toss the bulk of a suit alleging that Vireo failed to deliver on a partnership and interest contract, saying the plaintiffs' claims are largely based on a contract that was never signed or executed.

  • August 11, 2026

    Trump's Capital One Suit Tests Vast Debanking Powers

    President Donald Trump's lawsuit against Capital One NA is a high-profile test of a bank's broad powers to unilaterally close accounts, an issue that has been "devastating" for companies, law firms and others booted from banks based on opaque compliance concerns, experts say.

  • August 11, 2026

    Ga. Justices Revive Personal Injury Suit Against City

    Georgia's justices revived a woman's trip-and-fall suit against the city of Savannah on Tuesday, saying an intermediate appellate court misapplied the test for determining whether a property owner is immune from liability under the state's Recreational Property Act and must reconsider the case.

  • August 10, 2026

    Spa Fights 9th Circ.'s 'Swinging Dicks' Order At High Court

    The Ninth Circuit's rejection of a spa's religious objections to serving transgender customers is incompatible with several major precedents, according to a U.S. Supreme Court petition filed Monday in litigation that soared in prominence when dozens of circuit judges decried a salacious dissent.

  • August 10, 2026

    HHS Denies Existence Of $150M Deal With Texas Firm To Rep Migrant Kids

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Monday that a small law firm in Houston had not yet been tapped for a sole-source grant worth up to $150 million to provide legal services to unaccompanied migrant children in government custody.

  • August 10, 2026

    Calif. Unveils Novel AI Cyber Defense Plan For Critical Assets

    California's governor on Monday rolled out a first-of-its-kind initiative to help state agencies, local governments and critical infrastructure providers use artificial intelligence to detect and respond to increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats and be better prepared for incidents fueled by emerging AI technologies.

  • August 10, 2026

    DOJ Says Revealing Epstein Survivor IDs Wasn't Intentional

    The U.S. Department of Justice, Google and xAI have all urged a California federal court to throw out claims the Justice Department published the identifying information of more than 100 survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, information that continues to be republished by Google and xAI, arguing that disclosure wasn't willful.

  • August 10, 2026

    Mass. Data Center's Expansion Paused For Now

    A Massachusetts state judge temporarily blocked a data center's expansion plans in Lowell on Monday, finding opponents of the project may be poised to succeed on the basis that they weren't given a full opportunity to be heard.

  • August 10, 2026

    Trump Revives Push To Reduce Kids' Vaccine Schedule

    Responding to a legal setback, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday recommending fewer vaccines for most children and calling on parents and doctors to space out the vaccines they do give.

  • August 10, 2026

    9th Circ. Won't Revisit Kids' Suit Over Trump's Energy EOs

    The full Ninth Circuit on Monday declined to rehear a group of youths' legal challenge of President Donald Trump's executive orders spurring the use of fossil fuels to meet the country's energy needs.

  • August 10, 2026

    9th Circ. Backs City Of Tacoma In Pension Liability Rate Fight

    A Ninth Circuit panel sided with the city of Tacoma, Washington, in a pension fund dispute Monday, holding that a lower court correctly upheld an arbitrator's reassessment of the city's liability after it withdrew from the Western Metal Industry Pension Fund following the expiration of underlying collective bargaining agreements.

  • August 10, 2026

    OCC Takes Swipe At BofA In Post-Jan. 6 Data Sharing Suit

    A top U.S. banking regulator has waded into a proposed class action accusing Bank of America NA of unlawfully sharing customer information with law enforcement after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, arguing the bank can't use a key regulatory safe harbor to exit the case.

  • August 10, 2026

    Trump Pick Confirmed To NCUA As Hauptman Joins PCAOB

    The National Credit Union Administration is poised for new leadership after senators on Friday confirmed Trump nominee John Crews to its board, whose acting Chairman Kyle Hauptman has departed for a seat on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

  • August 10, 2026

    Clinics' Suit Over Fund Use Ballot Measure Gets Tossed

    A California federal judge tossed a suit that federally designated community health clinics filed to block the placement of an expenditure transparency reporting initiative on the November ballot, saying the clinics' claims aren't ripe for court review.

  • August 10, 2026

    AbbVie, Novartis Seek To Block Ill. 340B Drug Discount Law

    AbbVie Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals are urging an Illinois federal court to block a state law that took effect Friday barring pharmaceutical manufacturers from trying to impose restrictions on 340B contract pharmacy arrangements, arguing in a pair of suits that the law is unconstitutional.

  • August 10, 2026

    Conn. Town Wins Cop's Medical Marijuana, Discrimination Suit

    A Connecticut town has prevailed against a former police officer's discrimination claims tied to a training injury, comments by colleagues, a pension application and subsequent medical marijuana use, with a state judge issuing wins as a matter of law to the municipality and its officials on all four counts alleged.

  • August 10, 2026

    FCC Urged To Tighten 'Covered List' Regs

    A foreign policy think tank has asked the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a more comprehensive set of regulations to bar devices containing parts that are made by entities on the agency's Covered List, which identifies equipment and services deemed national security risks.

  • August 10, 2026

    Michel, Startups Back Injunction Bid In Samsung Patent Case

    Former Chief Federal Circuit Judge Paul Michel, patent law professors and a group of startup companies on Monday backed Collision Communications Inc.'s bid for a permanent injunction on Samsung products found to infringe its patents, saying courts have misread U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

  • August 10, 2026

    Team Telecom Probing T-Mobile's Plan To Buy Fiber Co. Stake

    T-Mobile has a $2 billion plan to acquire a 50% stake in a joint venture that seeks to combine two fiber companies, but the FCC won't say yea or nay to the deal until Team Telecom — a multiagency group that vets transactions involving foreign individuals and U.S. telecom companies — finishes looking into the matter.

Expert Analysis

  • Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

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    As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

  • Md. Ruling Reflects Classic Administrative Law Principle

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    A Maryland federal court's recent decision in Columbus v. Kennedy significantly limits how far the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can go in reshaping the Affordable Care Act through regulation, highlighting a principle that will likely be applied in similar Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Michael King at Brownstein Hyatt.

  • DOJ China Container Indictments Signal Global Cartel Risk

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement that it had indicted Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to drive up the price of shipping containers sold in the U.S. illustrates the Antitrust Division's interest in pursuing overseas cartel conduct, especially in China, signaling that multinational companies with employees abroad should strengthen antitrust compliance to avoid running afoul of U.S. national security policy, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • More Cos. Will Copy SpaceX's Shareholder Proposal Opt-Out

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    For more than 80 years, the shareholder proposal looked like a federal right guaranteed to all public company investors, but after SpaceX opted out before its recent initial public offering, other companies are likely to follow, says Mohsen Manesh at the University of Oregon School of Law.

  • How DOJ Is Approaching Monitorship After Signaling Limits

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    As the U.S. Department of Justice keeps more monitors in place than expected, a look at the matters in which prosecutors are maintaining oversight reveals the sort of companies enforcers might trust to self-remediate, and also those that may receive independent supervision, say attorneys at Kendall Brill.

  • Opinion

    DHS' World Cup Influencer Warning Overreads Visa Law

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    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s reported position that foreign influencers covering the 2026 World Cup need work visas if their content is monetized runs contrary to both legislative intent and long-standing precedent that structure the visa inquiry around labor market substitution, says Jun Li at Reid & Wise.

  • 3 Steps For Banks As Section 1071 Rule Finally Becomes Final

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    Some community banks and other lenders will get some breathing room in the final Section 1071 rule exempting them from small business lending reporting duties, but other reporting institutions should update applications, systems and staff training ahead of the 2028 compliance date, says Memrie Fortenberry at Jones Walker.

  • Why DOE Isn't Phasing Out Appliance Efficiency Regs

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    While the U.S. Department of Energy recently acted on President Donald Trump's 2025 executive order requiring it to consider sunsetting many energy regulations, the DOE has not proposed phasing out efficiency standards for appliances and industrial equipment — but it could pursue other approaches to ease such requirements, say attorneys at HWG.

  • Series

    Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

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    Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings from cases involving allegations of internet data misuse, consumer fraud claims, immigration, insurance and First Amendment violation claims.

  • Justices' FCC Fine Ruling May Weaken Agency Leverage

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T upheld the commission's forfeiture framework as consistent with Jarkesy, but it is also likely to reduce the effectiveness of the commission’s forfeiture proceedings as a collection and deterrence tool, say attorneys at Venable.

  • Takeaways From 1st Del. Ruling Applying Moelis Amendments

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    Delaware corporations should carefully review contractual arrangements and governance documents following the Court of Chancery's recent enforcement of a non-Delaware forum selection clause in a CEO's employment agreement under 2024 amendments to the state's General Corporation Law, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

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    An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

  • Google Antitrust Case Puts Spotlight On De Facto Exclusivity

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    Mozilla's recent amicus filing in U.S. v. Google arguing that its agreement to make Google the default search engine did not amount to de facto exclusivity highlights the growing debate over traditional indicators of exclusivity, with implications for any business that uses rebates, preferred contracts or volume incentives, says Chris Gowen at WilmU Farnan School of Law.

  • Justices' Montgomery Ruling Doesn't Expand Shipper Liability

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    Whether negligent hiring liability claims against shippers will increase after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II is anyone's guess, but the ruling itself will have no impact on shippers' actual liability in personal injury claims relating to trucking accidents, says Ronald Leibman at McCarter & English.

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