Public Policy

  • January 20, 2026

    Trump's Bid For Fed Firing Faces Pivotal Supreme Court Test

    As President Donald Trump's push to carry out the first-ever firing of a sitting Federal Reserve governor takes center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court, the stakes couldn't be higher: nothing less than control of the central bank is on the line.

  • January 20, 2026

    Trump Defends Birthright Citizenship Order At High Court

    President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold his executive order aimed at limiting birthright citizenship, arguing that the order doesn't run afoul of the 14th Amendment, which he said was intended for freed slaves and their children — not "children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens."

  • January 20, 2026

    DC Circ. Doubts If EPA Had To Quantify Costs In PFAS Rule

    The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday seemed to favor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's position that public comments were properly solicited before labeling two forever chemicals as hazardous substances, and expressed skepticism that the agency should have done a more rigorous analysis of clean-up costs for businesses.

  • January 20, 2026

    John Roberts Welcomes John Roberts To Supreme Court

    U.S. Supreme Court advocates have tips galore for staying calm at a debut argument, including diligent preparation, mindful breathing and treating the event as a conversation. But a Proskauer Rose LLP attorney benefited Tuesday from a distinctive development: the chief justice's introductory jest about the two of them not being related.

  • January 20, 2026

    XAI Seeks To Block Calif. GenAI Training Data Disclosure Law

    XAI has urged a California federal court to block the Golden State from enforcing a new law imposing training data disclosure requirements on generative artificial intelligence system developers, saying the law unconstitutionally forces it to reveal its valuable trade secrets to its competitors.

  • January 20, 2026

    Goldstein Poker Pals Got Money From Firm, Witness Says

    A former office manager at Thomas Goldstein's law firm Tuesday told the jury in his tax fraud trial in Maryland federal court that hundreds of thousands of dollars in wire transfers sent to the U.S. Supreme Court lawyer's poker counterparts were classified as business transactions in documents used by the firm's tax accountants.

  • January 20, 2026

    FTC Appeals Meta Loss To DC Circ.

    The Federal Trade Commission gave notice Tuesday that it would seek D.C. Circuit intervention over a federal judge's rejection of its lawsuit accusing Meta Platforms Inc. of illegally monopolizing personal social media through what the agency described as a buy-or-bury strategy behind the Facebook parent's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.

  • January 20, 2026

    Law360 Names Firms Of The Year

    Eight law firms have earned spots as Law360's Firms of the Year, with 48 Practice Group of the Year awards among them, achieving milestones such as high-profile litigation wins at the U.S. Supreme Court and 11-figure merger deals.

  • January 20, 2026

    Trump Admin Loses Bid To Toss Sanctuary Funding Suit

    A California federal judge rejected the Trump administration's bid Tuesday to toss an amended complaint from dozens of sanctuary jurisdictions pushing back on the threat to withdraw federal funds over their immigration enforcement policies, finding the court already rejected some of the arguments and his "mind is unchanged."

  • January 20, 2026

    Texas AG Says State Diversity Initiatives Breach Constitution

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took aim at a plethora of state diversity initiatives in a Monday opinion, declaring that several minority-owned business assistance programs and private hiring practices run afoul of the Texas Constitution.

  • January 20, 2026

    Officers Invoke Immunity In Wrong-House Raid Lawsuit

    Officers accused of violating a family's constitutional rights by raiding their home in the middle of the night told a North Carolina federal court Tuesday that the suit should be dismissed for failing to state a claim, and that they deserved immunity since they thought a thief was on the premises.

  • January 20, 2026

    Senate Dems Push Bill To Block US Funds For Venezuela Oil

    U.S. Senate Democrats have introduced legislation that would bar the Trump administration from reimbursing oil companies for any investments they make to help fortify Venezuela's floundering oil and gas industry.

  • January 20, 2026

    SEC Picks Kirkland Partner For Corp. Finance Deputy Director

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday that a Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner and counsel to a former commissioner will be deputy director of the Division of Corporation Finance.

  • January 20, 2026

    Justices Icy To Time Limits For Union Actuarial Assumptions

    The U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical Tuesday of a push by employers to prohibit union actuaries from retroactively changing assumptions used to calculate how much employers must pay when they withdraw from multiemployer pension plans, with multiple justices questioning whether a timing rule aligned with federal benefits law.

  • January 20, 2026

    Delaware Supreme Court Reverses Moelis Governance Ruling

    The Delaware Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed a Chancery Court ruling that had invalidated key provisions of Moelis & Co.'s stockholder agreement, holding that the challenged governance provisions were not void but merely voidable, and that a stockholder challenge brought nearly nine years later was time-barred.

  • January 20, 2026

    Iranians, Sudanese Sue To Unfreeze Work Permit Processing

    Thirty-one Iranians and one Sudanese national have sued the Trump administration to force U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to process their pending work permit applications, alleging the agency unlawfully put them on hold under directives for nationals of travel-ban countries.

  • January 20, 2026

    Fla. High Court Told Pot Ballot Plan Is Legal Amid AG probe

    Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Tuesday that his office opened an investigation into several dozens of individuals who gathered signatures in connection to a marijuana legalization effort as the group behind the push for voter approval told the state's high court their ballot initiative complies with the law.

  • January 20, 2026

    NextNav Claims No Toll Disruption From GPS Backup Plan

    Geolocation developer NextNav Inc. has claimed that studies show its plan to build a terrestrial backup to the Global Positioning System wouldn't interfere with road tolling operations, as debate intensifies with industry stakeholders over its plan.

  • January 20, 2026

    Mass. Senate OKs Property Tax 'Shock' Protection Plan

    Massachusetts would allow local governments to grant tax credits to certain residential property owners whose property tax levies would otherwise increase by more than 10% under legislation passed by the state Senate.

  • January 20, 2026

    Luminys Back In Clear With FCC After Dahua USA Is Dissolved

    Luminys can once again market its telecom equipment in the U.S. now that the onetime Chinese-controlled firm Dahua USA has been dissolved, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.

  • January 20, 2026

    Justices Ask If Hawaii 'Vampire Law' Violates 2nd Amendment

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared skeptical of a Hawaii law that makes it illegal for people to bring firearms onto private property open to the public without the owner's express permission.

  • January 20, 2026

    DOL Budget Bill Would Avert Trump's Proposed Cuts

    The U.S. Department of Labor would receive $13.7 billion in discretionary funding under a bipartisan bill that the U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees released Tuesday, including $260 million for the Wage and Hour Division, more than President Donald Trump and Republicans had previously proposed.

  • January 20, 2026

    Minn. Tribe, Scholars Back 8th Circ. Bid In Tribal Divorce Row

    A Minnesota tribe and a slew of Native American law and history professors have separately backed an Indigenous man's Eighth Circuit bid for an en banc rehearing in a jurisdictional dispute over a tribal court divorce order, saying the conclusion is at odds with well-established history regarding sovereignty.

  • January 20, 2026

    IRS Funding Boost Faces $11.7B Cut In Bipartisan Package

    Congress would cut $11.7 billion from the IRS spending boost included in the Inflation Reduction Act under a bipartisan, bicameral spending package released Tuesday by the House and Senate Appropriations committees.

  • January 20, 2026

    Preservation Group Seeks Expert Visit Of WH Ballroom Site

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Tuesday asked a D.C. federal judge to allow one of its architectural experts to inspect work underway at the former East Wing of the White House, a section demolished by the Trump administration in October to make way for a new ballroom.

Expert Analysis

  • Why 2026 Could Be A Bright Year For US Solar

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    2025 was a record-setting year for utility-scale solar power deployment in the U.S., a trend that shows no signs of abating, so the question for 2026 is whether permitting, interconnection, and state and federal policies will allow the industry to grow fast enough to meet demand, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

  • 2026 Int'l Arbitration Trends: Tariffs Drive Transformation

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    In 2025, the Trump administration's sweeping tariffs triggered an unprecedented wave of trade-related disputes — and this, along with evolving M&A practices, the challenges of enforcing arbitral awards against sovereign states, and the role of emerging technologies, will continue to drive international arbitration trends this year, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • What Productivity EO May Mean For Defense Industrial Base

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    President Donald Trump’s recent executive order barring stock buybacks and dividend payments by "underperforming" defense contractors represents a significant policy shift from traditional oversight of the defense industrial base toward direct intervention in corporate decision-making, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • What's New In ISS' Benchmark Voting Policy Updates For 2026

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    Companies should audit their governance structures and disclosures to prepare for the upcoming proxy season in light of Institutional Shareholder Services' 2026 policy updates, which include tighter guardrails on capital structures and director compensation, and more disclosure-driven assessments of environmental and social shareholder proposals, say attorneys at Fenwick.

  • Navigating Privilege Law Patchwork In Dual-Purpose Comms

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    Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to resolve a circuit split in In re: Grand Jury, federal courts remain split as to when attorney-client privilege applies to dual-purpose legal and business communications, and understanding the fragmented landscape is essential for managing risks, say attorneys at Covington.

  • AG Watch: Calif. Fills Federal Consumer Protection Void

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    California's consumer protection efforts seem to be intensifying as federal oversight wanes, with Attorney General Rob Bonta recently taking actions related to buy now, pay later products, credit reporting and medical debt, consumer credit discrimination, and the use of artificial intelligence in consumer services, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • AI-Driven Harassment Poses New Risks For Employers

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    Two recent cases show that deepfakes and other artificial intelligence‑generated content are emerging as a powerful new mechanism for workplace harassment, and employers should take a proactive approach to reduce their liability as AI continues to reshape workplace dynamics, say attorneys at Littler.

  • Drilling Down Into The Uncertain Future Of Venezuelan Energy

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    Several key issues will inform whether, when and how U.S. businesses enter, reenter or expand operations in Venezuela — including sanctions relief, economic incentives, resolution of past expropriations, questions about the country's political outlook, and broader trends and conditions in the global energy market, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • What Changed For Healthcare Transaction Law In 2025

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    Though much of the legislation introduced last year to expand state scrutiny of healthcare transactions did not pass, investors should pay close attention to the overarching trends, which are likely to continue in this year's legislative sessions, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Decoding The SEC's Plans To Revitalize The US IPO Market

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    Chairman Paul Atkins' recent speech showcased the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's plans to ease certain disclosure burdens, rein in politicized shareholder voting and mitigate litigation risk, which could encourage more U.S. companies to seek public listings stateside and make U.S. stock exchanges more competitive for foreign companies, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Expect State Noncompete Reforms, FTC Scrutiny In 2026

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    Employer noncompete practices are facing intensified federal scrutiny and state reforms heading into 2026, with the Federal Trade Commission pivoting to case-by-case enforcement and states continuing to tighten the rules, especially in the healthcare sector, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Banking Regulation Themes To Anticipate In 2026

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    The banking enforcement and rulemaking agenda for this year is likely to reflect a mix of targeted reform, deregulatory recalibration and new priorities aligned with supervisory modernization, says Kim Prior at King & Spalding.

  • Cannabis Industry Faces An Inflection Point This Year

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    Cannabis industry developments last year — from the passage of a new wholesale tax in Michigan, to an executive order accelerating the federal rescheduling process — presage a more mature phase of legalization this year, with hardening expectations and enforcement to come, says Alex Leonowicz at Howard & Howard.

  • CMS 2027 Proposal Is Mixed Bag For Medicare Advantage

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    The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' recent proposed rule for the Medicare Advantage and Part D programs gives small organizations reason for optimism, although certain elements may be inconsistent with the Centers' desire to enhance competition, says Christine Clements at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Easing Equity Research Firewall Shows SEC Open To Updates

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent agreement to modify a decades-old settlement meant to limit investment bankers’ influence over research analysts within major broker-dealer firms reflects a shift toward a commission that recognizes how rules can be modernized to lighten compliance burdens without eliminating core safeguards, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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