Public Policy

  • May 01, 2025

    Senate Panel Delays A Vote On Martin Nomination For US Atty

    The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday held off for now a vote to call for a hearing on Ed Martin's nomination for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a move Democrats say would allow more time to review his record and, they hope, convince enough Republicans to help them block his nomination.

  • May 01, 2025

    Colo. Judge Resigns Amid Allegations Over Misuse Of Bench

    A Colorado state judge resigned on Wednesday amid a disciplinary complaint accusing him of misusing his position to help a former client that he exchanged sexual and flirtatious texts with, telling an independent panel in a brief that it no longer needs to hear a disciplinary case against him.

  • May 01, 2025

    Prosecutor Says He Is Immune In Suit Over $850K Hemp Bust

    A Tennessee district attorney general is urging a federal court to throw out a suit alleging he maliciously prosecuted a driver transporting $850,000 worth of hemp through the state, saying he has immunity to all the claims against him.

  • May 01, 2025

    Internet Pricing Cap Clears Calif. Assembly Committee

    A California Assembly panel has passed a bill to cap internet prices for low-income families, similar to New York legislation now in effect that went through appellate court challenge.

  • May 01, 2025

    Colo. House OKs Eliminating Deduction For Free Sports Bets

    Colorado would reduce and then eliminate a tax deduction for sports betting operators for free bets placed by players under a bill passed by the state House of Representatives and referred to the state Senate's Finance Committee.

  • May 01, 2025

    Rancher, Counties Drop Suit Over Biden Immigration Policies

    A pair of Texas counties and a ranch owner agreed to drop a suit against the U.S. government after they sued last year over Biden-era immigration policies, which they said conflicted with congressional goals of having "zero illegal entries."

  • May 01, 2025

    Rubio Named As Nat'l Security Adviser After Waltz Reshuffle

    President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he will nominate Mike Waltz to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, while choosing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take over Waltz's role as national security adviser.

  • May 01, 2025

    20 Former Federal Judges Launch Group To Defend Judiciary

    Twenty former federal district and circuit judges on Thursday launched a coalition to speak out about and defend the federal judiciary as political impeachment attempts against judges increase and the federal courts system faces heightened scrutiny.

  • May 01, 2025

    Colo. AG Targets MV Realty's 'Unfair' Homeowner Contracts

    The Colorado Attorney General's Office has accused real estate brokerage MV Realty PBC LLC and its Colorado subsidiary of trapping hundreds of local homeowners with "unfair, misleading and deceptive" 40-year brokerage contracts.

  • May 01, 2025

    States Urge 1st Circ. To Reinstate Federal Housing Grants

    A coalition of states urged the First Circuit to reinstate a ruling that had blocked the Trump administration from cutting $30 million in fair housing grants, saying the federal government failed to consider the impact this decision would have on the groups' operations.

  • May 01, 2025

    AT&T Win Is FDIC's Loss On In-House Cases, 5th Circ. Told

    A banker challenging the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s use of in-house proceedings to level a fraud judgment against him told the Fifth Circuit that its recent decision overturning a $57 million Federal Communications Commission fine against AT&T confirms that the FDIC cannot rely on a "public rights" exemption to impose fines without a jury trial.

  • May 01, 2025

    Hunter Biden Drops Tax Privacy Case Against IRS

    Hunter Biden dropped his suit against the federal government alleging the unauthorized disclosure of his tax return information by special agents and their attorneys who talked publicly about an investigation that culminated in Biden's copping to criminal tax charges.

  • May 01, 2025

    Vape Makers, Sellers Aim To Block NC Law On E-Cigarettes

    A vaping trade group and others are aiming to block a North Carolina law to regulate the sale of electronic cigarettes by arguing it is preempted by federal law, in a new suit filed in federal court.

  • May 01, 2025

    House Votes To Axe Another EPA Emissions Waiver For Calif.

    The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed the third of three Congressional Review Act resolutions that would undo Clean Air Act waivers that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued for California's vehicle emissions programs.

  • May 01, 2025

    Wartime Law For Gang Removals Barred In Texas, For Good

    A Texas federal judge on Thursday permanently blocked the Trump administration from deporting alleged gang members from Venezuela under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, ruling that the gang's activities in the U.S. cannot be regarded as an invasion.

  • April 30, 2025

    Susman Godfrey Urges Court To Reject Trump's Dismissal Bid

    Susman Godfrey LLP has pressed a D.C. federal court not to kill the firm's suit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order targeting the firm, arguing that the government's "meritless" dismissal motion "goes to great lengths to distract from the indisputable truth" that the order is "blatantly unconstitutional."

  • April 30, 2025

    House GOP Bill To Cut CFPB Budget, Audit Board Clears Panel

    The U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday approved Republican budget legislation that would strip most funding from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and wind down an independent audit regulator for public companies.  

  • April 30, 2025

    CFPB Scraps More Cases, Curbs Small Biz Loan Rule Focus

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday abandoned more lawsuits, including its Fifth Circuit appeal over a Biden-era policy that expanded the agency's anti-discrimination scrutiny of financial firms, and said it will not focus on enforcing a contested small business lending rule.

  • April 30, 2025

    Oil Group Drops Suit After DOI Says Leasing Redo Coming

    The D.C. Circuit on Wednesday granted the American Petroleum Institute's request to dismiss a suit challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior's 2024–29 offshore oil and gas leasing program after the government promised to develop a more industry-friendly plan.

  • April 30, 2025

    Tariffs, FCPA Enforcement Pause Heighten Bribery Risk

    President Donald Trump's decision to ratchet up tariffs and lower the guard on antibribery enforcement creates heightened risks for multinational companies, as employees potentially face pressure to avoid costly tariffs while conceiving there are fewer risks in going around the law to do so.

  • April 30, 2025

    DOJ Urges 11th Circ. To Restore FCA Whistleblower Provision

    The U.S. Department of Justice told the 11th Circuit on Wednesday that a Florida federal judge was wrong to rule that the provision of the False Claims Act that lets whistleblowers bring suits on the government's behalf was unconstitutional, arguing that the judge erred in saying whistleblowers were an unappointed part of the federal workforce.

  • April 30, 2025

    NYPD Hit With Class Action Claiming Racial Bias In Gang List

    Three men on a New York Police Department list of criminal gang members filed a putative class action alleging officers unconstitutionally surveil, detain and harass Black and Latino people on the list, civil rights groups said Wednesday.

  • April 30, 2025

    CEO Asked How Rivals Can Possibly Match Google Money

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified Wednesday that the Justice Department's proposed monopolization fixes amount to a "de facto divestiture" of the company's entire search intellectual property, only for the D.C. federal judge to wonder how rival search engines could hope to match its financial resources.

  • April 30, 2025

    Calif. Bar Seeks Credits, Lower Pass Score After Exam Fiasco

    The California Bar has asked the state's supreme court to help it account for rampant technical difficulties on the February 2025 bar exam by approving a lower passing score and allowing the bar to give test-takers credit for some questions they left blank.

  • April 30, 2025

    Feds Say Trump Has Broad Nat'l Emergency Tariff Powers

    The Trump administration is urging the U.S. Court of International Trade to nix a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's power to impose his sweeping global tariffs, saying the plain text, history and purpose of an emergency law Trump invoked supported his authority.

Expert Analysis

  • An Unrestrained, Bright-Eyed View Of Legal AI's Future

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    Todd Itami at Covington offers a bright-eyed, laughing-all-the-way, skydive look at what the legal industry could look like after an artificial intelligence revolution, which he believes may happen much sooner and more dramatically than we expect.

  • Ban On Reputation Risk May Help Bank Enforcement Defense

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    The Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s recent commitment to stop examining banks for reputation risk could help defendants in enforcement actions challenge unfavorable assessments and support defendants' arguments for lower civil money penalties, says Brendan Clegg at Luse Gorman.

  • Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance

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    Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • Assessing Market Manipulation Claims In Energy Markets

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    Today's energy markets are conducive to sudden price changes, breakdowns in pricing linkages and substantial shifts in trading patterns, so it's necessary to take a holistic view when evaluating allegations of market manipulation, say Maximilian Bredendiek, Greg Leonard and Manuel Vasconcelos at Cornerstone Research.

  • Opinion

    In Vape Case, Justices Must Focus On Agencies' Results

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments having put off the question of whether agency decisions arrived at erroneously are always invalid, the court should give the results of agency actions more weight than the reasoning behind them when it revisits this case, says Jonathan Sheffield at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

  • How Int'l Arbitration Could Factor In Tariff Dispute Resolution

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    As tariffs complicate international business contracts, the robust legal infrastructure supporting international arbitration can provide a more solid base for recovery of rewards than foreign court judgments, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

  • How Calif., NY Could Fill Consumer Finance Regulatory Void

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    California and New York have historically taken the lead in consumer financial protection, and both show signs of becoming even more active in this area during the second Trump administration amid an enforcement pullback at the federal level, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Series

    Volunteer Firefighting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While practicing corporate law and firefighting may appear incongruous, the latter benefits my legal career by reminding me of the importance of humility, perspective and education, says Nicholas Passaro at Ford.

  • Tax Takeaways From Georgia's 2025 Legislative Session

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland discuss tax-related measures passed by the Georgia Legislature during the session that adjourned on April 4, which included a decrease in income tax rates, an extension of the time in which to a protest tax assessment and cleanup provisions related to launching the state’s new tax court next year.

  • Unpacking FTC's New Stance On Standard-Essential Patents

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    Under its new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, the Federal Trade Commission is likely to bring more stand-alone Section 5 cases to challenge anticompetitive conduct, and it will be important for companies to see how the FTC responds to allegations of patent holdup by standard-essential patent holders committed to fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • Limit On SEC Enforcement Authority May Mean Fewer Actions

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    Following a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission final rule revoking the Enforcement Division director's long-standing authority to issue formal investigation orders, it's clear the division is headed for a new era of limited autonomy, marked by a significantly slower pace of SEC investigations, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

  • How Lenders Should Prepare For Crypto As Collateral

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    Amid the administration's desire to position the U.S. as a digital banking leader, lenders should prepare for customers seeking to use cryptocurrency as collateral for financing, consider which rules govern these transactions, and assess their ability to obtain or maintain control of the virtual funds, say attorneys at Frost Brown.

  • Calif. Antitrust Laws May Turn More Zealous Than US Regs

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    California is poised in the next 18 months to significantly expand its antitrust laws, broadening the scope of liability and creating a premerger review process that could be more expansive than review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, say attorneys at Munger Tolles.

  • As SEC, CFTC Retreat, Who Will Police The Crypto Markets?

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    As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission pull back from policing the crypto markets, the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have the authority to pick up the slack — although recent events raise doubts that they will do so, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • 5 Ways Banking Has Changed In 5 Years Since COVID

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    Since the start of the pandemic five years ago, technology, convenience and shifting expectations have transformed compliance for the financial services industry in several key ways, from the shrinking role of the traditional bank branch to the rise of fintech and mobile payments, says Christopher Pippett at Fox Rothschild.

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