Public Policy

  • October 02, 2026

    Cannabis Co. Says Mass. Town Keeping License In Limbo

    A cannabis business has alleged in state court that Provincetown, Massachusetts, is holding up the company's license renewal with a demand that it waive claims against the town regarding overpayment of fees, calling the move a "strong-arm tactic."

  • October 02, 2026

    NJ Township Accused Of Discriminatory Paving Contract

    An apprenticeship and training fund has sued a New Jersey township in state court over a project labor agreement in its 2026 paving project, claiming the agreement prevents the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union from placing apprentices on the project.

  • October 02, 2026

    Parler Ex-CEO Wins $11M Over Ouster From Social Media Site

    A jury in Nevada found Friday that Parler co-founder John Matze is owed nearly $11.1 million, including $250,000 in punitive damages, for the stake he was stripped of after billionaire business partner Rebekah Mercer and others allegedly changed the social media company's constitution to get rid of him.

  • October 02, 2026

    Senate Clears 2 Tribal Bills On Land, Digital Evidence

    The U.S. Senate has passed two bills that will transfer more than 500 acres to California's Pit River Tribe and will allow tribal courts the same ability to issue warrants for electronic evidence as their non-tribal counterparts.

  • October 02, 2026

    Calif. Tribe Loses Bid To Restore Gaming Eligibility

    A Washington, D.C., federal court has rejected a California tribe's request to pause the government's reversal of its gaming eligibility on 160 acres in Vallejo, ruling the Indigenous nation did not clear the high bar to prove the feds' decision would cause economic losses or sovereign harm.

  • October 02, 2026

    Former Fla. Rep. Gets 10 Years In Venezuela FARA Case

    A Florida federal judge on Friday sentenced ex-Florida Rep. David Rivera to 10 years in prison for failing to register as a foreign agent and laundering the proceeds of a $50 million contract with a unit of Venezuela's state-owned oil company.

  • October 02, 2026

    G7 Pledges 100M Oil Barrel Release With Front-Loaded Diesel

    Group of Seven countries pledged to release 100 million barrels of oil beginning immediately, with a front-loaded diesel deployment, according to a statement released by the European Commission.

  • October 02, 2026

    5 Supreme Court Cases To Watch This Fall

    The U.S. Supreme Court will convene Monday to begin its 2026 October term, which includes several cases that could determine the future of climate change tort litigation, expand religious freedoms and parental rights, and grant states authority to require proof of citizenship when individuals register for presidential elections using state forms. 

  • October 01, 2026

    Calif. Gov. Pushes For More In Signing Bill Limiting CIPA Suits

    California's governor approved legislation Wednesday to block private litigants from bringing lawsuits under one provision of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, while urging the Legislature to keep working on efforts to expand this ban to include additional website tracking claims under the decades-old wiretap statute.  

  • October 01, 2026

    Albright Tells Inventors That Attys Should Talk A Lot Less

    Former U.S. District Judge Alan Albright told attendees at a US Inventor conference Thursday that litigators should speak less in jury trials, while current and former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office leadership highlighted the agency's overhaul to patent challenges and touted its reduction of the backlog.

  • October 01, 2026

    DuPont, Corteva Accused Of $40B PFAS Asset Shielding

    The company formerly known as DuPont and its parent Corteva Inc. were sued in Indiana state court Thursday by 15 states and Guam alleging a newly completed seeds business spinoff is nothing more than an illegal effort to place $40 billion in assets beyond the reach of creditors pursuing forever chemicals claims.

  • October 01, 2026

    Judge Should Penalize Meta $40B In Latest Trial, NM Argues

    The state of New Mexico asked a judge Thursday to penalize Meta $35 billion to $40 billion for statements that a jury found grossly misrepresented the social media giant's actual data privacy practices, while Meta argued no harm was proven and the damages should be in the $345 million to $3.45 billion range.

  • October 01, 2026

    States Sue Trump Over 'Theft' Of $810M Congressional Funds

    California and six other states sued the Trump administration in San Francisco federal court, alleging the executive branch's unlawful clawback of $810 million that was appropriated by Congress for a number of programs that the president dislikes is "tantamount to theft."

  • October 01, 2026

    Bipartisan Legislation Floated To Fight Foreign-Website Piracy

    The two chambers of Congress have introduced related legislation that would allow U.S. courts to direct internet service providers to block foreign criminal and piracy sites within the U.S.

  • October 01, 2026

    SEC Floats Crypto Custody Rule Updates For Funds, Advisers

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday proposed updates to custody rules that would allow investment advisers and funds to hold clients' crypto with state trust companies or safeguard the assets themselves if they can't find a suitable custodian.

  • October 01, 2026

    Home Health Co. Seeks Pause Of Colo. Agency's Backout

    A Colorado home personal care services company exclusively serving those insured by Medicaid urged a state judge Thursday to pause a Colorado regulatory agency's decision to terminate its provider agreement, contending any transition of clients to other providers should come after an administrative court hearing later this month.

  • October 01, 2026

    Fla. Police Officers Denied Immunity In Ex-GOP Chair's Suit

    A federal judge in Florida has refused to toss a civil lawsuit against two Sarasota Police Department detectives, finding they are not entitled to qualified immunity from claims they violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a former Florida Republican Party chair during a 2023 sexual assault investigation.

  • October 01, 2026

    FDIC Says Workplace Culture Monitorship Has Ended

    The Morrison Foerster LLP attorney hired to oversee the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s efforts to address past issues with workplace misconduct has concluded her assignment after two years on the job, declaring the agency "well positioned" to move forward.

  • October 01, 2026

    Ill. Judge To Probe Misconduct In ICE Protester Prosecution

    Further fact-finding is necessary to determine whether any misrepresentations or inaccuracies Chicago prosecutors offered while pursuing a since-tossed criminal conspiracy case against six immigration protesters amounts to misconduct warranting contempt or sanctions consideration, an Illinois federal judge said Thursday.

  • October 01, 2026

    NY Judge Scraps ICE Immigration Court Arrest Policy

    A New York federal judge vacated a 2025 policy change that gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents "unfettered discretion" to arrest noncitizens at immigration courthouses after the government admitted guidance cited for the shift never applied to immigration courts.

  • October 01, 2026

    4 Key Takeaways From The Senate Permitting Legislation

    Bipartisan permitting legislation unveiled in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday could be a game-changer for how quickly energy infrastructure projects get built, though the bill faces a long, difficult path to becoming law. Here are four takeaways from the proposal.

  • October 01, 2026

    6th Circ. Backs Immunity In Search Of Empty Home

    Michigan state troopers who searched a vacationing couple's home while attempting to execute a bench warrant are protected by qualified immunity because existing case law has not established that such a search is a violation of constitutional rights, a Sixth Circuit panel said Wednesday.

  • October 01, 2026

    NH Families Seek To Block Medicaid Ban On Youth Trans Care

    Transgender adolescents and their parents urged a New Hampshire federal court Thursday to block the Trump administration's plan to cut off Medicaid funding for minors' gender-affirming care, arguing it's unconstitutional, motivated by discriminatory animus and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

  • October 01, 2026

    Customers Ask 9th Circ. To Halt Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal

    Streaming service customers are asking the Ninth Circuit to step in and stop Paramount Skydance's planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery until a court can decide if their antitrust suit challenging the merger will be dismissed.

  • October 01, 2026

    Water Utilities Say EPA Rule Defines Them Too Broadly

    The fate of a federal plan to eliminate the nation's lead drinking-water pipes may come down to a debate over the definition of a public water system.

Expert Analysis

  • At The Intersection Of Right-To-Repair Laws And IP Rights

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    Right-to-repair legislation passing through Congress highlights a broad tension between manufacturers' security measures and consumer autonomy, with important repercussions for the automotive industry's intellectual property rights, says Keith Noe at Lando & Anastasi. 

  • Opinion

    States Should Reconsider Forced PBM Divestiture Laws

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    State legislatures are attempting to enact policies intended to force pharmacy benefit managers to divest from pharmacies, but these laws would have the practical effect of reducing patient access and competition, potentially violating the U.S. Constitution in the process, says former Utah Attorney General John Swallow.

  • HSR Deals Proceed More Steadily Than Narratives Suggest

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    The most recent Hart-Scott-Rodino Act data show that transaction volume remained relatively stable, transaction values continued to increase and enforcement activity remained low, suggesting that enforcement rates have been relatively consistent across presidential administrations despite widely differing public rhetoric regarding merger enforcement, says Amanda Wait at Michael Best.

  • Assessing The Benefits Of Fla.'s Newest Business Structure

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    As of July 1, Florida business owners can create protected series LLCs to shield assets from liability while avoiding increased costs and wasted time, but burdensome recordkeeping obligations are crucial to maintaining the very protection that makes them attractive in the first place, says Gregory Ritter at Moritt Hock.

  • Key Post-Proposal Shifts Likely In CFPB Loss Mitigation Rule

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    Mortgage servicers, borrowers and consumer advocates should prepare for a likely narrowed version of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's loss mitigation rule, which is likely to permit sequential reviews, defer to investor guidelines, extend compliance timelines and preempt conflicting state standards, say attorneys at Goodwin.

  • Series

    Teaching SEC Investigations Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Instructing a law school course on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations has made me a more thoughtful, deliberate practitioner because it requires me to continually reassess and challenge what I know about securities law enforcement, how I know it and how best to explain it, says David Chase at Miami Law.

  • Noncompete Laws Show States Focusing On Bans, Healthcare

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    The first half of 2026 confirms that state legislatures are driving the most consequential changes in noncompete law, including a few state bans and several healthcare-specific laws, making a one-size-fits-all approach increasingly untenable for multistate employers, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • What's Inside Proposed, Expanded NY Stablecoin Regulations

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    New York's recently proposed regulations for payment stablecoin issuers would, if adopted, increase the regulatory burdens of a state license, and midsize issuers considering a conversion to a federal charter should weigh the associated costs of both options, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Justices' Tax Sale Ruling Tees Up Auction Fairness Battles

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Pung v. Isabella County, Michigan, that taxpayers are not entitled to fair market value of real property seized to satisfy a tax debt shifts attention to the fairness of state and local auction procedures, and whether taxpayers claiming surplus proceeds face unwarranted hurdles, say attorneys at Miller Canfield.

  • What Corporate Counsel Can Learn From OpenAI Test Breach

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    The significance of the recent artificial intelligence testing breach involving OpenAI and Hugging Face lies in what it reveals about the path of AI’s evolution, because legal professionals must translate that trajectory into actionable governance, contractual and advisory frameworks, says Jason Mueller at Vorys.

  • Patent Eligibility Reforms Keep Chasing The Wrong Fixes

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    Repeated efforts to create a consistent, predictable patent eligibility standard under Section 101 have centered on replacing judge-made exceptions with new statutory language, but the better fix is to align examination standards with how courts actually apply eligibility doctrine, says former Patent Trial and Appeal Board judge Amee Shah.

  • Opinion

    Qualified Immunity Bill's Reach Goes Beyond Federal Officers

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    The federal Qualified Immunity Abolition Act, introduced earlier this year and described by the bill sponsors as a federal-officer measure, would in actuality reach the entire universe of Section 1983 defendants, a distinction that matters as much to defense counsel as to plaintiffs, says attorney V. James DeSimone.

  • State Of Insurance: Q2 Notes From Pennsylvania

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    Todd Leon at Marshall Dennehey highlights notable second-quarter insurance developments in Pennsylvania, including federal court opinions providing guidance on first-party and third-party insurance coverage principles, and a pending bill seeking to regulate health insurers' use of artificial intelligence.

  • Assessing DOJ Antitrust's New, Faster Merger Review Option

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    The U.S. Justice Department Antitrust Division's recently announced targeted second request option and new model timing signal a commercially friendly stance and a departure from the prior administration's position, say attorneys at Paul Weiss.

  • NRC Proposal May Reshape Radiation Protection Framework

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    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposal to drop the long-standing requirement to keep radiation exposure "as low as reasonably achievable," alongside the U.S. Department of Energy's removal of ALARA from its own rules, suggests a broader federal reassessment of radiation protection policy, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

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