The second half of 2026 may see the outcome of federal efforts to speed up construction timelines via federal rulemaking and in Congress, and the resolution of open questions around how the repeal of a foundational climate regulation will impact energy policy. Here are four key policy areas that are on environmental attorneys' radar.
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TOP NEWS

Analysis

Top 4 Enviro Policies To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2026

By Gautama Mehta

The second half of 2026 may see the outcome of federal efforts to speed up construction timelines via federal rulemaking and in Congress, and the resolution of open questions around how the repeal of a foundational climate regulation will impact energy policy. Here are four key policy areas that are on environmental attorneys' radar.

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States Ask To Join Fight Against DOD Wind Project Blockage

By Nadia Dreid

Nearly 20 states have told an Oregon federal judge they want in on a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's decision to block land-based wind projects in the U.S. from moving forward.

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Judge Denies Bid To Fast-Track Alaska Refuge Road Ruling

By Crystal Owens

An Alaskan district judge is asking the federal government, the state of Alaska and an Indigenous corporation to provide an anticipated construction timeline for a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

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Judge Says OMB Can't Change Grant Terms After Award

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge said Friday the Trump administration cannot rely on a shift in policy to retroactively change the terms of already awarded grants in order to justify canceling them.

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POLICY & REGULATION

Conn. Justices Bar Town From Killing Errant Forest Tax Break

By Sanjay Talwani

A Connecticut municipal assessor did not have the authority to terminate a property tax break for forest use that was erroneously granted, the state Supreme Court said Friday, suggesting that state lawmakers could clarify the law on the matter.

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LITIGATION

9th Circ. Rekindles Idaho Logging Review Dispute

By Gautama Mehta

The Ninth Circuit revived a conservation group's suit against the U.S. Forest Service over an environmental review of an Idaho logging project, ruling that the group should have been allowed to raise an argument it had not raised during an earlier administrative process.

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Calif. Air District Can Be Sued Under Clean Air Act, Judge Says

By Elaine Briseño

A federal judge ruled Friday that the Clean Air Act allows a coalition of environmental groups to sue an agency that controls air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley even though it is a government regulator.

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Law Firm Says Marketer Is On The Hook For Unwanted Calls

By Jonathan Capriel

A North Carolina plaintiffs firm facing a lawsuit alleging unwanted calls were made to those on the National Do Not Call Registry says a marketing company should be on the hook for damages, urging a federal court not to allow the vendor to hide behind a predecessor's bankruptcy.

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Rivian Hit With Chancery Derivative Suit Over EV Demand

By Jarek Rutz

A Rivian Automotive Inc. stockholder has filed a derivative lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court accusing the electric-vehicle maker's current and former directors and officers of misleading investors about customer demand, production growth and the company's path to profitability, allegedly exposing Rivian to significant legal costs and potential liability.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen Snapchat and Dolby press on with a fresh infringement claim in their ongoing patent battle, The Telegraph face an intellectual property claim by a photo archive, a group of international human rights barristers and chambers sued, and oil business Equinor embroiled in a contract dispute with BP after recently acquiring full ownership in their offshore project. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Solar's Momentum At Mid-2026 Will Help It Overcome Snags

The rapid expansion of U.S. solar development in the first half of 2026 is likely to continue its pace, even amid ongoing shifts in federal trade policy and supply chain regulations, obstacles to permitting reform, and an increasing divide between states enacting policies to encourage or stymie project development, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

How Competitive Is Your Compensation? Take Our Survey

Is your compensation keeping pace with the rate of inflation? Do you know what your colleagues made last year? Help Law360 Pulse answer these questions and more in this year's Law Firm Compensation Survey.

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DOJ Unveils Law Firm Subpoenas In ABA Docs Bid Fight

By Ryan Boysen, Rae Ann Varona, Alison Knezevich, Daniel Moritz-Rabson and Aebra Coe

The BigLaw firms that cut deals with the Trump administration last year to skirt punitive executive orders are now grappling with subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking deal-related communications and depositions of the firms' managing partners or chairs, according to Friday court filings.

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K&L Gates Cuts Nonattorney Staff By 10% After Review

By Tracey Read

K&L Gates LLP has cut its nonattorney and business support staff by 10% following a monthslong review of its structure, the firm told Law360 Pulse Friday.

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Analysis

Upon Review: The 2026 World Cup's Biggest Legal Stories

By Alex Lawson

The grandest iteration of the World Cup to date unsurprisingly raised new legal and regulatory disputes, including immigration issues and the White House's intervention in a player disciplinary proceeding. Here, Law360 digs into the legal questions arising from the tournament.

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7th Circ. Admonishes Atty Over 'Astonishing' Bogus Citations

By Christine DeRosa

The Seventh Circuit has admonished but declined to sanction an attorney for a brief that included what a judge called "an astonishing number of erroneous and even hallucinated citations."

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Ashurst Perkins Gets Trial Date Pushed In Malpractice Case

By Rachel Riley

A Washington state judge granted Ashurst Perkins Coie's bid to postpone the trial date in a lawsuit accusing the firm's predecessor of making significant mistakes while representing a Middle Eastern screw and nail manufacturer in regulatory proceedings before the U.S. Department of Commerce, calling the case "complex" on Friday.

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Judge Warns Gov't Over Apparent AI-Hallucinated Citation

By Courtney Bublé

A federal judge in Michigan, appointed by President Donald Trump, called out the government for its apparent use of artificial intelligence to cite "nonexistent case law."

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Public Defenders Go On Strike In New York City

By Andrea Keckley

Hundreds of public defenders and social workers in Brooklyn and Queens have gone on strike, with the possibility of more walkouts to come as legal aid providers continue to negotiate with their unions.

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Feature

How A 'Revolutionary' Charlotte Courtroom Advances Justice

By Hayley Fowler

In the second of a two-part series on the Virginia Revival Courtroom in the Charlotte federal courthouse, judges, architects and a trial consultant explain the strategy behind designing a space they see as more conducive to justice.

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2nd Circ. Backs Public Defender's Firing For Computer Misuse

By Andrea Keckley

The Second Circuit has backed a district court's dismissal of a former public defender's lawsuit against Oneida County, New York, for firing him after he used his work computer to work on his private practice on county time, agreeing that the county did not violate his privacy rights or breach their contract.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing electronic delivery to be the default method for sending investors information, and a panel of investor activists said the 2026 proxy season was shaped by regulators who seem to let public companies behave more like private ones. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Hogan Lovells Cadwalader leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Second Circuit determined that a lower court properly found that Nielsen cannot condition media company Cumulus' access to national radio ratings data on buying its local offerings.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

A&O Shearman

Advokatfirmaet Selmer AS

Ahmad Zavitsanos

Arnold & Porter

Ashurst LLP

Ashurst Perkins

Baker McKenzie

Beveridge & Diamond

Bird & Bird

Boyes Turner

Burness Paull

CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang

Clarke Willmott

Clifford Chance

Clyde & Co

Curtis Mallet-Prevost

DLA Piper

DMH Stallard

Davis Wright Tremaine

DeMayo Law Offices

Dentons

Eversheds Sutherland

Flannery Georgalis

Freshfields

Fried Frank

Gibson Dunn

Gunster Yoakley

Haynes Boone

Herrick Feinstein

Hogan Lovells

Hunton Andrews

Jenner & Block

Joelson JD LLP

Jones Day

K&L Gates

Kahn Soares

Kahn Swick

Keller Postman

Kirkland & Ellis

Kobre & Kim

Latham & Watkins

Liskow & Lewis

Lozeau Drury

McNaul Ebel

Meritz Reddy

Mishcon de Reya

Morgan Lewis

Morrison & Foerster

Murphy & King

Nabarro LLP

Olshan Frome

Paul Weiss

Quinn Emanuel

Reddy Neumann

Reed Smith

Rottenberg Lipman

Simmons & Simmons

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

Sive Paget

Skadden Arps

Sullivan & Cromwell

Sullivan & Worcester

Susman Godfrey

TLT LLP

Trowers & Hamlins

Vinson & Elkins

Wachtell Lipton

Wedlake Bell

Weightmans LLP

Williams & Connolly

WilmerHale

Winston Taylor

Womble Bond

Woodruff & Smart

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

APC

Abbott Laboratories

Access Advance LLC

Air Liquide

American Bar Association

American Petroleum Institute Inc.

Apple Inc.

Banco Sabadell SA

Benefit Street Partners Ltd.

Boston Scientific Corp.

Brooklyn Defender Services

CDI Corporation

CaixaBank SA

Campaign Legal Center

Center for Biological Diversity Inc.

Court of Arbitration for Sport

Cumulus Media Inc.

Delivery Hero

Deutsche Bank AG

Dolby Laboratories Inc.

Duke Energy Corp.

Earthjustice

Equinor ASA

Federation Internationale de Football Association

Five Below Inc.

Fort Point Capital

Gleason Corp.

Groupe PSA

Grupo Antolin SA

Hannaford Brothers Co.

Instagram Inc.

Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc.

Kraft Group LLC

Legal Conversion Center

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

MTX Group

Macquarie Group Ltd.

Major League Soccer LLC

Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Michigan Immigrant Rights Center

Micron Technology Inc.

Momentus Inc.

National Westminster Bank PLC

Netlist Inc.

New England Patriots LP

New York Post

Nielsen Holdings PLC

Norfolk Southern Corp.

OpenAI OpCo LLC

RELX PLC

Rivian Automotive LLC

Salesforce.com Inc.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Sandoz International GmbH

Skydance Media LLC

Snap Inc.

Solar Energy Industries Association

Solicitors Regulation Authority Ltd.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Teleperformance SA

The New York Times Co.

The Reynolds and Reynolds Co.

Uber Technologies Inc.

United Auto Workers

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. Ltd.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Alaska Department of Law

California Air Resources Board

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Companies House

Delaware Court of Chancery

Executive Office of the President

Federal Aviation Administration

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Internal Revenue Service

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Native Village of Paimiut

New Jersey Attorney General's Office

North Carolina Utilities Commission

Texas Supreme Court

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Michigan

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

U.S. Department of Agriculture

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court

UK High Court

US Office of Management and Budget

Unified Patent Court