Trump Admin Moves To Undo Biden-Era Fuel Economy Rules

By Keith Goldberg

The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed to unwind Biden-era fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, claiming they unlawfully force a transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones.

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3rd Circ. Suggests COVID Loan Law Vexed By 'Vagueness'

By Carla Baranauckas

The Third Circuit on Wednesday flagged ambiguities in the federal law governing pandemic relief for businesses in the case of an IT services company seeking forgiveness of a $7.2 million loan for payroll costs, with one judge suggesting the "vagueness and confusion" resulted from hasty policymaking during the COVID-19 emergency.

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Troutman Atty Is 3rd NC Federal Judge Confirmed This Week

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 57-41 on Wednesday to confirm Matthew Orso, a partner at Troutman Pepper Locke LLP, to the Western District of North Carolina as a federal district judge.

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Trump Would Prefer Jack Smith Testify In Public

By Courtney Bublé

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, subpoenaed former counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday for a closed-door deposition, to which President Donald Trump said he would rather see a public testimony.

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Virginia Bar Declines To Investigate Interim US Atty Halligan

By Ryan Boysen

The Virginia State Bar has declined to investigate whether Lindsey Halligan should face discipline over her scandal-plagued tenure as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, just days after a federal judge ruled she was not properly appointed to that post.

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FTC Backs Nixing ABA Role As 'Gatekeeper' For Texas Bar

By Lynn LaRowe

The Federal Trade Commission has endorsed a proposal from the Texas Supreme Court to abandon a rule requiring graduation from a law school approved by the American Bar Association for admittance to the state bar, saying the organization's "accreditation monopoly" hurts competition and consumers.

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Ga. Officials Target Standing In Bid To End Voter Removal Suit

By Kelcey Caulder

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and several local election boards told a federal judge Wednesday that civil rights groups lacked standing to challenge the state's process of removing voters from the rolls, while the groups urged certification of a defendant class comprising all 159 county boards of registrars.

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CFPB Moves To Slash $5M Biden-Era Student Loan Trust Deal

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has moved to significantly scale back its $5 million Biden-era settlement of a student loan servicing case in Pennsylvania federal court, agreeing to a plan that would drop most of its requirements for borrower relief.

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OCC Taps Ex-DC Civil Division Head As Deputy Chief Counsel

By Jon Hill

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Wednesday that it has hired a longtime litigator with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia to be a senior official in the banking agency's legal department.

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Chevron Can Back Feds In Gulf Lease Dispute, Judge Says

By Keith Goldberg

A federal judge in Washington has allowed Chevron to join litigation that is seeking to block the first in a series of offshore oil and gas lease sales mandated by the budget reconciliation bill enacted in July, a transaction in which the oil giant intends to participate.

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Enviro Advocates' Challenge To Forest Service Rule Tossed

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

A Virginia federal judge on Wednesday tossed conservation groups' challenge to a U.S. Forest Service rule that allows some projects to avoid more extensive environmental review, saying the organizations failed to prove an "imminent" injury.

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NJ Seeks $195M Fee Award In $2.5B DuPont PFAS Case

By George Woolston

New Jersey asked a Garden State federal judge this week to approve $195 million in attorney fees to its special counsel team of four firms whose six years of litigation work resulted in two landmark settlements that serve to clean up some of the state's most contaminated sites.

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Ga. Must Continue Care For Trans Prisoners, Judge Orders

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia federal judge ordered the state's corrections system Wednesday to continue providing hormone therapy to transgender prisoners, entering a permanent injunction that partially blocks a 2025 law stripping prisons of funding for gender-affirming healthcare.

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FDA Seizes $1M In Illegal 7-OH Opioid Products

By Jonathan Capriel

Federal regulators seized $1 million worth of illicit food products containing a kratom-derived compound from companies in Missouri, according to an announcement that said the action is part of the government's ongoing effort to crack down on the opioid-like supplement.

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USPTO Gets Earful On Plan To Restrict Patent Reviews

By Ryan Davis and Theresa Schliep

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's proposed new rules to limit America Invents Act patent reviews have generated scores of forceful comments, with supporters saying the proposal will curb redundant challenges and opponents arguing it would bar legitimate reviews and exceed the office's power.

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Judge Rejects X's Early Attempt To Block Minn. Deepfake Law

By Elliot Weld

A Minnesota federal judge has denied X Corp.'s request for a favorable ruling in its challenge to a Minnesota state law curtailing the dissemination of "deepfakes" aimed at influencing elections, saying X had not shown that it could be harmed by the law in a manner that would give it standing to block it.

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State AGs Condemn College Sports Rule Enforcement Deal

By David Steele

Seven state attorneys general on Wednesday called a proposed contract between NCAA institutions and the commission enforcing new revenue-sharing rules for athletes "cartoonishly villainous," arguing in a letter that it undermines state laws and jeopardizes the rights of athletes and schools.

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Cities, Groups Fight Changes To HUD Homeless Housing Grant

By Grace Dixon

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development unlawfully introduced "drastic" changes to grants under a federal program to combat homelessness, a coalition of local governments and homelessness service providers has alleged in a suit filed in Rhode Island federal court.

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NLRB Nears Quorum As Senate Committee Approves Pick

By Braden Campbell

The National Labor Relations Board neared a return to full function Wednesday as the U.S. Senate labor committee approved a corporate labor counsel nominated to fill one of four board vacancies, teeing him up for confirmation by the full Senate.

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Texas Produce Groups Challenge OSHA's Constitutionality

By Craig Clough

Two Texas associations representing fruit and vegetable supply chain companies filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, arguing its creation by Congress violated the non-delegation doctrine by granting the executive branch too much policymaking power on workplace safety standards.

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Split Conn. High Court Backs Town In Police Pension Row

By Brian Steele

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the town of Groton isn't required to make health savings account contributions in order to offset deductibles owed by retired police officers, reasoning that HSA contributions don't qualify as insurance coverage or deductibles under the parties' pension agreement.

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Former Gov't Workers Challenge Trump's DEI Firing Spree

By Grace Elletson

The Trump administration unlawfully targeted perceived political enemies, women and people of color when it fired all federal employees who served in roles related to diversity, equity and inclusion, former government workers said Wednesday in a proposed class action.

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FTC Clears Boeing's $4.7B Spirit Aero Deal With Fixes

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that enforcers will allow Boeing to move ahead with its planned $4.7 billion purchase of aircraft parts-maker Spirit AeroSystems after the companies agreed to sell several assets.

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State AI Law Ban Cut From Defense Bill As Fight Continues

By Allison Grande

The renewed push to block states from enacting laws to regulate emerging artificial intelligence technologies is unlikely to make it into a defense funding bill expected to pass by the end of the year, the House's second highest-ranking Republican has confirmed, although he stressed that the proposal was still active and could resurface elsewhere. 

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Mass. Court Says Plea Deal Inattention May Be Ineffectiveness

By Julie Manganis

Massachusetts' highest court on Wednesday concluded that a lawyer's failure to seek a plea bargain if asked to do so by a defendant may amount to ineffective assistance of counsel requiring a new trial under certain circumstances.

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NC Court Upholds Convictions Despite Cell Data Dispute

By Elizabeth Daley

Two men sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting three people outside a restaurant cannot have a new trial because, even if cellphone evidence placing them near the crime scene was unreliable, it was not crucial to their convictions, a North Carolina appeals court said on Wednesday.

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SIGAR Says $26B Lost To Waste, Fraud And Abuse In Afghanistan

By Ganesh Setty

An independent watchdog overseeing the U.S.' reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan found that of roughly $145 billion spent between 2002 and the Afghan government's collapse in 2021, there was at least $26 billion in waste, fraud and abuse.

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Global GDP Growth Fragile Due To Tariffs, OECD Says

By Josh White

The global economy's gross domestic product growth in 2026 will be fragile due to the impact of U.S. tariffs and countertariffs, as well as other trade barriers, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report.

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Commerce Told To Justify Accepting Korean Exporter's Math

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. Department of Commerce must better explain why it decided to use a Korean exporter's calculations without adjustments in an antidumping duty review, the U.S. Court of International Trade said in an opinion remanding the government's determination.

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GOP Expects G7 Side-By-Side Tax Deal Details This Week

By Asha Glover

The House Ways and Means Committee's top Republican expects negotiations to wrap up this week on the technical details of the agreement with the Group of Seven countries to exempt U.S. multinational corporations from the minimum-tax system, he said Wednesday.

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Boston Celeb Chef Facing Default In City's $1.7M Tax Case

By Julie Manganis

Celebrity chef Barbara Lynch failed to line up new counsel or respond to an amended complaint the city of Boston brought against her in state court over an unpaid $1.7 million tax bill for her now-shuttered restaurants, the city has argued, asking that she be found in default.

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Judge Limits Warrantless Immigration Arrests In DC

By Tom Lotshaw

A D.C. federal judge has barred the Trump administration from making warrantless civil immigration arrests in the nation's capital unless federal agents can first establish required probable cause that a person poses a flight risk.

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Judge Frees 10th Grader Arrested By 'Swarm' Of ICE Agents

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of a 10th-grade student from Venezuela who was arrested last month at an immigration check-in, finding that his due process rights were violated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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DC Judge Orders ICE To Disclose Metadata In FOIA Fight

By Ganesh Setty

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must disclose certain metadata from two databases relating to detention and removal operations, a D.C. federal court ruled, finding ICE improperly withheld information following a court-ordered analysis to sift out publicly releasable information.

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Wash. Defends Law Limiting Immigrants Working In Jails

By Tom Lotshaw

Washington state urged a federal judge to deny King County's attempt to block a law that imposes citizenship and immigration status requirements for local government corrections officers, arguing that it passes legal muster and may soon change anyway.

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Trump Pardons Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar And Wife

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and his wife, Imelda Cuellar.

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Oak View CEO Pardoned 5 Months After Bid-Rigging Charge

By Rae Ann Varona

President Donald Trump has pardoned former Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke just five months after the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with allegedly rigging a bid to build and operate the Moody Center arena on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

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1st Circ. Doubts Ex-BigLaw Atty's Campaign Finance Appeal

By Chris Villani

The First Circuit on Wednesday expressed misgivings about a former BigLaw attorney's argument that a jury that convicted him of a campaign finance scheme during a failed run for Congress should have been required to unanimously find that each specific transaction was illegal.

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Wisconsin Village Loses Bid to Block Oneida Land Trust

By Crystal Owens

A federal court judge affirmed an Interior Department decision to place 500 acres of properties into a trust for the Oneida Nation, rejecting claims by a Wisconsin village that the transfers were based on a biased administrative process that wiped out its municipal authority.

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9th Circ. Asked To Reconsider Idaho Land Swap Decision

By Crystal Owens

The U.S. Department of the Interior and J.R. Simplot Co. are asking the Ninth Circuit to reconsider a decision to invalidate an Idaho land transfer for the expansion of a phosphogypsum plant, arguing that the panel's conclusion flouts Supreme Court precedent and defies federal land management policy's text and central aim.

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FCC OKs $1B UScellular Deal After AT&T Drops DEI Policies

By Nadia Dreid

AT&T got the Federal Communications Commission's approval for its $1 billion UScellular deal Wednesday, following in the wake of rivals Verizon and T-Mobile and becoming the latest of the big three mobile carriers to agree to do away with its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

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FCC Jettisons More Than 2,000 'Dormant' Dockets

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday closed out more than 2,000 pending dockets involving regulatory issues that FCC officials say have long since gone by the wayside.

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Dish Fights Clawback Of Millions In Broadband Subsidies

By Nadia Dreid

Dish Network says the private entity that administers many of the FCC's subsidy programs is trying to "shirk its own responsibilities to verify eligibility" for those programs and force telecoms to return millions of dollars they used to provide service to people previously deemed eligible.

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House Panel OKs Shot Clocks On Broadband Project Reviews

By Christopher Cole

House Republicans pushed a contentious bill through committee Wednesday to require state and local governments to act within certain timeframes on applications for new broadband projects, or the permits would be deemed granted regardless.

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Brief

FCC Won't Extend COVID-Era Lifeline Rule Waiver

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has finally decided for good whether a COVID-era waiver of a Lifeline program rule ended on the last day of April in 2021 or the first day of May, concluding Wednesday it does not have to pay out an extra month of benefits.

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Neb. Justices Consider Reviving Medical Cannabis Challenge

By Sam Reisman

The Nebraska Supreme Court gave little indication on Wednesday whether it would restore a legal challenge backed by state officials seeking to void medical marijuana legalization measures that were approved by supermajorities of state voters.

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SEC Penalties Trended Down In FY 2025, Offering 2026 Clues

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's settled corporate penalties in fiscal year 2025 show a clear dividing line, as the largest penalties all came before Inauguration Day, a trend that may continue as the types of cases that lead to the biggest penalties seem to be no longer favored by the commissioners, say attorneys at Dentons.

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FTC Focus: Amazon's $2.5B Pact Broadens Regulatory Span

Amazon's $2.5 billion deal with the Federal Trade Commission offers takeaways for counsel managing risk across both consumer protection and competition portfolios, including that design strategies once evaluated solely for conversion may now be scrutinized for their competitive effects, say attorneys at Proskauer.

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Minn. Financial Abuse Law Should Prompt Operational Review

A new Minnesota law targeting the financial exploitation of vulnerable adults with an order-for-protection mechanism will affect multiple functions across banking organizations, and in the time remaining in 2025, banks should take action to update any needed workflow and documentation protocols, say attorneys at Winthrop & Weinstine.

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State, Federal Incentives Heat Up Geothermal Projects

Geothermal energy can now benefit from dramatically accelerated permitting for development on federal land as well as state-level renewable energy portfolio standards — but operating in the complex legal framework surrounding geothermal projects requires successful navigation of complex water rights and environmental regulations, say attorneys at Holland & Hart.

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A Look At Middlemen Fees In 340B Drug Discount Program

A U.S. Senate committee's recent hearing on the Section 340B drug discount program, along with statistical analysis of payment amounts, contribute to a growing consensus that middlemen fees are too high, say William Sarraille at the University of Maryland, and Shanyue Zeng and Rory Martin at IQVIA.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Client-Led Litigation

New litigators can better help their corporate clients achieve their overall objectives when they move beyond simply fighting for legal victory to a client-led approach that resolves the legal dispute while balancing the company's competing out-of-court priorities, says Chelsea Ireland at Cohen Ziffer.

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Bonus Spotlight

High Billers At McKool Smith To Pocket Extra Bonus Money

By Tracey Read

McKool Smith is the latest BigLaw firm to announce extra cash for attorneys who went above and beyond with billable hours in 2025, according to an internal memo obtained by Law360 Pulse.

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Wilson Sonsini To Switch Leaders For 1st Time Since 2012

By Andrea Keckley

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC announced plans for its first top leadership transition in more than a decade on Wednesday, tapping a Palo Alto, California-based litigator and a New York-based corporate lawyer to begin co-leading the firm at the start of next August.

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Ex-Bernstein Litowitz Atty Starts Firm After Contentious Exit

By Adrian Cruz

A former Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP partner known for handling high-profile stockholder cases has led the launch of a boutique focused on corporate disputes and securities litigation after the firm says he was fired for misconduct.

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LA Atty Accused Of Using AI 'Hallucinations' Sanctioned

By Rae Ann Varona

A California state appeals court has ordered an attorney accused of including artificial intelligence "hallucinations" in a client's opening brief to pay $7,500 to the court, saying in a published opinion that the attorney is subject to sanctions for inaccuracies, regardless of whether they were the result of AI.

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Archegos Founder Says Davis Polk Job Offer Taints Restitution

By Lauren Berg

Archegos founder Bill Hwang, who is serving an 18-year sentence for defrauding banks out of billions of dollars in loans used to manipulate the market, asked to vacate his restitution order because the presiding judge's clerk accepted a job with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, which represents victim-bank Morgan Stanley.

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Fed. Circ. Pushes DC Circ. Not To Rethink Newman Decision

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit has urged the D.C. Circuit to ignore Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman's request to rehear a decision upholding the dismissal of her suit against the colleagues who suspended her, saying the judiciary has the right to police its own internal matters.

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