Public Policy

  • April 29, 2026

    Mich. Justices Adopt Rule Banning ICE Civil Arrests In Court

    The Michigan Supreme Court Wednesday adopted a rule prohibiting civil arrests of those attending court proceedings or those who have legal business at the courthouse, which drew strong rebuke in a dissent describing the amendment as "a political statement as a solution in search of a problem."

  • April 29, 2026

    Feds Say Lack Of Injury Dooms Gold Card Program Challenge

    The Trump administration said a suit challenging the gold card visa program's legality must be thrown out because the immigrants and academic professionals union that filed it can't show the program hurts their chances at getting visas.

  • April 29, 2026

    High Court Seeks Path To Limited Ruling On 'Skinny Labels'

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared reluctant to craft new standards for deciding whether makers of generic drugs that use so-called skinny labels have encouraged others to infringe patents, with several justices saying existing law is sufficient to make a decision.

  • April 29, 2026

    FCC Pushed To Scale Back Radio Ownership Regs

    A broadcast company that helped persuade the Eighth Circuit to toss federal limits on local media ownership last year is now urging the Federal Communications Commission to pare back radio station limits.

  • April 29, 2026

    Feds Can't Hide Records Of FEMA Cuts, Judge Says

    The Trump administration tried to shield too many documents from public view in a lawsuit challenging its cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies, a California federal judge ruled, siding with a labor-led coalition in a dispute over the administration's motion for a protective order.

  • April 29, 2026

    Kennedy Center Director Says Safety Perils Warrant Overhaul

    The Kennedy Center's new director said he was "dumbfounded" when he first saw the true condition of the cultural hub's facilities, telling a D.C. federal court weighing whether to stop the center's planned two-year closure that now is the right time to catch up on a growing backlog of work.

  • April 29, 2026

    Burgum, Senate Dems Spar Over Energy Permitting Moves

    U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Wednesday blasted a federal court's recent pause of policies that imposed stricter reviews on wind and solar projects as Senate Democrats said such moves could kill the chances for significant permitting reform legislation.

  • April 29, 2026

    Consultant Says Venezuela Work Didn't Require FARA Filing

    The government did not prove that political consultant Esther Nuhfer was operating in bad faith when she worked with former Florida congressman David Rivera under a $50 million contract with a unit of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Nuhfer's attorney said Wednesday in his final pitch to jurors.

  • April 29, 2026

    Comey Indictment Built On Bad Legal Foundation, Experts Say

    The criminal indictment of former FBI Director James B. Comey over an alleged threat against President Donald Trump by way of a social media post of seashells appears to be based on either an outdated or flawed understanding of the legal standard required to prove the charges in the case, which could sink the prosecution, according to experts.

  • April 29, 2026

    Squires Snubs 10 IPRs While 4 Pass Muster In Latest Order

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires rejected 10 petitions for America Invents Act patent reviews and granted four challenges in an order marking the roughly half-year mark since he took over the duty of making institution decisions.

  • April 29, 2026

    US Lawmakers Back Bid To Win Trump Park Pass Suit

    A coalition of Democratic congressional lawmakers are looking to back a conservation group's summary judgment bid in its challenge to the U.S. Department of Interior's decision to put President Donald Trump's image on this year's America the Beautiful Annual Pass.

  • April 29, 2026

    Sauer Urges Justices To Ignore Alleged Bias In TPS Case

    U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that courts shouldn't, as a matter of foreign policy, consider President Donald Trump's disparaging comments about Haitians in reviewing rescissions of temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria.

  • April 29, 2026

    Fla. Judge Pick Denies Conflict In Trump Defamation Case

    A judicial nominee for the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday denied there was any overlap between when he presided over a case involving President Donald Trump and when the White House let him know Trump was considering him for the federal judgeship.

  • April 29, 2026

    Squires Says Samsung's ITC Stipulation Can't Save Its IPRs

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires said he denied Samsung's challenges to a Netlist memory module patent in light of a similar legal fight at the U.S. International Trade Commission and the timing of final decisions in both forums.

  • April 29, 2026

    Powell Says He'll Stay On Fed Board After Time As Chair Ends

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he won't immediately leave the central bank once his term ends next month and plans instead to remain on its board temporarily, pointing to the Trump administration's recent "legal attacks" on the institution.

  • April 29, 2026

    Sunsetting FCC High-Cost Programs Could Undergo 'Refresh'

    Federal Communications Commission leaders during their meeting next month will weigh reforms to longstanding programs that help fund broadband deployment to rural and other "high cost" areas.

  • April 29, 2026

    Fla. Judge DQ'd In Trump Library Suit Over Courtroom Hug

    A Florida state appellate panel disqualified a trial judge overseeing a suit accusing a Miami college of transferring land for a President Donald Trump library without proper notice, agreeing Wednesday that the judge's thanking and hugging the man who brought the suit was improper.

  • April 29, 2026

    FTC's BOTS Suit Survives Because Law Not Just About Bots

    A Maryland federal judge has refused to dismiss one of the Federal Trade Commission's first-ever online ticketing cases, rejecting ticket reseller arguments that their use of thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to buy concert tickets is immune because they don't use bots.

  • April 29, 2026

    Feds Sue To Block NJ Law Banning Masks For ICE Agents

    The United States sued New Jersey in federal court Wednesday, seeking to block a newly enacted law that bars masked law enforcement officers by arguing the measure unlawfully targets federal agents and violates the Constitution's supremacy clause.

  • April 29, 2026

    Colo. Judge Rules GOP Can't Ban Unaffiliated Primary Voters

    A Colorado federal judge denied the Colorado Republican Party's request for an order that would have allowed the party to ban unaffiliated voters from participating in its June primary election, ruling that doing so would create voter confusion.

  • April 29, 2026

    Lummi Nation Says Telecom Found Remains But Kept Digging

    Lummi Nation says the remains of its ancestors have been disturbed by a federally funded broadband project in what it calls a "cascading series of preventable and unlawful failures" in a lawsuit against the federal government, a telecommunications company and a county in Washington.

  • April 29, 2026

    EPA Staff Challenge Suspensions Over Critical Open Letter

    Fifteen U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees have filed complaints with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, alleging the agency unlawfully suspended them after they signed a public "declaration of dissent" against the Trump administration's policies.

  • April 29, 2026

    PBMs Say Michigan AG Price-Fixing Suit Is Unsound

    Pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts, Evernorth Health and Prime Therapeutics have bolstered their effort to escape a federal price-fixing suit brought against them by Michigan's attorney general by arguing the statutes cited in the complaint do not apply to them.

  • April 29, 2026

    Mass. AG, Insurer Settle Deceptive Marketing Claims For $5M

    A Texas-headquartered health insurance agency will pay $5 million to settle allegations that it engaged in deceptive and unfair marketing to sell plans and other types of health programs to thousands of Massachusetts consumers, the state's attorney general announced on Wednesday.

  • April 29, 2026

    9th Circ. Reverses Stay In App Store Commissions Case

    The Ninth Circuit has reversed its own order that stayed a ruling on an injunction barring Apple from charging developers high commissions on in-app purchases until a district court judge sets up narrower guardrails, saying Epic Games had persuaded it that Apple was unlikely to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Judicial Restraint Anchors Constitutional Order

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    Contrasting opinions in two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Trump v. CASA and Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections — demonstrate how the judiciary’s constitutionally entrusted role can easily be preserved or disrupted, and invite renewed attention to the enduring importance of judicial restraint, says Ninth Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace.

  • 'Made In America' Rules Raise Stakes For Gov't Contractors

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    The convergence of widely varying "buy American" requirements, increased enforcement efforts and continuing regulatory attempts to limit foreign sourcing suggests that government contractors should carefully review their supply chain and country-of-origin compliance to remain competitive, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Human Authorship Is Still Central To Copyright Eligibility

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    In declining to review the D.C. Circuit's ruling in Thaler v. Perlmutter — holding that a work purely generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted — the U.S. Supreme Court has reinforced the human authorship requirement, so it is critical for creators of AI-assisted projects to document their involvement, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Recent Bank Resolution Filings Stress Readiness Over Docs

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    Against the backdrop of banking regulators' recent emphasis on institutional readiness in the event of a bank failure, a review of more than a dozen public resolution plan submissions points to an immediate future in which regulators and banks alike prioritize operational preparedness over extensive documentation, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Series

    Alpine Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Skiing has shaped habits I rely on daily as an attorney — focus, resilience and the ability to remain steady when circumstances shift rapidly — and influences the way I approach legal strategy, client counseling and teamwork, says Isaku Begert at Marshall Gerstein.

  • 3 Federal Policy Trends Shaping Data Center Power

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    With the White House, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Congress each pushing energy policies that will influence how data centers are sited, powered and interconnected for years to come, industry stakeholders should understand compliance obligations, consider possible downstream effects, and evaluate off-grid and self-supply energy options, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • NY Tax Talk: Calculating Tiered Partnership Income

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland discuss how the potential impact recent New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal decision in Matter of Cantor Fitzgerald holding that the entity approach should be used by tiered partnerships to compute unincorporated business tax liability, why the issue of the proper approach remains unsettled and the broader implications for federal conformity and administrative agency deference.

  • FDA Guidance May Move Goalposts For Form 483 Responses

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    New draft guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides formal insight on how drug manufacturers are expected to respond to Form 483s, raising some concerns about the agency's timelines and expectations, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Understanding The SEC's Consequential Crypto Guidance

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent interpretive release — its most comprehensive statement ever on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto-assets — reimagines the Howey test to resolve long-standing questions over what is a security, but leaves many issues unresolved, say attorneys at Cahill.

  • Ohio Case Reflects States' Aggressive Criminal Antitrust Turn

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    The Ohio Attorney General's Office’s recent bid-rigging indictment of an online auctioneer is the latest signal that states, through attorneys general pursuing more kickback cases and legislators expanding the reach of antitrust laws, are shedding their historical reluctance to wield their criminal antitrust enforcement powers, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Justices' Geofence Ruling May Test 4th Amendment's Future

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court decides in Chatrie v. U.S. whether law enforcement may use geofence warrants to compel Google to disclose location history data, the ruling is likely to become an important statement about the future of Fourth Amendment law in data-driven investigations, says Duncan Levin at Levin & Associates.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1

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    In the first quarter of 2026, New York's banking developments were headlined by initiatives to expand oversight of financial institutions and strengthen consumer protection laws, including a new framework for buy now, pay later lenders, a sweeping debt collection rule and a revised corporate self-disclosure program for financial crimes, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Seeking A Policy Fix As Merger Reporting Fight Continues

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    A recently announced request by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for public comment on the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger reporting requirements, as litigation challenging the commission's updated requirements continues, suggests the government's willingness to address how best to support modern merger enforcement without unduly burdening filing parties, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • What New Fla. Citizens Bill Means For Surplus Lines Insurers

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    A Florida bill recently passed by the Legislature as part of a continued effort to depopulate Citizens Property Insurance, the state's insurer of last resort, creates an additional pathway for commercial policies to be written by surplus lines insurers, but also presents concerns of unnecessary regulation, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • What Voluntary Calif. Carbon Reports Show About Compliance

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    While the enforcement of California's S.B. 261 is currently paused due to a Ninth Circuit injunction, more than 130 companies have nonetheless chosen to voluntarily publish climate-related financial risk disclosures, providing a useful snapshot of how the market is interpreting the law's requirements in practice, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

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