Public Policy

  • May 02, 2025

    Workers Say UMich Fired Them For Pro-Palestine Protests

    Former University of Michigan employees alleged in a new lawsuit that they were illegally fired and barred from seeking future work at the university because they participated in demonstrations to support the rights of Palestinians in the conflict in Gaza.

  • May 02, 2025

    USPTO's Financial Officer Latest To Depart Agency Leadership

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's chief financial officer has left the agency, marking another departure of a high-level USPTO official while the Trump administration looks to reduce government headcount.

  • May 02, 2025

    Virginia Accuses Tribe Of Medicaid Billing Fraud

    Virginia is fighting a bid by the Nansemond Indian Tribe for an order that would require it to continue processing the tribe's unpaid Medicaid reimbursement claims, telling a federal court that it instead suspended payments and its Medicaid fraud unit is investigating the tribal healthcare entity.

  • May 02, 2025

    IRS Updates Rates For Foreign Insurance Company Equations

    The Internal Revenue Service on Friday published updated domestic asset/liability and yields percentages for 2024 that foreign life insurance companies and foreign property and liability insurance companies need to compute their minimum effectively connected net investment income.

  • May 02, 2025

    DOL Halts Enforcement Of Biden's Contractor Rule

    The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division will stop enforcing a former President Joe Biden-era final rule determining whether workers are independent contractors or employees under federal law, the agency announced, as three federal courts paused suits challenging the rule.

  • May 02, 2025

    Community Groups Accept Pause In CTA Litigation

    A group of community associations has told the Fourth Circuit they aren't opposed to a government motion to pause litigation over the Corporate Transparency Act, even as they maintained the information disclosure law aimed at small businesses still carries constitutional flaws.

  • May 02, 2025

    DC US Atty Pick Vows To Take On Judicial Threats

    Ed Martin, nominee to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who is currently serving in the role on an interim basis, has told federal judges in D.C. he is concerned about the increase in threats to judges and pledged to work together to stop it.

  • May 02, 2025

    Trump Announces First Judicial Nominee Of 2nd Term

    President Donald Trump announced his first judicial nominee of his second administration late Thursday night.

  • May 01, 2025

    Judge Won't Ax Anti-DEI Injunction For Plaintiffs' Tweaks

    A Maryland federal judge Thursday declined to upend his preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from implementing the bulk of the president's executive orders aiming to slash diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the public and private sectors.

  • May 01, 2025

    New Bill Holds Judges Accountable Even After They Retire

    A Georgia Congressman on Thursday introduced legislation that would ensure misconduct complaints against judges would still be investigated, even if the judge has resigned, retired or even died.

  • May 01, 2025

    Ex-Credit Union Regulator Says Suing Trump 'Had To Be Done'

    One of two Democrats suing President Donald Trump for unlawful termination from the National Credit Union Administration warned Thursday of damaging potential ripple effects if their firings are allowed to stand, casting their decision to litigate as daunting but necessary.

  • May 01, 2025

    Ex-Amtrak Director Steered IT Contracts For Bribes, Feds Say

    Pennsylvania federal prosecutors announced Thursday that the former director of network planning and engineering for Amtrak is charged with taking bribes worth tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for steering millions of dollars in Amtrak contract work to various vendors.

  • May 01, 2025

    Troops Urge High Court To Keep Transgender Ban On Ice

    Several transgender service members and recruits told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reject the Trump administration's bid to lift a federal judge's order prohibiting implementation of the Pentagon's ban on transgender military service, claiming the policy is so deeply rooted in animosity that it won't survive judicial inspection.

  • May 01, 2025

    DOJ Grilled On 'Bottleneck' After Refugee Processing Orders

    A Washington federal judge expressed frustration with the federal government Thursday for moving "with one hand behind its back" to resume processing of certain refugees after the Ninth Circuit clarified the scope of a partial block on the Trump administration's refugee program shutdown.

  • May 01, 2025

    Aetna And Humana Accused Of Medicare Kickbacks And Bias

    The federal government brought a bombshell False Claims Act suit Thursday against Aetna, Elevance and Humana, claiming the insurers paid hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers in exchange for enrollments into their Medicare Advantage plans, with Humana and Aetna also accused of discriminating against disabled beneficiaries.

  • May 01, 2025

    HHS Report Finds 'Serious Concerns' On Trans Care For Youth

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday released a report it says raises "serious concerns" about medical interventions used to aid young people in gender transition.

  • May 01, 2025

    SEC Drops Case Against Crypto Promoter Ian Balina

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission moved Thursday to drop its suit over cryptocurrency influencer Ian Balina's alleged promotion of so-called SPRK tokens, about a month after Balina's attorneys said the federal regulator planned to walk away from the case.

  • May 01, 2025

    FinCEN Targets Cambodian Firm As Crypto Money Launderer

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury's financial crimes watchdog on Thursday called out Cambodia-based Huione Group as a primary money laundering concern and proposed to "sever its access to the U.S. financial system" due to its alleged laundering of $4 billion worth of crypto scam and other illicit proceeds.

  • May 01, 2025

    Judge Rejects Appeal Over Pronoun Use In Trans Athlete Case

    A Colorado federal judge told a group of athletes Thursday that any stigma they perceive over his choice of pronouns to refer to a transgender volleyball player is "self-inflicted," according to an order declining to get the Tenth Circuit involved in his decision not to recuse from the case. 

  • May 01, 2025

    Judge Told Data Would Let Rivals Mimic Google Search

    An academic testifying for Google on Thursday told a D.C. federal court that the data sharing provisions being proposed as a fix in the search monopolization case would allow rivals to reverse engineer Google search and if not match the results, at least mimic them.

  • May 01, 2025

    'Fingers Crossed' At FCC As Court's Subsidy Ruling Closes In

    There's plenty of hand-wringing at the Federal Communications Commission as a U.S. Supreme Court decision draws near over the legality of the revenue-raising scheme used to pay for more than $9 billion in broadband and phone service subsidies.

  • May 01, 2025

    NY School District Appeals Mascot Ban While Feds Investigate

    A Long Island, New York, school district is appealing a decision that denied its bid to block a ban on the use of Indigenous mascots and names in public schools, while the federal government investigates the state's education department and board of regents alleging Civil Rights Act violations.

  • May 01, 2025

    States, Green Groups Look To Vacate NEPA Ruling

    States that had asked the Eighth Circuit to revive vacated National Environmental Policy Act regulations are now abandoning their appeal because the White House has eliminated the standards — but they're still asking that a lower court's decision striking down the regulations be overturned.

  • May 01, 2025

    GOP Seeks To Stop 'Frivolous Lawsuits' With Reconciliation

    The House Judiciary Committee approved along party lines a proposal they say will prevent "frivolous lawsuits" by barring courts from enforcing contempt citations for failure to comply with injunctions if the plaintiff has not posted a bond for litigation costs.

  • May 01, 2025

    DHS Urges Justices To Let Venezuelan Protections Be Undone

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security turned to the nation's highest court on Thursday, asking the justices to pause a nationwide injunction blocking the agency from undoing the Biden administration's extension of temporary protected status for Venezuela during its appeal.

Expert Analysis

  • How BigLaw Executive Orders May Affect Smaller Firms

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    Because of the types of cases they take on, solo practitioners, small law firms and public interest attorneys may find themselves more dramatically affected by the collective impact of recent government action involving the legal industry than even the BigLaw firms named in the executive orders, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Filial Consortium Claims' Future After Conn. High Court Ruling

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    While the Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled for defendants in rejecting parents’ attempt to recover loss of companionship damages in a severe child injury case, there is still potential for the plaintiffs bar to lobby for a law that would allow filial consortium claims, Glenn Coffin at Gordon Rees.

  • 5 Tools To Help Existing Gov't Contracts Manage Tariff Costs

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    Five pointers can help government contractors scrutinize their existing contracts for protections like equitable adjustment and duty-free entry clauses, which may help insulate them from tariff-related cost increases, say attorneys at Covington.

  • 4th Circ. Health Data Ruling Opens Door To State Law Claims

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    In Real Time Medical v. PointClickCare, the Fourth Circuit recently clarified that state law claims can rest in part on violations of a federal law that prohibits electronic health information blocking, expanding legal risks for health IT companies and potentially creating exposure to a range of competitive implications, say attorneys at BCLP.

  • Opinion

    Lawsuits Shouldn't Be Shadow Assets For Foreign Capital

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    Third-party litigation financing amplifies inefficiencies from litigation and facilitates national exposure to foreign influence in the U.S. justice system, so full disclosure of financing arrangements should be required as a matter of institutional integrity, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

  • 2 Del. Rulings Reinforce Proof Needed For Records Demands

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    Two recent Delaware Court of Chancery decisions involving Amazon and Paramount Global illustrate the significance of the credible basis standard on books and records requests, underscoring that stockholders seeking to investigate wrongdoing must come forward with actual evidence of misconduct — not mere allegations, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • How To Accelerate Your Post-Attorney Career Transition

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    Professionals seeking to transition to nonattorney careers may encounter skepticism as nontraditional candidates, but there are opportunities for thought leadership and to leverage speaking and writing to accelerate a post-attorney career transition, say Janet Falk at Falk Communications and Evgeny Efremkin at Toronto Metropolitan University.

  • Key Takeaways From The 2025 Spring Antitrust Meeting

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    Leadership changes, shifting priorities and evolving enforcement tools dominated the conversation at the recent American Bar Association Spring Antitrust Meeting, as panelists explored competition policy under a second Trump administration, agency discretion under the 2023 merger guidelines and new frontiers in conduct enforcement, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • 3 Action Items For Innovators Amid Fintech Regulatory Pivot

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    As the federal banking agencies seek to smooth the way for banks to engage in crypto-related activities, banks and technology companies should take note of this new chapter in payments services, especially as leadership in digital financial technology becomes a national priority, says Jess Cheng at Wilson Sonsini.

  • What PFAS-Treated Clothing Tariff Bill Would Mean For Cos.

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    In keeping with a nationwide trend of greater restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives would remove tariff advantages for PFAS-treated clothing — so businesses would be wise to proactively adapt their supply chains and review contracts to mitigate liability, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • How Tariffs May Affect Proxy Contests This Season

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    While global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will certainly chill at least some activity this proxy season, and make defending contests significantly easier, there will likely be many new activist investments once there is more economic certainty, meaning more proxy fights this fall, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Running A Compliant DEI Program After EEOC, DOJ Guidance

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    Following recent guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice that operationalized the Trump administration's focus on ending so-called illegal DEI, employers don't need to eliminate DEI programs, but they must ensure that protected characteristics are not considered in employment decisions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • A Closer Look At New NYSE, Nasdaq Listing Rule Changes

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has recently approved changes to the New York Stock Exchange's and the Nasdaq's listing rules on reverse stock splits, minimum share price requirements and required liquidity for initial listings, meaning listed companies facing delisting will have fewer means to regain compliance, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.

  • Opinion

    GENIUS Act Can Bring Harmony To Crypto-Banking Discord

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    ​​​​​​​By embracing crypto innovation while establishing appropriate guardrails, the so-called GENIUS Act charts a path forward that promotes financial inclusion and technological advancement without compromising stability or constitutional rights, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School.

  • Opinion

    US Reassessment Of OECD Tax Deal Is Right Move

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    The wholesale U.S. reevaluation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax deal ordered by President Donald Trump is a positive step that could ultimately create a more durable international tax system, says Anne Gordon at the National Foreign Trade Council.

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