Expert Analysis

• AG Watch: Va. Race Spotlights Consumer Protection Priorities

  

  Ahead of the state's attorney general election, Virginia companies should assess how either candidate's approach could affect their compliance posture, with incumbent Jason Miyares promising a business-friendly atmosphere that prioritizes public safety and challenger Jay Jones pledging to focus on economic justice and corporate accountability, says Chuck Slemp at Cozen O’Connor.

• Preparing For What DOD Cybersecurity Audits May Uncover

  

  Defense contractors seeking certification under the U.S. Department of Defense's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program that begins implementation on Nov. 10 may discover previously unknown violations, but there are steps they can take to address any issues before they come to the attention of enforcement authorities, say attorneys at Troutman.

• A Look At Project Crypto's Plans For Digital Asset Regulation

  

  U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins' recent announcement of Project Crypto, an agencywide initiative to modernize federal securities regulations, signals a significant shift toward a more flexible regulatory framework that would shape the future of the U.S. digital asset market, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

• Breaking Down The Intersection Of Right-Of-Publicity Law, AI

  

  Jillian Taylor at Blank Rome examines how existing right-of-publicity law governs artificial intelligence-generated voice-overs, deepfakes and deadbots; highlights a recent New York federal court ruling involving AI-generated voice clones; and offers practical guardrails for using AI without violating the right of publicity.

• Civil Maritime Nuclear Sector Poised For Growth, Challenges

  

  The maritime industry now stands on the verge of a nuclear-powered renaissance, with the need for clean energy, resilient power generation and decarbonized logistics driving demand for commercial maritime nuclear technology — but these developments will raise significant new legal, regulatory and technical questions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

• Series

  Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Painting trains me to see both the fine detail and the whole composition at once, enabling me to identify friction points while keeping sight of a client's bigger vision, but the most significant lesson I've brought to my legal work has been the value of originality, says Jana Gouchev at Gouchev Law.

• H-2A Rule Rollback Sheds Light On 2 Policy Litigation Issues

  

  The Trump administration’s recent refusal to defend an immigration regulation implemented by the Biden administration highlights a questionable process that both parties have used to bypass the Administrative Procedure Act’s rulemaking process, and points toward the next step in the fight over universal injunctions, says Mark Stevens at Clark Hill.

• NY AML Rules Get Crypto Rebrand: What It Means For Banks

  

  A recent letter from the New York State Department of Financial Services outlining how banks can use blockchain analytics in anti-money laundering efforts is a reminder that crypto activity is not exempted from banks' role in keeping the financial system safe, says Katherine Lemire at Lankler Siffert.

• What's At Stake At High Court For Presidential Removal Power

  

  Two pending U.S. Supreme Court cases —Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook — raise fundamental questions about the constitutional separation of powers, threaten the 90-year-old precedent of Humphrey's Executor v. U.S. and will determine the president's authority to control independent federal agencies, says Kolya Glick at Arnold & Porter.

• Using The GHG Protocol For California Climate Reporting

  

  With the California Air Resources Board's recent announcement that entities subject to the state's climate disclosure laws can use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as a standard for structured, auditable reporting, a review of methods, data sources and disclosures under the protocol is timely for compliance planning, says Thierry Montoya at Frost Brown.

• Employer Considerations As Ill. Ends Mandatory Fact-Finding

  

  Illinois recently eliminated mandatory fact-finding conferences, and while such meetings tend to benefit complainants, respondent employers should not dismiss them out of hand without conducting a thorough analysis of the risks and benefits, which will vary from case to case, says Kimberly Ross at FordHarrison.

• Courts Are Still Grappling With McDonnell, 9 Years Later

  

  The Seventh and D.C. Circuits’ recent decisions in U.S. v. Weiss and U.S. v. Paitsel, respectively, demonstrate that courts are still struggling to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in McDonnell v. U.S., which narrowed the scope of “official acts” in federal bribery cases, say attorneys at Quinn Emanuel.

• Compliance Pointers Amid Domestic Terrorism Clampdown

  

  A recent presidential memorandum marks a shift in federal domestic-terrorism enforcement that should prompt nonprofits to enhance diligence related to grantees, vendors and events, and financial institutions to shore up their internal resources for increased suspicious-activity monitoring and reporting obligations, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

• Trump Tax Law Has Mixed Impacts On Commercial Real Estate

  

  The One Big Beautiful Bill Act brings sweeping changes to the real estate industry — and while the permanency of opportunity zones and bonus depreciation creates predictability for some taxpayers, sunsetting incentives for renewable energy projects will leave others with hard choices, says Jordan Metzger at Cole Schotz.

• CFTC, SEC Joint Statement Highlights New Unity On Crypto

  

  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent joint statement announcing a cross-agency initiative enabling certain spot crypto-asset products to trade on regulated exchanges is the earliest and most visible instance of interagency cooperation on crypto regulation, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.