Public Policy

  • December 12, 2025

    1st Circ. OKs Barring Medicaid Planned Parenthood Coverage

    A First Circuit panel on Friday upheld the Trump administration's ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, vacating a lower court's order that would've kept in place Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood clinics in 22 states.

  • December 12, 2025

    Live Nation Consumers Get Class Certified In Antitrust Case

    A California federal judge Friday certified a class of consumers accusing Live Nation of monopolizing the live entertainment industry, rejecting the company's argument that there aren't common issues that predominate over individual ones and adopting a tentative ruling he issued earlier this month.

  • December 12, 2025

    Reddit Fights Australia's Social Media Ban For Kids Under 16

    Global online discussion forum Reddit on Thursday launched a legal challenge to Australia's first-of-its-kind law prohibiting children under 16 from creating accounts on nearly a dozen popular social media platforms, telling the country's top court that the measure illegally restrains minors' political communications and that there are "less restrictive" ways to protect kids online.

  • December 12, 2025

    Fired MSPB Member Urges Full DC Circ. To Rehear Case

    A D.C. Circuit panel based its decision to uphold Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris' firing on a mischaracterization of the agency, Harris argued Friday to the full D.C. Circuit, asking the en banc court to override the decision, bring her back to work and preserve MSPB members' job protections.

  • December 12, 2025

    Texas Justices Broaden Protections For Road Contractors

    The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that contractors doing work superintended by the state Department of Transportation may be able to avoid personal injury liability, reasoning that an appellate panel erroneously found the department had to hire the contractors for the statute's protections to apply.

  • December 12, 2025

    Mich. High Court Backs Rejection Of Farmwork Comp Suit

    A closely divided Michigan Supreme Court on Friday let stand a lower appellate court holding that a nonprofit's legal challenge to a state policy denying workers' compensation pay to unauthorized immigrants was filed too late.

  • December 12, 2025

    Wash. Fines Insurer $350K For 'Sharing Ministry' Health Plans

    Washington Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer has announced a $350,000 fine against a Texas-based insurer and other businesses over "healthcare sharing ministry" memberships that her office claimed violated state law by excluding coverage of preexisting conditions and services such as abortion.

  • December 12, 2025

    Squires Institutes 7 AIA Reviews, Denies 12 Other Petitions

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has instituted seven America Invents Act reviews in the second round of cases where he has found that patent challenges warrant consideration since taking over the institution process.

  • December 12, 2025

    30 Years On, PSLRA Debates Still Rage In Securities Cases

    Thirty years ago this month, Congress overrode a presidential veto to enact a law that changed the landscape of shareholder class action lawsuits. How the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act will continue to change that landscape remains a live issue as courts continue to wrestle with the question of how investors can prove that they've been injured by alleged corporate malfeasance.

  • December 12, 2025

    Senate Passes Bill To Consolidate VA Procurement

    The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill on Thursday that would create a centralized office in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to oversee major acquisition programs and overhaul the agency's contracting processes.

  • December 12, 2025

    CFTC Drops 'Outdated' Crypto Guidance On Actual Delivery

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has withdrawn what it called "outdated" guidance on the actual delivery of cryptocurrency, to be more in line with recommendations from the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, and has issued no-action letters to several prediction market platforms.

  • December 12, 2025

    Wash. Justices Retroactively Lower Bar Exam's Passing Score

    As Washington state is preparing to transition to a new bar exam, its Supreme Court has ordered a retroactive adjustment to the current exam's minimum passing score, making an estimated hundred-plus law school graduates who narrowly failed in recent years newly eligible for admission to practice law.

  • December 12, 2025

    Bill Would Let Fed Workers Use Uniformed Services Works

    Federal lawmakers have introduced a copyright bill to the U.S. House of Representatives that would give employees of the federal government permission to use literary works produced by civilian members of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences for work and other purposes.

  • December 12, 2025

    Full 3rd Circ. Will Review NJ 'Sensitive Places' Gun Law

    The Third Circuit has agreed to rehear en banc a high‑profile challenge to New Jersey's firearms law, vacating a September panel decision that upheld major portions of the state's sweeping "sensitive places" restrictions while striking down others.

  • December 12, 2025

    Dropped FTC Complaint: Pepsi Gave Walmart A 'Price Gap'

    The Federal Trade Commission's newly unsealed New York federal court complaint confirms that the agency had accused Pepsi of favoring Walmart, until the newly Republican-controlled FTC abandoned the lawsuit alleging the soda giant both gave Walmart discounts denied others and actively sought to raise Walmart's rivals' own prices.

  • December 12, 2025

    Merchant Orgs. Fight Latest Visa, Mastercard Swipe-Fee Deal

    The National Association of College Stores, Energy Markets of America and other industry groups objected Friday to a proposed new settlement between Visa, Mastercard and a class of potentially millions of merchants to resolve two decades of antitrust litigation, claiming the deal "does not come close to fixing the swipe fee challenges" faced by merchants.

  • December 12, 2025

    OCC Conditionally Grants 5 Crypto-Focused Trust Charters

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday gave five crypto-focused firms a preliminary nod to operate as national trust banks, clearing the way for crypto to integrate further into the banking system despite pushback from banking lobbyists.

  • December 12, 2025

    DOJ Shake-Up Keeps Criminal Tax Meetings, Ex-Official Says

    The U.S. Department of Justice — despite recently eliminating its Tax Division as part of a broad restructuring — continues to meet with practitioners representing clients who may face federal criminal tax charges, the former division chief said Friday.

  • December 12, 2025

    IRS To Revamp Voluntary Disclosure Program

    The Internal Revenue Service will be updating a program early next year that would allow taxpayers to voluntarily report previously undisclosed income as a way to resolve their tax issues to facilitate a simpler reporting process, the agency's criminal enforcement chief said Friday.

  • December 12, 2025

    7th Circ. Halts Release For Hundreds Of Ill. ICE Detainees

    The Seventh Circuit on Thursday halted a Chicago federal judge's order requiring the release of hundreds of immigrants arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the Trump administration was likely to succeed in arguing he should have conducted individual determinations about whether their arrest violated a consent decree it had previously entered in the case.

  • December 12, 2025

    National Trust Sues To Halt Trump's Ballroom Construction

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation asked a D.C. federal judge to stop construction on a White House ballroom until Trump administration officials complete mandatory review processes that they blew off before unilaterally razing the East Wing to make room for the structure.

  • December 12, 2025

    Wireless Group Calls For High Court Review Of FCC Fines

    The major wireless carriers' trade group on Friday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Verizon's case against a $46 million privacy fine, saying the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial is too important to leave questions unanswered about its reach.

  • December 12, 2025

    Duke Energy Pushes Back On DOJ's View Of 'Monopoly Broth'

    Duke Energy told the U.S. Supreme Court the government is backing a rival's antitrust claims accusing the power giant of squeezing it out of the North Carolina market simply to help enforcers' own cases accusing Big Tech companies of using a "monopoly broth" to thwart competition.

  • December 12, 2025

    Crypto Industry Balks At Citadel Securities' Call For Regs

    Cryptocurrency advocates pushed back Friday against Citadel Securities' request that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission more closely monitor decentralized trading platforms, contending that placing the industry under the same strictures as traditional exchanges would "undermine" innovation.

  • December 12, 2025

    20 States Sue Trump Admin Over $100K H-1B Visa Fee

    A coalition of 20 states, led by the California attorney general, sued the Trump administration Friday to challenge a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, saying the fee goes against Congress' intent for the work visa program.

Expert Analysis

  • Nonprofits Face Uncertainty Over Political Activity Rules

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    Two federal court decisions suggesting that the Internal Revenue Service's rules for 501(c)(4) organizations' political activity may be too vague to survive constitutional scrutiny leave nonprofit organizations caught between constitutional limits on government regulation of speech and tax limits on their exempt status, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • Opinion

    Supreme Court Term Limits Would Carry Hidden Risk

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    While proposals for limiting the terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices are popular, a steady stream of relatively young, highly marketable ex-justices with unique knowledge and influence entering the marketplace of law and politics could create new problems, say Michael Broyde at Emory University and Hayden Hall at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

  • Navigating A Sea Change In Rent Algorithm Regulation

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's proposed settlement of the RealPage lawsuit represents a pivotal moment in the regulation of algorithmic rent-setting, restraining use of these tools amid a growing trend of regulatory limits on use of algorithmic data and methodologies in establishing housing rental prices. say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

  • Tariffs And Trade Volatility Drove 2025 Bankruptcy Wave

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    The Trump administration's tariff regime has reshaped the commercial restructuring landscape this year, with an increased number of bankruptcy filings showing how tariffs are influencing first‑day narratives, debtor-in-possession terms and case strategies, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Insuring Equality: 3 Tips To Preserve Coverage For DEI Claims

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    Directors and officers and employment practices liability are key coverages for policyholders to review as potentially responsive to the emerging liability threat of Trump's executive orders targeting corporate diversity, equity and inclusion policies and practices, says Micah Skidmore at Haynes Boone.

  • Opinion

    Justice Requires Excluding Manner Of Death As Evidence

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    A recent report showing that the unstandardized and subjective U.S. system of medicolegal death investigations contributes to unjust convictions should prompt courts and lawmakers to reject manner of death testimony in favor of more transparent and testable forensic evidence, say Peter Neufeld and Isabelle Cohn at the Innocence Project.

  • The SEC Whistleblower Program A Year Into 2nd Trump Admin

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's whistleblower program continues to operate as designed, but its internal cadence, scrutiny of claims and operational structure reflect a period of recalibration, with precision mattering more than ever, say attorneys Scott Silver and David Chase.

  • Autonomous Vehicle Liability Trends To Watch In 2026

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    With autonomous vehicles increasingly making their own decisions, the liability landscape for AVs has changed over the past year — highlighting a number of important issues that companies and practitioners should keep a close eye on in 2026, says Farid Yaghoubtil at Downtown LA Law Group.

  • Key Crypto Class Action Trends And Rulings In 2025

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    As the law continued to take shape in the growing area of crypto-assets, this year saw a jump in crypto class action litigation, including noteworthy decisions on motions to compel arbitration and class certification, according to Justin Donoho at Duane Morris.

  • New Russia Energy Sanctions Add Compliance Complexity

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    Recent U.S. and U.K. designations of Russian oil companies and related entities, as well as a new sanctions package from EU, mark a significant escalation in restrictions on the Russian energy industry and add a new layer of regulatory complications for companies operating in the global energy sector, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • 6 Laws For Calif. Employers To Know In 2026

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    California's legislative changes for 2026 impose sweeping new obligations on employers, including by expanding pay data reporting, clarifying protections related to bias mitigation training and broadening record access rights, but employers can avoid heightened exposure by proactively evaluating their compliance, modernizing internal systems and updating policies, says Alexa Foley at Gordon Rees.

  • How New SEC Policies Shift Shareholder Proposal Landscape

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    U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins' recent remarks provide a road map for public companies to exclude nonbinding shareholder proposals from proxy materials, which would disrupt the mechanism that has traditionally defined how shareholders and companies engage on governance matters, say attorneys at Gunderson.

  • NBA, MLB Betting Indictments: Slam Dunks Or Strikeouts?

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    Recent fraud charges against bettors, NBA players and MLB pitchers raise questions about what the government will need to prove to prosecute individuals involved in placing bets based on nonpublic information, and it could be a tough sell to juries, say attorneys at Ford O'Brien.

  • Tracking The Evolution Of AI Insurance Regulation In 2025

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    As artificial intelligence continues to transform the insurance industry, including underwriting, pricing, claims processing and customer engagement, state regulators, led by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, are increasing oversight to ensure that innovation does not outpace consumer protections, say attorneys at Fenwick.

  • Series

    Knitting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Stretching my skills as a knitter makes me a better antitrust attorney by challenging me to recalibrate after wrong turns, not rush outcomes, and trust that I can teach myself the skills to tackle new and difficult projects — even when I don’t have a pattern to work from, says Kara Kuritz at V&E.

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