Public Policy

  • December 04, 2025

    Squires Clarifies Points On Patent Eligibility Declarations

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires is reminding applicants that they can file declarations explaining why their patents are eligible under Section 101 of the Patent Act and that examiners need to consider them when filed. 

  • December 04, 2025

    Kalshi Sues Conn. Over Online Gambling Enforcement Case

    Derivatives exchange KalshiEX LLC has sued the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection and its leaders over a cease-and-desist order issued by the department directing Kalshi to stop operations within the state.

  • December 04, 2025

    Gov't Watchdog To Probe FHFA Mortgage Fraud Referrals

    The Government Accountability Office will review whether Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte weaponized mortgage fraud investigations against the president's perceived political opponents and flouted the agency's typical investigation process.

  • December 04, 2025

    Trump Admin. Slashes Work Permit Validity To 18 Months

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Thursday said work permits will only be valid for 18 months rather than five years for some categories of immigrants, including refugees, asylees and those granted withholding of removal.

  • December 04, 2025

    Kimmel Brouhaha Brings Out Levity At DC's 'Telecom Prom'

    ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's roller coaster ride at the hands of the Federal Communications Commission took center stage Wednesday at a light-hearted Washington dinner for telecom lawyers, as FCC Chair Brendan Carr served up a comedic bit over the controversy that followed Kimmel's recent war of words with the agency chief.

  • December 04, 2025

    9th Circ. Says Species' Competing Interests Impact ESA Cases

    The Ninth Circuit has ruled that when a court-ordered injunction would protect one animal or plant covered by the Endangered Species Act but harm another, the court must weigh their "competing" interests before taking action.

  • December 04, 2025

    Senate Impeachment Hearing On Judges Likely In January

    The Senate hearing on impeachment of "rogue" judges is likely going to be rescheduled for January, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who will be chairing the hearing, told Law360 on Thursday.  

  • December 04, 2025

    EU To Probe Meta's WhatsApp Restrictions On AI Providers

    European enforcers have launched an investigation into recent changes Meta made to its WhatsApp policies over concerns that they block artificial intelligence providers from communicating with their users on the messaging platform.

  • December 04, 2025

    Dem Lawmakers Push Equity-Focused Cannabis Reforms

    A group of Democratic Congress members on Thursday unveiled a proposed U.S. House of Representatives resolution urging Congress to push policies strengthening equity in the state-regulated marijuana markets and for the U.S. to encourage international drug reform.

  • December 04, 2025

    NY Fed. Court Urged To Vacate ICE's Courthouse Arrest Policy

    Two New York-based nonprofit organizations that provide immigration and settlement services are urging a federal court to halt arrests of noncitizens at immigration courts, while the Trump administration has responded that such arrests are discretionary decisions outside the court's purview.

  • December 04, 2025

    CDC Vaccine Committee Punts Hepatitis B Vote Again

    Federal vaccine advisers on Thursday put off a vote on changing guidelines for a long-used hepatitis B vaccine for infants, delaying again a decision expected to have wide-ranging ramifications for national childhood vaccine policy in the U.S.

  • December 04, 2025

    Fla. High Court Backs University Control Over Nonprofit

    The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a university can control a research nonprofit's budget and approve its board members, saying a state law doesn't impair a memorandum of understanding between the two parties. 

  • December 04, 2025

    Supreme Court Allows Texas Redistricting Map To Stay For Now

    The U.S. Supreme Court gave Texas a green light Thursday to adopt its redrawn congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, staying a decision by the lower court that blocked the new maps as the case plays out.

  • December 04, 2025

    9th Circ. To Decide Agents' Immunity In Fatal Ariz. Shooting

    An Arizona federal judge has agreed to let three U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents pause a lawsuit against them until the Ninth Circuit weighs in on whether they are immune from the suit claiming they wrongfully shot and killed a Tohono O'odham Nation man.

  • December 04, 2025

    Credit Bureaus Can't Duck Suit Over Excluded Medical Debt

    A California federal judge has found that Equifax, Experian and TransUnion must face key parts of a rejiggered proposed antitrust class action from medical practices and collection agencies targeting the credit reporting agencies' decision to exclude medical debt under $500 from consumer credit reports.

  • December 04, 2025

    Mass. Justices Unlikely To Revive Verizon Tower Suit

    Justices on Massachusetts' highest court appeared unlikely to second-guess a local health board's decision to drop an enforcement action against Verizon over perceived health effects from a cell tower after the telecom filed suit.

  • December 04, 2025

    LA Fitness Says FTC Can't Expand Online Shopping Law

    LA Fitness urged a California federal judge to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit alleging the gym has burdensome cancellation methods, arguing Wednesday that it fails to state a claim under the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, which doesn't apply to brick-and-mortar businesses and only regulates online commerce.

  • December 04, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Prior Art Ruling Conflicts With AIA, Justices Told

    The Federal Circuit ruling that the filing date of a patent application dictates whether it can be used as prior art to invalidate a later patent is at odds with the law that created the modern administrative patent review system, one of the law's chief architects told the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

  • December 04, 2025

    Nixon Peabody Hires Cybersecurity Atty For Boston Office

    Nixon Peabody LLP has added to its cybersecurity and privacy team in Boston with a newly hired attorney from Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, saying she focuses on privacy, governance, risk, compliance and public policy matters.

  • December 04, 2025

    AILA Says Texas Migrant Arrest Law Not Mirror Of Federal Law

    The American Immigration Lawyers Association has urged the full Fifth Circuit to affirm a split panel decision upholding an injunction of Texas' Senate Bill 4, arguing that the state's migrant arrest law conflicts with federal law in a key way.

  • December 04, 2025

    Mich. Judge Throws Out Mail-In Ballot Matching Guidance

    A Michigan state court judge has ruled that absentee ballots returned with a missing or mismatched ballot stub may not be counted, siding with the Republican National Commitee and local challengers.

  • December 04, 2025

    Crenshaw Blasts SEC Short-Selling Rules Deadline Extension

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's outgoing, lone Democratic commissioner has criticized the agency's decision to extend the compliance dates for a pair of Biden-era regulations aimed at bolstering transparency in the short-selling market, calling the move a "repeal by extension."

  • December 04, 2025

    Treasury To Float Guidance For Budget Bill's Int'l Provisions

    The U.S. Treasury Department announced plans Thursday to issue regulations for international tax provisions that were modified under the federal budget bill in July, including guidance to help corporations calculate foreign tax credits on certain types of overseas income.

  • December 04, 2025

    US, Tribes Ask High Court To Uphold Michigan Fishing Pact

    Four Michigan tribes and the federal government are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a petition by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians to overturn a decision to uphold a 2023 Great Lakes fishing compact, telling the justices that the case is not "the stuff of certiorari."

  • December 04, 2025

    SDNY Judge Unsure Of Jurisdiction In Maurene Comey Suit

    A Manhattan federal judge said Thursday he may not have jurisdiction over former prosecutor Maurene Comey's suit claiming President Donald Trump's rivalry with her father, former FBI Director James Comey, led to her firing.

Expert Analysis

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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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.

  • Regulatory Uncertainties Loom As Fed Ends Crypto Oversight

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    The Federal Reserve Bank's recently ended crypto supervisory program headlines other recent federal actions from Congress, the White House and relevant agencies that may complicate financial institutions' digital-asset use and attendant compliance strategies, say attorneys at Buchalter.

  • What The New Nondomiciled-Trucker Rule Means For Carriers

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    A new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration interim final rule restricting states' issuance of commercial drivers licenses to nondomiciled drivers does not alter motor carriers' obligations to verify drivers' qualifications, but may create disruptions by reducing the number of eligible drivers, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • EU-US Data Transfer Ruling Offers Reassurance To Cos.

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    The European Union General Court’s recent upholding of the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework in Latombe v. European Commission, although subject to appeal, provides companies with legal certainty for the first time by allowing the transfer of European Economic Area personal data without relying on alternative mechanisms, say lawyers at Wilson Sonsini.

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