Public Policy

  • April 16, 2026

    Ky. Conforms To Fed. Tax Changes, Nixes Tax Threshold

    The Kentucky General Assembly overrode the governor's veto of a bill that eliminates its sales tax nexus transaction threshold, levies sales tax on data brokering services and will conform the state's tax code with some provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

  • April 16, 2026

    NJ US Atty's Office Turmoil Doesn't Nix Conviction, Judge Rules

    A federal judge on Thursday rejected a New Jersey criminal defendant's attempt to dismiss his conviction and disqualify the state's top federal prosecutor, holding that the appointment of the current U.S. attorney complies with federal law and that any earlier defects in leadership do not warrant dismissal.

  • April 16, 2026

    NJ Justices To Weigh Municipal Counsel Conflict Of Interest

    The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to review a state ethics opinion that bars attorneys from simultaneously serving as corporation counsel to a municipality and general counsel to a regional fire and rescue agency that the municipality helps fund, setting an expedited briefing schedule.

  • April 16, 2026

    DOL Benefits Chief Pressed On Labor Secretary's Conduct

    The head of the U.S. Department of Labor's employee benefits arm faced tough questions from House Democrats at an oversight hearing Thursday, fielding questions about the labor secretary's on-the-job conduct as well as the DOL's take on mental health parity enforcement. 

  • April 16, 2026

    Foreign Truckers Sue Over 'Catastrophic' License Ban

    Nineteen foreign truckers sued the federal trucking regulator and Florida's motor vehicle agency over a federal rule barring roughly 200,000 noncitizen truckers from getting commercial driver's licenses, saying those with valid federal work permits are being left in the lurch.

  • April 16, 2026

    Calif. Lawyer Sues Over State Bar Investigations

    A California trial lawyer claimed in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that he has been unfairly investigated by the state bar since 2019, alleging the office "illegally prioritizes revenue-generation over protection of the public."

  • April 16, 2026

    USPTO Ends COVID Patent Appeals Program

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has decided to end a program launched five years ago that aimed to prioritize and fast-track ex parte appeals of rejections on patent applications for inventions related to combating COVID-19.

  • April 16, 2026

    Dems Call On Watchdog To Probe DOJ Antitrust Work

    A group of Democratic federal lawmakers this week called on the U.S. Department of Justice's acting inspector general to investigate the possibility that lobbying has led to misconduct in the department's antitrust work, including the DOJ's recent surprise settlement with event ticketing giant Live Nation.

  • April 16, 2026

    ICE Ordered To Stop Work On Maryland Detention Center

    A Maryland federal court blocked the Trump administration from continuing construction work to convert an existing warehouse into an immigrant detention center while a challenge brought by the state under federal environmental regulations plays out.

  • April 16, 2026

    Higher Ed Group Seeks Fees After Beating DOE Research Cap

    An organization of public and private research universities has asked a Massachusetts federal judge to award attorney fees and costs in a successful challenge to a U.S. Department of Energy limit on reimbursements for indirect costs of grant-funded research, the third such request since last fall.

  • April 16, 2026

    8th Circ. Weighs Link Between Cannabis Use And Danger

    An Eighth Circuit panel weighing a man's conviction for owning a firearm as an unlawful marijuana user appeared inclined Thursday to reject his Second Amendment challenge and rule that his violent actions warranted the charge as it was applied to him.

  • April 16, 2026

    Texas Judge Vacates IRS' Steep Microcaptive Reporting Rule

    A Texas federal judge vacated a tax code regulation designating microcaptive insurance transactions as listed transactions subject to deep scrutiny and hefty penalties, saying the Internal Revenue Service didn't prove that they are mostly for tax avoidance and not really for insurance.

  • April 16, 2026

    Nebraska Inmates Sue Over Access To Native Religious Area

    Two Indigenous men are asking a federal court to block a Nebraska Department of Corrections' 60-day ban on access to a religious space within a Lincoln prison yard, arguing that the policy is keeping roughly 60 inmates from practicing essential elements of their faith.

  • April 16, 2026

    Pa. Justices Eye New Approach For 'De Facto' Juvenile Lifers

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court seemed open Thursday to subjecting "de facto life sentences" for juvenile offenders to additional scrutiny, though several justices hypothesized that heinous crimes could still carry long prison terms if a court weighed all the necessary factors.

  • April 16, 2026

    Feds Can't Block Hawaii's Suit Against Oil, Gas Companies

    A Hawaii federal judge has dismissed with prejudice a suit from the U.S. government aiming to block the state from suing oil and gas companies on climate change-related claims, finding the government's complaint fails to establish any of the elements of standing.

  • April 15, 2026

    Immigration Board Won't Undo Removable Finding For Khalil

    The Board of Immigration Appeals has affirmed an administrative law judge's order finding that Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil can be removed because of alleged misrepresentations he made on his green card application and "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences," according to an opinion made public Wednesday.

  • April 15, 2026

    Food Apps' NYC Data Win Seems 'Weird' To 2nd Circ. Judges

    Does the First Amendment allow Uber Eats to keep your Chick-fil-A order a secret? At the Second Circuit on Wednesday, the fate of a New York City law aimed at reducing restaurant reliance on food delivery apps appeared to hinge heavily on that curious question.

  • April 15, 2026

    Justice Jackson Slams Court's 'Oblivious' Emergency Orders

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson this week slammed her conservative colleagues' use of the court's emergency docket, which has repeatedly benefited the Trump administration, saying that such "scratch-paper" orders don't acknowledge the harms that can follow such decisions, making the orders "seem oblivious and thus ring hollow."

  • April 15, 2026

    John Eastman Disbarred Over Bid To Overturn 2020 Election

    California's highest court on Wednesday ordered the disbarment of California attorney John Charles Eastman, who a state bar court found had helped plan and promote President Donald Trump's strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

  • April 15, 2026

    Trump Defends DOJ Investigation Of 'Incompetent' Fed Chair

    President Donald Trump expressed support Wednesday for the U.S. Department of Justice continuing to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the Fed's headquarters renovation, saying the government must "find out what happened" with the project's $2.5 billion price tag.

  • April 15, 2026

    Roblox To Pay $12.5M, Boost Child Safety In Deal With Nev.

    Roblox has agreed to implement enhanced safeguards for children who use the popular interactive gaming platform and pay $12.5 million to fund an online safety awareness campaign and other initiatives as part of what Nevada's attorney general on Wednesday called a first-of-its-kind agreement to resolve claims that the company failed to adequately protect its youngest users. 

  • April 15, 2026

    Amneal Trims But Can't Nix AGs' Drug Price-Fixing Suit

    There is enough evidence from which a jury could conclude that Amneal Pharmaceuticals participated in a conspiracy to fix the price of an epilepsy medication, but not enough to show it participated in the overarching antitrust conspiracy alleged by dozens of state attorneys general, a Connecticut federal judge ruled Wednesday.

  • April 15, 2026

    'Deemed' Admissions End Tribal Cannabis Raid Suit

    A California federal judge tossed a lawsuit claiming Riverside County in Southern California and its sheriff's department illegally raided a cannabis operation on sovereign tribal land, due to insufficient discovery responses that resulted in "deemed" admissions. 

  • April 15, 2026

    NY Appeals Panel Doubts NYC's Climate Suit Can Be Revived

    New York state appeals judges voiced skepticism Wednesday of New York City's bid to revive its lawsuit against major energy companies for "greenwashing" their gasoline products, highlighting the lack of alleged false claims and questioning whether they were even misleading.

  • April 15, 2026

    Alaska's Pebble Mine Allies Say EPA Project Veto Is Illegal

    Two Alaska Native groups, the state and a mining company have urged a federal judge to vacate a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency veto blocking a proposed mineral project that could harm salmon populations, saying the EPA overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Futures Market Anonymity Now Presents A Structural Problem

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    Following anomalous trading on prediction markets just before major recent policy announcements from the Trump administration, many have called on Congress to act, but the problem is not primarily a statutory gap — it is a structural one, built into the self-regulatory model that governs futures exchanges, says Tamara de Silva at De Silva Law Offices.

  • How Calif. Safety Worker Pension Bill Could Cost Employers

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    Public employers should carefully consider how pension costs and bargaining concerns could change under a California Legislature bill that would increase retirement benefits for safety employees like police and firefighters, which could erode previous efforts to fully fund the public retirement system without necessarily improving worker retention, says Michael Youril at Liebert Cassidy.

  • 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.

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