Public Policy

  • July 12, 2024

    7 Gender-Affirming Care Cases To Watch In 2024's 2nd Half

    The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a constitutional challenge by the federal government to Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, while other appeals courts are weighing the constitutionality of states' and employers' restrictions on gender dysphoria treatment. Here are seven cases involving gender-affirming care access that attorneys will be tracking in the second half of the year.

  • July 12, 2024

    Litigation Funding 'Abuses' Targeted By Federal Lawmakers

    Federal lawmakers are seeking to put the reins on third-party investors bankrolling litigation, with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introducing legislation that would require disclosure of third-party financing deals in civil lawsuits, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asking Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday to have the Judicial Conference review the practice.

  • July 12, 2024

    FINRA's Remote Inspection Pilot Met With Praise, Caution

    The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's new pilot program for remote inspections of broker-dealers has earned praise from attorneys, who say the measures accommodate the reality of remote work routines, but they're waiting to see how the chips fall on questions including the adequacy of the regulator's data security measures.

  • July 12, 2024

    Biggest Colorado Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

    The U.S. Supreme Court's quick reversal of Colorado justices' decision removing former President Donald Trump from the state's ballots and a Boulder County judge's ruling clearing the way for landmark climate litigation about major oil companies rank among the most important decisions affecting Colorado so far this year.

  • July 12, 2024

    Biggest Washington Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

    The first half of 2024 in Washington courts was punctuated by a fizzled startup's $72 million trial win against The Boeing Co., and Monsanto Co.'s appellate reversal of a $185 million verdict in one of a series of high-profile PCB poisoning cases. Here is a closer look at some of the biggest decisions in Washington state and federal courts in the first half of 2024.

  • July 12, 2024

    NJ Commission of Investigation Leader Dies In Car Crash

    The executive director of the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation has died in a car crash in Mercer County, officials announced.

  • July 12, 2024

    Judge OKs Another Penalty Duty Over Chinese Loan Program

    The U.S. Department of Commerce justifiably penalized a Chinese aluminum importer over Beijing's refusal to disclose information on an export loan program, the U.S. Court of International Trade said, finding the importer hadn't filled the gap in the record.

  • July 12, 2024

    European Tax Policy To Watch In The Second Half Of 2024

    Observers of European Union tax policy expect the EU to devote more attention to problems with existing tax legislation in the coming months as the introduction of major policy proposals takes a pause. Specialists also will be watching for progress on EU tax laws that remain stuck, and the bloc is likely to fill roles including tax commissioner. Here, Law360 examines key tax issues to watch for the remaining six months of the year.

  • July 12, 2024

    Feds Seek 2 Years For Mass. Atty In Campaign Finance Scam

    Boston federal prosecutors want a former BigLaw attorney to serve two years in prison for his conviction for a raft of campaign finance violations tied to his 2018 run for an open congressional seat in Massachusetts.

  • July 12, 2024

    Former Colorado Court Workers Settle Sexism Claims

    The Colorado State Courts Administrator's Office said in a joint notice that it has settled a lawsuit in Denver District Court with two former workers who said they were laid off as part of a broader pattern of gender discrimination against female employees.

  • July 12, 2024

    FTC Says Abandoned Novant Deal Moots Lower Court Loss

    The Federal Trade Commission is looking to unravel a North Carolina federal judge's order allowing Novant's planned $320 million hospital merger to advance after it subsequently abandoned the deal, telling the Fourth Circuit the appeal is moot and the order should be vacated.

  • July 12, 2024

    Former City Treasurer Gets 30 Months In $1M Embezzlement

    A former city treasurer in Alaska was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after having admitted to tax evasion and fraud in connection with a $1 million embezzlement scheme, according to Alaska federal court documents.

  • July 12, 2024

    Biggest Illinois Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

    State and federal courts have handed down rulings so far this year that limited the reach of a federal bribery law commonly used to prosecute Illinois corruption, laid out a framework to challenge so-called mootness fees and clarified the scope of Illinois defamation and antitrust law. Here's a look at some of the biggest Illinois decisions in the first half of 2024.

  • July 12, 2024

    New Bill Urges Action To Free Imprisoned Binance Exec

    A new resolution from Republican lawmakers would have the U.S. House of Representatives formally urge the federal government to designate imprisoned Binance executive and former IRS agent Tigran Gambaryan as wrongfully detained and demand his immediate release from the Nigerian government.

  • July 11, 2024

    Trump Says Immunity Ruling Means Conviction Must Be Axed

    Donald Trump has officially lodged his request for his conviction to be vacated in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision, arguing that prosecutors' evidence in the hush money case rests on official acts he took as president, according to a redacted motion made public Thursday.

  • July 11, 2024

    Sens. Say AI Fuels Need For Data Privacy Law But Fail To Act

    Members of a key U.S. Senate committee Thursday largely agreed that companies' growing efforts to amass private information to fuel artificial intelligence technologies are accelerating the need for a federal data privacy framework, but they failed to make progress on a bipartisan proposal opposed by the committee's top Republican.

  • July 11, 2024

    Sens. Pitch COPIED Act To Fight AI-Content, Empower Artists

    A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation dubbed the COPIED Act on Thursday to fight the growth of AI-generated "deepfakes," proposing a framework that would give journalists and artists control over their work via a watermarking process and allow them to sue those who use their work without permission.

  • July 11, 2024

    Whispers, Curses As Menendez Trial Inches Toward Jury

    Federal corruption prosecutors wound down their bribery case against Sen. Robert Menendez Thursday with a mixture of dramatic into-the-mic whispering and reliance on the adjective "damn" as they argued that nothing in the tale would make sense without the alchemizing element of crime.

  • July 11, 2024

    Biden's FDIC Pick Hangs Tough Amid GOP Doubts On Record

    President Joe Biden's candidate for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chair faced scrutiny Thursday as Republican senators at her nomination hearing expressed their skepticism about her readiness to lead the agency, but her critics nevertheless appeared unlikely to derail her prospects for confirmation outright.

  • July 11, 2024

    Calif. Tribe Seeks $8.2M For Cultural Site Destruction

    The Quechan Indian Tribe is asking a California federal judge to award it $8.2 million after the court found that a federal government construction project to replace poles for 9 miles of transmission lines damaged 10 cultural and sacred archaeological sites on the tribe's reservation.

  • July 11, 2024

    Biden Taps Warren Protege, Ex-CFPB Atty For CFTC Seat

    President Joe Biden on Thursday nominated a senior Office of Management and Budget official and former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau attorney to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to replace one of two current CFTC members who themselves have been nominated for other offices.

  • July 11, 2024

    Tempur Sealy, Mattress Firm Blast FTC's Merger Challenge

    Tempur Sealy and Mattress Firm fired back at the Federal Trade Commission's bid to block a proposed merger between the mattress companies, contending in separate filings that the FTC's ambiguous allegations require tossing the agency's administrative complaint.

  • July 11, 2024

    Kroger Asks To Delay At Least Part Of FTC Challenge

    Kroger and Albertsons are asking an administrative law judge from the Federal Trade Commission to pause the evidentiary portion of the agency's in-house case against the supermarket giants' merger, saying the companies are facing too many overlapping cases in different venues to adequately prepare and present their case.

  • July 11, 2024

    Broker Says FINRA Owes Him Jury Trial After Jarkesy Ruling

    The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has been hit with a suit from a member who says the regulator's allegations in an internal proceeding to sanction and expel him are assertions of common law fraud and therefore must be brought before a court and jury under the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Jarkesy decision.

  • July 11, 2024

    Federal Home Booze Ban Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

    The federal laws banning making liquor at home are unconstitutional, a Texas federal judge said Wednesday, granting a permanent injunction to a home distilling group and saying the ban goes beyond Congress' enumerated powers.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    After Chevron: Various Paths For Labor And Employment Law

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    Labor and employment law leans heavily on federal agency guidance, so the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to toss out Chevron deference will ripple through this area, with future workplace policies possibly taking shape through strategic litigation, informal guidance, state-level regulation and more, says Alexander MacDonald at Littler.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • What NYC's Green Fast Track Means For Affordable Housing

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    New York City's Green Fast Track for Housing initiative, which went into effect last month, aims to speed up the environmental review process for modest residential developments and could potentially pave the way for similar initiatives in other cities, say Vivien Krieger and Rachel Scall at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Series

    After Chevron: No Deference, No Difference For SEC Or CFTC

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    The Chevron doctrine did not fundamentally alter the interplay between the courts and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the development of the securities and commodities laws — and its demise will not do so either, says Dan Berkovitz at Millennium Management.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • Justices' Bribery Ruling: A Corrupt Act Isn't Necessarily Illegal

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    In its Snyder v. U.S. decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a bribery law does not criminalize gratuities, continuing a trend of narrowing federal anti-corruption laws and scrutinizing public corruption prosecutions that go beyond obvious quid pro quo schemes, say Carrie Cohen and Christine Wong at MoFo.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Takeaways From New HHS Substance Use Disorder Info Rules

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    A new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule continues the agency's efforts to harmonize complex rules surrounding confidentiality provisions for substance use disorder patient records, though healthcare providers will need to remain mindful of different potentially applicable requirements and changes that their compliance structures may require, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Expect Few Changes In ITC Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion overruling the Chevron doctrine will have less impact on the U.S. International Trade Commission than other agencies administering trade statutes, given that the commission exercises its congressionally granted authority in a manner that allows for consistent decision making at both agency and judicial levels, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

  • Opinion

    Reform NEPA To Speed Mining Permits, Clean Energy Shift

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    It is essential to balance responsible regulatory oversight with permit approvals for mining projects that are needed for the transition to renewable energy — and with the National Environmental Policy Act being one of the leading causes of permit delays, reform is urgently needed, say Ana Maria Gutierrez and Michael Miller at Womble Bond.

  • Series

    Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

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    The second quarter of 2024 in California, which saw efforts to expand consumer protection legislation and enforcement actions in areas of federal focus like medical debt and student loans, demonstrated that the state's role as a trendsetter in consumer financial protection will continue for the foreseeable future, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 6 PTAB Events To Know From The Last 6 Months

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    The first half of 2024 brought a flurry of Patent Trial and Appeal Board developments that should be considered in post-grant strategies, including proposed rules on discretionary denial and director review, and the first decisions of the Delegated Rehearing Panel, say attorneys at Fish & Richardson.

  • Key Takeaways From High Court's Substitute Expert Decision

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Smith v. Arizona decision, holding that the confrontation clause generally bars prosecutors’ use of a substitute expert witness at trial, will have the most impact in narcotics and violent crime cases, but creative defense lawyers may find it useful in white collar cases, too, say Joshua Naftalis and Melissa Kelley at Pallas Partners.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • How Generative AI May Aid Merger Clearance Process

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    Generative artificial intelligence capable of analyzing and searching large datasets stands to revolutionize the merger clearance process, including by significantly reducing the time and effort required to respond to Hart-Scott-Rodino second requests, say Kenneth Koch and Brian Blush at BDO USA.

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