Public Policy

  • March 05, 2025

    University Of California Facing Fed Probe Into Antisemitism

    The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday the government has opened a civil investigation into whether the University of California has fostered antisemitism on its campuses following President Donald Trump's January executive order prioritizing federal probes into alleged antisemitic harassment on school grounds.

  • March 05, 2025

    Feds Say Refugee Funding Fight Belongs In Claims Court

    The U.S. Department of Justice told a D.C. federal judge Wednesday that any dispute over the termination of cooperative agreements with refugee resettlement organizations should be heard in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

  • March 05, 2025

    Native Groups Want Equal Footing In Fed. Appellate Courts

    Native American rights' groups are urging a federal appellate judicial rules committee to add federally recognized tribes to a list of entities that do not need a court's approval to file an amicus brief, saying the disparity restricts how and when tribal nations gain a voice in lawsuits that impact them.

  • March 05, 2025

    Nationwide Block Of Trump Trans Healthcare Orders Extended

    A Maryland federal judge has extended a nationwide injunction that was set to expire this week prohibiting the Trump administration from enforcing executive orders banning federal funding for gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19, finding the harm inflicted by the orders is "non-speculative, concrete, and potentially catastrophic."

  • March 05, 2025

    CashCall Wants 9th Circ. Redo Of Order To Pay CFPB $134M

    CashCall Inc. has asked for a rehearing of its Ninth Circuit loss that kept it on the hook for a $134 million restitution payment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, arguing that when the online lender was fined in 2016, CashCall could not relinquish its "known right" to a jury trial because the right did not exist at the time.

  • March 05, 2025

    Revived Bill To Add Judges Teed Up For Another House Vote

    The House Judiciary Committee voted out of committee three bills on Wednesday along party lines, including legislation to add more federal judgeships that the federal judiciary says are needed desperately but has become subject to partisan fighting.

  • March 05, 2025

    Ex-DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark Returns To Trump Administration

    Jeffrey Clark, a former U.S. Department of Justice official who is facing criminal charges in Georgia and fighting to save his law license over claims that he helped President Donald Trump try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has returned to the federal government.

  • March 05, 2025

    Religious Groups Fear Misuse Of Church Info In ICE Raid Suit

    Religious groups that secured a temporary court order barring federal officials from enforcing immigration laws at their places of worship asked a Maryland federal judge to safeguard information about their locations, saying they fear it could be misused.

  • March 05, 2025

    New Jersey AG Office Must Face Whistleblower Suit

    A New Jersey state judge on Wednesday largely rejected a bid from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office to escape a lawsuit accusing the Warren County prosecutor's office of retaliating against two detectives for their part in uncovering an alleged fraud scheme.

  • March 05, 2025

    Senate Confirms Todd Blanche To Be Trump's Deputy AG

    The Senate voted 52-46 on Wednesday to confirm Todd Blanche, one of President Donald Trump's former criminal attorneys, to be deputy attorney general.

  • March 05, 2025

    TPS Holders Can Stay Anonymous, Mass. Judge Says

    A Massachusetts federal judge said immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela suing to block the Trump administration from terminating their temporary protected status can proceed anonymously in the case, finding this to be an "exceptional" case that warrants litigation by pseudonym.

  • March 05, 2025

    Judge Sides With Feds In Suit Over Illicit Gold Trade

    A D.C. federal judge has upheld Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions against a Belgian gold trafficker, ruling that the government had ample evidence that the man directly or indirectly supported armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  • March 05, 2025

    Senators Press Trump's NIH Nominee On Grant Cuts, Vaccines

    Dr. Jay Bhattacharya vowed to support research into chronic diseases but repeatedly refused Wednesday to express an opinion on cost-cutting efforts at the National Institutes of Health, sidestepping bipartisan questions during a hearing on his nomination to run the biomedical research agency.

  • March 05, 2025

    Atty Who Repped Trump And Bannon Joins Brownstein Hyatt

    Evan Corcoran, who represented President Donald Trump in his classified documents case and Steve Bannon in his contempt of Congress trial, has joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP's Washington, D.C., office.

  • March 05, 2025

    Montana Tasks Tax Agency With Review Of Exempt Property

    Montana directed its Department of Revenue to establish a process to review property that is exempt from taxation under a bill signed by the governor.

  • March 05, 2025

    Trump Delays Mexico, Canada Tariffs On Autos For A Month

    President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that auto vehicles and parts imported from Canada and Mexico will get a one-month reprieve from the 25% tariffs he instituted earlier this week, according to a statement read by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

  • March 05, 2025

    Trump's NIH Cost-Cutting Measure Blocked By Judge

    A Massachusetts federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot cap indirect costs for research grants at the National Institutes of Health, rejecting the move as a rushed cost-saving measure that violates federal law governing the expenses.

  • March 05, 2025

    IRS Updates Foreign Housing Expense Limits For 2025

    The Internal Revenue Service released adjustments to the limitation on foreign housing expense deductions and exclusions for 2025 on Wednesday.

  • March 05, 2025

    High Court Allows Release Of Frozen USAID Foreign Aid

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a D.C. federal judge can require the Trump administration to release up to $2 billion in frozen foreign aid funding, but told the judge he must clarify the scope of the government's responsibility and ensure it has enough time to comply with any deadline. 

  • March 04, 2025

    Trump Calls For Return To 'Law And Order' In Joint Address

    A defiant President Donald Trump during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night condemned the supposed ability of a sitting president to "viciously prosecute" their political opponents, such as himself, and quipped "how did that work out?"

  • March 04, 2025

    Banks To Face New Defenders Of CFPB Overdraft Rule

    A Mississippi federal judge said Tuesday that he will allow two outside nonprofits to step into litigation over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's $5 overdraft fee rule and defend the Biden-era regulation against a banking industry-backed legal challenge.

  • March 04, 2025

    Sens. Again Push Bill To Boost Online Protections For Teens

    A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators on Tuesday revived a longstanding legislative proposal that would expand digital privacy protections to cover teens between the ages of 13 and 16, ban targeted advertising to minors and require companies to enable the erasure of underage users' personal information.

  • March 04, 2025

    Shipping Council Urges DC Circ. To Nix Maritime Rule

    An ocean carrier trade association is urging the D.C. Circuit to wipe out new regulations defining unreasonable refusals to deal in the maritime industry, telling the appeals court that the "vague" rule has thrown the carriers into confusion.

  • March 04, 2025

    Agencies Have 'Ultimate' Authority Over Firings, OPM Says

    The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday issued a revised version of its January memo directing agency heads to identify all probationary employees, adding a disclaimer that OPM "is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions" and that agencies "have ultimate decision-making authority."

  • March 04, 2025

    3 Takeaways From The High Court's SF Water Permit Ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court's Tuesday ruling siding with San Francisco to strike down parts of a federal water pollution permit demonstrated a majority of justices' reluctance to force permit holders to interpret gray areas that could get them in trouble.

Expert Analysis

  • Managing Litigation Side-Switching During 2nd Trump Admin

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    Now that the new presidential administration is in place, the government will likely switch positions in a number of pending cases, and stakeholders should employ strategies to protect their interests, say attorneys at Covington.

  • A Look At Sweepstakes Casinos' Legal Issues In Fla., Beyond

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    Scheduled for trial in Florida federal court this fall, the VGW sweepstakes case underscores the growing urgency for gambling states to clarify and enforce their laws in response to emerging online gaming models, as the expansion of sweepstakes casinos challenges traditional interpretations of gambling regulations, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • 3 Noteworthy Effects Of The 2025 NDAA

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    The 2025 defense budget includes further restrictions on semiconductor sales to Huawei, requiring companies to rethink customer-base oversight, but other provisions are likely to broaden procurement contract opportunities, say attorneys at Miles & Stockbridge.

  • The Blueprint For A National Bitcoin Reserve

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    The new administration has the opportunity to pave the way for a U.S.-backed crypto reserve, which could conceptually function as a strategic asset akin to traditional reserves like gold markets, hedge against economic instability, and influence global crypto adoption, say attorneys at Duane Morris.

  • Student Loan Entities In Hot Seat After CFPB Goes To College

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    While the direction of student loan servicer oversight in the new presidential administration is unclear, recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau actions still signal heightened regulatory scrutiny at both the federal and state levels of college institutional loan programs, along with their service providers, says attorney Jonathan Joshua.

  • Rethinking Litigation Risk And What It Really Means To Win

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    Attorneys have a tendency to overestimate litigation risk before summary judgment and underestimate risk after it, but an eight-stage litigation framework can clarify risk at different points and help litigators reassess what true success looks like in any particular case, says Joshua Libling at Arcadia Finance.

  • Nixing NRC Oversight Of Small Reactors Could Cut Both Ways

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    A lawsuit in a Texas federal court aims to abolish the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's authority over small modular reactors, which the plaintiffs contend will unleash new and innovative technology — but the resulting patchwork of state regulations could increase costs for the nuclear industry, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Anticipating How GAO Pleading Standards May Shift

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    The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act's mandate to create an enhanced pleading standard at the U.S. Government Accountability Office may change the calculus for where to file when challenging a U.S. Department of Defense procurement, say attorneys at Rogers Joseph.

  • Issues To Watch In 2025's ERISA Litigation Landscape

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    Whether 2024’s uptick in new Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases will continue this year will likely depend on federal courts’ resolution of several issues, including those related to excessive fees, defined contribution plan forfeitures, and pleading standards for ERISA-prohibited transaction claims, say attorneys at Groom Law.

  • Roundup

    Banking Brief: State Law Recaps From Each Quarter Of 2024

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    In this Expert Analysis series, throughout 2024 attorneys provided quarterly recaps discussing the biggest developments in banking regulation, litigation and policymaking in various states, including New York, California and Illinois.

  • How DOGE's Bite Can Live Up To Its Bark

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    All signs suggest that the Department of Government Efficiency will be an important part of the new Trump administration, with ample tools at its disposal to effectuate change, particularly with an attentive Republican-controlled Congress, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • 2024 Was A Significant Year For HIPAA Compliance

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    The Office of Civil Rights' high level of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act activity in 2024 and press releases about its specific focus on certain cybersecurity issues make it abundantly clear that the OCR is not going to tolerate widespread compliance complacency, says Nathan Kottkamp at Williams Mullen.

  • Examining DOJ Corporate Whistleblower Pilot's First 100 Days

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    Though the U.S. Department of Justice’s corporate whistleblower awards pilot program has successfully elicited numerous tips since its August launch, stakeholder feedback leaves questions about how the scheme compares to other whistleblower awards and protections — and how it will fare in the incoming Trump administration, say attorneys at Joseph Greenwald.

  • Proactively Managing Tariff Impacts On Megaprojects

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    President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs may compound the complexity, duration and risks associated with financing and building large-scale infrastructure projects — so owners and contractors should plan to take possible tariff-related cost and schedule overruns into account when drafting contracts, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • New York Climate Superfund Law May Face Preemption Fight

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    New York state's new climate superfund law highlights a growing trend of states supplementing their climate litigation efforts with legislative initiatives — but it will likely encounter the same federal preemption questions raised about state and local lawsuits seeking redress for climate harms, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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