Public Policy

  • January 21, 2025

    Trump Orders Federal Workers Back To Office

    On his first day back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump ordered federal workers back to theirs.

  • January 21, 2025

    Immigrant Orgs Sue Trump Over Birthright Citizenship Order

    An expectant mother and two immigrant advocacy organizations hit the Donald Trump administration with a midnight lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court in a bid to halt the president's executive order ending birthright citizenship in the United States.

  • January 21, 2025

    Justices Won't Review Pa. Ballot Envelope Dating Rule

    The U.S. Supreme Court won't weigh whether Pennsylvania's rule requiring voters to write the date on the outside of mail-in ballots violates the Civil Rights Act, or whether the federal law's ban on disqualification based on "immaterial" errors applies only to voter registration, according to orders released Tuesday.

  • January 21, 2025

    Justices Won't Hear Montana Native Voting Order Dispute

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a petition by Montana's secretary of state that looked to undo a determination that two voting laws related to absentee voting hours and registration deadlines are illegal and hindered the rights of Native Americans to participate in the election process.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump's Day 1 Immigration Actions: What You Need To Know

    President Donald Trump issued a flurry of immigration-related executive orders Monday, declaring a state of emergency on the southern U.S. border, limiting birthright citizenship and closing the border entirely to new asylum-seekers.

  • January 20, 2025

    On Day 1, Trump Begins Dismantling Biden's Enviro Legacy

    President Donald Trump signed a host of environmental executive orders shortly after taking office Monday, rolling back numerous Biden climate-related policies, including bans on Arctic drilling and the revocation of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit, while also nixing the federal government's net-zero emissions goals.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Ends Biden Moratorium That Limited LNG Exports

    President Donald Trump on Monday lifted former President Joe Biden's moratorium on approvals of liquefied natural gas exports to countries that don't have free-trade agreements with the U.S., fulfilling a promise he made repeatedly on the campaign trail.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Delays TikTok Ban To Hammer Out Deal

    President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday that will keep TikTok from going dark in the U.S. while he works to broker a deal that would override the legislative mandate for the popular social media app to cut ties with its Chinese parent company or face a nationwide ban.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Clears Way For Ban on Transgender Military Service

    President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order clearing the way to bring back a ban on transgender people serving openly in the military.

  • January 17, 2025

    Law360 Names Practice Groups Of The Year

    Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2024, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and significant transaction work that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.

  • January 17, 2025

    Law360 Names Firms Of The Year

    Eight law firms have earned spots as Law360's Firms of the Year, with 54 Practice Group of the Year awards among them, steering some of the largest deals of 2024 and securing high-profile litigation wins, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Names Immigration Official As Acting Attorney General

    President Donald Trump on Monday designated a longtime immigration official at the U.S. Department of Justice to be acting attorney general until his pick Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general, can be confirmed.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump, Musk Sued By Nonprofits Over DOGE Transparency

    Public Citizen and other nonprofits hit the Trump administration with multiple lawsuits seeking to shut down the new Department of Government Efficiency in D.C. federal court Monday, alleging the Elon Musk-led advisory committee targeting government waste lacks requisite transparency guardrails to prevent DOGE from solely advancing private interests.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Taps EEOC's Sole Republican As Acting Chair

    President Donald Trump selected the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's sole Republican appointee to lead the agency for now, but the new acting head will contend with a Democratic majority slated to keep hold of the five-seat agency through 2026.

  • January 20, 2025

    Trump Announces 2nd Exit From Paris Climate Agreement

    President Donald Trump announced upon being sworn in Monday that for a second time, he will pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.

  • January 17, 2025

    Split 6th Circ. OKs FERC's Revocation Of Ohio Utility Grid Perk

    A split Sixth Circuit panel Friday backed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's decision to revoke an incentive for power companies that are required to be members of a regional transmission organization, ruling that federal law requires that utilities voluntarily participate in an RTO to receive the incentive.

  • January 17, 2025

    Red States Challenge DOE Rule On Gas Heater Efficiency

    Several red states and industry groups are challenging the Biden administration in its waning days over a final rule the U.S. Department of Energy has issued on making certain natural gas water heaters more energy efficient, asking the Eleventh Circuit to toss the rule in a petition for review filed Friday.

  • January 17, 2025

    FDIC Missed Some Crypto 'Pause' Letters, Coinbase Ally Says

    The research consultancy suing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on behalf of Coinbase for documents on the regulator's internal views on crypto said Friday that it intends to update its complaint with new allegations that the FDIC did not conduct a thorough search and may be engaging in unlawful practices, based on purported whistleblower reports.

  • January 17, 2025

    DOJ Says Ga. County's Districts Disenfranchised Black Voters

    Federal prosecutors have hit middle Georgia's Houston County with a voting rights lawsuit alleging that the county's "history of official discrimination" has continued to the present day by gerrymandering Black citizens out of representation in their local government.

  • January 17, 2025

    9th Circ. Revisits Board Members' Blocks On Social Media

    An attorney for two California school board members on Friday urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse a lower court's ruling that his clients violated the First Amendment by blocking two constituents from their Facebook page, saying that new rules outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court when it remanded the case call for it.

  • January 17, 2025

    5th Circ. Finds DACA Unlawful, Limits Ruling To Texas

    The Fifth Circuit on Friday affirmed a Texas federal court's finding that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is unlawful but limited its ruling to Texas, saying the state was the only one to show it was injured due to DACA.

  • January 17, 2025

    CFPB Inks $1.5M Redlining Deal As Biden Era Ends

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is poised to collect a $1.5 million fine from an Illinois mortgage company as part of a settlement unveiled late Friday over claims it engaged in redlining, a form of residential lending discrimination.

  • January 17, 2025

    NHTSA Defends Fuel-Economy Regulations In 6th Circ.

    The U.S. Department of Transportation told the Sixth Circuit on Friday that its new fuel-economy standards are technologically feasible and properly account for a variety of alternative-fuel vehicles, rejecting claims from Republican-led states and fuel industry groups that the stringent standards amount to an unlawful electric vehicles mandate.

  • January 17, 2025

    DC Circ. Unsure On Restoring CFTC's Election Betting Ban

    The D.C. Circuit seemed hesitant Friday to reimpose a ban that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission had placed on gambling over the fate of U.S. elections, as the judges spent over an hour trying to parse what Congress meant when it said that gaming on derivatives platforms was prohibited.

  • January 17, 2025

    Biden Says Equal Rights Amendment Is 'The Law Of The Land'

    President Joe Biden said Friday that he believes the Equal Rights Amendment has effectively become part of the U.S. Constitution and is "the law of the land," according to a statement from the White House.

Expert Analysis

  • How Trump 2.0 May Change Business In Latin America

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    Companies in Latin America should expect to face more trade restrictions, tighter economic sanctions and enhanced corruption risks, as the incoming administration shifts focus to certain non-U.S. actors, most notably China, says Matteson Ellis at Miller & Chevalier.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Custodian Selection

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    Several recent rulings make clear that the proportionality of additional proposed custodians will depend on whether the custodians have unique relevant documents, and producing parties should consider whether information already in the record will show that they have relevant documents that otherwise might not be produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Opinion

    Section 230 Debates Will Continue, With Or Without TikTok

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    Regardless of whether TikTok is forced to shut down in the U.S. in the coming weeks, legal disputes will continue over social media platforms' responsibility under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for harms allegedly caused by content shared on their apps, says Carla Varriale-Barker at Segal McCambridge.

  • Impact Of Successful Challenges To SEC's Rulemaking Ability

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    In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission faced significant legal challenges to its aggressive rulemaking agenda as several of its rules were vacated by the Fifth Circuit, which could hinder the SEC's ability to enact rules extending beyond express statutory authority in the future, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Takeaways From DOJ, FTC End To Collaboration Guidelines

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    The Federal Trade Commission's and U.S. Department of Justice's recent decision to withdraw the guidelines for collaborations among competitors may reflect a desire for clearer parameters by emphasizing case law on specific ventures, but it also carries the potential to chill some future collaboration, say attorneys at Patterson Belknap.

  • 5 Transition Tools Trump Could Use To Implement His Agenda

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    President-elect Donald Trump will have several tools available to him to halt or otherwise claw back federal regulations promulgated during the Biden administration, including reconciliation, executive orders and memoranda, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

  • 5 Privacy Law Trends That Will Continue In 2025

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    While preparing privacy programs for the year, companies should keep in mind several developments from 2024 that will carry over — namely, in the realm of artificial intelligence, passive data collection, combining data from multiple sources, privacy program expectations and managing vendors, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Justices Seem Focused On NEPA's Limits In Utah Rail Case

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    After last month's oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the court appears poised to forcefully reiterate that the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to review only those environmental impacts within their control, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • A Look At PCAOB's Record-Breaking Enforcement In 2024

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    The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in 2024 brought more enforcement actions against auditors and imposed increasingly higher monetary penalties, showing that it was not afraid to exercise its power to fine and reprimand firms, a trend that will likely continue in 2025, say attorneys at Briglia Hundley.

  • Complying With Seasonal Product Labeling Requirements

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    Though the holiday season is in the rearview, many seasonal alcohol products remain in the market, and producers should ensure that their labels comply with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's additional requirements for such products, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • The OIG Report: Preparing For Oversight In 2025

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    Across sectors, Office of Inspector General work plans and challenge reports for 2025 provide a trove of information on the issues and industries that will likely be the focus of government oversight in the year to come, says Diana Shaw at Wiley.

  • What To Expect In Higher Ed Enforcement Under Trump

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    Colleges and universities should prepare for shifting priorities, as President-elect Donald Trump is likely to focus less on antitrust cases and more on foreign relations policy, while congressional oversight of higher education continues to increase, say attorneys at Steptoe.

  • Series

    Exercising On My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While I originally came to the Peloton bike for exercise, one cycling instructor’s teachings have come to serve as a road map for practicing law thoughtfully and mindfully, which has opened opportunities for growth and change in my career, says Andrea Kirshenbaum at Littler.

  • 5 Drug And Device Developments That Shaped 2024

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    The last year saw significant legal developments affecting drug and device manufacturers, with landmark decisions and regulatory changes that require vigilance and agility from the industry, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • Takeaways From SEC's Mixed Results In '24 Crypto Litigation

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    Though the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new leadership seems likely to create a more favorable cryptocurrency regulatory environment, it must also confront the consequences of, and lingering questions raised by, the SEC's 2024 policy of investigating and charging cryptocurrency trading platforms for operating unregistered exchanges, say attorneys at Dechert.

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