The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs,...more
Less than two weeks after President Donald J. Trump signed two executive orders dismantling diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, the constitutionality of the EOs is being challenged. The two Executive Orders...more
On February 3, 2025, the city of Baltimore and three organizations filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland opposing the recent Trump administration executive orders (EO) focused on eliminating...more
A new lawsuit is challenging the Trump administration’s executive orders that take aim at DEI efforts in the private sector and in the federal government, calling them a “crusade to erase diversity, equity, inclusion, and...more
SpaceX is challenging whether the National Labor Relations Board should continue to exist as we know it. In two separate lawsuits, the aerospace company has asked a federal court to strike down the agency’s structure as...more
The efforts to have Judge Pauline Newman, Circuit Judge on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, unfit or guilty of misconduct have been the subject of reporting in the patent blogosphere (Patently-O, IP Watchdog),...more
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that courts must defer to an administrative agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. But last year, the Supreme Court stripped the FTC of its ability to seek...more
This week, a divided Ninth Circuit panel holds (with some apparent reluctance) that constitutional challenges to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cannot be brought directly in federal court, but must instead wend their way...more
We recently reported on Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's implementation of temporary regulations halting collection of debt from Massachusetts' consumers in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. With certain...more
Two major climate change cases were decided in the last month—State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda (Dec. 20, 2019) and Juliana v. United States (Jan. 17, 2020). They illustrate sharply contrasting views about the role of...more
In 2012, Congress created a new procedure that allows the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to conduct a litigation-like procedure to review and potentially cancel patents. This procedure - inter partes review (“IPR”) - has...more
The courts are now reacting to what some view as regulatory overreach flowing from U.S. laws enacted in the wake of the financial crisis. The most recent example is the October 11, 2016 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals...more