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Government Contracts

  • August 19, 2025

    9th Circ. Sides With Wash. In Immigration Detention Law Case

    A Ninth Circuit panel has overturned an injunction blocking a Washington state law calling for new health and safety standards at the state's privately run immigration detention center, saying Tuesday the lower court wrongly compared the facility to a prison when ruling in favor of its for-profit operator, GEO Group Inc.

  • August 19, 2025

    Texas Co., Exec To Pay $12.4M In Customs Evasion FCA Suit

    A Dallas-based countertop and cabinetry product supplier and its president agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $12.4 million to settle a False Claims Act suit alleging they conspired to evade import duties on quartz products from China, with more than $2.1 million designated for a whistleblower.

  • August 19, 2025

    Lab Owner Gets 3 Years For $40M COVID-19 Test Fraud

    A co-founder of a laboratory accused of submitting $40 million in unnecessary COVID-19 and genetic testing claims to healthcare benefit programs was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday, after a Florida federal judge credited him for the extensive cooperation he provided the government before and during a trial against his co-defendants.

  • August 19, 2025

    Nonprofits, Union Fight Withholding Of AmeriCorps Funds

    A group of nonprofits and a union added claims to their suit in Maryland federal court aiming to stop the Trump administration from dismantling AmeriCorps, accusing the Office of Management and Budget of unlawfully withholding millions of dollars appropriated by Congress for grant programs.

  • August 19, 2025

    $8M Lake Michigan Dock Damages Suit Sent To Florida

    A Michigan federal judge has said a Lake Michigan marine transportation company accusing Lockheed Martin Corp. and the U.S. Navy of causing more than $8 million of damage to its facility while testing a naval vessel must pursue the litigation in the Middle District of Florida.

  • August 19, 2025

    CMS Defeats 'Hair's Breadth' Star Rating Challenge

    Insurance companies challenging the "star" system for rating Medicare Advantage organizations have lost another round in court, with a Texas federal judge saying Elevance Health failed to show federal officials violated the law when rounding down scores.

  • August 19, 2025

    IRS Told To Explain Granting $142M Contract Without Bids

    The IRS must explain why it thinks an executive order mandating electronic tax payments required it to skip the competitive bidding process in awarding a $142 million contract for scanning and digitizing incoming tax filings, the Court of Federal Claims said.

  • August 19, 2025

    NASA Gets Sensor Co.'s Patent Deal Breach Claims Tossed

    A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge axed an Ohio company's claims that NASA breached contracts to license and commercialize the agency's patented sensor technology, ruling that NASA fulfilled its side of the bargain before ending the agreements.

  • August 19, 2025

    Trump's 'Abnormal' Use Of FCA Could Get Tricky In Court

    The Trump administration is wielding the False Claims Act in unusually narrow ways to drive policies on social and cultural issues — including gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion programs — but the government's potential theories of liability under the federal law remain largely untested and might not hold up in court, experts say.

  • August 18, 2025

    OMB Says Agencies Can Cut Some Gov't Contract Requirements

    The Office of Management and Budget authorized federal agencies to immediately start eliminating requirements from future government contracts as part of the Trump administration's effort to get rid of non-statutory rules from the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

  • August 18, 2025

    9th Circ. Splits Over Ore.'s Denial Of Christian Youth Grants

    A split Ninth Circuit panel on Monday largely upheld a lower court's refusal to preliminarily block Oregon's requirement that recipients of certain youth grants agree not to discriminate on the basis of religion, though it also said the rule is unconstitutional if it restricts any initiatives that aren't tied to the grants.

  • August 18, 2025

    GAO Says $868M Navy Contract Evaluation Was Not Unfair

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office denied a Virginia company's protest of a $868 million U.S. Navy contract for information technology support services, saying there's no proof that an unlevel playing field influenced the agency's assessment of the protester's proposal.

  • August 18, 2025

    AmeriCorps Restores $400M In Slashed Grants, Judge Told

    AmeriCorps told a Maryland federal judge Monday that the agency restored around $400 million in funding to nonprofits canceled under the Trump administration in April, saying the government doesn't plan to ax grants before they end.

  • August 18, 2025

    AI Security Co. Reports $15M Settlement With Investors

    A Massachusetts-based company whose AI-powered weapons detection product has come under scrutiny by federal regulators over allegedly exaggerated performance claims has reached a $15 million settlement in principle with investors in consolidated proposed class actions, according to a pair of filings.

  • August 15, 2025

    18 AGs, Governors Sue To Block DOE Funding Cap

    A coalition of 19 states and Washington, D.C., on Friday hauled the U.S. Department of Energy into Oregon federal court, challenging a policy they say places a new cap on reimbursements for administrative and staffing costs, and thus slashes funds needed for state-run energy programs.

  • August 15, 2025

    Trump's Divisive 'China Initiative' May Get A Vigorous Reboot

    The Trump administration's ongoing battles with major universities may soon include the revival of an initiative that, with mixed success, targeted professors with ties to China during the president's first term, and experts told À¶Ý®ÊÓÆµ the second incarnation may be even more aggressive.

  • August 15, 2025

    Mass. Nonprofit To Pay $1M To Settle FCA Allegations

    A Massachusetts nonprofit will pay $1 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by securing a pandemic relief loan that it was never eligible for and was later forgiven, federal prosecutors said Friday.

  • August 15, 2025

    New Jersey AG Slams Power Broker's 'Flawed' Appeal Brief

    South Jersey power broker George Norcross used a flawed argument in pushing back against New Jersey's effort to revive a dismissed criminal case against him, Attorney General Matthew Platkin has argued in a reply brief filed in state appellate court.

  • August 15, 2025

    'Creative' $2.5B DuPont Deal In NJ Is PFAS Road Map For AGs

    After six years of litigation between New Jersey and E.I. du Pont de Nemours, including a series of bench trials, the chemical manufacturer agreed to a deal that committed more than $2 billion to cleaning up the Garden State from "forever chemical" contamination at four of its facilities, in the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a single state.

  • August 15, 2025

    Boies Schiller Seeks To End Fla. Fee Suit Between Law Firms

    Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and related defendants have moved to dismiss a Florida state lawsuit brought by a pharmaceutical mass tort law firm and related parties to block their former counsel from collecting fees after being fired for allegedly insufficient representation. 

  • August 15, 2025

    3rd Circ. Won't Rehear Pa. County's Dominion Contract Suit

    The Third Circuit has declined to revisit a ruling that a Pennsylvania county's commissioners lacked standing to sue Dominion Voting Systems over alleged security flaws during the 2020 election.

  • August 14, 2025

    Ed. Dept. Effort To Bar School Diversity Programs Blocked

    A Maryland federal judge on Thursday held that the U.S. Department of Education violated the constitution and Administrative Procedure Act when it issued guidance that took aim at school diversity programs, ruling that the "law does not countenance the government's hasty and summary treatment of these significant issues."

  • August 14, 2025

    NYC Fires Back At Co.'s Migrant Busing Suit

    New York City is coming out swinging against a lawsuit brought by a charter company that helped Texas bus thousands of migrants into the city and leave them there, saying that Roadrunner Charters wasn't injured by the city enforcing its own laws.

  • August 14, 2025

    Austin Asks Justices To Toss Abortion Travel Decision

    The city of Austin, Texas, threw its weight behind San Antonio in the latter's fight against a state appeals court finding that barred San Antonio from funding out-of-state abortion travel, telling the Texas Supreme Court the ruling allows the state to thwart Texas cities' legislative process.

  • August 14, 2025

    DC Judge Halts Some USDA Climate Grant Terminations

    A D.C. federal judge on Thursday halted the U.S. Department of Agriculture's termination of certain climate-focused grants awarded to five nonprofits, saying the terminations were likely arbitrary and capricious but stopping short of blocking the administration's broader grant termination policy.

Expert Analysis

  • What 2 Profs Noticed As Transactional Law Students Used AI

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    After a semester using generative artificial intelligence tools with students in an entrepreneurship law clinic, we came away with numerous observations about the opportunities and challenges such tools present to new transactional lawyers, say professors at Cornell Law School.

  • Top Takeaways From Trump's AI Action Plan

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    President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan represents some notable evolution in U.S. policy, including affirmation of the administration's trend toward prioritizing artificial intelligence innovation over guardrails and toward supporting greater U.S. private sector reach overseas, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Rebuttal

    BigLaw Settlements Should Not Spur Ethics Deregulation

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    A recent À¶Ý®ÊÓÆµ op-ed argued that loosening law firm funding restrictions would make BigLaw firms less inclined to settle with the Trump administration, but deregulating legal financing ethics may well prove to be not merely ineffective, but counterproductive, says Laurel Kilgour at the American Economic Liberties Project.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Injunctions, Unequal Treatment

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    Two recent decisions by the Court of Federal Claims and the U.S. Government Accountability Office illustrate how poorly defined criteria can muddle an agency's evaluation and best-value decision, and affirm the fundamental principle that an agency must evenhandedly evaluate vendors' quotations against solicitation requirements, says Victoria Angle at MoFo.

  • 5 Ways Lawyers Can Earn Back The Public's Trust

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    Amid salacious headlines about lawyers behaving badly and recent polls showing the public’s increasingly unfavorable view of attorneys, we must make meaningful changes to our culture to rebuild trust in the legal system, says Carl Taylor at Carl Taylor Law.

  • Series

    Hiking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    On the trail, I have thought often about the parallels between hiking and high-stakes patent litigation, and why strategizing, preparation, perseverance and joy are important skills for success in both endeavors, says Barbara Fiacco at Foley Hoag.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Negotiation Skills

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    I took one negotiation course in law school, but most of the techniques I rely on today I learned in practice, where I've discovered that the process is less about tricks or tactics, and more about clarity, preparation and communication, says Grant Schrantz at Haug Barron.

  • DOJ Whistleblower Program May Fuel Criminal Antitrust Tack

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    A recently launched Justice Department program that provides rewards for reporting antitrust crimes related to the U.S. Postal Service will serve to supplement the department’s leniency program, signaling an ambition to expand criminal enforcement while deepening collaboration across agencies, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Opinion

    Bar Exam Reform Must Expand Beyond A Single Updated Test

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    Recently released information about the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ new NextGen Uniform Bar Exam highlights why a single test is not ideal for measuring newly licensed lawyers’ competency, demonstrating the need for collaborative development, implementation and reform processes, says Gregory Bordelon at Suffolk University.

  • Export Misconduct Resolutions Emphasize BIS, DOJ Priorities

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's and Bureau of Industry and Security's recently resolved parallel enforcement actions against semiconductor technology company Cadence Design demonstrate the agencies' prioritization of penalties for export control violations involving China, as well as the importance of voluntary self-disclosure, say attorneys at Fenwick.

  • A Simple Way Courts Can Help Attys Avoid AI Hallucinations

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    As attorneys increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence for legal research, courts should consider expanding online quality control programs to flag potential hallucinations — permitting counsel to correct mistakes and sparing judges the burden of imposing sanctions, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and Connors.

  • Strategies For ICE Agent Misconduct Suits In The 11th Circ.

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    Attorneys have numerous pathways to pursue misconduct claims against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Eleventh Circuit, and they need not wait for the court to correct its misinterpretation of a Federal Tort Claims Act exception, says Lauren Bonds at the National Police Accountability Project.

  • Series

    Creating Botanical Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Pressing and framing plants that I grow has shown me that pursuing an endeavor that brings you joy can lead to surprising benefits for a legal career, including mental clarity, perspective and even a bit of humility, says Douglas Selph at Morris Manning.

  • Supreme Court's Criminal Law Decisions: The Term In Review

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    Though the U.S. Supreme Court’s criminal law decisions in its recently concluded term proved underwhelming by many measures, their opinions revealed trends in how the justices approach criminal cases and offered reminders for practitioners, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.

  • Opinion

    The Legal Education Status Quo Is No Longer Tenable

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    As underscored by the fallout from California’s February bar exam, legal education and licensure are tethered to outdated systems, and the industry must implement several key reforms to remain relevant and responsive to 21st century legal needs, says Matthew Nehmer at The Colleges of Law.

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