Law/Legal
Here's a look at documents from law firms and legal groups
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Policy Week in Review - February 27, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 28 -- Littler, a law firm, issued the following news:* * *
Policy Week in Review - February 27, 2026
At a Glance
The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler's Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI's updates on federal legislation, regulations, and congressional activity affecting the workplace.
By Shannon Meade, Jim Paretti, Alex MacDonald, and Maury Baskin
NLRB Formally Reinstates First Trump Joint Employer Rule
The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday issued a rulemaking formally restoring a 2020 standard for judging whether two separate ... Show Full Article SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 28 -- Littler, a law firm, issued the following news: * * * Policy Week in Review - February 27, 2026 At a Glance The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler's Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI's updates on federal legislation, regulations, and congressional activity affecting the workplace. By Shannon Meade, Jim Paretti, Alex MacDonald, and Maury Baskin NLRB Formally Reinstates First Trump Joint Employer Rule The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday issued a rulemaking formally restoring a 2020 standard for judging whether two separatebusinesses are a "joint employer." The rule follows a ruling by the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas that vacated a contrary rule issued in 2024. The Board is, therefore, returning to the traditional standard imposed during the first Trump administration, which establishes that an employer may be considered a joint employer of a separate employer's employees only if the entity possesses and exercises substantial direct and immediate control over one or more essential terms or conditions of employment. Given that this is the standard the Board has been enforcing for some time, it does not impose any immediate change. Litigation is likely to continue in the courts over the viability of the Board's standard. For further Littler analysis, read here.
DOL Proposes New Independent Contractor Rule
The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday proposed a new rule, entitled the "Employee or Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act." The proposed rule is designed to differentiate between employees and independent contractors. If adopted, the rule would establish a standard similar to one the DOL issued under the first Trump administration. Like that first standard, the new rule aims to simplify worker classification by focusing on two main factors--control over the work, and entrepreneurial opportunity. While other factors like amount of skill and degree of permanence of the relationship would still be relevant, they would usually be unnecessary when the two main factors point in the same direction. For further Littler analysis, read here.
Chair MacKenzie Holds Hearing on Paid Leave
The House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections Chair Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) held a hearing on February 24, titled "Balancing Careers and Care: Examining Innovative Approaches to Paid Leave," to examine the issues and challenges of the paid family leave landscape. Chair Ryan highlighted the work of the House Bipartisan Paid Leave Working Group, co-chaired by Representatives Stephanie Bice (R-OK) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), which led to the introduction of bipartisan legislation H.R. 3089, More Paid Leave for Americans Act. The bill would establish a state paid family leave public-private partnership grant program and the Interstate Paid Leave Action Network (I-PLAN), which would coordinate and harmonize paid leave benefits across the states. A recap of the hearing and witness testimony can be found here.
House Committee on Education and Workforce Hearings in AI Series Continue
As part of the House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing series on Artificial Intelligence (AI), its Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing on February 24, titled "Building an AI-Ready America: Teaching in the AI Age," to examine how teachers are utilizing AI in the classroom to enhance learning opportunities for students. A recap of the hearing and witness testimony can be found here.
The series continues next week when the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development will hold a hearing on March 4 at 10:15 AM, titled "Building an AI-Ready America: Strengthening Employer-Led Training." You can watch on the Committee's YouTube site.
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Authors
Shannon Meade
Executive Director, Workplace Policy Institute
Washington, D.C.
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James A. Paretti
Shareholder
Washington, D.C.
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Alexander T. MacDonald
Shareholder
Washington, D.C.
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Maury Baskin
Shareholder
Washington, D.C.
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Original text here: https://www.littler.com/news-analysis/asap/policy-week-review-february-27-2026
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
HLB Lawyers Author AHLA's The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide, Eighth Edition
LOS ANGELES, California, Feb. 28 -- Hooper, Lundy and Bookman, a law firm, issued the following news:* * *
HLB Lawyers Author AHLA's The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide, Eighth Edition
Charles Oppenheim, Alicia Macklin, and Stephanie Gross authored the American Health Law Association (AHLA)'s The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide, Eighth Edition. Available now for order to AHLA members and non-members.
The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide is not just a summary of the law. It remains an in-depth critical analysis of Stark Law authority, ... Show Full Article LOS ANGELES, California, Feb. 28 -- Hooper, Lundy and Bookman, a law firm, issued the following news: * * * HLB Lawyers Author AHLA's The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide, Eighth Edition Charles Oppenheim, Alicia Macklin, and Stephanie Gross authored the American Health Law Association (AHLA)'s The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide, Eighth Edition. Available now for order to AHLA members and non-members. The Stark Law: Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide is not just a summary of the law. It remains an in-depth critical analysis of Stark Law authority,interpretation, and enforcement. Sharing a wealth of insight, the authors provide an analytic overview to assessing Stark Law compliance questions, before addressing the legal effect of the regulations and the regulatory process and analyzing the implications of various federal cases and enforcement activity. Throughout the book, they include practical guidance for advising clients on complying with the current state of the law and regulations, as well as a look at what future direction the law might take. The authors highlight themes that emerge in the regulations, identify key definitions and interpretive changes, illuminate problem areas, and suggest guidance for navigating each of them.
The Stark Law: A Comprehensive Analysis and Practical Guide has been updated, revised, and expanded to reflect the remarkable changes that have occurred since the previous edition and its supplement were published, including the impact of Loper Bright on CMS interpretations of the Stark Law; changes to the voluntary self-referral disclosure protocol; recent advisory opinions, such as on advanced practice practitioners; limits on the usefulness of survey data for determining fair market value of physician compensation; potential Stark Law issues with MSO/ "Friendly" Physician Models; applications of Stark Law to rural emergency hospitals and physician-owned hospitals; what changes future courts may have in store; and more.
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Original text here: https://hooperlundy.com/hlb-lawyers-author-ahlas-the-stark-law-comprehensive-analysis-and-practical-guide-eighth-edition/
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
Littler Issues Commentary: U.S. Department of Labor Proposes New Worker-Classification Standards
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 27 -- Littler, a law firm, issued the following commentary on Feb. 26, 2026, by shareholders Alexander T. MacDonald, Dimitrios Markos, Robert W. Pritchard and James A. Paretti:* * *
U.S. Department of Labor Proposes New(ish) Worker-Classification Standards
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new rule, entitled the "Employee or Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act." The proposed rule is designed to differentiate between employees and ... Show Full Article SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 27 -- Littler, a law firm, issued the following commentary on Feb. 26, 2026, by shareholders Alexander T. MacDonald, Dimitrios Markos, Robert W. Pritchard and James A. Paretti: * * * U.S. Department of Labor Proposes New(ish) Worker-Classification Standards The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new rule, entitled the "Employee or Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act." The proposed rule is designed to differentiate between employees andindependent contractors.
If adopted, the rule would establish a standard similar to one the DOL issued under the first Trump administration. Like that first standard, the new rule aims to simplify worker classification by focusing on two main factors--control over the work, and entrepreneurial opportunity. While other factors like amount of skill and degree of permanence of the relationship would still be relevant, they would usually be unnecessary when the two main factors point in the same direction.
How did we get here?
The proposed rule arrives after years of back and forth over worker classification. In general, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) distinguishes between independent contractors and employees by looking at "economic realities." If as a matter of economic reality, workers depend on a particular employer for work, they are considered employees. But if they are in business for themselves, they are independent contractors. This distinction is important because the FLSA applies only to employers and employees. So if workers are independent contractors, they are not owed FLSA overtime or minimum wages. Instead, their compensation is usually dictated by a contract.
Until 2007, the DOL had no official position on how to distinguish between employees and contractors. That year, it published Fact Sheet 13, which set out six nonexclusive factors. The DOL gleaned these factors from judicial decisions applying the economic-reality test. Then, in 2021, the DOL finalized its first formal classification rule. That rule tried to simplify the test by focusing on two main factors: control and entrepreneurial opportunity. It also listed three secondary factors: how much skill the work involved, how permanent the working relationship was, and whether the work was part of an integrated unit of production.
Just a few weeks after the rule was published, however, the incoming Biden administration tried to pull it down. It first paused the rule, then purported to rescind it. Those actions, however, were tied up in court. So instead, the administration set out to write a new rule. That rule was finalized in January 2024 and returned to a six-factor test. But the new test was seen by many as too restrictive and inconsistent with judicial guidance. It was challenged in court by multiple parties, including some individual independent contractors.
When the administration changed hands again in 2024, the Trump administration announced that it would no longer enforce the 2024 rule. Instead, it would begin work on yet another rule to set out the proper standard. The product of that effort is this proposed rule.
What would the proposed rule do?
First, the new proposed rule would mostly return to the 2021 standard. Like that standard, it would focus on two main factors:
* Control of the work. This factor focuses on who controls the work and to what extent. If workers set their own schedules, select their own projects, and work for multiple clients, they're more likely to be independent contractors. By contrast, if they cannot control their own schedule or workload, or must work exclusively for a single client, they are more likely to be employees.
* Entrepreneurial opportunity. This factor focuses on whether the worker can affect their own profits or losses. If they make entrepreneurial decisions and investments that can increase their profit (or risk of loss), they're more likely to be independent contractors. But if they can influence their earnings only by working faster or working more hours, they are more likely to be employees.
The proposed rule would also bring back the 2021 rule's secondary factors:
* Special skills. This factor focuses on the worker's specialized skills. If the worker comes to the job with preexisting specialized skills, the worker is more likely to be an independent contractor. That's especially true if the worker uses such skills to market their services (for example, by advertising their special abilities or experience). But if workers have only skills they learned from the potential employer, they are more likely to be employees.
* Permanence. This factor focuses on whether the work relationship is fixed or indefinite. If workers handle projects with fixed deadlines or occasionally handle definite projects, they're more likely to be independent contractors. But if they provide service with no definite end point, they're more likely to be employees. That's true even if they work seasonally. For example, a housecleaner who works at a ski resort every winter has a definite relationship with the resort even if the resort closes every summer.
* Integration. This factor focuses on whether the worker is integrated into a production process. If the worker provides services outside the potential employer's end-to-end production process, they're more likely to be independent contractors. But if they work as part of an integrated team, they're more likely to be employees. For example, a person who works on an integrated assembly line is part of a continuous production process. But a person who comes to clean the floors at night may not be.
These factors are familiar from the 2021 rule. But the proposed rule's scope is different. The proposed rule wouldn't establish a standard only for the FLSA; as suggested by the name of the proposed rule, it would also establish the same standard for the Family Medical Leave Act and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. Both statutes use language similar to the FLSA's. So the rule aims to establish a common interpretation across all three.
What happens next?
The DOL will accept public comments beginning Friday, February 27, 2026. These comments will help the DOL understand how the proposed rule would affect workers and businesses. If the rule is challenged in court, the DOL may need to explain how it considered any major issues identified in the comment process. The comment process will be open for 60 days, closing on April 28, 2026. Interested employers should work with counsel to decide whether and how to weigh in. In the meantime, employers should continue to be guided by existing precedents (typically found in court decisions applying some version of the economic reality test) regarding the classification of a worker as an employee or independent contractor.
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Alexander T. MacDonald
Shareholder
Washington, D.C.
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Dimitrios Markos
Shareholder
Newark
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Robert W. Pritchard
Shareholder
Pittsburgh
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James A. Paretti
Shareholder
Washington, D.C.
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Original text here: https://www.littler.com/news-analysis/asap/us-department-labor-proposes-newish-worker-classification-standards
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
Lewis Rinaudo Cohen Speaks at the NYC Bar Association's Annual Crypto Conference
NEW YORK, Feb. 27 -- Cahill Gordon and Reindel, a law firm, issued the following news on Feb. 26, 2026:* * *
Lewis Rinaudo Cohen Speaks at the NYC Bar Association's Annual Crypto Conference
Lewis Rinaudo Cohen, co-chair of the CahillNXT Digital Assets and Emerging Technology practice, will speak at the New York City Bar Association's Annual Crypto Conference on March 18, 2026. The annual event brings together legal practitioners, regulators, academics, and industry leaders to discuss key developments shaping the ever-evolving digital asset landscape.
Lewis will moderate and serve as lead panelist ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Feb. 27 -- Cahill Gordon and Reindel, a law firm, issued the following news on Feb. 26, 2026: * * * Lewis Rinaudo Cohen Speaks at the NYC Bar Association's Annual Crypto Conference Lewis Rinaudo Cohen, co-chair of the CahillNXT Digital Assets and Emerging Technology practice, will speak at the New York City Bar Association's Annual Crypto Conference on March 18, 2026. The annual event brings together legal practitioners, regulators, academics, and industry leaders to discuss key developments shaping the ever-evolving digital asset landscape. Lewis will moderate and serve as lead panelistfor "DeFi, Stablecoins and the Rise of Digital Money" from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The panel will examine the implications of the GENIUS Act, exemptions under the Clarity Act, and guidance from the President's Crypto Taskforce, and how these developments are reshaping markets and raising critical questions around regulation, security, and systemic risk.
To learn more about this event and register, click here (https://www.nycbar.org/cle-offerings/crypto-conference/).
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Original text here: https://www.cahill.com/news/events/2026-03-18-lewis-rinaudo-cohen-speaks-at-the-nyc-bar-association-annual-crypto-conference
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
In Law360 Q&A, Managing Partner Andrew Detherage Highlights Firm's Organic Growth Strategy
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, Feb. 27 -- Barnes and Thornburg, a law firm, issued the following news release:* * *
In Law360 Q&A, Managing Partner Andrew Detherage Highlights Firm's Organic Growth Strategy
In a Q&A interview with Law360 Pulse, Barnes & Thornburg Managing Partner Andrew J. Detherage discussed the firm's master plan of expanding strategically through steady, organic growth and lateral hiring rather than law firm combinations.
The Feb. 23 article was published shortly after the firm added a 35-lawyer team to its Government Services and Finance Department in multiple locations around ... Show Full Article INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, Feb. 27 -- Barnes and Thornburg, a law firm, issued the following news release: * * * In Law360 Q&A, Managing Partner Andrew Detherage Highlights Firm's Organic Growth Strategy In a Q&A interview with Law360 Pulse, Barnes & Thornburg Managing Partner Andrew J. Detherage discussed the firm's master plan of expanding strategically through steady, organic growth and lateral hiring rather than law firm combinations. The Feb. 23 article was published shortly after the firm added a 35-lawyer team to its Government Services and Finance Department in multiple locations aroundthe country, including three new offices in Baltimore, Denver and Phoenix.
Since Detherage joined in 1989, Barnes & Thornburg has grown from an Indiana firm to a national powerhouse with over 850 lawyers in 26 offices across the United States -- all without undergoing a major combination.
"We're very lawyer-focused in our leadership, and so we always felt like that was the key to success, and it's borne out," Detherage said. "We measure our lateral success rate on if people stay more than five years, and we're at 90%. And we believe that's because we are recruiting strategically.
"From the very beginning, our view was, math is not a strategy when it comes to growth. It's not a question of what headcount and gross revenue can we get. It's how we can build, get better and serve our clients better. We really believe the environment we have allows our firm to be successful, and we didn't think we could maintain that by doing mergers."
Read the full Q&A here (https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/barnesthornec91-btlawb18a-prod2e0c-5bea/media/files/barnes_thornburg_head_on_firms_nonmerger_growth_motto.pdf).
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Original text here: https://btlaw.com/en/insights/news/2026/in-law360-qa-andrew-detherage-highlights-firm-organic-growth-strategy
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath Issues Commentary: Key Higher Education Regulatory Issues for 2026
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, Feb. 28 -- Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath, a law firm, issued the following commentary on Feb. 26, 2026, by Sarah L. Pheasant, senior government and regulatory affairs attorney, associate Asher Friedman Young and partners John R. Przypyszny, Jonathan D. Tarnow and Cindy Irani:* * *
Key Higher Education Regulatory Issues for 2026
Evolving Federal Regulatory Landscape Requires Institutions to Strengthen Compliance Protocols and Adapt to Sweeping Policy Changes Across Higher Education
At a Glance
* Operational and financial planning may become more complex across higher ... Show Full Article MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, Feb. 28 -- Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath, a law firm, issued the following commentary on Feb. 26, 2026, by Sarah L. Pheasant, senior government and regulatory affairs attorney, associate Asher Friedman Young and partners John R. Przypyszny, Jonathan D. Tarnow and Cindy Irani: * * * Key Higher Education Regulatory Issues for 2026 Evolving Federal Regulatory Landscape Requires Institutions to Strengthen Compliance Protocols and Adapt to Sweeping Policy Changes Across Higher Education At a Glance * Operational and financial planning may become more complex across highereducation, as institutions of higher education and other organizations adapt to significant changes to the federal student loan programs, student visa policies, and federal grantmaking priorities.
* The Department of Education and other federal agencies are expected to continue expanding compliance and enforcement efforts associated with diversity initiatives, raising compliance risks for institutions and accreditors.
* Institutions of higher education are expected to face new federal requirements and priorities associated with programmatic and student data reporting, expected significant reforms to accreditation, and additional rulemakings and policy changes.
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Institutions of higher education faced significant upheaval during 2025, driven by numerous executive orders, a range of new policy directives from the Department of Education (the Department or ED) and other federal agencies, legislation affecting federal student loan limits and institutional accountability, and heightened scrutiny of diversity initiatives carried out by recipients of federal funding. Additional recent actions by ED and other agencies indicate that 2026 may present similar uncertainty for the higher education community, as federal agencies step up enforcement and regulatory actions across various programs.
Implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3) Act, which among other things included major revisions to federal student aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (Title IV). These changes include significant reductions to federal student loan limits, a new Workforce Pell Grant program, and a program-level accountability framework for all postsecondary institutions. Each of these provisions is effective on July 1, 2026.
Federal Student Loan Limits and Repayment Plans
For undergraduate students, the Parent PLUS annual and aggregate loan limits are reduced to $20,000 and $65,000, respectively, per dependent student. At the graduate level, OB3 eliminated the Graduate PLUS loan program in its entirety, and distinguished between graduate and professional students for purposes of annual and aggregate loan limits. Specifically, it established new annual loan limits of $20,500 for graduate students and $50,000 for professional students, and new aggregates limit $100,000 for graduate students and $200,000 for professional students (not including amounts borrowed as an undergraduate). Importantly, OB3 specified that professional degrees include but are not limited to Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.), Law (L.L.B. or J.D.), Medicine (M.D.), Optometry (O.D.), Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.), and Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.).
Congress also imposed a new lifetime maximum borrowing limit of $257,000 for all federal student loans, excluding Parent PLUS loans. OB3 also requires institutions to prorate annual loan amounts for the purposes of part-time students, and it streamlines the present myriad of federal student loan repayment plans into just two options: a standard repayment plan and a single income-based repayment plan.
After achieving consensus from its "Reimaging and Improving Student Education (RISE)" negotiated rulemaking on these topics, the Department issued a Proposed Rule on January 30, 2026, to implement the student loan provisions of OB3. Despite numerous proposals to expand the disciplines considered to be professional degrees beyond the examples enumerated in the statute, the Proposed Rule added only Clinical Psychology (Psy.D. or Ph.D.) to that subset of programs eligible for higher loan limits. Comments on the Proposed Rule must be received by the Department no later than March 2, 2026.
While unrelated to the Title IV loan program changes under OB3, there also remains some uncertainty about regulatory changes previously adopted by the current administration with respect to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. Under a Final Rule published on October 31, 2025, which will take effect July 1, 2026, the definition of eligible employers for purposes of PSLF would exclude entities engaged in activities deemed by ED to be "indicative of a substantial illegal purpose." Moreover, under the Final Rule, such activities include, among others, those related to immigration, health services for transgender youth, and "engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination." Although it is not yet clear how the Department will specifically apply the final rule, its language and other policy actions taken by the administration suggest that employees of nonprofits and service organizations focused on immigration, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and racial and social equity issues will be the most impacted. This rule, which we discussed in greater detail in a previous client alert, is presently subject to multiple court challenges.
Workforce Pell
In a historic change to the HEA, as part of OB3, Congress permitted the award of Pell Grants to certain short-term programs from 8 to 14 weeks in length. States will have a substantial role in determining the eligibility of such "Workforce Pell" programs, including determinations of program alignment with high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand occupations in the state. Under the law, a program also must meet "value-added earnings" requirements (i.e., median earnings that exceed 150% of the federal poverty level adjusted by region), have both completion and job placement rates of 70% or higher, and count as credit towards a degree.
With a congressional mandate to launch the program by July 1, 2026, the Department conducted an "Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD)" negotiated rulemaking in December 2025 and January 2026, through which it achieved consensus on proposed regulatory text. The proposed regulations to implement Workforce Pell are expected to be formally published in February or early March 2026 with public comments due 30 days thereafter. Because governors will have significant authority for approving Workforce Pell programs within each state, institutions interested in offering such programs also should consider initiating discussions with their governors and state workforce boards.
"Do No Harm" Accountability Framework
OB3 also adopted a new program-level accountability framework for all postsecondary institutions, which is intended to ensure that students do not leave a program of study financially worse off than when they entered it. The law mandates the determination of an earnings premium, which generally compares the median earnings of program graduates four years after completion to the median earnings of a specified cohort of 25-34 year olds who did not complete an educational program at the same credential level. This required ED to harmonize the OB3 accountability provisions with its currently effective Gainful Employment and Financial Value Transparency (GE/FVT) regulations, which it pursued through the AHEAD negotiated rulemaking.
Under the AHEAD committee's consensus regulatory language, for which a formal proposed rule remains pending, there would be the following critical changes from the current GE/FVT regime:
* Elimination of the current GE/FVT regulatory "debt-to-earnings" metric.
* Failure of the revised earnings premium test in two of three consecutive years would generally lose access only to Title IV loans, but not Pell Grants. However, if more than half of the institution's Title IV recipients and more than half of the institution's total Title IV funds are in failing programs, the loss of eligibility includes both Title IV loans and Pell Grants.
For bachelors, associates, and undergraduate certificate programs, the forthcoming proposed regulations are expected to compare median earnings of a program's graduates to either (1) an in-state cohort of high school graduates aged 25-34, if the institution's enrollments are more than 50% in-state; or (2) a national benchmark of high school graduates aged 25-34, if the institution's enrollments are more than 50% out-of-state.
For graduate programs, the proposed regulations are expected to compare median earnings of graduates to a cohort of undergraduate degree holders (rather than high school graduates) aged 25-34. However, compliance will depend on whether the institution enrolls more than 50% in-state students, and if so, whether a program's median earnings exceed the lowest of three different comparative earnings benchmarks. If the institution enrolls more than 50% out-of-state students, then a program's median earnings must exceed the lowest of two comparative earnings benchmarks. We anticipate providing a more comprehensive summary of these requirements after the proposed rule is officially released.
Renewed Focus on Accreditation
Accreditation reform is a key part of the Trump administration education agenda for 2026. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent has indicated that the Department intends to make significant changes to the regulations that govern the recognition of accrediting agencies in an effort to reform overall the existing accreditation system, and to make it easier for new accrediting agencies to obtain recognition. A key focus of the Department will be on having accreditors assess outcomes, prohibiting accreditors from adopting or enforcing standards pertaining to DEI, and also using accreditation as a means of promoting intellectual diversity on college campuses.
Along these lines, on December 11, 2025, the Department issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking input on proposed updates to the Department's Accreditation Handbook, the primary document governing how ED evaluates accrediting agencies for federal recognition. While the Handbook has previously been used only as a general guide for accreditors' compliance with the recognition criteria, the RFI signaled the Department's intent to "realign accreditation with evaluating whether an institution provides a high-quality, high-value education for all students." The RFI sought comments regarding accreditation policies and standards that "encourag[e] innovation or reduc[e] college costs within the postsecondary education sector." The RFI also asked commenters to consider how "accreditation standards [could] be updated to incentivize intellectual diversity on campus," and suggested methods to determine appropriate assessment of outcomes benchmarks.
"Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization" Rulemaking
The primary means that the administration will use to address accreditation will be through an upcoming rulemaking to revise the recognition criteria used for the Department of Education's recognition of accrediting agencies. The new rulemaking effort, announced on January 26, 2026, is expected to advance the president's policy goals for reforming higher education accreditation as outlined in Executive Order (EO) 14729, Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education (issued on April 23, 2025). EO 14729 directs the Department to "hold[ ] accreditors accountable" and contemplates the denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of recognition for accreditors found to have violated federal law. We described the April 2025 executive order in greater detail in a previous client alert.
Per the Department's Federal Register notice to formally initiate this rulemaking process, among the topics to be addressed are the following:
1. Streamlining the recognition criteria for accrediting agencies to allow for increased "competition and institutional choice" among accrediting bodies.
2. Revising recognition criteria to emphasize student achievement and outcomes while removing criteria that are "anti-competitive, discriminatory, or which contribute to credential inflation and escalating tuition costs."
3. Amending accreditor standards and oversight, including requiring program-level student outcomes data and ensuring "expeditious resolution and actions" associated with noncompliance findings resulting from Title VI and Title IX OCR investigations.
4. Reviewing accrediting agencies' concurrent oversight responsibilities in the "regulatory triad" to determine "what accreditation standards and related regulations are needed, or should be eliminated, to ensure that accrediting agency standards do not contravene Federal or State law."
5. Evaluating whether accrediting agency standards "have promot[ed] violations of Federal law under the guise of accreditation standards for diversity, equity, and inclusion" and establishing procedures to prevent alleged violations.
6. Clarifying or expanding the recognition criteria to permit "the use of new learning models and innovative program delivery approaches by accredited institutions is not impeded by accreditation standards or accrediting agency decisions."
7. Expanding regulations pertaining to faculty-related accreditation standards to require intellectual diversity and "student achievement and learning outcomes."
8. Amending standards governing conflicts of interest, including the relationships between accreditors and affiliated trade associations or membership organizations.
The negotiated rulemaking is scheduled to occur over two sessions from April 13-17 and May 18-22, 2026.
FIPSE Accreditation Grants
Separately, the Department announced on January 5, 2026, that it had awarded over $14 million in grants from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) to "support a few emerging accreditors as they prepare to pursue Department recognition and assist multiple universities in changing accreditors." According to an award summary document posted by the Department on January 7, 2026, awards were provided to new accreditors seeking federal recognition, to institutions looking to establish new accrediting agencies, and to various institutions to support their transitions to switch accreditors altogether. The grant awards align with the Department's stated goal of developing and launching "new accrediting agencies, introducing much-needed competition and providing institutions with more choices."
Anticipated ED Rulemakings
In addition to the above matters, the Department's rulemaking agenda as submitted to the Office of Management and Budget presently includes several other topics, including: a more extensive Title IV federal student aid rulemaking in fall 2026, focused on institutional mergers and changes in ownership, cash management, administrative capability standards, and financial responsibility requirements. ED is expected to also revise its regulations on institutional reporting of foreign gifts and contracts, following upon its revised reporting portal under Section 117 of the HEA and related data releases. The Department's published agenda also includes an expected alignment of its rules with the Department of Justice's (DOJ) regulatory elimination of the disparate-impact theory of discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, amend ED's procedures for administrative enforcement actions under both Title VI and Title IX, and to update student privacy regulations under both the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
New IPEDS Requirements
In August 2025, the Department announced a sweeping expansion of reporting requirements under the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The Department announced the new directive alongside a presidential memorandum that asserted institutions have used "diversity statements" and "hidden racial proxies" in ways inconsistent with federal civil rights laws, and that instructed ED to expand the scope of required reporting to identify such practices among institutions.
The Department subsequently issued a Federal Register notice with further details regarding the admissions data that must be submitted by all four-year institutions "who utilize selective college admissions." The notice proposed the addition of a new IPEDS "Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement" (ACTS) survey component, which will apply to "all four-year institutions who utilize selective college admissions." The survey component specifically targets "selective" four-year institutions, which ED assessed to "have a higher risk of noncompliance in awarding scholarships" compared to community colleges and trade schools. The Department published an updated notice on November 13, 2025, confirming that ACTS eligibility would be limited to the four-year sector and would exempt from a given collection year otherwise-eligible institutions that admit 100% of their applicants and do not award non-need-based aid.
We covered the August 15, 2025, notice in greater detail in a previous client alert, clarifying that the ACTS component will collect: disaggregated undergraduate data by race-sex pair on application, admission and enrollment cohorts by test score quintiles, GPA quintiles, family income, Pell Grant eligibility, and parental education; average high school grant point averages and admission test score quintiles for each cohort; and counts of students admitted via "early" action compared to regular admissions. The new reporting structure creates additional public data that may expose institutions to litigation risk if demographic disparities appear to correlate with admissions practices in violation of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions.
Looking ahead, institutions should remain attentive to the implementation of the revised data reporting elements and any associated timelines published by ED in the coming months. ED may also initiate targeted compliance reviews of institutions whose data it perceives as potentially indicative of civil rights violations.
Title IX Enforcement
In February 2025, the president issued an EO titled Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports, stating that the administration will prioritize Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions that "deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women's category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males." Through this EO, the administration has adopted the interpretation of "sex" from the Eastern District of Kentucky's decision in Tennessee v. Cardona, which distinguishes sex from gender identity, and defines "sex" in Title IX to solely mean biological sex. The EO was immediately followed by federal agency investigations into transgender athletic participation policies at San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.
More recently, on January 14, 2026, the Department announced 18 investigations across 10 states based on allegations that various institutions permitted students to participate in sports based on their gender identity rather than by biological sex. Included in the scope of these complaints are entities ranging from K-12 school districts and state departments of education to several colleges.
As the administration continues to interpret the meaning of "sex" under Title IX to exclusively mean biological sex, additional high-profile enforcement actions are likely.
Continued Anti-DEI Enforcement
We expect the administration to continue its efforts to prohibit or significantly limit diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at colleges and universities. Those efforts begin in early 2025 through a series of executive orders as well as a February 14, 2025, Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) from the Department's Office of Civil Rights, which stated that many DEI-related activities, well beyond admissions and hiring, may violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause. We covered the February 2025 DCL in greater detail in a previous client alert. While the February 14, 2025, DCL was found to be unconstitutional by federal courts in Maryland and New Hampshire, and the Department has since decided not to appeal those rulings, we expect the Department to continue in attempts to expand the application of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions beyond admissions, to other aspects of an educational institution's operations.
Primary among the ways that the Department may seek to enforce its anti-DEI agenda is through certifications made by colleges and universities. Following a series of presidential memoranda and EOs in early 2025, federal agencies increasingly attempted to require all recipients of federal funds to certify that they do not operate any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that violate applicable antidiscrimination laws. The DOJ subsequently released a memo in July 2025 to all federal agencies, providing guidance on the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to DEI programs and activities by recipients of federal funding. We covered the executive orders and the DOJ memo in greater detail in previous client alerts.
Federal enforcement authorities and executive agencies have also been directed to review federal contractors' and grant recipients' DEI programs and policies over the past year, particularly where recipients of federal funding have filed relevant certifications with federal agencies. Although certifications directly associated with ED's February 2025 DCL have been enjoined or ruled unlawful in specific instances by federal district courts, institutions of higher education nonetheless remain subject to enforcement risks or investigations associated with various grant certifications. Notably, in late December 2025, the DOJ initiated investigations into the use of DEI initiatives at several major U.S. companies, relying on its false-claims authority to address potential noncompliance with federal antidiscrimination laws. These actions follow DOJ's stated policy to utilize the False Claims Act as part of its "Civil Rights Fraud Initiative," as DOJ has specified the False Claims Act is "implicated whenever federal-funding recipients or contractors certify compliance with civil rights laws while knowingly engaging in racist preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities, including through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that assign benefits or burdens on race, ethnicity, or national origin."
In a similar vein, the DOJ issued a legal memo in December 2025 concluding that various grant programs for minority-serving institutions administered by ED "distinguish[ed] between beneficiaries based on race," and thus, with a handful of exceptions, should be considered unconstitutional. The memo followed a September 2025 announcement by ED that it would be terminating over $350 million in congressionally appropriated funds for several grant programs for minority-serving institutions. Both the DOJ memo and the Department's widespread grant terminations demonstrate the current administration's intent to continue closely scrutinizing institutional policies regarding DEI.
Accordingly, institutions of higher education should continue to review their policies and practices for hiring and recruitment, scholarship and advancement, research activities, procurement, and other operational or programmatic areas that could be implicated by various DEI certifications. Institutions subject to investigation may be at risk of grant terminations, administrative sanctions, and/or private lawsuits alleging discrimination under federal civil rights or employment laws.
Grant Terminations
Institutions of higher education, research organizations, and other federal funding recipients experienced a significant number of federal grant terminations throughout 2025. Over the past year, many grant recipients challenged their grant terminations as arbitrary and capricious or as agency action contrary to statute under the Administrative Procedure Act, or separately as unconstitutional (e.g., infringing on First Amendment rights). However, the Supreme Court has indicated that some of these challenges must be brought in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (COFC), rather than in federal district court. Notably, COFC is only authorized to issue monetary damages pursuant to contract claims, rather than injunctive or declaratory relief associated with unlawful or unconstitutional agency actions.
On August 21, 2025, the Supreme Court issued an emergency docket opinion in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association (APHA), holding that the district court in that case likely lacked jurisdiction in challenges to individual grant terminations because the court could not "enforce any 'obligation to pay money' pursuant to those grants." 606 U.S. ___, No. 25A103, 145 S. Ct. 2658 (2025). However, the Supreme Court did not reach the same conclusion regarding a series of NIH internal guidance documents challenged by the plaintiffs on arbitrary and capricious grounds, as such internal policies could be challenged without inherently resulting in a claim "founded upon" a grant agreement in the same way as the grant terminations themselves. The Supreme Court also did not address the question of whether plaintiffs could challenge their grant terminations as unconstitutional in federal district court.
Following the Supreme Court's opinion in APHA, various district courts have addressed challenges to grant terminations differently depending on their factual and legal grounds. While some district courts have broadly interpreted the Supreme Court's decision in APHA to mean that all grant termination challenges must be heard at COFC, others have taken a narrower view in concluding that the statutory or constitutional rights at issue in grant termination claims do not fall within the jurisdiction of COFC (which is only authorized to hear claims founded upon federal contracts), and thus may be heard in federal district court.
In the event additional grant terminations are issued in 2026, institutions of higher education and other organizations should closely track developments in similarly situated cases to inform their approach to challenging or addressing such terminations. Federal funding recipients may determine that recovering termination and closeout costs through an agency's administrative process may be more cost-effective than pursuing legal action in federal district court or at COFC, particularly if no constitutional grounds are at issue. Federal district courts and circuit courts are likely to issue additional rulings in the coming year to clarify the circumstances under which grant terminations and policy directives resulting in terminations may be challenged going forward.
ED Grantmaking Priorities
In September 2025, the Department announced three priorities and related definitions for existing discretionary grant programs or programs that may be authorized in the future. These priorities became effective October 9, 2025, and replaced all other agency-wide supplemental authorities published prior to January 20, 2025, including the previous set of supplemental priorities published in the Federal Register in December 2021. The three new supplemental priorities included: (1) Promoting Evidence-Based Literacy, (2) Expanding Education Choice, and (3) Returning Education to the States. These competitive grant priorities will heavily influence who receives discretionary grant funding from the Department and for what purpose. Once the Department establishes priorities, it can choose to insert those priorities into grant competitions. These priorities may be used in three ways: absolute (candidates must include it in their grant application to be considered for funding), competitive (candidates receive additional points for including the priority in their application), and invitational (candidates are encouraged to submit proposals aligned with the priorities, but doing so does not award them extra points on their application).
On November 10, 2025, the Department also announced seven priorities under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) for the FY 2025 competition. The FIPSE Special Projects Program provides grants to institutions of higher education and other public and private nonprofit institutions to support innovative projects on areas of national need as identified by the Department.
On January 5, 2026, the Department announced that it had awarded $169 million from FIPSE in new grant awards supporting a variety of projects, which in addition to funds for the development of new accreditors, included awards to universities to develop "new courses on free expression and civil discourse," artificial intelligence initiatives, and short-term projects aligned with Workforce Pell Grant initiatives such as technician training.
Foreign Student Visas
In August 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a Proposed Rule to amend the admission period for F (academic student) and J (exchange visitor) visas from "duration of status" to an admission for a fixed period of time. Under the Proposed Rule, the federal government would set the authorized admission and extension periods for foreign students and exchange visitors up to the duration of the educational program they are participating in, which also could not exceed four years. Although comments to the Proposed Rule were due in late September, the final rule remains pending as of this writing. Because the proposed changes would establish a four-year durational limit, international students in U.S. doctoral programs, which can range from five to seven years, will need to formally petition for extensions to their visas through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. As a result, institutions interested in attracting international scholars should consider how to implement additional support for doctoral students to navigate the enhanced visa renewal process.
ED Restructuring and Interagency Agreements
In March 2025, the administration initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting almost 50% of the Department's workforce. The downsizing of ED has significantly impacted the operations of key offices affecting higher education, including Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights, and the Institute of Education Sciences.
In November 2025, the Department announced six interagency agreements (IAAs) wherein statutory responsibilities previously administered solely by ED would be outsourced through partnerships with other federal agencies. As part of these agreements, the Department of Labor was tasked with a greater role in administering certain federal K-12 programs, postsecondary grant programs, and workforce development programs. The Department of Health and Human Services was tasked with both overseeing the work of the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) and for managing on-campus childcare support for parents enrolled in higher education. The Department of the Interior was contracted to administer various education programs for Native Americans, and the State Department has been tasked with administering certain international education program funding and data collection measures. Because of the unprecedented scale of these IAAs, the impacts on the pertinent programs and funds remain to be seen. Importantly, at present, the Federal Student Aid programs under the Higher Education Act, as well as oversight of accreditation and policymaking, remain entirely at the Department.
Despite the efforts to transfer certain functions of ED to other agencies, only Congress can dismantle the Department. In our judgment, that is extremely unlikely to occur, particularly given the relatively close Republican margin in the House and the filibuster requirement in the Senate, which would require Democratic support. In fact, the recently enacted FY 2026 appropriations legislation took direct aim at the Department's restructuring efforts. Among other things, the law includes provisions to constrain alterations by the administration to education programs and funding expressly approved by Congress. The accompanying Joint Explanatory Statement -- a bipartisan document issued alongside appropriations bills, but which itself is not legally binding -- further says that no legal authority exists for ED to transfer its statutory responsibilities to other agencies and instructs the administration to consult with Congress about any such changes. Institutions should therefore continue to monitor the ongoing staffing changes at ED and related reallocations of its statutory responsibilities, particularly as related to higher education funding programs and related compliance obligations.
What's Next?
As many of the practical impacts from 2025 are not yet fully realized -- particularly the major changes to the federal student financial aid programs, the multitude of federal grant terminations, and the substantial downsizing of ED -- the higher education community should prepare for 2026 to present additional legal, regulatory, and operational challenges. The regulatory agenda already announced by ED for the coming year, and the administration's reported desire to achieve as much of its policy agenda as it can before the midterm elections, will require institutions, accreditors, and other stakeholders to remain attentive and responsive both as existing policy matters evolve and new ones arise.
For More Information
Faegre Drinker's education team will continue to monitor additional regulatory and legislative developments in the coming months.
Legal clerk Caitlin E. Kwalwasser contributed to this update.
The material contained in this communication is informational, general in nature and does not constitute legal advice. The material contained in this communication should not be relied upon or used without consulting a lawyer to consider your specific circumstances. This communication was published on the date specified and may not include any changes in the topics, laws, rules or regulations covered. Receipt of this communication does not establish an attorney-client relationship. In some jurisdictions, this communication may be considered attorney advertising.
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Meet the Authors
John R. Przypyszny
Partner
Washington, D.C.
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john.przypyszny@faegredrinker.com
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Jonathan D. Tarnow
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Chicago
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Sarah L. Pheasant
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Original text here: https://www.faegredrinker.com/en/insights/publications/2026/2/key-higher-education-regulatory-issues-for-2026
[Category: BizLaw/Legal]
CGT receipts jump 69% in January as allowance cuts bite - Elizabeth Bradley quoted in Money Marketing
ST. LOUIS, Missouri, Feb. 27 [Category: BizLaw/Legal] -- Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, a law firm, issued the following news:* * *
CGT receipts jump 69% in January as allowance cuts bite - Elizabeth Bradley quoted in Money Marketing
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Capital gains tax (GT) receipts surged 69% year on year to almost PS17bn in January 2026, as higher rates and reduced allowances continued to reshape investor behaviour.
Latest HMRC figures published on Friday (20 February) show CGT receipts reached just under PS17bn in January, up from just over PS10bn a year earlier.
Between April 2025 and January 2026, ... Show Full Article ST. LOUIS, Missouri, Feb. 27 [Category: BizLaw/Legal] -- Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, a law firm, issued the following news: * * * CGT receipts jump 69% in January as allowance cuts bite - Elizabeth Bradley quoted in Money Marketing * Capital gains tax (GT) receipts surged 69% year on year to almost PS17bn in January 2026, as higher rates and reduced allowances continued to reshape investor behaviour. Latest HMRC figures published on Friday (20 February) show CGT receipts reached just under PS17bn in January, up from just over PS10bn a year earlier. Between April 2025 and January 2026,CGT receipts totalled PS18.8bn, compared with PS11.9bn over the same period in 2024.
The spike coincided with record self-assessment income tax receipts of PS29.4bn in January. Inheritance tax receipts for April 2025 to January 2026 reached PS7.1bn, PS0.1bn higher than the same period last year.
Several experts suggested the CGT jump reflects both structural tax changes and behavioural responses ahead of last year's Autumn Budget.
The main CGT rates were increased from 10% and 20% to 18% and 24% with immediate effect from 30 October 2024, while the annual exempt amount had already been cut to PS3,000. Frozen thresholds have further widened the net.
Elizabeth Bradley, partner at BCLP, described the surge as potentially a "sugar hit caused by forestalling", warning that bringing forward disposals could leave a hole in future revenues.
"CGT is one of the most behaviourally sensitive taxes: when rates rise or reliefs are tightened, many taxpayers simply defer gains," she said.
Advisers said the figures underline the need for proactive planning. Strategies such as phasing disposals across tax years, using Bed and Isa processes, maximising pension contributions and making use of gifting allowances for inheritance tax may help mitigate future liabilities.
While the January data provided a significant boost to Treasury coffers, contributing to a PS30.4bn monthly surplus, commentators cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from a single month's receipts.
Read the full article : CGT receipts jump 69% in January as allowance cuts bite
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Original text here: https://www.bclplaw.com/en-US/events-insights-news/cgt-receipts-jump-69-in-january-as-allowance-cuts-bite-elizabeth-bradley-quoted-in-money-marketing.html