The Second Chance Amendment Act, D.C.’s new expungement and record-sealing law, went into effect on March 1, 2025.¹ This Act provides significant improvements, as D.C.’s prior regime was uniquely complex and restrictive. There is now automatic expungement and automatic sealing in certain cases,² which applies retroactively.³ D.C. practitioners should consider changes brought by the Act and whether any clients are—or will soon be—entitled to expungement or record-sealing relief that was previously unavailable.

Over the last several years, thousands of incarcerated individuals have filed motions for compassionate release.¹ As part of the submission process, individuals must outline the “extraordinary and compelling” reasons that warrant a reduction in their sentence.
  
In 2018, Congress enacted the First Step Act (the “FSA”). Along with several other measures aimed at criminal legal reform, the FSA allowed individuals to file compassionate release petitions on their own behalf and also implemented a restriction on the “stacking” of mandatory minimum twenty-five-year sentences in certain cases involving weapons during the commission of a crime.² The FSA specifies that the anti-stacking amendment is not retroactive—in other words, it does not apply to sentences finalized before the law’s enactment.³

In the summer of 2023, Justice Thomas suggested in a dissenting opinion in U.S. ex rel. Polansky v. Executive Health Resources that Article II of the Constitution might not permit a qui tam relator to sue in the name of the government absent government intervention. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett separately urged the Court to review this question. After Polansky, defendants in non-intervened qui tam cases around the country filed motions to dismiss on the grounds that the case could not proceed consistent with Article II.

Five years ago, companies were eager to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. DEI programs are under attack, and employers are trying to figure out what kinds of programs they can maintain without bringing unwanted scrutiny.

As the new administration shifts some criminal enforcement priorities, particularly relating to activities abroad, potential targets of cross-border investigations are re-evaluating their strategies and exposure to enforcement risk. At this month’s American Bar Association White Collar Crime Institute, one panel¹ took a close look at how the administration’s foreign policy objectives and criminal enforcement priorities could impact cases where the government relies on international judicial assistance to investigate and prosecute criminal charges. Panelist comments and audience questions stressed a practical consideration for defense attorneys: stay mindful of both the statutory limitations period and the potential applicability of a special tolling provision where evidence is located abroad.

At the 2025 American Bar Association (“ABA”) White Collar Crime Institute in Miami, industry veterans forecasted the new Trump Administration’s white collar objectives by examining trends during the first Trump presidency. In the absence of officials from the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to outline the Administration’s priorities, the “Consumer Protection – Health, Safety, Fraud, and Privacy Enforcement” panelists—Ethan Davis, Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, DOJ, Hon. Patricia Brown Holmes, (Ret.), and Arun Rao, partner at Mayer Brown—added to the chorus of “wait and see” remarks heard throughout the conference, while also sharing insights about likely areas of focus in consumer protection.

At the American Bar Association’s White-Collar Crime Institute’s conference held in Miami, Florida on March 6-7, 2025, two panelists from the panel “Sentencing: Effective Mitigation in White-Collar Cases” differed on whether the United States Sentencing Commission (the “Commission” or “USSC”) would adopt any amendments to the United States Sentencing Guidelines this 2025 term. Rachel E. Barkow, a Professor at New York University School of Law and a former member of the Commission, explained that there are two proposed amendments currently before the Commission,¹ but she did not think that any amendments would be passed this year due to the composition of the Commission. She further explained that while the Commission is supposed to have seven voting members and requires the affirmative vote of at least four members to adopt an amendment,² it currently has only five voting members split along party lines (three Democrats, two Republicans).³ By contrast, panelist James E. Felman, a Partner at Kynes Markman & Felman in Tampa, opined that because the Commission tends to vote unanimously, its current three-two party-split would not necessarily bar the Commission from adopting the amendments this term.

Uncertainty was a prominent theme at last week’s ABA White Collar Crime Institute. The Trump administration has issued a series of directives that seem to shift and narrow the scope of (if not entirely abandon) a host of traditional investigative and enforcement priorities. This has left companies and their counsel in the unfortunate position of trying to divine where they face the most risk of regulatory action with little clear guidance. However, the administration’s recent comments and priorities suggest that one federal statute in particular, the False Claims Act (“FCA”), is viewed as fertile ground for increased enforcement activity. In a shifting and murky regulatory landscape, the FCA might be the one statute whose increased enforcement is all but assured.

For litigants in foreign courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1782 has long been a promising, if finicky, tool to access discoverable materials by filing an ex parte application in U.S. federal district court. The statute provides certain protections to preserve foreign privileges, but courts have struggled to determine whether a party seeking to defeat Section 1782 discovery bears a burden to establish the existence of a foreign privilege. In a recent decision, the Fourth Circuit joined three other circuits in assigning such a burden but demurred on whether to join the Second and Fifth Circuits in requiring that burden to be satisfied by “authoritative proof.” See In re Banco Mercantil del Norte, S.A., 126 F.4th 926, 933-34 (4th Cir. 2025) (“Banorte”). The decision sets up a circuit split with practical consequences to targets of Section 1782 discovery seeking to rely on foreign privileges.

A federal judge in Minnesota recently granted a motion to exclude an expert declaration explaining the dangers of AI deepfakes because the declaration itself contained AI-hallucinated citations.¹ The case was a First Amendment challenge to a Minnesota statute prohibiting deepfakes with intent to influence elections, and the State tendered the expert’s declaration in defense of the statute. The judge noted “[t]he irony” in opposing AI-generated deepfakes with a declaration that contained AI-driven hallucinations, but she prudently rested her decision on the inability to trust an expert declaration submitted under penalty of perjury that was not adequately reviewed by the expert or the counsel who submitted it. The judge “add[ed her] voice to a growing chorus of courts around the country declaring the same message: verify AI-generated content in legal submissions!”²