Civil Law

Maryland’s New Recycling Tax? Packaging EPR Moves From Law to Reality

Maryland’s latest environmental mandate is no longer just a legislative concept. It is becoming an operating program.

In 2025, Maryland enacted Senate Bill 901, establishing an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework for packaging and paper products. Governor Wes Moore signed the legislation on May 13, 2025.

Now the Maryland Department of the Environment is moving from legislation to implementation. The first regulations under COMAR 26.04.14 became effective May 25, 2026, establishing definitions, registration requirements, covered materials, reporting obligations, producer requirements … Read the rest

Civil Law

Connecticut Employers: Expanded Pay Transparency Requirements Take Effect Oct. 1

As a reminder, beginning Oct. 1, 2026, Connecticut employers will have broader obligations to disclose wage ranges and benefits information to applicants and employees.

Under the new law, employers must include the wage or wage range and a general description of benefits in internal or public job postings. The law covers positions performed in Connecticut and certain positions outside the state that report directly to a supervisor, office, or other worksite in Connecticut.

It is important to note the new … Read the rest

Civil Law

“DOJ’s $2 Million Honeywell Settlement Under the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative: What Compliance Failures Mean for Defense Contractors

Key Takeaways

  • DOJ used the FCA to settle with Honeywell Aerospace Inc. for $ 2,042,518 over allegations that a Honeywell business unit submitted claims for payment under a DoW contract while failing to comply with NIST SP 800-171 cybersecurity requirements incorporated through DFARS 252.204-7012, reinforcing that cybersecurity compliance failures can create significant FCA exposure for defense contractors.
  • The settlement arose from a 2022 qui tam whistleblower action filed by a former Honeywell employee, and DOJ reported a record
… Read the rest
Civil Law

How to Make Business Development Research More Useful for Lawyers

I’ve worked with lawyers who ask for a company research report before a meeting, receive a beautifully prepared document and then admit they only had time to skim the first page. I’ve also seen business development teams spend hours gathering information about a prospect without knowing exactly what the lawyer plans to do with it. Both situations illustrate a common challenge in law firm business development: we have access to an enormous amount of information, but we don’t always spend … Read the rest

Civil Law

Tuesday Tips: New and Noteworthy on SSRN

Neil Duxbury

The General Law Renaissance and the Common Law

Abstract

Of late, there has emerged an important body of legal scholarship sympathetically reassessing the concept of “general law” – unwritten legal norms discoverable by courts. This article shows that these reassessments run up against a problem when the general law in question is common law. The problem arises from a question: what makes common law valid as law in the first place? In England, the answer is that common-law … Read the rest

Civil Law

CA5: Property Owner Properly Asked For Jury Trial, So He Gets One

Check out the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s opinion in Ramirez v. City of Texas City, No. 25-40475 (Sep. 3, 2026), in which the court concluded that a property owner raising a procedural due process claim properly invoked his right to have that claim tried by a jury.

[Disclosure: this is from our shop.]

After a fire caused extensive but repairable damage to Ramirez’s home, the city labeled the home “substandard” and demanded he do something. … Read the rest