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White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
FEATURED
November 12, 2025
White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
By: Robert Ward
For years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Guidelines Manual has guided courts through a three-step process to determine the sentence to be imposed. At a high level, that process looked like this: First, the court would calculate the guideline range based on relevant offense conduct and related factors, along with the defendant’s criminal history. Second, the court would consider the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements or commentary relating to “departures” from the guidelines as well as the defendant’s specific personal characteristics. Third, and finally, the court would consider the statutory factors set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in determining the sentence to be imposed (whether within the guideline range or varying in either direction). As of November 1, 2025, this three-step…
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
October 20, 2025
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
By: Lauren Scribner
In September, a nearly $60 million settlement was reached in Frasco, et al v. Flo Health, Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc., Google, LLC, and Flurry, Inc. The case,[1] a class action filed in 2021, alleged inter alia that Flo Health Inc. (“Flo”), a popular women’s health tracking application estimated to have over 38 million monthly users, invaded the privacy of its users by sharing personal and…
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
October 16, 2025
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
By: Steven Hess
AI Regulation and The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act Artificial intelligence (“AI”) products have become an increasingly significant aspect of U.S. innovation, growth, and development. Generative AI is being used to predict the structure of proteins and other biomolecules in pharmaceutical research,[1] to simulate wargames for the U.S. military,[2] and to drive an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars of growth in sectors from…
Grassley’s Case Against DOJ Stance on Financial Fraud Is Vastly Overstated
April 9, 2012
Grassley’s Case Against DOJ Stance on Financial Fraud Is Vastly Overstated
By: Ifrah Law
In recent weeks, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has criticized the Department of Justice’s handling of executives that some argue are responsible for the financial crisis. Sen. Grassley, the ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, held a hearing in February that looked at mortgage fraud, foreclosure abuse and lending discrimination practices. During his opening statement at that hearing, Sen. Grassley stated, “The…
Nevada Case Points to Perils of Assertion of 5th Amendment in Civil Cases
March 12, 2012
Nevada Case Points to Perils of Assertion of 5th Amendment in Civil Cases
By: Ifrah Law
One of the hardest decisions on which a lawyer may be called upon to advise a client in civil litigation is the decision whether to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege. On the one hand, the overlap between pending civil and criminal matters may make it dangerous for the client to make statements that could incriminate him or her in the criminal case. On the other…
D.C. Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Admission of Handwriting Evidence
March 8, 2012
D.C. Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Admission of Handwriting Evidence
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
If there was ever an open question as to whether forensic handwriting identification is admissible under D.C.’s common law of evidence, the D.C. Court of Appeals has finally put that question to rest. On February 9, 2012, the Court of Appeals held that handwriting comparison and identification, as practiced by FBI examiners, passes the Frye test for admissibility. The issue arose after Robert Pettus’ jury…
DOJ Goes After Smaller Fraudsters, Lets Big Fish Escape
March 5, 2012
DOJ Goes After Smaller Fraudsters, Lets Big Fish Escape
By: Nicole Kardell
Successful criminal prosecutions of mortgage fraud seem to have one thing in common: a fraud figure well below $10 million. One of the recent cases that generated a fair amount of press involved the convictions of co-conspirators in a mortgage scheme carried out by an ex-NFL player. That scheme, which took place during the housing boom in the early 2000’s, resulted in 10 convictions. Former…
Justice Would Be Served by an ‘Open File’ Policy for Prosecutors
March 2, 2012
Justice Would Be Served by an ‘Open File’ Policy for Prosecutors
By: Jeff Ifrah
A couple of years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice made an effort to systematize and improve its discovery obligations under Brady v. Maryland, the 1963 Supreme Court case that requires prosecutors to disclose information in their files that would tend to exculpate criminal defendants. A U.S. attorney, speaking at a conference of defense lawyers, commented at the time that the department takes its Brady…
