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No Post-Thanksgiving Break for Cyber – DoD and NIST Publish New Guidance

Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.01.17

Both the Department of Defense and National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) have put pen to paper and provided new information for contractors looking to comply with DFARS 252.204-7012 and its accompanying cybersecurity requirements under NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-171.  Earlier this week, the DoD posted guidance explaining that contractors can still use system security plans (SSPs) under the original version of NIST SP 800-171 to “document implementation” under the DFARS Clause, despite that version not including SSPs as a security control requirement.  Separately, NIST published a draft of NIST SP 800-171A, Assessing Security Requirements for Controlled Unclassified Information, providing guidance to both contractors and their customers regarding how to conduct assessments under NIST SP 800-171.  Importantly, the draft is open to comment through December 27, 2017, providing contractors with a unique opportunity to weigh in on how their customers may ultimately judge compliance with the DFARS Clause’s security requirements.


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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