Insights

Los Angeles – September 17, 2025: The Daily Journal has named Crowell & Moring’s Agustin D. Orozco to its 2025 Top 100 list. The annual list, which has been presented by the publication since 2004, celebrates California’s 100 most influential attorneys.

Washington – August 21, 2025: The 2026 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 49 Crowell & Moring lawyers as Best Lawyers and 33 lawyers as Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch. The publication also named partner Jason Murray as Lawyer of the Year for Antitrust Law in Los Angeles.

Washington – July 15, 2025: Crowell & Moring was honored to represent MP Materials in its landmark partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, making DoD the company’s largest shareholder. On July 9, MP and DoD signed a multibillion-dollar package of investments and long-term commitments, providing for, among other things, construction of the company’s second domestic magnet manufacturing facility. The agreements include convertible preferred equity, warrants, loans, and price floor and offtake commitments.

Congress has not passed crucial funding bills for the start of Fiscal Year 2026.  If Congress fails to act by September 30, the government may be forced to shut down for lack of funding.  In anticipation of that possibility, agencies government-wide are preparing for a shutdown, and contractors and companies that work with the government should do so as well.  Our team is ready and available to help advise companies through the shutdown process.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently proposed an expanded role regulating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or drones.  On August 7, 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and TSA published a joint Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (proposed rule), titled Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations (BVLOS).  Through this landmark proposed rule, the FAA and TSA aim to provide industry with a clear path forward for streamlined UAS operations for a variety of purposes, including package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, civic interest (public safety), and flight testing.  Comments on the proposed rule are due October 6, 2025.

The Department of Education (DOE) announced on September 10, 2025, that it will end discretionary funding to several Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) grant programs that, it stated, “discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.”[1] The agency stated that it would “us[e] its statutory authority to reprogram discretionary funds to programs that do not present such concerns.”[2] This announcement follows a July 2025 decision by the Department of Justice to no longer defend the constitutionality of a provision of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) that authorizes grant funding to Hispanic-Serving institutions, after determining that such programs “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”[3]

You’re invited to join Crowell & Moring for a day-long program focused on providing an overview of the fundamentals of contracting with the federal government.

The landscape of AI governance and regulation is shifting. Following the release of the White House’s “America’s AI Action Plan” in July 2025 and the President’s signing of related Executive Orders, the White House has emphasized (at least rhetorically) a preference for innovation, adoption, and deregulation. But that does not tell the entire story. The Administration remains committed to exercising a heavy hand in AI, including by banning the U.S. government’s procurement of so-called “woke AI,” intervening in the development of data centers and the export of the AI technology stack, imposing an export fee for certain semiconductors to China, and assuming a stake in a U.S. semiconductor company. State legislatures are also racing to implement their own regulations, particularly around AI’s use in critical areas, such as healthcare, labor and employment, and data privacy. The many sources of regulation raise the specter of a fragmented compliance environment for businesses. This webinar will delve into the Administration’s AI strategy, going beyond the headlines to analyze:

This week’s episode covers DOD’s final rule applying the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program (CMMC) to DoD contractors and subcontractors, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Michael Gruden. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.

This week’s episode covers a DOD final rule most relevant to companies providing consulting services to DOD and the FAR Council’s revisions to FAR Part 8 (Required Sources of Supplies and Services) and FAR Part 12 (Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services), and is hosted by Peter Eyre, Laura Baker, and Rina Gashaw. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.

This week’s episode covers developments involving DOJ’s guidance for federal funding recipients regarding DEI and the White House AI Action Plan, and is hosted by Peter Eyre, Katie Erno, and Matthew F. Ferraro. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.