In this episode of our special 12 Days of Regulatory Insights podcast series, RISE Practice Group Partners Lauren Fincher and Brian O’Reilly look at practical, recent developments and trends in open records laws for 2025. They explore the diverse — and often competing — perspectives in the public records space: protecting sensitive business information submitted to government versus fulfilling disclosure obligations as a governmental body.
In this episode of our special 12 Days of Regulatory Insights podcast series, Chris Carlson, a partner in our RISE practice group and member of the State Attorney General (AG) team, is joined by colleagues Lauren Fincher, also a partner in our RISE practice and State AG team, and Barry Boise, a partner in our Health Care + Life Sciences Litigation practice, to examine how state AGs approached the health care sector in 2025, and what’s coming next in 2026.
What Happened:
A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived a suit against certain pharmaceutical distributors brought under West Virginia public nuisance law. The panel held that the effects of over-distributing prescription opioids may constitute a public nuisance under West Virginia law, defined distributors’ duties under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), and held that abatement may include monetary funding to remediate alleged community harm. Notably, the Fourth Circuit’s decision comes after the West Virginia Supreme Court declined to determine the scope of West Virginia public nuisance law, and as a result, the decision refused to limit the scope of public nuisance law without guidance from the West Virginia Supreme Court.
In the eighth episode of our special 12 Days of Regulatory Insights podcast series, Chris Carlson, a member of Troutman Pepper’s State AG practice, is joined by Lauren Fincher, chair of Locke Lord’s Administrative and Regulatory Practice Group, to discuss the major initiatives and actions taken by the Texas AG’s office in 2024.