Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Law360, in “The Hottest Topics Appellate Attys Are Tracking in 2025,” by Jeff Overley. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Appellate lawyers in 2025 should probably stock up on coffee and expect some all-nighters — numerous high-profile appeals, a new presidential administration and a new framework for legal challenges to regulations suggest it'll be an uncommonly tumultuous trip around the sun. …
But the outgoing administration might not be making it any easier for its successor to pivot. Epstein Becker Green member Paul DeCamp observed, for instance, that after the U.S. Department of Labor recently lost a major Fair Labor Standards Act case, it started its appeal far sooner than necessary.
"The department wasted no time in getting that appeal on file, and I think that was probably, at least in part, to give the department the opportunity, under the current administration, to get their opening brief on file at the Fifth Circuit," DeCamp said. "[That] makes it ... a little bit more awkward if the Department of Labor, several months from now, in the context of a reply brief or otherwise, tries to take a position that is directly at odds with what's in the opening brief." …
Epstein Becker's DeCamp echoed that prediction, telling Law360 that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" and that Loper Bright's directives should "apply equally to rules, regardless of who happens to be in power."
"The challenges to regulatory action ... that the new administration takes will tend to have greater success than they might have before Loper Bright because of the absence of deference," DeCamp said. "I don't think that's an issue that skews in favor ... of one party or another."
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