Maryland audiologist fights Medicare’s ban on private-pay care
Medicare pays Dr. Alicia Spoor $29.21 for an hourlong comprehensive hearing evaluation. Keeping her Maryland audiology practice running costs about $235 an hour—and that's just to break even. Dr. Spoor is an audiologist, a doctoral-level clinician who diagnoses and treats disorders of hearing and balance. At Designer Audiology, her independent ...
The Docket : October 23, 2026
The Docket is PLF's weekly newsletter covering the cases, clients, and policy battles shaping the future of liberty in America. You can catch up on last week's Docket here and subscribe below to receive future editions in your inbox. An Ohio thoroughbred trainer partners with PLF to affirm her constitutional right to a jury trial; ...
Supreme Court will hear our school admissions case
Let's not bury the lede. PLF is going back to the Supreme Court! Yesterday, the Court agreed to hear our case challenging Montgomery County's magnet school admissions rules, which were designed to reduce the number of Asian American students (and did). The lower courts rejected our Equal Protection claim because even despite that policy, A ...
PLF heads back to SCOTUS to challenge racial discrimination in public school admissions
Pacific Legal Foundation is heading back to the Supreme Court next year with our case, The Association for Education Fairness (AFEF) v. Montgomery County Public Schools. Montgomery County, Maryland, is one of the largest school districts in the country. Four decades ago, MCPS launched a magnet program designed for gifted middle school students, ...
The Docket : October 16, 2026
The Docket is PLF's weekly newsletter covering the cases, clients, and policy battles shaping the future of liberty in America. You can catch up on last week's Docket here and subscribe below to receive future editions in your inbox. A broad coalition of California farmers, ranchers, and businesses challenges an "occupied critical ...
Good enough for Google, but not for college? One student’s fight against discriminatory admissions
What does it take to earn a place at one of America's top universities? On paper, Bay Area high school student Stanley Zhong seemed like a textbook shoo-in for admission to any of the schools on his short list. But as Stanley and his family would soon discover, being qualified for admission and getting admitted into college are not necessarily the ...
The Docket : October 9, 2026
The Docket is PLF's weekly newsletter covering the cases, clients, and policy battles shaping the future of liberty in America. You can catch up on last week's Docket here and subscribe below to receive future editions in your inbox. Anastasia Boden's SCOTUS Scoop returns; California regulators dismiss a small business owner's $24 ...
The Supreme Court passed on lobster boat tracking. The question will return.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Frank Thompson's challenge to Maine's rule requiring lobstermen to carry a government GPS tracker on their boats at all times. The denial leaves in place a lower court decision that lets the state track Frank, a fifth-generation lobsterman from Vinalhaven, without a warrant 24 hours a day, whether ...
The Orange County Register : Washington’s energy permitting fast lane is slow
The federal government is America's largest landowner. For decades, policymakers and experts have assumed that the "quick" way to access resource-rich federal lands works as advertised. New research suggests otherwise. Developing the vast energy and mineral resources under federal control often means going through the National Environmental Poli ...