The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank sent shockwaves through the tech and financial industries. While the Federal Reserve and FDIC quickly moved in to buffer the losses, the sudden meltdown revived discussions last heard during the 2008 financial crisis focusing on bank bailouts and regulatory frameworks. The National Law Journal’s May/June print edition’s cover story dives deeply into how recent banking woes could impact regulatory regimes and ultimately approaches to client-attorney risk mitigation in the financial sector.

The word bailout also recently came up in a conversation on a totally different topic: the potentially astronomical cleanup costs for environmental pollution by PFAS, commonly known as “forever chemicals.” Our second feature is taking a look at the state attorneys general as well as plaintiffs firms pushing a new wave of litigation to roll over environmental cleanup costs to PFAS manufacturers. Defense and plaintiffs attorneys agree on the massive scale of the issue—the question remains: who’s going to pay for the removal of these toxins from soil and water resources across the U.S.?