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REUTERS/Charles Mostoller
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Early data from a handful of top U.S. law schools shows the percentage of nonwhite students enrolling this year has remained mostly unchanged following the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring colleges and universities from considering race in admissions, our colleague Karen Sloan reports.
Six of the top 20 U.S. law schools have disclosed some racial diversity data on their websites or provided it directly to Reuters as of Sept. 5. Of those, five reported that the percentage of first-year students of color this fall increased or remained steady this year. One said that figure declined.
For law schools, the full impact of the affirmative admissions ban may have been blunted by the fact that this year’s applicant pool was both 6% larger and more racially diverse than the previous year, according to data from the Law School Admission Council. Applicants of color accounted for nearly 48% of the pool, up from about 47% in 2023.
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- The Federal Circuit extended by another year the suspension of U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman, the nation’s oldest active federal judge, following allegations that the 97-year-old was no longer fit to serve. A lawyer for Newman said she would appeal the order.
- Covington was sued in New York state court by blockchain consultant and lawyer Steven Nerayoff, who accused the law firm of advising him not to share exculpatory information with federal prosecutors when he was charged with extortion. Prosecutors subsequently dropped the case. Covington said the lawsuit “lacks merit” and the firm “will defend against it vigorously.”
- A&O Shearman is cutting 10% of its partnership, shutting down its Johannesburg office and closing its consulting practice in a series of post-merger changes. The firm currently has about 800 partners globally.
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That’s the cost of the engagement ring from Tiffany that is at the center of a court battle in Massachusetts. The state’s top court at a hearing appeared open to modernizing how state law treats engagement rings when marriage plans are called off. Lawyers on both sides said that while they disagreed on who should get to keep the ring, the case presented a chance to scrap a precedent from the 1950s and get courts out of the business of evaluating the details of messy breakups.
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“I’ll confess that the variation
initially spooked me.“
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—U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, who said he turned to artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT to help interpret a key legal term in a man’s appeal of his prison sentence. Newson said in a concurrence to an 11th Circuit opinion that while he was initially “spooked” by slight variances in the answers generated by the programs, he believes the software could be a “valuable” tool. His opinion marked a self-described “sequel of sorts” to one he wrote in May.
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- Today, the FTC will urge a federal judge in New York to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion merger with rival handbag maker Capri Holdings at a trial, arguing it will eliminate fierce competition in the market for “accessible luxury,” our colleague Siddharth Cavale reports.
- Also today, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is scheduled to participate in a conversation at New York University School of Law with Melissa Murray, a law professor there who specializes in constitutional law and other areas. The justices’ new term begins next month.
- On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit will hear a challenge to a novel city ordinance in San Jose, California, requiring gun owners to purchase insurance and pay a fee to a nonprofit aimed at preventing gun violence. U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman last year rejected a lawsuit over the measure.
- On Wednesday, environmental groups will ask the 9th Circuit to reverse a judge’s ruling in favor of the U.S. Forest Service in a lawsuit challenging the approval of three commercial logging projects in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon.
- On Thursday, disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti will ask the 9th Circuit to shorten his 14-year prison term after he pleaded guilty to cheating some clients out of millions of dollars. Avenatti said the sentence should not have been added to the time in prison he was already serving for two fraud convictions.
- On Friday, a hearing in the FTC’s lawsuit to block Kroger’s $25 billion acquisition of rival grocer Albertsons is due to close in Portland, Oregon, federal court. The case has been seen as a test of the agency’s bid to use antitrust laws to protect workers.
- Also on Friday, the D.C. Circuit will hear a dispute over a 2016 rule from the FDA classifying premium cigars as tobacco products subject to the same federal law as cigarettes. A federal judge last year vacated the rule, in a lawsuit brought by the Cigar Association of America.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The DOJ by the end of the year will reveal how it thinks U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in D.C. should restore competition in the web search market. Mehta found Google to be an illegal monopoly, and now the fight will focus on remedies.
- The EEOC sued FedEx, accusing the company of placing disabled transport workers on unpaid leave or firing them if they were not “100% healed.” FedEx did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which accuses the package delivery giant of disability discrimination.
- California and Hawaii can enforce bans on carrying guns in some public locations including bars and parks, a 9th Circuit panel said, partly reversing lower court orders blocking the bans.
- U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California, questioned key parts of the NCAA’s landmark $2.7 billion settlement agreement to allow schools to pay student athletes, and sent the deal back for revisions. At a hearing, Wilken expressed concern about potential curbs on some payments to athletes and said she was not prepared to preliminarily approve the settlement.
- Drug industry group PhRMA and drug companies Novartis, AbbVie and AstraZeneca lost a bid to block a Maryland law requiring drugmakers to offer discounts on drugs dispensed by third-party pharmacies that contract with hospitals and clinics serving low-income populations.
- U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti in Newark, New Jersey, rejected Coinbase’s bid to dismiss a proposed class action by shareholders who accused the operator of the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange of downplaying the likelihood it would be sued by the SEC. The regulator in a June 2023 lawsuit accused Coinbase of operating an unregistered securities exchange.
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- King & Spalding brought on Bobby Cook, a real estate and funds partner in New York from Arnold & Porter. (King & Spalding)
- Fenwick added Benjamin Kingsley as a government investigations partner in San Francisco. He previously was a federal prosecutor in California. (Fenwick)
- Sheppard Mullin hired corporate partner Thomas DeSplinter in Chicago from McGuireWoods. (Sheppard Mullin)
- Proskauer picked up London-based leveraged finance partners Jake Keaveny and Courtland Tisdale from Cahill. (Proskauer)
- Allison Pofit Altaras jumped to Holland & Hart as a Denver-based real estate and land use partner. Altaras was previously at Otten Johnson. (Holland & Hart)
- Honigman hired Angela Johnson Reier as a partner in the transactions and counseling practice group in Chicago. Reier was previously assistant general counsel at Collins Aerospace. (Honigman)
- Clark Hill added cybersecurity partner Scott Koller in Los Angeles from Baker & Hostetler. (Clark Hill)
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As the legal system faces increasingly complex cases, the decision to consolidate lawsuits into multidistrict litigation, especially in sexual abuse cases, becomes more complicated. Philip Federico of Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico discusses considerations for lawyers to consider when deciding whether to consolidate abuse cases into an MDL. Read today’s Attorney Analysis.
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