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Good morning. Donald Trump is due in court today, and we’ve got a roundup of what to expect, and when. Plus, a judge won’t bar the Biden administration’s approval for a $7 billion oil project in Alaska; Tesla was hit with a new race-bias damages award; and Bayer defeated a Merck suit over talc-related liabilities. Coming today: the 7th Circuit takes up 3M’s earplug bankruptcy dispute, and Wisconsin voters head to the polls for a key state supreme court election.
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REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
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Donald Trump, the first ex-U.S. president to be indicted on criminal charges, is slated to be arraigned at 2:15 p.m. ET today.
Trump is due to surrender at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office first, and will likely be fingerprinted and photographed prior to appearing before Justice Juan Merchan at the Manhattan Criminal Court for an arraignment where he is expected to plead not guilty.
The specific charges in the indictment are set to be read at the hearing.
Todd Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and a prominent white-collar attorney at Cadwalader joined Trump’s defense team. Blanche, who previously represented former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and other Trump lawyers urged the judge not to allow videography, photography and radio coverage of the arraignment.
Meanwhile, demonstrations are expected outside the courthouse. New York police over the weekend began erecting barricades near Trump Tower and the courthouse. New York City Mayor Eric Adams warned anyone protesting to “be on your best behavior,” specifically mentioning Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has announced plans to protest.
After the hearing, Trump is expected to return to Florida and deliver remarks from Mar-a-Lago at 8:15 p.m. ET.
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Conservative U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch said they will not hire future students at Stanford Law as law clerks after a speech by another conservative jurist was disrupted by student protesters last month. The move expands a boycott that Ho and Branch began last year of law clerks from Yale Law in protest of what the judges called “cancel culture” and an intolerance of conservative viewpoints. (Reuters)
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Armstrong Teasdale opened a Chicago office, adding 50 lawyers and staff professionals from Novack and Macey. Armstrong Teasdale said the combination pushes the firm’s roster to more than 800 lawyers and staff. (Reuters)
- Squire Patton Boggs, Norton Rose and K&L Gates became the latest law firms to add new partners in Singapore. Norton Rose said it is setting up a restructuring team there, and Squire Patton Boggs is launching a data privacy practice on the island nation. K&L Gates is adding a project finance partner to its Singapore office. (Reuters)
- Allen & Overy installed Karen Seward and Kent Rowey as the firm’s U.S. co-chairs effective May 1. Seward, who works in New York and London, and Rowey, who splits time between New York and Los Angeles, will succeed Tim House, who has been the firm’s U.S. senior partner since 2017. (Reuters)
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That’s the number of law firm merger deals to take effect in Q1 2023, which is an increase from 14 in the same period in 2022, according to data released by legal consultancy Fairfax Associates. The number of large law firm mergers in the first quarter of 2023 exceeded totals for all of 2022, Fairfax Associates said. Overall, Fairfax said 46 mergers were completed in 2022 as a whole, an increase from 41 the prior year. Legal industry watchers predicted 2023 would see a dealmaking rise.
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Shares of the litigation funder Burford Capital shot straight to the moon on Friday after a Manhattan federal judge granted summary judgment against the Republic of Argentina in a complex, Burford-funded case stemming from the government’s takeover of energy company YPF SA. Damages are yet to be determined but Burford’s payoff could be billions of dollars. Both sides agree that there would be no case against Argentina if Burford hadn’t supplied the plaintiffs — former YPF shareholders who lost big — with the money to hire fancy law firms and experts. But they disagree sharply on the implications of that fact. Alison Frankel explains why this is the rare case in which Burford told the world about its stake — and why the funder believes the outcome proves that litigation finance is a boon for the civil justice system.
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“I basically said, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of money.'”
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—Leonardo DiCaprio, who testified in Washington, D.C., federal court that Malaysian financier Jho Low tried to funnel up to $30 million to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign as part of a far-reaching influence operation. Low supported DiCaprio’s charitable foundation and helped fund DiCaprio’s movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” DiCaprio was testifying in the trial of rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of The Fugees hip hop group, who prosecutors accuse of illegally taking tens of millions of dollars to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of Low and the Chinese government.
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Liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz and conservative Daniel Kelly will face off for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court with major consequences for abortion rights, control of the state government and possibly the 2024 presidential election. Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee judge who has spoken in favor of abortion rights, secured the top spot in a four-way nominating contest in February, according to results compiled by the Associated Press. Kelly, a former state supreme court justice who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump when he ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 2020, took second place. The winner between Protasiewicz and Kelly will likely serve as the swing justice when the court eventually decides whether to uphold the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban.
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3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies, represented by Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy, will ask the 7th Circuit to overturn a bankruptcy court decision that declined to protect its parent company from lawsuits involving allegedly defective military earplugs. The bankruptcy court ruled in August that more than 230,000 lawsuits could continue to move forward against 3M, which is not bankrupt. Aearo and 3M have argued that bankruptcy offered a faster and fairer way to compensate veterans who say that earplugs made by Aearo caused hearing loss. Kellogg Hansen’s David Frederick will argue for the plaintiffs.
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Apple’s lawyers at WilmerHale will defend the company in a jury trial in California against claims that it stole trade secrets from medical device makers Masimo and spinoff Ceracor Laboratories. The case before U.S. District Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, California, is part of a multi-front fight between the parties over Apple Watch pulse-oximeter technology. Masimo, represented by Knobbe Martens, has also argued it should be listed as an inventor on several related Apple patents.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Illumina’s attorneys at Cravath will appeal an FTC order directing the company to divest cancer diagnostic test maker Grail. Judge Michael Chappell, an administrative law judge at the agency, ruled last year that the $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail would not hurt competition. The FTC staff appealed the decision to agency leadership, who said Illumina’s ownership of Grail would stifle competition in the U.S. market for cancer tests. Latham represents Grail. (Reuters)
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The DOJ agreed to a settlement with Activision Blizzard to resolve a lawsuit that antitrust enforcers filed in D.C. federal court over salary limits in professional esports leagues. Under the settlement, which still must be approved by a federal judge, Activision, represented by Winston’s Jeffrey Kessler, agreed to refrain from putting any caps or limits on salaries of esports players or teams. (Reuters)
- Vice Chancellor Nathan Cook of the Delaware Chancery Court dismissed Merck’s lawsuit seeking to hold Bayer responsible for more talc-related liabilities stemming from its $14.2 billion purchase of Merck’s consumer care business in 2014. Cook said the purchase agreement “clearly and unambiguously” left Merck liable for claims related to products, including Dr. Scholl’s foot powder, sold before the transaction closed. (Reuters)
- U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones in Manhattan approved Revlon’s reorganization plan, allowing the cosmetics maker to cut $2.7 billion from its debt and exit bankruptcy later this month. Under the plan, Revlon’s lenders will take ownership of the company in exchange for the debt reduction agreement, wiping out the equity value of existing shareholders. (Reuters)
- VW’s lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell are pushing back against the SEC’s bid for sanctions in the agency’s diesel emissions lawsuit in California. The agency asked a judge to punish VW for not producing a longtime employee for a deposition. But VW said it has no power under German law to compel the deposition and to reprimand the employee for any refusal to testify. (Reuters)
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Elon Musk asked a judge to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, calling the suit by Dogecoin investors a “fanciful work of fiction” over Musk’s “innocuous and often silly tweets” about Dogecoin. The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, only Doge” were too vague to support a fraud claim. (Reuters)
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Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who was acquitted last year of allegations he lied to the FBI during a meeting about purported ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia, joined the cybersecurity and privacy practice at Fenwick. Sussmann resigned from Perkins Coie after he was indicted by U.S. Special Counsel John Durham in 2021. (Reuters)
- Paul Hastings added D.C.-based partner Brad Bondi, who will serve as co-chair of the firm’s white-collar group. He arrives from Cahill. (Reuters)
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Dentons added Thomas Labuda Jr as a Chicago-based partner focused on restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy. He was previously at Sidley. (Reuters)
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Baker Botts brought on Tomas Gärdfors as a partner in its London corporate practice. Gärdfors arrives at the firm from Norton Rose. (Reuters)
- Former Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman, who approved last year’s $1.2 billion settlement for victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, joined midsize law firm Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod. (Reuters)
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Walter Davis joined Blank Rome’s intellectual property litigation group as a partner based in D.C. Davis was previously at Davidson Berquist Jackson & Gowdy. (Blank Rome)
- Bryan Cave brought on energy partner Fraser Wayne in the firm’s Denver office. Wayne was previously at Kirkland. (Bryan Cave)
- Proskauer hired Stephen Hibbard as a partner in its litigation department. Hibbard was previously at Jones Day. (Proskauer)
More moves to share? Please drop us a note at LegalCareerTracker@thomsonreuters.com.
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