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Jefferson Siegel/Pool via REUTERS
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After six weeks of trial, the Manhattan jury weighing whether former President Donald Trump falsified business documents to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election is set to begin deliberations, report Jack Queen, Luc Cohen and Andy Sullivan.
The jurors spent all of Tuesday listening to the closing arguments from each side.
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, urged jurors to set aside their personal views of Trump and instead determine whether prosecutors had proven their case.
“If you focus just on that evidence you heard in this courtroom, this is a very, very quick and easy not guilty verdict,” he said.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors they needed to consider political concerns, such as the possibility that Trump and allies, including tabloid publisher David Pecker, undermined the election by controlling what information reached voters.
“This scheme, cooked up by these men at this time, could very well be what got President Trump elected,” Steinglass said.
Blanche said Daniels had been trying to extort Trump by threatening to go public with her story as he battled a string of unflattering stories of sexual misconduct in the final weeks of the 2016 election. Trump denies wrongdoing and says he never had sex with Daniels. Steinglass countered that it was irrelevant if Daniels was seeking a payday, because Trump broke the law by covering up evidence that his fixer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep quiet.
Read more of Reuters’ coverage of the historic trial.
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- DLA Piper must turn over internal records detailing past pregnancy discrimination complaints to one of its ex-lawyers who claimed she was fired for seeking maternity leave, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky in Manhattan ruled. The law firm had fought against turning over the records to plaintiff Anisha Mehta and her lawyers at Wigdor, arguing they were not relevant to her lawsuit against the firm and should remain confidential.
- Plaintiffs law firm Milberg Coleman said it unknowingly filed fraudulent settlement claims in a $5.6 billion antitrust settlement with Visa and Mastercard, telling a judge it was “embarrassed” and would strengthen its review process. The firm said in a court filing that it received paperwork from a “referral” source and then submitted the material to a claims administration company as part of the process for clients to receive money from the settlement.
- U.S. News & World Report’s law school rankings have little impact on the decision-making of aspiring lawyers, according to a new study by two law professors. University of Kentucky law professor Brian Frye and Indiana University law professor Christopher Ryan looked to see if the academic credentials of entering classes rose or fell in correlation with a law school’s rise or fall in the rankings the previous year. U.S. News said it knows from admissions officers that “rankings have a profound effect on applications.”
- U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth for a second time has transferred a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s credit card late fee cap to a D.C. federal court. A federal appeals court that had previously prevented him from doing so relinquished jurisdiction last week. The CFPB had fought for months to move the case out Texas federal court.
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Fenwick & West, which acted as lead outside counsel for crypto exchange FTX until just before its collapse in 2022, remains under investigation in the FTX Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a report issued last week by an independent court-appointed examiner. Alison Frankel takes a look at the report about the law firm’s work for FTX. Fenwick says it engaged in no wrongdoing and will continue to cooperate with the investigation.
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“No less than this Court, the American people serve as guardians of our enduring Constitution.“
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- New York’s attorney general will ask the 2nd Circuit to overturn a ruling in 2022 that blocked the state from enforcing rules against the unauthorized practice of law over a nonprofit that wants to provide limited legal advice to poor New Yorkers. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in his decision said the First Amendment protected Upsolve’s legal advice as speech and that the state’s provision governing the unfair practice of law was not sufficiently tailored. Upsolve said its program will train people who aren’t lawyers to provide free, limited legal advice on debt-collection lawsuits.
- Opening statements are scheduled in the federal prosecution of Ozy Media and its chief executive Carlos Watson for allegedly scheming to defraud investors of tens of millions dollars by misrepresenting the company’s debts, financial performance and audience size. Watson and Ozy Media were charged with securities fraud and wire fraud. Watson pleaded not guilty in the case, which is before U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Data analytics and consulting company Agri Stats must face a lawsuit by the DOJ and six states accusing it of participating in a price-fixing conspiracy with major chicken, pork and turkey processors. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minnesota denied Indiana-based Agri Stats’ motion to dismiss the case, saying the government’s antitrust claims were sufficient to move forward for now. Agri Stats has denied wrongdoing.
- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether federal and state agencies must clearly define limits on wastewater pollution when issuing discharge permits, in a case involving San Francisco’s sewage system. The high court took up the city’s appeal of a decision by the 9th Circuit that upheld a permit issued under the Clean Water Act by the EPA and a state agency after the city said provisions of the permit are vague and make it vulnerable to enforcement for exceeding pollution thresholds that aren’t explicitly defined.
- Apple failed to persuade a 9th Circuit panel to consider blocking a class action accusing the iPhone maker of unlawfully monopolizing the market for iPhone apps and causing prices to remain artificially high for tens of millions of its customers. The appeals court in its ruling said Apple had not met the legal test to interfere with the court’s class order at this time.
- New Jersey officials said the state will receive $125 million from a legal settlement with Denmark’s Orsted over the company’s cancellation last year of two offshore wind farm projects. The settlement comes nearly seven months after Orsted said it would stop developing the Ocean Wind 1 and 2 projects off the coast of New Jersey as it struggled with soaring costs and supply chain delays.
- Ryan Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary and a top lieutenant to Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. Prosecutors had been seeking five to seven years after Salame pleaded guilty to making tens of millions of dollars in unlawful campaign donations to boost causes supported by his boss.
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- White & Case hired David Lim, a lawyer who served as co-director of the DOJ’s Task Force KleptoCapture, which enforces sanctions, export restrictions and other measures against Russia. Lim will be a partner in the firm’s D.C. office. (Reuters)
- Paul Weiss added former General Electric general counsel Michael Holston as a New York-based corporate partner. (Reuters)
- Littler added partners Briana Swift in Seattle and Kelly Cardin in New York City. Swift joins from K&L Gates and Cardin joins from Ogletree Deakins, where she was co-chair of the pay equity practice group.
- Simpson Thacher hired New York-based partner Chris Evans on the fund transactions team. Evans joins the firm from Blackstone. (Simpson Thacher)
- Greenberg Traurig added Orlando-based labor and employment partner Alicia Chiu from Jackson Lewis. (Greenberg Traurig)
- Mayer Brown brought on Isaac Maron as a D.C.-based partner in the tax practice. He returns to the firm from Latham. (Mayer Brown)
- Davis Wright Tremaine brought on D.C.-based advertising partner Kristi Wolff from Kelley Drye & Warren, where she led the FDA practice group. (Davis Wright)
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Legal questions abound when it comes to employers compensating their workers in cryptocurrency, write Keith Markel, Alana Mildner Smolow and Vani Upadhyaya of Morrison Cohen. Paying cryptocurrency in exchange for work, the authors write, could later be deemed a securities transaction. Read more about other compliance issues.
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