Trump’s hush money trial …
Donald Trump’s former fixer, and star witness for the prosecution, Michael Cohen testified that Trump personally approved a hush money payment to bury porn star Stormy Daniels’ story of a sexual encounter … Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche accused Cohen of lying about a phone conversation he claimed to have had with Trump about the payment … Blanche used Cohen’s own words to paint a picture of a turncoat who went from revering the former president to reviling him, even calling Trump a “dictator douchebag” … Meanwhile, legal experts say prosecutors have largely backed up Cohen’s testimony with the accounts of others, phone logs and other hard evidence … Here are key takeaways from Cohen’s testimony … Closing arguments are expected next week.
Bar exams and law schools …
The State Bar of California shelved its plan to develop its own bar exam that can be administered online after parting ways with the National Conference of Bar Examiners … Cornell Law School has increased the availability for full loan student loan repayment for its graduates in public interest jobs … And, American Bar Association data found that white law students are more likely to land full scholarships compared with their non-white classmates.
Musk’s legal woes …
Tesla must face lawsuit accusing the company of misleading owners into believing that their vehicles could soon have self-driving capabilities … The Environmental Democracy Project sued Tesla over harmful pollutant emission from its California plant … Earlier this week, Tesla settled a former factory worker’s sexual harassment lawsuit … Elon Musk was ordered to testify again in the SEC’s investigation into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter … A U.S. judge dismissed X Corp’s lawsuit accusing Israeli company Bright Data of illegally copying and selling content … Neuralink’s tiny wire issues is a problem the company has known about for years, sources said … SpaceX is quick to build facilities and launch an office in Texas, but can be far slower to pay builders and suppliers … The NLRB said it will suspend a case accusing SpaceX of illegally firing engineers critical of CEO Elon Musk… An Australian court lifted an order on X to block videos of a church stabbing … And, a Swedish court upheld a dismissal of Tesla’s lawsuit against Sweden’s Transport Agency in a conflict over license plates.
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Did Tesla bully Holland & Knight to squelch a friend-of-the-court brief by a Delaware law professor who was also a consultant at the firm? When that accusation surfaced earlier this week in a filing by retired University of Delaware professor Charles Elson, Elson said Holland & Knight told him in an email about Tesla’s purported threat to pull its work from the firm if Elson filed an amicus brief criticizing Tesla’s plan to reinstate CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package in a new shareholder vote. Elson didn’t include the email in his original filing, but Alison Frankel has now seen it. On its face, Frankel says, it seems to back Elson’s account — but in a late-breaking twist, Holland & Knight told Frankel that it included an “incorrect” account in the email. The firm continues to deny that it was pressured by Tesla. Read more.
Check out other recent pieces from our columnists: Alison Frankel and Jenna Greene
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Additional writing by Kuheli Biswas.
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