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June 21, 2023

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Here’s a quick look at today’s top legal news.

Additional writing by Namrata Arora, Tanvi Shenoy, R Rohit and Nimitt Dixit.

Afternoon Docket writer Caitlin Tremblay is on a Reuters assignment this spring and will return to the newsletter soon.

US Supreme Court’s Alito defends private jet trip to Alaska

REUTERS/Jim Young

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has acknowledged taking a private jet to Alaska for a luxury fishing trip in 2008 but defended his decision not to disclose the flight provided by a billionaire hedge fund manager whose business interests have come before the court.

Alito wrote a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal late on Tuesday defending his conduct hours before news outlet ProPublica published an article raising questions about the justice’s failure to report the trip with Paul Singer on mandatory financial disclosure forms or recuse from cases involving Singer’s business.

The court has been embroiled in mounting ethics controversies – in particular revelations about ties between conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and a Texas billionaire. Opinion polls have revealed a sharp drop in public confidence in the top U.S. judicial body. Read more.

More top news:

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Career Tracker

Women on the bench

Two women judges were confirmed to the federal bench this week, including the first female Muslim federal judge in the United States. Julie Rikelman, a top lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, was confirmed to the Boston-based 1st Circuit by a vote of 51-43. Civil rights lawyer Nusrat Choudhury became the first Bangladeshi-American federal judge when she was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on a 50-49 vote.

Rikelman argued on the losing side of Dobbs v. Jackson, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion, and Choudhury was most recently the legal director of the ACLU of Illinois. President Joe Biden has continued his push to bring greater diversity to the federal judiciary with his recent round of nominations.

More from the legal industry …

Lawyers in Donald Trump’s orbit are facing legal woes. His former personal lawyer John Eastman is embroiled in a disciplinary trial over his conduct in contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, and Todd Blanche, a white-collar attorney defending Trump in two criminal cases, is facing a legal malpractice lawsuit from former clients. Jim Trusty, a former DOJ official, split with Trump in a CNN defamation case citing ‘irreconcilable differences.’ Meanwhile, David Weiss, a federal prosecutor, is in the spotlight for his investigation in the Hunter Biden case. In other news, AccessLex Institute released a report on online law classes, and the findings show the impact of the new normal mode of learning. Self-styled ‘lottery lawyer’ Jason Kurland was sentenced to 13 years after a $107 million fraud conviction. Baker Botts chose Danny David as its new managing partner. Jeremy London, a corporate partner, will serve as Skadden’s next top leader. WilmerHale elected Anjan Sahni, a former federal prosecutor, as the firm’s next managing partner.

Moves:

In Washington, D.C. …
A 15-member Dentons team joined Bryan Cave’s IP and technology practice. Arnold & Porter hired a former CIA lawyer for national security work. Kirkland has a new tax partner.
In New York …
Paul Hastings hired two fintech and payments partners, including a practice group leader, from Perkins Coie. Brown Rudnick added to its emerging growth and venture capital practice.
In Atlanta …
Squire Patton Boggs added the former global trade lead at Edelman Global Advisors to its public policy team.
In Los Angeles…
Holland & Knight added a trio of finance partners from McGuireWoods.
In Seattle …
Co-founder and former CEO of satellite services company Spaceflight, Curt Blake joined Wilson Sonsini to launch its space practice.
In London …
Boies Schiller added a six-attorney team focused on art law.
In Tokyo …
M&A partner Eiji Kobayashi joined Mayer Brown’s corporate and securities practice.

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Amazon duped millions of consumers into enrolling in Prime, FTC says

REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

The Federal Trade Commission has accused Amazon.com of enrolling millions of consumers into its paid subscription Amazon Prime service without their consent and making it hard for them to cancel.

The FTC has been investigating sign-up and cancellation processes for the Prime program since March 2021. The agency said in its complaint, filed in federal court in Seattle, that Amazon changed its cancellation process in April after substantial pressure from the agency, but “violations are ongoing” and that it still “requires five clicks on desktop and six on mobile for consumers to cancel from Amazon.com.”

The lawsuit is one of several actions taken by President Joe Biden’s administration intended to rein in the outsized market power of Big Tech firms as it tries to increase competition to create greater consumer protection. Read more about Amazon’s ‘Iliad Flow’.