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Good morning. Before it became the target of the SEC’s crackdown on crypto, Coinbase was already working on its legal defense in an unusual way. Plus, meet the prosecutor who led the investigation into Hunter Biden, and read why the 5th Circuit says a Christian-owned business is exempt from a federal anti-discrimination law. Welcome to Wednesday.
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Months before cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase became the biggest target of the U.S. crackdown on digital assets, the company launched an unusual legal offensive, recruiting top lawyers to try to shape court rulings in other cases, reports Jody Godoy.
Prior to the SEC suing Coinbase earlier this month, the company had weighed in with amicus briefs in two other crypto-related lawsuits brought by the regulator, and urged judges to adopt views on open legal questions that are at the heart of its own case.
Coinbase tapped major corporate defense law firms Gibson Dunn and Cahill Gordon & Reindel to file papers in the two cases. It’s an unusual move – according to Gibson’s own data, amicus briefs are filed in just 0.1% of cases in federal trial courts.
A ruling favoring another crypto defendant at the trial court level would not be binding on Coinbase’s own case, but it could signal to a judge that the momentum is shifting, legal experts said.
Read more about the cases that caught Coinbase’s attention.
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- Who is David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware who spearheaded the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter? Colleagues called him an independent-minded career federal prosecutor, who has been part of several high profile cases. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Senate confirmed Julie Rikelman, a top lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, to the Boston-based 1st Circuit by a vote of 51-43. President Joe Biden nominated Rikelman to the court one month after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion. Two moderate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted in support of Rikelman, as did all Senate Democrats present for the vote. (Reuters)
- Song Jung, the founder and leader of Dentons’ global intellectual property and technology group, is taking a team of 15 IP lawyers to Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Jung will be the new global chair of BCLP’s patent practice and will work out of its Washington, D.C., office. In March, Dentons saw a 30-lawyer patent team depart to DLA Piper. (Reuters)
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Massachusetts high court has said that a lawyer’s discriminatory views can create an inherent conflict of interest when the client is a member of groups that are the subject of the attorney’s bigotry, in what’s believed to be the first ruling of its kind. The decision includes some important limitations, but it is groundbreaking nonetheless for a court to recognize that racism and other forms of discrimination can impede a lawyers’ duty to zealously represent clients, columnist Hassan Kanu writes. Kanu says the court’s analysis of the issues — including a separate concurring opinion — lays out a common sense approach for other states to follow.
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“He was fully aware in real time that his plan was damaging the nation.“
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—California State Bar prosecutor Duncan Carling, who gave opening arguments in the disciplinary case seeking to revoke the law license of John Eastman, a former personal lawyer to Donald Trump, over allegations he pushed false fraud claims and conspired to overturn Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Eastman faces 11 counts of ethics violations, including misleading courts and making false public statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Eastman testified for more than an hour in his own defense.
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- The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the report of Special Counsel John Durham, which examined the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The report, published in May, found that the FBI lacked “actual evidence” to investigate the campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump’s political opponents to fuel the probe.
- Daniel Rodriguez, who tased D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in February to charges of conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, tampering with proceedings and inflicting bodily injury on officers with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison sentence, while Rodriguez is asking for just over five years.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The 5th Circuit said a Christian-owned business is exempt from federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In a unanimous opinion, the court said Braidwood Management, which runs an alternative health center in Texas, cannot be sued by the EEOC over its policy that employees who engage in homosexual conduct, seek gender transition or fail to adhere to strict sex-specific dress codes will be fired. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a 4th Circuit ruling that had blocked South Carolina from ending public funding to Planned Parenthood under Medicaid for providing abortions. At issue is whether recipients of Medicaid have the right to challenge state determinations that a medical provider is not qualified to provide certain services. The justices sent the case back to the lower court to reconsider the case in light of their 7-2 ruling on June 8 in a similar case from Indiana preserving an individual’s right to sue government officials over alleged violations of rights created by federal programs that Congress enacts through its spending power. (Reuters)
- Sixteen young Montana residents asked a judge for a historic order declaring that the state’s pro-fossil fuel policies violate their rights, wrapping up arguments in the first youth-led U.S. constitutional climate trial. Judge Kathy Seeley, in Helena, took the case under consideration after hearing from the plaintiffs during closing arguments that said the state’s policies are exacerbating the climate crisis and risking their futures. (Reuters)
- Georgia-Pacific can avoid litigating tens of thousands of asbestos lawsuits while its subsidiary Bestwall remains in bankruptcy, the 4th Circuit said. In a 2-1 decision, the court ruled that extending bankruptcy’s so-called “automatic stay” to protect Georgia-Pacific, which is not bankrupt, would give Bestwall a better chance to reorganize in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the dissenting judge called the bankruptcy an illegitimate “shell game.” (Reuters)
- Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and more than 200 daily newspapers, on Tuesday sued Google in federal court in Manhattan, accusing the social media company of violating federal antitrust law by trying to monopolize the market for online advertising. Gannett alleged that Google’s control over tools for buying and selling online ads forces publishers to sell more cheap ad space, leaving the Alphabet unit with “exorbitant monopoly profits” and “dramatically less revenue” for publishers and its ad technology rivals. (Reuters)
- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon may have ordered a 2019 review of the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the U.S. Virgin Islands said as part of its case against the bank over its ties to the late financier and sex offender. In a May 26 deposition, Dimon said he never met Epstein, did not recall discussing his accounts internally, and barely knew who Epstein was prior to the July 2019 arrest. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase said in a filing the U.S. Virgin Islands gave Epstein more than $300 million in tax incentives and waived sex offender monitoring requirements.
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- Three lawyers, including Hamid Namazie, who was the managing partner of McGuireWoods’s downtown Los Angeles office, joined Holland & Knight’s financial services practice group. Namazie, along with partners Yoojin Lee and Mark Spitzer, will be part of the firm’s asset-based lending team. (Reuters)
- Brown Rudnick hired Michael Chung as a partner in the firm’s emerging growth companies and venture capital practice in New York. Chung most recently was a partner at Fox Rothschild. (Brown Rudnick)
- International art law partner Pierre Valentin made the move to Boies Schiller Flexner from Constantine Cannon. Valentin is joined by a group of three of counsel and two associates. The team will split its time between Milan and London. (Boies Schiller)
- Everett Eissenstat joined Squire Patton Boggs’ public policy team as a partner. Eissenstat previously served in senior public policy positions and was most recently chair of North America and global trade lead at Edelman Global Advisors. (Squire Patton Boggs)
- Kirkland added Sam Kamyans from Allen & Overy as a partner to its tax practice group in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. (Kirkland & Ellis)
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