 //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591700&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591701&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591702&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591703&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591704&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
|
|
|
| //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=874768&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=30976226&stpe=static” border=”0″ style=”max-height:12px;” /> |
 |
|
|
|
Good morning. The nation’s first totally online law school, at Purdue, is asking the Indiana Supreme Court to allow its students to take the state’s bar exam, making Indiana just the second state to open the exam to an online school. Plus, Crowell & Moring is fighting with a landlord over $30 million in pandemic-era rent, and Binance, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank are facing heat from regulators. Thanks for being here.
Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
|
Online legal education could take a major step forward if Purdue’s push to allow graduates of its online law school to take the bar exam is successful, reports Karen Sloan.
Online law classes have gained traction since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but only California allows graduates of fully online law schools to take the bar exam. Elsewhere, students must first graduate from a law school accredited by the ABA, which requires schools to have a brick-and-mortar campus.
Now, Concord Law School at Purdue University Global, which became the first U.S. online law school in 1998 and is not ABA-accredited, is seeking a rule change from the Indiana Supreme Court that would enable its graduates to sit for the state’s attorney licensing exam. The court is seeking public comments on the proposal.
“For people who live in the farther corners of the state, they don’t have to move or commute to the law school,” said Purdue law dean Martin Pritikin. “They can stay where they are and serve their communities.”
|
|
|
-
Midsize law firm Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach has agreed to pay $200,000 to the state over data security lapses. An investigation into a 2021 breach found the law firm failed to comply with health information privacy and security rules and state law, the New York attorney general’s office said. The law firm, which represents hospitals and hospital networks in litigation, neither admitted nor denied the allegations as part of the agreement. (Reuters)
-
Disbarred environmental lawyer Steven Donziger lost his challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court to his criminal contempt conviction. The court turned away an appeal by Donziger, who has argued that his prosecution violated his constitutional rights because private lawyers appointed by a federal judge handled the case against him after the DOJ declined to do so. Donziger long fought Chevron over alleged oil pollution in Ecuadorian rainforests. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision to not hear the appeal. (Reuters)
- Plaintiffs’ firms including Berger Montague, DiCello Levitt and Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca said they will ask for about $14 million in legal fees for their work on a $43 million cheerleader industry settlement resolving antitrust claims against Varsity Brands. The company, represented by Cleary Gottlieb and Baker Donelson, has denied wrongdoing. (Reuters)
|
That’s how many square feet Crowell & Moring leases at its office D.C., which is the subject of the law firm’s lawsuit against the landlord to recoup $30 million in rent. Crowell, which said it signed the lease in 1985, alleged in the lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court that it had a right to a rent abatement during the COVID-19 pandemic based on a “material interference” with its ability to use its office space. Crowell’s landlord didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The case is among several brought by a law firm against a landlord over pandemic-era rent.
|
Appeals court ignores basic concept in lawsuit over student’s sexual assault
A federal appeals court recently declined to take up a case alleging a 13-year-old disabled student was sexually abused, deciding not to join a majority of circuits that allow suits under the “state-created danger” doctrine. The 5th Circuit instead relied on a troubling ‘history-and-tradition’ standard favored by conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court in order to dismiss the case, columnist Hassan Kanu writes. The 5th Circuit’s ruling unnecessarily impedes access to justice, and it also illustrates the broad reach of the high court’s new and ill-defined “history-and-tradition” framework for analyzing certain constitutional rights, Kanu says.
How a legal brawl over ‘male enhancement’ pills led to a RICO verdict against this LA firm
Litigators fire off demand letters all the time. But when Los Angeles firm Tauler Smith threatened convenience store owners with $100,000 in liability for false advertising and racketeering for selling, ahem, male sexual enhancement supplements, the tables turned. A San Diego federal jury last week found Tauler Smith liable for RICO violations for its part in the scheme, which opposing counsel from Gaw Poe called a “shakedown.” In her latest column, Jenna Greene looks at the fight and the message it sends about pre-suit threats.
|
“I’m troubled by what I see now. I hope it’s not a pattern.“
|
-
Opening statements are expected in the first trial involving Juul Labs and its former largest investor, Marlboro maker Altria Group, over claims by the state of Minnesota that they created a public nuisance by marketing addictive e-cigarettes to minors. Jury selection in the case, brought in 2019, was set to begin on Monday in state court in Hennepin County. Juul and Altria have faced thousands of similar lawsuits around the country. Juul said the “state’s claims do not stand up as matters of facts and law.” Altria has said in court papers that the surge in youth vaping in Minnesota happened largely before it took its 35% stake in Juul in 2018, and that as a minority, non-voting investor it should not be held responsible.
-
The Georgia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case challenging the state’s ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The state justices said in November that Georgia was allowed to enforce such a law while the state appeals a lower court order striking it down. The state law, which originally took effect this past summer, has been challenged by Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups. Georgia passed the law banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks, in 2019.
-
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is set to hold the first of several hearings on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The hearing will feature testimony from witnesses including FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg, Federal Reserve official Michael Barr, and Nellie Liang, an under secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department. Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by federal regulators on March 10, with Signature Bank following suit a few days later. Federal agencies including the DOJ and the SEC have opened investigations.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
|
- The CFTC sued Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange and its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao, accusing them of operating an “illegal” exchange and a “sham” compliance program. The lawsuit claims Zhao told Binance employees and customers to circumvent compliance controls, citing a number of practices first reported by Reuters in a series of investigations. A Binance spokesperson said the company had worked to ensure it does not have U.S. users, but said it would continue to “collaborate” with regulators. (Reuters)
-
The U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear an appeal from a Maine inn owner seeking to curb suits accusing hotels and other places of lodging of discriminating against disabled people by not providing enough information on their websites about accessibility. Jenner’s Adam Unikowsky filed the petition. (Reuters)
-
Amgen, represented by Jeffrey Lamken of MoloLamken, sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to revive patents on its cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha, while rival Sanofi urged the justices not to stifle competition for therapies to address a common health risk. Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy argued for Sanofi. (Reuters)
-
A Seattle federal judge said he will hear a dispute over class certification in a multibillion-dollar consumer antitrust suit against Amazon that alleges the e-commerce company’s pricing practices have driven up the cost of goods sold on other web platforms. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones largely denied Amazon’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit. Amazon’s attorneys at Paul Weiss and Davis Wright dispute the allegations. (Reuters)
-
James Velissaris, the founder of Infinity Q Management, the New York firm which once claimed to manage $3 billion, said he did not lie to investors and asked to withdraw his guilty plea ahead of his sentencing next week. Velissaris pleaded guilty to securities fraud in November, but he said in court papers filed with a new legal team from Barnes & Thornburg that he is innocent because his company had disclosed to investors that it may have valued assets differently from an independent pricing service it used. (Reuters)
|
-
Wilmer Hale added Paul Connell in the firm’s D.C. office as co-chair of the state attorney general practice. Connell was previously at Cozen O’Connor. (Reuters)
-
Gibson Dunn added partners Sara Weed in the firm’s D.C. office and Jason Cabral in New York. The lawyers, previously at Paul Hastings, focus on financial services and fin-tech regulatory and transactional matters. (Reuters)
-
Arnold & Porter hired James Bergin as a New York-based financial services partner from the New York Federal Reserve. He most recently served as acting co-general counsel and deputy general counsel at the New York Fed. (Reuters)
- Sheppard Mullin added a five-attorney team in Dallas, including four partners, to the firm’s real estate, energy, land use and environmental practice group. The team, arriving from Jones Day, is led by Michelle Brown and Andrew Bengtson. (Sheppard Mullin)
- Jenner added energy transactional partner Raunaq Kohli in the firm’s New York office. Kohli was previously at Skadden. (Jenner)
-
Cozen O’Connor added Vancouver-based partner Andrea Piercy to lead the firm’s Canadian employment group. She was previously at Hamilton Duncan. (Cozen)
-
K&L Gates added Virginia Peters as a Dallas-based corporate partner. She and two counsel joined the firm from Winston & Strawn. (K&L Gates)
|
|
|
Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletter or other Reuters news content.
Get Reuters News App
Want to stop receiving this newsletter? Unsubscribe here.
To manage which newsletters you’re subscribed to, click here.
|
|
|
|
