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Good morning. When the common application for colleges goes live today, we’ll get a glimpse at how schools are changing their admissions process in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down affirmative action. Plus, a lawsuit seeks to shut down the country’s first publicly-funded religious school, and the company behind collapsed cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna can’t dodge the SEC’s fraud claims. Remember the story of Rumpelstiltskin? We’ve got the refresher you didn’t know you needed.
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When the common college application goes public today, prospective students will get their first peek at how colleges are using essays to learn more about their backgrounds after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions policies are unconstitutional, reports Sharon Bernstein.
One of Emory University’s new prompts asks, “Tell us about a community that you have been part of where your participation helped to change or shape the community for the better.” At Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, a new question will ask students how the Supreme Court ruling might touch their lives personally.
For schools looking for ways to create diverse student bodies, the court’s decision is expected to elevate the role of students’ personal essays, which Chief Justice John Roberts singled out as a place where they could still highlight how race had affected their lives.
But the new essay prompts could form the basis of future litigation over the role of race in college admissions. The inherent nuance in taking race into account without allowing it to form the sole basis for an advantage creates a gray area that could lead to new lawsuits, experts said after the ruling.
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- Virtual law firm Scale brought on a small Texas intellectual property shop in its first-ever acquisition. James Creedon and two other attorneys from Creedon PLLC joined Silicon Valley-based Scale, whose lawyers work entirely remotely. Scale opened in 2020 as among so-called “distributed” or virtual firms that rely on technology and run a non-traditional law firm business model. (Reuters)
- Lawyers for suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state Senate to dismiss all but one of the articles of impeachment he faces, arguing that 19 of the 20 articles of impeachment he faces are based on allegations of wrongdoing that took place before he began his third term in office in January. The lone article Paxton’s lawyers did not seek dismissal of involved accusations that he concealed acts of wrongdoing in connection with his settlement of a whistleblower lawsuit in February. (Reuters)
- Republican-appointed 5th Circuit Judges Edith Brown Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett on Aug. 10 will review a Louisiana judge’s order that curbed the ability of government officials to push social media companies to moderate content they deem harmful. The appeals court paused U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s order and agreed to fast-track consideration of it. (Reuters)
- An attorney ethics board in D.C. recommends that a former federal prosecutor lose her law license for 60 days for “grave” professional misconduct in the case against the man once accused of killing federal agency intern Chandra Levy. Ex-prosecutor Amanda Haines has denied any intentional effort to suppress evidence. (Reuters)
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That’s the number of carats in “The Enigma” black diamond — purportedly the largest in the world — that YouTube content creator Richard Heart purchased in 2022, defrauding investors in the eyes of the SEC. The agency accused the online entrepreneur of illegally raising more than $1 billion in three unregistered cryptocurrency offerings and of defrauding investors out of $12.1 million to buy luxuries including the diamond. The rock cost 3.16 million British pounds ($4.28 million) at a Sotheby’s auction. Heart was not immediately reached for comment. The SEC’s lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court seeks civil fines and the recouping of gains.
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It’s no secret that businesses large and small are terrified of Illinois’ biometric privacy law, which exposes them to potentially catastrophic damages for the unauthorized collection of data from employees or consumers. Dior’s lawyers came up with a plan to quell the proliferation of Illinois privacy class actions by saddling unsuccessful plaintiffs with defense fees and costs. But Dior’s fee-shifting idea hit a brick wall last week. Alison Frankel has the details.
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“For some, being the subject of a criminal investigation can, a la Rumpelstiltskin, be turned into golden political capital.“
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—Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, in a ruling that rejected Donald Trump’s bid to block any indictments stemming from a grand jury investigation in Georgia. McBurney also denied Trump’s request to quash a special grand jury report that included recommendations on whom to charge in connection with a campaign to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Trump’s poll numbers in the Republican race for the White House have kept going up. He has denied any wrongdoing. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has indicated she intends to ask a grand jury to approve charges sometime in the next three weeks. The court is bracing for the announcement.
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- Liberal Janet Protasiewicz will formally join the Wisconsin Supreme Court, flipping control to a liberal majority ahead of rulings on an abortion ban and other matters that could play a role in the 2024 presidential election. Protasiewicz in April defeated conservative candidate Daniel Kelly in what New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice called the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. More than $42.3 million had been spent, according to a WisPolitics.com review, far outstripping the previous record of $15.2 million. The result turns a court with a former 4-3 conservative majority to liberal control after 15 years.
- Immigration advocates are due to respond to the Biden administration’s effort in the 9th Circuit to block a California federal judge’s order striking down a new regulation restricting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other nations without seeking protection elsewhere first, or if they failed to use legal pathways for U.S. entry. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar last week stayed his order for 14 days, leaving the restrictions in place for now.
- U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan will hear arguments over whether to certify a class action in a lawsuit by the city of Philadelphia alleging JPMorgan and other defendants conspired for eight years to inflate interest rates that state and local governments have to pay on a popular tax-exempt municipal bond. Such bonds are used to raise funds for infrastructure and public services, according to court records. The plaintiffs are represented by Quinn Emanuel’s Daniel Brockett, and Robert Wick of Covington is an attorney for JPMorgan.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The NFL’s lawyers at Wilkinson Stekloff and Covington contend there’s no evidence from residential and commercial “Sunday Ticket” subscribers to justify an antitrust price-fixing trial next year in Los Angeles federal court. They’ve asked U.S. District Philip Guiterrez to rule on the merits for the league. The plaintiffs are seeking billions of dollars in damages in the certified class action. (Reuters)
- Taco Bell was sued in a proposed class action in Brooklyn federal court for allegedly falsely advertising its Mexican Pizza, Veggie Mexican Pizza, Crunchwrap Supreme and certain other menu items as containing “at least double” their actual content. Taco Bell, a unit of Yum Brands, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reuters)
- The National Wildlife Refuge Association and other conservation groups sued the Biden administration in D.C. federal court over its decision not to phase out lead ammunition and fishing tackle use at a national wildlife refuge in West Virginia, which they said can poison bald eagles and other vulnerable species. (Reuters)
- U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane in McAllen, Texas, ruled that many U.S. lenders need not comply with a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau mandate to gather demographic data on small business borrowers while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a challenge to the agency’s funding. The Texas Bankers Association and other plaintiffs sued in April, saying the CFPB had no authority to issue the rule because an appeals court found the regulator’s funding structure unlawful. (Reuters)
- Nike’s lawyers at Arnold & Porter convinced a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal to revive the shoe giant’s bid for federal trademark rights in “SNKRS,” its popular smartphone app for sneaker sales. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board overturned a trademark examiner’s determination that “SNKRS” was a generic term for sneakers that could not receive trademark protection. (Reuters)
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- Simpson Thacher added Jennifer Albrecht as a New York-based partner in the alternative capital and private credit practice. Albrecht previously was deputy general counsel at SVB Capital. (Reuters)
- Wilson Sonsini added Karen Deschaine as a corporate partner in the firm’s San Francisco office. Deschaine joined from Cooley. (Reuters)
- Management-side employment firm Littler brought on Jamie Spataro as a Pittsburgh-based partner. Spataro arrives after a nearly 15-year career in FedEx’s legal department. (Littler)
- Brown Rudnick added Boston-based corporate partner John Cushing, who focuses on corporate and securities law, including transactional work. Cushing was previously at Goulston & Storrs. (Brown Rudnick)
- Baker Donelson brought on Baltimore-based labor partner Louis Cannon Jr from Jackson Lewis. (Baker Donelson)
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Design and utility patents have coexisted harmoniously for decades, each covering its own subject matter, write Deirdre Wells, William Milliken and Kristina Caggiano Kelly of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox. But that could change. The Federal Circuit appeals court sitting en banc will take up a case that questions whether the “obvious” analysis of design patents should be merged with or changed in view of the analysis applied to utility patents. The ruling in the case is expected to have wide impact.
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