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Good morning. The U.S. judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified-documents prosecution made errors in an earlier case, raising questions about how she will handle public access for the former president’s trial. Plus, the latest Thomson Reuters Institute’s Law Firm Financial Index shows law firms’ performance is climbing; Wachtell picked Morrison & Foerster to defend against Elon Musk; and the 5th Circuit this week will consider the Biden administration’s contacts with social media companies. Legal news hasn’t gone on vacation. Let’s dive in!
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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will preside over Donald Trump’s upcoming trial over his handling of classified documents, made two errors in a June trial, including one that potentially violated the defendant’s constitutional rights and could have invalidated the proceedings, according to legal experts, as our colleagues Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen report.
Cannon, a former federal prosecutor, closed jury selection for the trial of an Alabama man to the defendant’s family and the general public, pointing to a lack of space in the courtroom. The judge also neglected to swear in the prospective jury pool. Cannon did not respond to requests for comment.
Legal experts who spoke to Reuters called the errors significant, but they also said Cannon sought to correct her mistakes. Some former federal judges said judges typically make fewer errors as they gain experience. The historic trial of a former president on charges of mishandling national secrets will present a unique set of challenges including intense public scrutiny and the complex laws around handling classified material used as evidence, legal experts said.
Trump has pleaded not guilty. Cannon is set to preside at a pretrial hearing on Thursday. It will be the first since Trump was charged last week in a separate indictment in D.C. federal with conspiring to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. He has disputed the allegations.
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- Wachtell turned to lawyers from Morrison & Foerster to defend it in a legal battle with Elon Musk over the nearly $90 million in legal fees Wachtell received from Twitter last year. Two Morrison & Foerster partners, Jordan Eth and Ragesh Tangri, were identified as representing Wachtell in court papers filed in San Francisco Superior Court. (Reuters)
- U.S. appeals judge Pauline Newman has committed “serious misconduct” by refusing to cooperate with a mental fitness probe and should be suspended from hearing new cases for one year or until she submits to a court-ordered examination, an investigative panel of the Federal Circuit said in a report. Newman has defended her mental acuity and sued her colleagues in D.C. federal court to reverse a decision to stop assigning her new cases. (Reuters)
- Stroock & Stroock & Lavan may soon be rid of its pension obligations, which could remove a potential sticking point as the firm seeks to complete a merger. Co-managing partner Alan Klinger said Stroock’s partnership has “authorized a complete buyout of the pension.” The buyout is subject to a vote among the firm’s retired partners. (Reuters)
- The U.S. legal services sector lost 1,200 jobs in July, new U.S. Labor Department data showed. Legal sector jobs totaled 1,182,500 last month, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The count encompasses a range of legal workers, including paralegals and assistants, but the majority are lawyers, Labor Department figures show. (Reuters)
- Plaintiffs’ firms Cohen Milstein and Bernstein Litovitz are seeking $180 million in legal fees for their work on a $1 billion settlement in which Wells Fargo agreed to resolve claims it defrauded shareholders about its progress in recovering from a series of scandals over its treatment of customers. The bank has denied wrongdoing.
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REUTERS/Thomson Reuters Institute & Financial Insights – Law Firm Financial Index
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A divided 7th Circuit ruled on Thursday that business software provider Salesforce must face sex trafficking allegations from an alleged victim who contends Salesforce knew or should have known that its client Backpage.com was engaged in the trafficking of children. The majority rejected Salesforce’s arguments that it’s protected by Section 230 — and that the plaintiff hadn’t alleged the company had reason to know of her victimization. A dissenting opinion, writes Alison Frankel, warned that the majority’s expansive view of the statute could expose lots of other Backpage business partners to sex trafficking liability.
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“This guy looks like a criminal to me.“
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—U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy in Detroit, in pretrial remarks that drew a rebuke from the 6th Circuit appeals court. The panel overturned a Black man’s drug conviction and 10-1/2 year prison sentence, citing Murphy’s “inappropriate remarks” before trial. The appeals court removed Murphy from presiding again over Leron Liggins’ case. Murphy’s remark “raises the specter” of racial bias, the appeals court said. Murphy did not respond to a request for comment. At the time, he apologized to Liggins and also denied that he was biased.
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- Lawyers for Donald Trump are due to respond to the DOJ’s proposed protective order in the criminal case accusing the former U.S. president of conspiring to reverse his election loss in 2020. In their filing, prosecutors flagged a threatening social media post from Trump, arguing that it suggests he might intimidate witnesses by improperly disclosing confidential evidence received from the government. Trump has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for Trump on Sunday criticized the DOJ’s proposed protective order, and Trump said in a post that he planned to seek to move his criminal case out of D.C.
- In New Orleans, lawyers for the National Association of Manufacturers will try to convince a 5th Circuit panel — Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, sitting with Judges Edith Jones and James Ho — that the Biden-era SEC violated the law when it rolled back a rule governing proxy advisers. Critics said the rules introduced under former President Donald Trump impeded the independence of firms that advise investors on how to vote in corporate elections. Paul Hughes of McDermott will face off against Daniel Matro for the SEC.
- Timothy Mapes, former chief of staff to then-Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan, is scheduled to stand trial in Chicago federal court on charges of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice. The charges stem from his testimony to a grand jury investigating possible public corruption schemes. Mapes, represented by attorneys from Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter, has pleaded not guilty.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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- On Tuesday, Chief Judge David Godbey in Dallas will take up the agreements by three banks to pay $1.35 billion to resolve litigation by former Allen Stanford investors who accused them of contributing to the imprisoned financier’s massive Ponzi scheme. Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank will pay $1.205 billion, HSBC will pay $40 million and Independent Bank Group, formerly Bank of Houston, will pay $100 million. Two other defendants, France’s Societe Generale and Mississippi-based Trustmark, settled for a respective $157 million and $100 million earlier this year. Stanford is serving a 110-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 for defrauding about 18,000 investors.
- On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis faces a briefing deadline on his motion to dismiss Disney’s lawsuit against him as the two fight over control of a local entity that governs the theme park. Disney filed its lawsuit in April against the governor in federal court, claiming DeSantis has “weaponized” state government against the company for attacking the classroom gender discussion law. Disney is asking the federal court to prevent the state from enforcing new laws directed at the company and to reinstate the development agreements favorable to Disney that were struck with the prior district’s board.
- On Thursday, the 5th Circuit will hear arguments in the Biden administration’s appeal of a Louisiana judge’s order restricting it from contacting social media companies like Alphabet and Meta Platform about their content moderation. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty found that the government’s efforts to limit the spread of what it considered to be misinformation on social media violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech. The appeals court has paused Doughty’s order pending the Biden administration appeal.
- On Friday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan will hear more arguments on U.S. prosecutors’ effort to jail indicted FTX cryptocurrency founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of witness tampering while free on bail pending trial. He has denied the allegation. Kaplan said Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty to fraud and other charges, must attend the hearing.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Women in Texas with complicated pregnancies will be exempted from a state abortion ban under a newly issued temporary injunction, with the judge citing a lack of clarity on the ban’s medical exemptions. Travis County District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum in her ruling sided with women and doctors who sued Texas over the abortion ban. (Reuters)
- A divided 5th Circuit panel ruled that tens of thousands of Mississippi convicts who had completed their sentences were being unconstitutionally stripped of their right to vote. The majority faulted a provision of Mississippi’s state constitution that mandates lifetime disenfranchisement for people convicted of a set of crimes including murder, rape and theft. (Reuters)
- U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, hearing the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit accusing Google of unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the internet search market, let stand key claims made by the federal government. Google had asked for summary judgment on all the government’s claims in the case. Mehta granted Google’s request on some grounds but allowed the remainder of the claims to proceed to trial next month. (Reuters)
- Kenvue cannot immediately appeal a federal judge’s order allowing lawsuits claiming that its popular over-the-counter painkiller Tylenol can cause autism in children of mothers who take it during pregnancy. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan ruled Kenvue had not shown any basis for allowing the unusual step of an appeal to the 2nd Circuit before final judgment in the case. (Reuters)
- Coinbase Global’s lawyers asked a judge to end the SEC’s lawsuit accusing the world’s largest publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange of violating federal securities laws. In a filing in federal court in Manhattan, Coinbase said the SEC had no authority to pursue its lawsuit because the digital assets and services it objected to did not qualify as securities. (Reuters)
- A group of former IBM employees waited too long to bring claims that they were laid off as part of a purge of older workers, the 2nd Circuit said, marking the technology company’s latest victory in a string of age bias cases involving thousands of workers. Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, who represents the plaintiffs, said the ruling would allow IBM to use arbitration agreements to block discrimination claims from court. (Reuters)
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Joint ventures owning intellectual property is a scenario that should be avoided, write Steven Bartz and Jerry Fellows of Greenberg Traurig. Joint ownership of IP has the potential to create numerous difficulties concerning enforcement, commercial exploitation, and termination, and can ultimately jeopardize the IP or its value, they write.
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