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Judges Elizabeth Branch and James Ho speak during The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin
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A government watchdog group urged the U.S. judiciary to rein in the recurring practice of conservative judges boycotting the hiring of law clerks from specific schools over protests and disruptions on their campuses, our colleague Nate Raymond reports.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a letter urged the U.S. Judicial Conference to take up the matter after 13 judges announced they would not hire students from Columbia University in response to its handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations prompted by Israel’s war in Gaza.
The judges, all appointees of Republican former President Donald Trump, had in a letter last month called the Manhattan campus an “incubator of bigotry” and had also argued for “serious consequences” for anyone who participated in the campus demonstrations. The signatories included two judges who since 2022 have announced similar boycotts of clerks from Yale and Stanford over disruptions of conservative speakers on their campuses.
Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s president, in Wednesday’s letter argued that the pattern of boycotts by a small but influential group of federal judges “establishes a damaging and troubling precedent for the entire judiciary.” The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to comment.
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- Republican attorneys general from 21 states say the American Bar Association’s accreditation arm should change its standards on diversity for law schools after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious college and university admissions policies. The group said in a letter that the accreditation standard requiring law schools to take action to achieve diverse student bodies, faculty and staff runs afoul of the justices’ 2023 ruling.
- Roger Williams University law school professor Tara Allen was picked to become the new federal public defender for the districts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The Boston-based 1st Circuit selected Allen, who has a long track record of defending indigent defendants in court.
- Google persuaded a 4th Circuit panel that a South Carolina state tourism agency cannot shield records that the Alphabet unit said it needs to fight claims that it has unlawfully monopolized the market for digital advertising. The appeals court rejected the argument from the agency that it could assert immunity while the state, through its attorney general, was suing the company.
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That’s how much the federal judiciary would receive for court security for 2025, a 4% boost, under a Republican-drafted bill advanced by a U.S. House panel. The U.S. Supreme Court would get increased funding to support protection of the justices’ homes as part of the funding bill. The judiciary was one of the few parts of the government to receive a boost in spending in a bill that Democrats called a partisan measure that would slash spending for regulatory agencies. The bill next goes to the full House Appropriations Committee.
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“A 50% increase of someone’s rates is not something that any client I ever had
would have accepted.“
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- The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release at least one opinion, as the term draws to its anticipated close this month. The justices do not reveal in advance which cases they will issue rulings on. Some of the pending disputes include curbs on firearm possession tied to domestic violence orders; access to the abortion medication mifepristone; the lawfulness of the SEC’s in-house enforcement; and approval of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement.
- U.S. District Judge John Chun in Seattle will hold a status conference in the FTC’s antitrust case accusing Amazon of abusing its market power to minimize competition and keep prices artificially high. Amazon has denied the agency’s claims. The two sides have been feuding over whether Amazon failed to retain internal communication involving its top leaders. A trial is scheduled for 2026.
- A 9th Circuit panel will take up an appeal from Palestinian organizations and other plaintiffs who sued the Biden administration to stop any support for Israel’s military actions following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,000 people. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in January declined to issue a preliminary injunction, saying it was his “obligation to remain within the metes and bounds of its jurisdictional scope.”
- The American Constitution Society at its national convention will host a workshop focused on how the legal profession can pursue diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking race-conscious admissions at universities. EEOC Commissioners Kalpana Kotagal and Jocelyn Samuels will appear with the U.S. Education Department’s Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of education.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- A U.S. judge in North Carolina denied the FTC’s request to block Novant Health’s $320 million acquisition of two hospitals in the state, a deal the agency said would lead to higher prices and reduced innovative care. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell in his ruling said the FTC had not met its legal burden for a preliminary order halting the proposed transaction in the Charlotte area.
- A former Meta engineer accused the company of bias in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza, claiming in a lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to help fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinian Instagram posts. Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer, sued the social media giant for discrimination, wrongful termination and other wrongdoing.
- NetJets, the luxury plane unit of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, sued its 3,400-member pilots union for defamation over statements about its commitment to safety and training pilots. The lawsuit in a state court in Columbus, Ohio, follows years of often contentious relations between the carrier and the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots.
- Ohio cannot enforce a law barring chiropractors and some other healthcare practitioners from soliciting business from victims of car crashes and other crimes within 30 days of their injury, a state appeals court ruled. The ruling held that the 2019 law was improperly tucked into a budget bill after failing to pass on its own.
- A consumer class action accusing major Las Vegas hotels of sharing price information to artificially boost the price of room rentals is headed to the 9th Circuit, after the plaintiffs appealed Nevada Chief Judge Miranda Du’s decision to dismiss the case.
- Rubio’s Coastal Grill, a California-based restaurant chain known for its fish tacos, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company plans to close 48 locations while keeping 86 restaurants open in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Rubio’s blamed the closings on “the rising cost of doing business in California.”
- McDonald’s does not have the right to use the term “Big Mac” for poultry products in Europe after not using it for them for five consecutive years, the region’s second top court said, a partial win for Irish rival Supermac’s in a long-running trademark dispute.
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The FTC issued its proposed final rule in April banning the use of future noncompete agreements for all workers, including senior executives. Noncompete agreements have long been part of a company’s toolbox to mitigate the risk of a former employee disclosing or using company trade secrets, write Matthew Kohel and Dana Silva of Saul Ewing. Although lawsuits against the FTC will likely delay the rule, given the number of states that have adopted some type of restrictions on noncompetes, companies should continue to rely on other measures to protect their confidential and trade secret information.
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