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Good morning. With the start of application season approaching, law schools are diverging on whether to allow prospective students to use AI. Plus, Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CNN gets tossed, and the DOJ asks the Supreme Court to put Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy plan on hold while it weighs the legality of its protections for members of the Sackler family. All that, and a peek at what’s on the court calendar this week. Thanks for being here.
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A week after the University of Michigan Law School banned the use of popular artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT on student applications, at least one school is going in the other direction, reports Sara Merken.
The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University said that prospective students are explicitly allowed to use generative artificial intelligence tools to help draft their applications, although they will still need to certify that the information submitted is truthful.
The University of California, Berkeley School of Law was apparently the first to adopt a formal policy on the use of artificial intelligence in the classroom, but for now the school has decided not to specifically ban ChatGPT from the application process, said assistant dean of admissions Kristin Theis-Alvarez.
Michigan Law School now explicitly bans prospective students from using ChatGPT and similar tools on their applications. The revised Michigan law school application requires applicants to certify that they followed the prohibition, with any false certification risking revocation of admission or expulsion.
Read more about AI in law schools.
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- Kellogg Hansen is representing relatives of a U.S. aid worker and American soldiers killed or injured by Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front in a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court against cement maker Lafarge over payments the French company made to extremist groups. Attorneys from Latham last year filed a similar case against Lafarge in the same court. (Reuters)
- Small California firm Hodl Law lost its case against the SEC, after a San Diego federal judge found the crypto-focused outlet didn’t have standing to sue. The firm wanted a declaration from the court that engaging in transactions on the Ethereum crypto network did not implicate U.S. securities laws. U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz ruled Hodl had not shown how it was harmed by any SEC regulatory action or inaction.
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That’s how much the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York hopes to get from the sale of its Brooklyn Navy Yard clubhouse as it puts together a $22 million settlement to exit bankruptcy and resolve more than a hundred decades-old sexual abuse cases. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, New York, approved the youth club’s bankruptcy plan, which received support from 97% of sexual abuse claimants after Madison Square agreed to sell the clubhouse. Madison Square filed for Chapter 11 protection in June 2022 to address 140 abuse claims, nearly all of which stem from the conduct of a single doctor who volunteered at the youth club from the 1940s to the 1980s.
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The U.S. Supreme Court could soon face a major test of its credibility after Alabama Republicans recently enacted a congressional district map that appears to run afoul of an order from the justices, columnist Hassan Kanu writes. The justices in June agreed with a lower court that Alabama’s previous map likely discriminated against Black voters, and it ordered the state to redraw its districts. Yet, lawmakers have now submitted a map that seems to dilute the Black vote even further, Kanu writes. Alabama lawmakers appear to be making a bet that the conservative court will refuse to toss out an electoral map that favors Republicans, he writes.
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“Judges apply rules, not the parties’ preferences.“
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- Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, is due in Florida federal court after being charged last week with conspiracy to obstruct justice in his alleged effort to help the former U.S. president hide documents. De Oliveira told another worker at the resort where Trump lives that “the boss” wanted security videos of the property in Florida deleted after the DOJ subpoenaed them. Prosecutors also charged De Oliveira with lying to the FBI during a voluntary interview, falsely claiming he had no involvement in moving boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. De Oliveira’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
- Former U.S. Congressman Stephen Buyer is set to be sentenced in Manhattan federal court after he was convicted at a jury trial on charges that he traded on inside information that he learned in 2018 as a consultant to T-Mobile US ahead of its $23 billion merger with Sprint. Assistant U.S. attorneys Kiersten Fletcher and Margaret Graham have recommended a sentence of 36 months in prison. Buyer’s defense lawyers at Orrick, including Henry Asbill and Olivia Rauh, asked U.S. District Judge Richard Berman to impose home confinement and community service. Buyer intends to appeal his convictions.
- A New York state judge will hear oral arguments in DoorDash and Grubhub’s bid for a preliminary injunction against New York City’s minimum wage law for food delivery workers. The law, which a judge put on hold earlier this month, would require companies to pay delivery workers $17.96 an hour, which would rise to nearly $20 in April 2025. Companies can decide whether to pay workers hourly or per delivery.
- Alleged Russian intelligence officer Vadim Konoshchenok is due to appear in Brooklyn federal court before U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez for a status conference in the U.S. criminal prosecution accusing him of smuggling U.S.-origin electronics and ammunition to Russia to help its war against Ukraine. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes ordered Konoshchenok detained pending trial, after prosecutors called him a flight risk. Konoshchenok has pleaded not guilty.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- On Tuesday, 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.
- On Wednesday, 3M faces a deadline to respond to a group of 22 states and U.S. territories that moved to block a proposed $10.3 billion settlement to resolve claims against the company over water pollution tied to “forever chemicals.” The states asserted that the deal, pending before U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel in South Carolina, fails to adequately hold the company accountable. 3M, which is facing thousands of lawsuits over PFAS contamination, did not admit liability in the proposed settlement.
- On Thursday, an American couple accused of laundering billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency stolen from the 2016 hacking of virtual currency exchange Bitfinex are due to appear in D.C. federal court for a plea hearing. Heather Morgan, who used the hip-hop alias “Razzlekhan” to push her music online, and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein were initially arrested in 2022. They are set to appear before Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Lawyers for Lichtenstein and Morgan did not respond to requests for comment.
- On Friday, Coinbase is due to respond to the SEC’s lawsuit in Manhattan federal court accusing the cryptocurrency platform of making billions of dollars by operating as a middleman on crypto transactions, while evading disclosure requirements meant to protect investors. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s general counsel, has said the company will continue operating as usual and has “demonstrated commitment to compliance.” Coinbase’s defense lawyers include William Savitt of Wachtell, co-chair of the firm’s litigation group. Coinbase also has a former Trump-era SEC enforcement leader, Steve Peikin of Sullivan & Cromwell, as a defender.
- Also on Friday, drugmaker Endo International will ask a U.S. bankruptcy judge to approve its bankruptcy sale and overrule the DOJ’s objections. Endo said last week the federal government’s opposition to its plan to sell itself to its senior lender group threatened to undo nearly $600 million in settlements reached with states and people harmed by the U.S. opioid crisis. Endo filed for bankruptcy last year, seeking to address its $8 billion debt load and to settle thousands of lawsuits over allegations of its role in the opioid epidemic. The DOJ has said the proposed sale violates U.S. bankruptcy law because it would pay some creditors, like the opioid claimants, while leaving nothing for other creditors including federal government agencies.
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- The DOJ asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Purdue Pharma from proceeding with a bankruptcy settlement that protects its Sackler family owners from lawsuits. The Office of the U.S. Trustee argued that Purdue should not be allowed to move forward with its restructuring before the Supreme Court had a chance to weigh in on legal protections for non-bankrupt entities, an issue that has divided bankruptcy courts across the U.S. (Reuters)
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily blocked a lower court’s decision to strike down a regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms known as “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace. The action by Alito effectively freezes the litigation as the court weighs a request from President Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate the rule pending an appeal. (Reuters)
- The NCAA must face allegations from two prospective classes of U.S. college volunteer sport coaches that contend they were unfairly denied compensation in violation of federal antitrust law, U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled. The NCAA’s lawyers at Munger Tolles argued the plaintiffs in two cases had not shown that any school would have hired them for a paid position. The organization has since withdrawn a rule permitting unpaid volunteer coaches. (Reuters)
- The back-up safety driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber Technologies test vehicle that struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, in 2018 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation, prosecutors said. Rafaela Vasquez, who was charged with negligent homicide in 2020, pleaded guilty to endangerment and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation, the Maricopa County Attorney’s office said. (Reuters)
- New Jersey residents have sued Danish renewable energy developer Orsted and the state over a tax break the company received to build a major offshore wind farm in the Atlantic, claiming the estimated $1 billion subsidy violates the state constitution. New Jersey groups Defend Brigantine Beach and Protect our Coast NJ filed their lawsuit claiming the law authorizing the tax break violates a provision of the state constitution that generally prohibits legislation that specifically favors a single, private entity. (Reuters)
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- Simpson Thacher hired Angus Lennox as a London-based partner focused on real estate private equity. Lennox was previously at Blackstone. (Reuters)
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