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MDLs, judge shopping on tap at judiciary rules meeting
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Two hot button issues are slated for consideration at the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules meeting today: multidistrict litigation and judge shopping.
The committee is expected to finalize its long-debated – and first ever – rule governing how judges should oversee multidistrict litigation, which makes up the bulk of the federal civil caseload.
Companies and their defense attorneys say they are swamped with weak or false claims in MDLs and have argued that the rule should set a higher bar for cases filed as part of MDLs by requiring plaintiffs to share more about their claims early on. The plaintiffs bar has pushed back, arguing that it takes time to develop claims.
If the committee votes to move the rule forward, it will go to the conference’s standing committee, which can decide to advance it, reject it or change it.
The committee will also consider what steps, if any, it should undertake to curb “judge shopping,” after the judiciary’s policymaking body adopted a discretionary policy aimed at promoting random assignment of cases challenging federal and state laws.
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- U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino handed down prison sentences to a disbarred New York lawyer and a federal court employee he bribed for more than a decade in exchange for client referrals, federal prosecutors said.
- The DOJ rebuffed demands by Republicans in the House of Representatives to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interviews with a special counsel whose report questioning Biden’s memory set off a political firestorm. In a letter, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said the department had already provided all of the information sought in a congressional subpoena, including certain transcribed interviews from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation.
- The New York State Bar Association adopted guidelines for lawyers to use artificial intelligence without running afoul of attorney ethics rules, as organizations and courts continue to weigh the benefits and pitfalls of AI use in the legal sector. Lawyers should take precautions to safeguard sensitive client information and protect confidentiality, and should not rely only on information generated by AI in client representation, a state bar AI task force urged in a new report.
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That’s how many currently-serving state and federal judges are the subject of surveys taken by their former clerks that were submitted to the nonprofit Legal Accountability Project to be part of a new database that allows law clerks to judge their judges. The database, which launched Sunday, aims to give law students applying for clerkships a better way to learn about the reputations of their potential future bosses before taking a job. Access to the database is restricted to law school students and recent alumni, who can pay $20 to subscribe.
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If you pay attention to Supreme Court litigation, you know that not all circuit splits are created equal. Some merit the justices’ attention. Many others do not. Stanford professor Joseph Grundfest has come up with what he says is a quantitative way to measure the significance of circuit splits. He lays it out in a brief urging the Supreme Court to grant Nvidia’s petition in a shareholder class action. Alison Frankel has the story.
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“Such a deal would face a pretty tough reception from the antitrust regulators.“
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—Seth Bloom, a former general counsel of the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee, who told Reuters that Google parent Alphabet’s contemplated acquisition of marketing software company HubSpot would likely spark opposition from regulators as they push back on tech giants getting bigger through acquisitions. But many experts told Reuters the potential deal would not curb competition.
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- The U.S. News and World Report has said it will release its 2025 law school rankings today. Rankings watchers expect that U.S. News will modify its formula to make it more difficult for people to use publicly available ABA data to forecast the results months before the official list comes out and to reduce volatility in schools’ rankings.
- The parents of a Michigan boy who fatally shot four classmates are set to be sentenced for manslaughter. Jennifer and James Crumbley face up to 15 years in prison in connection with the 2021 shooting their son, Ethan, carried out. The parents’ argued, among other points, that it was impossible for them to envision their son would carry out a mass shooting.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Chipmaker Nvidia was sued for trademark infringement by financial technology company Modulus Financial Engineering over its Modulus artificial intelligence software. Modulus Financial asked a Texas federal court in its complaint to force Nvidia to stop using the Modulus name, which it said would create consumer confusion with its own AI-related software.
- Tax preparer Jackson Hewitt agreed to pay $10.8 million to resolve a proposed class action accusing the company of scheming to limit its employees’ mobility and suppress their wages. Plaintiffs’ lawyers for about 30,000 Jackson Hewitt tax preparers revealed the terms of the proposed deal, which would end five years of litigation, in a filing in New Jersey federal court.
- Budget retailer 99 Cents Only filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, saying that it intended to close all of its 371 stores in the U.S. and sell off its real estate and remaining inventory. It has lined up a bankruptcy loan that will provide $35.5 million in new funding for the company.
- Novo Nordisk Foundation, the parent of Wegovy producer Novo Nordisk, refiled an application to the FTC for approval of a $16.5 billion deal to buy manufacturing subcontractor Catalent, a spokesperson said. An application was submitted to U.S. antitrust authorities on March 4, but “following informal discussions with the FTC staff,” the company withdrew and filed a new application on April 2, a Catalent SEC filing dated April 3 showed.
- Redesigned versions of Google’s smart speakers and other devices do not violate Sonos’ patent rights and can be imported into the U.S., the Federal Circuit affirmed. The court upheld a U.S. trade tribunal’s decision that Google’s redesigns of products including Google Home speakers, Pixel phones and Nest Hub smart displays were sufficient to avoid infringing Sonos’ multi-room wireless audio patents.
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Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in corporate America are facing an onslaught of criticism, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. That ruling didn’t address companies’ DEI programs, but in striking down affirmative action in higher education, it has heightened legal scrutiny of diversity-related programs in employment, writes Jason Knott of Zuckerman Spaeder. A clear lesson is emerging for employers: Forgetting about the “E” in DEI may put you on the wrong end of a major verdict.
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