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The State Bar of California’s plan to develop its own bar exam stalled in May after the organization that produces the national bar exam raised intellectual property concerns, according to newly released documents, reports Karen Sloan.
Last month, the State Bar of California withdrew a proposal to hire Kaplan North American to develop multiple-choice questions akin to what now appears on the Multistate Bar Exam — a change the financially struggling bar projected would save as much as $4 million a year by allowing it to expand remote testing.
Turns out, Kaplan requested the delay after the National Conference of Bar Examiners sent the company a letter warning it not to use any copyrighted MBE materials, according to a California Bar memo. Kaplan declined to comment on the matter.
A spokesperson for the National Conference of Bar Examiners said California has until Nov. 1 to decide whether to use its MBE questions on the February 2025 bar exam, which would preserve the state’s existing test. As-is, California bar takers complete the 200 multiple-choice-question MBE one day, with an additional day of five one-hour essays and a 90-minute performance test that are developed by the California Bar.
California Bar staff are continuing to work with Kaplan to identify any intellectual property obstacles, according to the bar’s memo, but are also considering using the MBE on the February exam. The bar is also considering developing its own multiple-choice questions for the July 2025 test.
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- David Boies has taken up the case of a former U.S. bankruptcy judge accused of failing to disclose and improperly benefiting from a romantic relationship with a law firm attorney. The Boies Schiller Flexner co-founder filed an appearance to represent former Houston bankruptcy judge David Jones in a lawsuit brought by Morton Bouchard, former CEO of petroleum barge operator Bouchard Transportation.
- Industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America backed a bid by GSK and other drugmakers to stop more than 70,000 lawsuits in Delaware over the discontinued heartburn drug Zantac. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the groups said that a Delaware judge’s recent ruling allowing the lawsuits to go forward jeopardizes the state’s business-friendly reputation and invites a flood of lawsuits.
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That’s how many Democratic-led states have pledged to help defend the ABA’s requirement that law schools advance diversity goals, after a coalition of Republican-led states attacked the ABA accreditation standard earlier this month. The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling curtailing the consideration of race in college admissions does not extend beyond that narrow context into ABA policies or corporate diversity programs, according to a letter the states’ attorneys general sent to the ABA and Fortune 100 companies. Illinois, New York and Massachusetts are among the signatories.
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A potentially seismic moment for civil litigation occurred last Friday during oral arguments at the 9th Circuit in ticket seller Live Nation’s appeal of a trial court decision allowing consumers to band together to litigate antitrust claims. There is a possibility – still remote but now within the bounds of conceivability — that the Live Nation appeal could mark the beginning of the end of a decades-long campaign by U.S. corporations to evade class actions by forcing consumers to arbitrate their claims individually. Intrigued? Read Alison Frankel’s column!
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“This law is a radical departure from this country’s tradition of championing an open Internet.“
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—TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance, which urged a U.S. court to strike down a law they say will ban the popular app in the United States, saying the U.S. government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022. Under the law, ByteDance must divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban on the app used by 170 million Americans. ByteDance said a divestiture is not possible. The law was passed by Congress after U.S. lawmakers worried that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app. The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments on lawsuits against the law filed by TikTok and ByteDance along with TikTok users on Sept. 16
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- Opponents of Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package face a Delaware court deadline to lay out their arguments why the recent shareholder vote ratifying the compensation has no legal effect. Last week, nearly three-quarters of Tesla shareholders voted in favor of the deal, overcoming opposition from a number of institutional investors and proxy advisory firms. The vote comes after Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick invalidated the payout, calling the package an “unfathomable sum” granted by a conflicted board with close personal and financial ties to CEO Musk.
- Florida’s Republican attorney general and a Catholic medical group will urge U.S. District Judge William Jung in Tampa to block a new Biden administration rule that they say will force doctors to provide gender transition care for minors against their judgment or face heavy penalties. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Catholic Medical Association sued the Biden administration last month over U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rules that forbid states from discriminating on the basis of sex by restricting or denying care to people seeking the treatments as part of a gender transition.
- In the first of three days of hearings, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will hear claims from Donald Trump’s lawyers that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading two federal criminal prosecutions of the former president, was not properly appointed and did not have the authority to bring the cases. Cannon is overseeing the criminal case against Trump over allegations he improperly handled classified documents after leaving the White House.
- A judge in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will hear arguments on whether certain defense witnesses must testify at the “Rust” shooting trial of Alec Baldwin and if the film’s convicted armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, can be granted immunity to testify. Prosecutors said this week new evidence shows that Baldwin was reckless with a revolver before the weapon fired a live round that killed “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Two Madonna fans ended their lawsuit in New York accusing the pop superstar of starting concerts two hours late, prompting her legal team to threaten the plaintiffs’ lawyers with sanctions. Michael Fellows and Jason Alvarez did not say in a Brooklyn federal court filing why they voluntarily dismissed their proposed class action, but an attorney for Madonna and Live Nation said the defendants viewed the case as a “frivolous strike suit designed to force them to incur legal expenses.”
- A UnitedHealth Group unit has agreed to pay a $1 million penalty to New York for failing to cover all federally approved birth control without restriction as required by state law and to refund people who were wrongly denied coverage, New York Attorney General Letitia James said. The settlement with UnitedHealthcare of New York resolves a probe that began with a complaint from a patient in Brooklyn who said that the insurer denied coverage of her prescribed oral contraceptive, requiring her to obtain prior authorization or try other treatments.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a California woman convicted of smuggling drugs across the U.S.-Mexican border in a case testing how far law enforcement agents appearing in trials as expert witnesses can go in telling a jury that defendants in certain drug trafficking cases generally have a “guilty mind.” The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld a lower court’s decision to allow testimony by an expert witness who called into question Delilah Guadalupe Diaz’s contention that she did not know that methamphetamine was hidden in the car she was driving, saying that drivers usually know they are being hired to traffic drugs.
- The high court also preserved a tax on Americans who have invested in certain foreign corporations as constitutionally sound, ruling against a challenge to it at a time when some Democratic lawmakers are seeking to impose a wealth tax on the super rich. The justices in a 7-2 ruling upheld a lower court’s decision against a retired couple from Redmond, Washington, who challenged the tax imposed on foreign company earnings, even though those profits have not been distributed to shareholders.
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- Womble Bond Dickinson added partner Allison Ko in Greenville, South Carolina. Ko, who was previously at Dority & Manning, will be part of the firm’s patent prosecution and litigation group. (Womble)
- Employment and labor law firm Littler picked up Matthew Badrov as a Toronto-based partner. Badrov was previously at Sherrard Kuzz. (Littler)
- Benjamin Brickner joined Pierson Ferdinand as a corporate partner. Brickner was previously at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and is based in New York. (Pierson Ferdinand)
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