Reuters Legal

The American Bar Association’s policymaking body adopted a resolution opposing government efforts to punish ‘lawyers, law firms, or other organizations for representing or having represented any particular client or cause disfavored by the government.’   The resolution is the latest in an escalating conflict between the Trump administration and the ABA, which is the nation’s largest voluntary lawyer organization with about 170,000 dues-paying members.   In recent months, the ABA has publicly clashed with the administration over officials’ attacks on judges and law firms, while government officials have dismissed the ABA as a ‘snooty’ organization of ‘leftist lawyers’ and alleged that some of its diversity efforts are illegal.   The U.S. Department of Justice has barred its attorneys from participating in ABA events and curtailed the organization’s ability to vet new federal judicial nominations. Trump in April threatened to revoke the ABA’s status as the federally recognized accreditor of law schools.   Karen Sloan and Mike Scarcella have more: https://reut.rs/4ltBRyB

A federal judge on Aug. 8 temporarily blocked the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump from refusing to fund domestic violence programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or transgender rights. U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, agreed with a coalition of 17 groups that the conditions set by the U.S. Department of Justice in May, which reflect the administration's broader agenda, were likely arbitrary and violated federal law. ‘If the Court does not grant preliminary relief ... this could result in the disruption of important and, in some cases, lifesaving services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence,’ wrote Smith, an appointee of President George W. Bush, a Republican. Smith blocked the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women from imposing the conditions pending the outcome of the lawsuit, which could take months or longer to resolve. Daniel Wiessner has more: https://reut.rs/4m80fqB

Geopolitical and economic instability were good business for U.S. law firms in the second quarter of 2025 as clients sought outside counsel to help them navigate a tumultuous landscape, a new analysis of firm financials by the Thomson Reuters Institute has found. Demand for law firm services rose 1.6% over the second quarter of 2024 and billing rates were up 7.4% over that period, making it an ‘unexpectedly prosperous’ quarter, according to Thomson Reuters Institute’s Law Firm Financial Index released. The Thomson Reuters Institute and Reuters share the same parent company. President Donald Trump's global trade policies have helped fuel demand for law firm services as clients navigate ever-changing tariffs, the institute found earlier this year. Clients are also looking to law firms to help them manage shifting regulations and a cooling economy. Read more in The Afternoon Docket.   Subscribe: https://reut.rs/4iQvdSd

A federal judge has preliminarily approved a $5 million class action settlement resolving claims that pizza chain Papa John's unlawfully restricted employee mobility among franchises, suppressing workers’ wages. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Beaton in Louisville, Kentucky in a ruling on Aug. 7 called the proposed accord fair and reasonable. Employees sued Papa John's in 2018 over agreements between franchise owners not to solicit or ‘poach’ each others' employees, alleging the agreements violated antitrust law. There are about 400,000 members in the class, comprising employees from 2014 to 2021. Read more: https://reut.rs/3UTbTcQ

President Donald Trump said he was deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington and putting the city's police department under federal control, an extraordinary assertion of presidential power in the nation's capital. Trump's move, which bypassed the city's elected leaders, was emblematic of his approach to his presidency, wielding executive authority in ways that have little precedent in modern U.S. history and in defiance of political norms. The president cast his actions as necessary to ‘rescue’ Washington from what he described as a wave of lawlessness, despite statistics showing that violent crime hit a 30-year low in 2024 and has continued to decline this year. Read more: https://reut.rs/4mzQ2Tw

Geopolitical and economic instability were good business for U.S. law firms in the second quarter of 2025 as clients sought outside counsel to help them navigate a tumultuous landscape, a new analysis of firm financials by the Thomson Reuters Institute has found. Demand for law firm services rose 1.6% over the second quarter of 2025 and billing rates were up 7.4% over that period, making it an ‘unexpectedly prosperous’ quarter, according to Thomson Reuters Institute’s Law Firm Financial Index. The Thomson Reuters Institute and Reuters share the same parent company. Subscribe to The Daily Docket for more: https://reut.rs/4aBvwvO

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved to end its contract with unionized employees, according to the union's president, the latest action in President Donald Trump’s push to weaken collective bargaining across the federal government.   The union, which represents 8,000 EPA employees, is planning a legal response to the decision, said Justin Chen, president of the agency's chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a statement on Aug. 8.   The decision gets Trump closer to his goal to strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to collectively bargain with U.S. agencies. Eliminating union deals would allow agencies to more easily fire or discipline employees, according to attorneys representing federal workers.   The order involves removing collective bargaining rights at more than 30 federal agencies, including the EPA, and is currently being challenged in court by unions who say it violates free speech and obligations to bargain with workers. Read more: https://reut.rs/46TF1rX

A landmark trial kicks off over the Trump administration's use of National Guard troops to support its deportation efforts and quell protests in Los Angeles, in a legal challenge highlighting the president's break from long-standing norms against deploying soldiers on American streets. A federal judge on Aug. 8 temporarily blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from refusing to fund domestic violence programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or transgender rights. The University of California said on Aug. 8 that it was reviewing a $1 billion settlement offer by President Donald Trump's administration for UCLA after the government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over pro-Palestinian protests. A U.S. judge denied the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell on sex-trafficking charges, writing that the records did not answer lingering questions from the public about their crimes or Epstein's death. Here is your legal file for the day ➡️

Tom Goldstein funneled nearly $1 million of his and his wife's money into a trust account controlled by his law firm to shield it from the Internal Revenue Service, federal prosecutors alleged in an expanded indictment against the prominent former U.S. Supreme Court lawyer.   The superseding indictment, filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Aug. 7, also alleged Goldstein in 2020 and 2021 offered cryptocurrency, student loan payments and a $10,000 bonus to a manager at his former firm Goldstein & Russell ‘in part to dissuade the firm manager from cooperating with the IRS's ongoing criminal investigation.’   Goldstein, who argued more than 40 cases at the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023 and who co-founded the SCOTUSblog Supreme Court news website, was first indicted in January on 22 counts of tax evasion and other financial criminal charges allegedly connected to his side career as a high-stakes poker player.   Goldstein has pleaded not guilty. The new indictment brings additional allegations and details to the case but does not include new charges.   Read more: https://reut.rs/41xdk4o

A U.S. judge denied the Department of Justice’s bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges https://reut.rs/4fzOnv6