Reuters Legal

Bar exam pass rates were up in 2024, new data from the American Bar Association shows.   Nearly 83% of graduates from ABA-accredited law schools who took the bar for the first time passed — up more than three percentage points over the 79% first-time pass rate in 2023. It’s the highest national first-time pass rate since 2020, when 84% of takers passed.   Bar exam experts predicted that 2024 would bring strong results due to the unusually large size of the entering class of 2021 and strong academic credentials of those enrollees.   Applicants to law school increased 13% in 2021 — a surge attributed to the pandemic — which enabled schools to be more selective in their admissions.   Karen Sloan has more: https://reut.rs/3DyhIaP

Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to 'take back' the Panama Canal but has not offered specifics about how he would do so. Swipe for an explanation of the history and laws governing the critical waterway ➡️ https://reut.rs/43GZWMX 

U.S. President Donald Trump suffered another legal defeat on March 11 in his effort to curtail automatic birthright citizenship nationwide, as a third federal appeals court refused to lift one of the court orders blocking the Republican's executive order. The Boston-based 1st Circuit rejected the Trump administration's request to pause a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Massachusetts at the urging of immigrant rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia. It marked the third time in a row that a federal appeals court has refused to lift one of the four injunctions issued nationally so far blocking Trump's order, which judges have consistently concluded is unconstitutional. Nate Raymond has more: https://reut.rs/41ZpeVo

A U.S. judge agreed to temporarily block implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order to strip security clearances and take other actions against prominent law firm Perkins Coie https://reut.rs/4bKVdfc  

Law firm summer associate hiring hit an all-time low in 2024, as firms took a ‘conservative’ recruiting approach, according to the National Association for Law Placement. The new figures also show that on-campus interviews are no longer the primary vehicle for law firm summer associate hiring. More than half of this year’s incoming summer associates received their offers outside of law schools’ formal recruiting events.   Subscribe to the Afternoon Docket here: reut.rs/3XzNBq2   Read the full story to find out more ➡️ https://reut.rs/3FnGECl 

A U.S. judge extended his order blocking federal authorities from deporting a detained Columbia University student, in a case that has become a flashpoint of the Trump administration's pledge to deport some pro-Palestinian college activists. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman had temporarily blocked Mahmoud Khalil's deportation earlier this week, and extended the prohibition in a written order following a hearing in Manhattan federal court to allow himself more time to consider whether the arrest was unconstitutional. Even before Furman blocked it, there was no indication Khalil's deportation was imminent. Khalil has the right to plead his case to avoid deportation before a separate judge in immigration court, a potentially lengthy process. Read more: https://reut.rs/4iDDFnA

President Donald Trump's administration is considering cutting most of the lawyers in the U.S. Justice Department unit that handles public corruption cases, four people familiar with the matter said on March 11.   The people said that Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti told several Public Integrity Section employees that the majority of the attorneys who work in the unit would be offered transfers to other positions, or else they could face layoffs.   The plan targets a DOJ unit where several supervisors pushed back on a directive from Justice Department leadership to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.   Approximately 20 attorneys would face reassignments to handle cases involving drugs, violent crime or immigration, leaving a handful behind, two of the people said.   Read more: https://reut.rs/3Fp0IUS

An official at the U.S. Agency for International Development has ordered employees to shred a large volume of records, according to a court filing on March 11 by government employee unions asking a judge to block the move.   In a motion filed in Washington, D.C., federal court, the unions cited an email from USAID's acting executive secretary Erica Carr instructing employees to come to the agency's office on March 11 for 'clearing classified safes and personnel documents.'   'Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,' Carr wrote in the email, which was included in the filing. The email did not give details about what documents were to be shredded.   The unions said the directive 'suggests a rapid destruction of agency records on a large scale' that both violates federal record-keeping law and could destroy evidence in their case, which seeks to undo the dismantling of USAID under President Donald Trump.   Subscribe to The Daily Docket: reut.rs/4aBvwvO

Key members of the federal judiciary warned on March 11 of a rising number of threats directed at their colleagues and described calls to impeach judges over their rulings 'concerning' as some Republican lawmakers push to remove jurists who have blocked President Trump's policies.   Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan, who chairs the U.S. Judicial Conference's security committee, told reporters following a meeting of the judiciary's top policymaking body in Washington that the court system was doing everything it could to bolster security for judges at work and at home.   Sullivan, who was appointed to the 2nd Circuit by Trump in his first term, said public officials need to be 'very careful and responsible' in what they say about other branches of government and the U.S. system of justice, given that some people may act 'inappropriately' based on what they read.   Nate Raymond has more: https://reut.rs/41JQ6au

U.S. law firm Perkins Coie sued President Donald Trump’s administration on March 11, claiming Trump illegally retaliated against the firm over its work for his former opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, and its policies promoting diversity and inclusion. Elon Musk kicked off his appeal to try to restore his $56 billion payday from Tesla on March 11, claiming a lower court judge made multiple legal errors in rescinding the record compensation. A group of U.S. government employees who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce filed a lawsuit on March 11 claiming the mass firings of recently-hired workers is illegal and should be reversed. Gail Slater, President Donald Trump's pick to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 11. Read more ➡️