Reuters Legal

U.S. Circuit Judge Kent Jordan plans to retire from the 3rd Circuit in January, giving Democratic President Joe Biden a chance to fill a seat on the Philadelphia-based court held currently by a Republican appointee. The decision by Jordan, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, was disclosed on May 9 by the federal judiciary, which said he gave notice on May 7 and planned to retire on Jan. 15. Both Biden and Jordan are from Delaware, and Biden had supported his nomination to the 3rd Circuit when he was his home state senator in 2006, a fact the judge referenced in his letter to the president notifying him of his decision. The 66-year-old's retirement creates a new vacancy on a court that currently has seven judges appointed by Republican presidents, six by Democrats, and one vacancy that Democratic President Joe Biden is already trying to fill. Nate Raymond has more: https://lnkd.in/gPtFEsKd

New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP said on May 9 that it has formed a new artificial intelligence practice, as large firms compete to handle clients' growing AI-related legal needs. The 800-lawyer firm said the group would be headed by leaders of its intellectual property and finance practices in Silicon Valley, New York and London. Several other large U.S. law firms have also established dedicated AI practice groups over the past year and a half, hoping to capitalize on a surge in AI-related dealmaking, regulatory, and litigation work. Formalizing a practice group can help firms market and expand the work in buzzy, lucrative areas like AI. Find out more: https://reut.rs/44AAG9A 

Back in March, at the first hearing in consolidated litigation over allegedly undisclosed side effects from Ozempic and other diet drugs, plaintiffs lawyers told Philadelphia federal judge Gene Pratter that they'd already agreed on a slate of four lawyers to lead the mass tort case. On May 8, Pratter appointed those same four lawyers as lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation against diet drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. But Pratter was no rubber stamp, writes alison frankel. In fact, Frankel says, the judge devised a leadership selection process that other MDL judges should consider adopting. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gythygkp

Donald Trump returned to court after porn star Stormy Daniels' lurid testimony about her alleged sexual encounter with him, as prosecutors prepared to call their final witnesses in the criminal hush money trial. It was a busy week in court for Trump. On May 6, the judge overseeing the criminal hush money trial threatened Trump with jail time for repeatedly violating a gag order. On May 9, Trump's lawyer sought to show inconsistencies in porn star Stormy Daniels' various tellings of a 2006 sexual encounter she has said she had with Trump. Daniels' account of her encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite riveted jurors on May 7. Subscribe to The Afternoon Docket: https://reut.rs/4aVlZjE

In response to pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and the college’s handling of the situation, 13 federal judges said they will not hire law students or undergraduates from the Ivy League university.   The judges, who are Trump appointees, called Columbia’s Manhattan campus an ‘incubator of bigotry.’   The war in Gaza has sparked campus protests across the U.S., with students demanding that institutions stop doing business with companies that support the war.   President Biden said he condemns the antisemitic protests and that he also condemns those ‘who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.’   A day after the judges announced their boycott, the head of Columbia Law School backed its graduates, saying they were ‘consistently sought out.’   For more information, listen to this week’s audiogram by Shruthi Krishnamurthy.   Read the full story by Nate Raymond and Karen Sloan here 👉 https://reut.rs/3JSZq3r   #legal #gaza #judges #lawschools #lawstudents #legalindustry

Donald Trump returned to court on May 10 after porn star Stormy Daniels' lurid testimony about her alleged sexual encounter with him, as prosecutors prepared to call their final witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial of a sitting or former U.S. president. In seven hours of testimony this week over two days in New York state criminal court in Manhattan, Daniels spared few details. Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels, 45, for her silence ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election about the alleged encounter. Read more from Luc Cohen and Jody Godoy: https://lnkd.in/giafe_-i

French luxury house Hermes has asked a US judge to dismiss what it called a 'far-fetched' consumer lawsuit accusing it of forcing shoppers to spend thousands of dollars on goods before having a chance to buy one of its famed Birkin handbags.   Hermes said in a filing, on May 9 in San Francisco federal court that the plaintiffs failed to show how sales of the luxury handbags violated US antitrust law.   The proposed class-action lawsuit filed in March claimed Hermes only gives customers with 'sufficient purchase history' a chance to buy a Birkin bag, which are handmade and can cost thousands of dollars.   Hermes countered in May 8 filing that customers without a purchase history can still buy a Birkin, and it argued that such a requirement would not be illegal in any case.   Subscribe to The Daily Docket: https://reut.rs/3O4K9yr 

A U.S. Senate panel advanced Biden's nomination of U.S. Attorney Kevin Ritz of the Western District of Tennessee to serve on the 6th Circuit over the objections of the state's senior Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to advance Ritz’s nomination after Blackburn blasted the White House for selecting Ritz to fill a vacancy on that court over the objections of herself and her fellow Tennessee Republican senator, Bill Hagerty. ‘The White House rushed through a backroom deal to put Kevin Ritz in this seat,’ she said. ‘And by so doing, they have nominated a man whose lack of professional ethics unquestionably disqualifies him from federal judicial service.’ Republicans had grilled Ritz when he appeared before the committee on April 17 about an ethics complaint they said had been filed against him alleging that he misrepresented the terms of a plea deal to a defendant’s lawyer in 2008 in a case he was prosecuting. Learn more: https://reut.rs/3QAU4h9 #legal #judiciary #courts #legalindustry #legalnews

Bar exam alternatives are making inroads at the American Bar Association, potentially softening the organization’s pro-bar exam stance; Sullivan & Cromwell has a new AI practice; Elon Musk could testify (again) in the SEC's probe of his Twitter takeover; Litigator Mark Perry won a ruling in his pay fight with his ex-law firm Gibson Dunn. Here's your legal file 👇 #legal #litigation #musk #lawschools #lawyers #lawstudents #legalindustry

US law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher must make future retirement payments and hand over $557,000 to its prominent former partner Mark Perry, a California judge has tentatively ruled. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kevin Brazile said May 8, he would confirm an arbitrator's finding that Perry is a retired partner, not a resigned partner, entitling him to retirement payments once he no longer competes with Gibson Dunn. Perry co-led the appellate and constitutional law practice at Gibson Dunn before leaving the firm to join Weil, Gotshal & Manges two years ago. His current and former litigation clients include Amazon's MGM Studios, Apple, Comcast and Pfizer. Subscribe to The Daily Docket: https://reut.rs/3O4K9yr