Good morning. Young lawyers, who face some of the heftiest student debt loads, are grateful for the recent extension of a moratorium on their federal loan payments. Google is the target of a newly consolidated group of suits accusing the search company of anticompetitive practices in the digital advertising markets, the Biden administration has nominated the first Black man to lead federal prosecutors in the powerful Southern District of New York, and the 4th Circuit is scrutinizing gender-based rules about clothing as constitutional violations. Let's get this hump day rolling!
Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
Reprieve from student loans welcomed by young lawyers
Source: AccessLex, U.S. Department of Education
Law saddles students with an average of $138,500 in student loans, more than any career field other than medicine, and the payments can force new attorneys to forgo clerkships and in-house jobs in favor of higher-paying options.
So the moratorium on federal student loan payments that began at the start of the pandemic last year and was recently extended through January has been a welcome reprieve for attorneys such as Foley & Lardner associate Marcella Jayne, reports Karen Sloan.
Although the single mother of two makes more than $200,000 a year, Jayne's monthly student loan payments are more than the rent she pays on her apartment. The moratorium not only stopped the bills but also kept interest at 0% temporarily, allowing Jayne to put the money toward school for her children.
"It's a seemingly absurd position: You can make enough money to be in a very high-income tax bracket, but home ownership is completely out of reach," she told Sloan.
The Biden administration and Congress have been under pressure to cancel student debts or at least allow them to be discharged during bankruptcy, and that pressure will increase following a vote at the American Bar Association's House of Delegates.
The policymaking body of the ABA on Tuesday approved a resolution that calls on the ABA to lobby Congress to treat educational debt the same as other forms of unsecured debt. Read more.
Industry buzz
- President Joe Biden nominated Damian Williams to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Breon Peace to lead the prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, selecting Black men to lead two of the country's most powerful law enforcement offices. Williams, who is currently an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, would be the first Black man to ever lead the powerful Manhattan federal prosecutors' office. Peace, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb, is a former prosecutor in the Eastern District. The two are among eight nominees to serve as top federal prosecutors nationally. (Reuters, White House)
- That's not the only big nomination news. Biden has also decided to nominate Elizabeth Prelogar, the current acting solicitor general, to serve in that role on a permanent basis and advance his administration's positions at the U.S. Supreme Court. She had served in that role on an acting basis since January after a stint as a partner at Cooley and previously was a member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. (AP)
- John "Sean" Coffey, the chair of complex litigation at Kramer Levin, has been meanwhile nominated by Biden to be general counsel of the Department of the Navy. Coffey, a retired Navy captain, was co-lead trial counsel on the plaintiffs' side in the landmark WorldCom securities case while at Bernstein Litowitz. The case settled for more than $6 billion. (White House)
- Florida Coastal School of Law is another step closer to closing, after U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard in Jacksonville declined to block the U.S. Department of Education from removing the school from the federal student loan program. Florida Coastal is the last of three for-profit campuses once operated by law school consortium InfiLaw to remain open, and has been fighting for its life since April. (Reuters)
- Plaintiffs' firm Keller Lenkner is opening up a D.C. office in a bid to pick up more legal talent in the nation's capital. The firm, which has targeted attorneys on the defense side, has been "really amazed and pleased with the amount of interest we've gotten from talented lawyers who want to do something a little more entrepreneurial," said D.C. office leader Warren Postman. (Reuters)
- The lawyer representing U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and two other Republicans in their lawsuit against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the mask requirements she's ordered for the chamber is a former Thompson Hine attorney and Kentucky town mayor who was accused by the SEC of insider trading. (Politico)
That's the number of lawsuits accusing Google of employing anticompetitive practices in the digital advertising markets that the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Tuesday agreed to consolidate before a Manhattan federal judge. Diane Bartz reports the decision was a jurisdictional victory for Google, as the cases included a lawsuit in Texas by a multistate coalition led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose attorney W. Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm in May fended off an earlier bid to move the case to California. Google had sought through the JPML to transfer the cases to California, and its lawyer, Freshfields' Eric Mahr, told the panel that failure to centralize the cases would raise the possibility of "inconsistent rulings" nationally. U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel will now oversee the litigation. Learn more.
Coming up today
- The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on four of President Joe Biden's judicial nominees. They include Jane Beckering and Shalina Kumar, both judges in Michigan's state courts nominated for district court judgeships in the state's Western and Eastern Districts, and Carolyn Lerner and Armando Bonilla for positions on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
- A 9th Circuit panel in San Francisco will become the latest federal appeals court to consider whether businesses can recoup losses caused by COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions under their insurance policies. The three cases out of Arizona and California are being pursued by medical equipment company Selane Products Inc, clothing and home accessories store Mudpie and a group of Minor League Baseball teams represented by Kirk Pasich of Pasich, Andre Mura of Gibbs Law Group and Orrie Levy of Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna. Arguing for the insurers Continental Casualty Company, Travelers and National Casualty Company will be Kannon Shanmugam of Paul Weiss, Theodore Boutrous of Gibson Dunn and Brian Cabianca of Squire Patton Boggs.
- That same 9th Circuit panel will hear an appeal by a UnitedHealth Group unit of a judge's decision that it unreasonably denied mental health and substance abuse coverage, forcing it to reprocess 67,000 claims. Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn will argue for United Behavioral Health and will face Caroline Reynolds of Zuckerman Spaeder, who represents a group of health plan beneficiaries in a class action accusing the insurer of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The U.S. Department of Labor, state of California and healthcare groups including the American Psychiatric Association have filed amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs.
- In Seattle, a different 9th Circuit panel will hear a bid by two Montana property owners backed by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation to revive a lawsuit that accuses the U.S. Forest Service of unilaterally changing the terms of a limited-use easement granted by the properties’ previous owners in the 1960s to allow the general public to access a road. Wil Wilkins and Jane Stanton, who live next to the forest, are seeking confirmation under the Quiet Title Act of the limited scope of the easement agreement.
- Investors in a digital currency called BitConnect Coins will ask the 11th Circuit in Atlanta to revive a proposed securities fraud class action against individuals the investors accuse of promoting the unregistered security online and against YouTube, which hosted the promotional videos. Daniel Bushell of Bushell Law will argue for the investors and will face Julianna Thomas McCabe of Carlton Fields for one of the alleged promoters, Glenn Arcaro, and Nathan Berman of Zuckerman Spaeder for YouTube, a subsidiary of Google-owner Alphabet Inc.
- The same 11th Circuit panel will hear a challenge by a voting rights group called Black Voters Matter represented by the ACLU of Georgia to the constitutionality of Georgia laws that require voters to buy their own postage stamps to submit absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots. A federal judge declined in August ahead of the 2020 presidential election to issue a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs.
"At a time in history when a cloud of censorship appears to be descending, along with palpable public fear of being 'cancelled' for holding 'incorrect' views, it concerns me to see a new category of speech which the government can punish through criminal prosecution."
U.S. Circuit Judge L. Steven Grasz, who in a concurring opinion agreed with the 8th Circuit's 2-1 ruling that upheld the constitutionality of an Iowa "ag-gag" law that made it a crime for whistleblowers and undercover activists to access agricultural production facilities under false pretenses. The law was challenged by a coalition led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Grasz, a Trump appointee, said the case "tests the outer boundaries of protection of speech under the First Amendment," and that he only "hesitantly" agreed with the majority’s decision, which marked the first time a federal appeals court had upheld such a law. (Reuters)
In the courts
- U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn rejected Amazon's lawsuit to stop New York Attorney General Letitia James from investigating the company's ability to protect its warehouse workers from COVID-19. Amazon's lawyers at Gibson Dunn argued the investigation was in bad faith, but Cogan said the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring employers adhere to state law. (Reuters)
- Companies operated by the BitMEX cryptoexchange have agreed to pay $100 million to resolve claims by the CFTC and FinCEN that they unlawfully allowed U.S. customers to trade cryptocurrencies, including derivatives on bitcoin, ether, and litecoin, and violated anti-money-laundering rules. The company, represented by Kathleen McArthur of Sullivan & Cromwell and Gregory Mocek of Allen & Overy, did not admit wrongdoing. (Reuters)
- U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, who has been turning the Western District of Texas into a patent-law powerhouse, rejected Intel's bid to overturn a jury's verdict awarding $2.18 billion to VLSI Technology, a non-practicing entity owned by the hedge fund Fortress Investment Group that accused the tech company of infringing computer chip patents. Some of the IP bar's biggest names are litigating the case, with Irell & Manella's Morgan Chu and WilmerHale's William Lee repping VLSI and Intel, respectively. (Reuters)
- The California Trucking Association is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 9th Circuit decision tossing out its challenge to California's strict worker classification law known as AB5, saying it is preempted by federal regulations governing trucking companies. Its lawyers, led by Charles Rothfeld of Mayer Brown, in a petition to the court said the law threatens the longstanding "owner-operator" model in which drivers who own their trucks work as independent contractors. (Reuters)
- The New York-based 2nd Circuit on a 2-1 vote threw out a price-fixing lawsuit against two Chinese vitamin C makers after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to reconsider an earlier decision that had voided a $147.8 million verdict. The 2nd Circuit agreed with Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical and North China Pharmaceutical Group that a "true conflict" between Chinese and U.S. antitrust laws, and the potential impact on foreign relations, justified tossing the case. China took the rare step of intervening in the case, and a lawyer for China's Ministry of Commerce, Sidley Austin's Carter Phillips, said his client "appreciated the respect" the majority showed for Beijing's laws. (Reuters)
- The Chicago-based 7th Circuit upheld the dismissal of a proposed class action accusing Zebra Technologies of misleading shareholders about difficulties that arose while implementing its merger with a division of Motorola Solutions. U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook called such hurdles "a business problem, not a securities problem." James Ducayet of Sidley Austin and Steven Hubachek of Robbins Geller argued the appeal for the company and plaintiffs, respectively. (Reuters)
Industry moves
- William Havemann, who after clerking for Justice Stephen Breyer went on to serve in the U.S. House general counsel's office advocating against then-President Donald Trump in court clashes, has joined Hogan Lovells in D.C. as a senior associate working on appellate matters. He'll work under prominent appellate specialist Neal Katyal, who said he'd watched Havemann from a distance for some time. (Reuters)
- Antitrust lawyer Steven Albertson has joined Fenwick & West as a partner in D.C. from Skadden, where he was counsel. (Reuters)
- Intellectual property litigators Milton Springut and Caroline Boehm have joined Moses & Singer as a partner and special counsel, respectively. Springut, who early in his career developed computer hardware and software systems at Bell Laboratories, had since 2013 led his own IP boutique, Springut Law. (Reuters)
- Vanessa Maczko, whose practice focuses on advising moderate- to high-net-worth individuals and families on multigenerational asset transfers, has joined Wiggin and Dana's private client services department as a partner in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was previously with Proskauer Rose. (Wiggin and Dana)
- Brian Nixon, whose practice focuses on drafting and negotiating digital media service agreements, has joined Davis Wright Tremaine as a partner in D.C. Nixon, who was previously an associate at the firm, is rejoining Davis Wright after a decade at Loeb & Loeb, where he was partner. (Davis Wright)
- Real estate attorneys Michael Fein and Jeffrey Lampiasi have joined Seyfarth as partners in New York. They arrived from Watson Farley & Williams and are joined by counsel Karen Levine and associate Daniel Kessler. (Seyfarth)
- Litigator Adam Safwat has joined Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in D.C. as a partner from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where he was counsel. (Nelson Mullins)
- Julie Rizzo, who concentrates her practice on securities law compliance and reporting, has joined K&L Gates as a partner in Raleigh, North Carolina. She was most recently at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein. (K&L Gates)
Columnist spotlight: Two 4th Circuit judges weigh in on what not to wear
In the last week, the 4th Circuit has issued two rousing opinions in a pair of lawsuits calling out gender-based clothing requirements as violations of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. Alison Frankel’s latest column reports on the two opinions: Chief Judge Roger Gregory's call for a reexamination of old stereotypes about female nudity in a case challenging Ocean City, Maryland’s prohibition on toplessness for women; and Judge Barbara Keenan's tart criticism of a charter school dress code that requires girls to wear skirts and dresses so boys will treat them like "fragile vessels." Frankel says it's great that the judges are attuned to the discriminatory implication of gender-based regulations on appearance. But neither Gregory nor Keenan was in the majority. Read here to find out why their passion failed to persuade the 4th Circuit to find constitutional violations.
Lawyer speak: Year one of the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance
Just over a year ago, a group of law firms came together in the wake of the protests over racial justice and institutional racism that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis to form the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance. Its co-presidents, Kiisha Morrow of Cravath and Brenna DeVaney of Skadden, in a new article take a look back and a look ahead at what the alliance of nearly 300 law firms has done and how it can stay true to its mission. Read more.
Copyright © 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. 610 Opperman Drive, Eagan, MN 55123
Want to change how you receive these emails? You can unsubscribe from this list here.
|