Good morning. A pandemic change to the bar exam is holding up one lawyer’s bid to join the D.C. bar in a case that is before the D.C. Court of Appeals. Plus, more courts are curbing trials amid the COVID-19 surge, and Susman Godfrey has picked a new leader. It’s the first hump day of the new year – how are you surviving so far?
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Mitchell McBride is a Georgetown law graduate, former D.C. Superior Court law clerk and an associate at Phelps Dunbar in Tampa, Florida. One thing he’s not: a member of the D.C. bar.
Last-minute changes to Florida's bar exam in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic have complicated McBride’s bid to be admitted to practice outside the state, our colleague Karen Sloan reports. McBride has asked the D.C. Court of Appeals to suspend the rule that is blocking his admission to the D.C. bar, a credential he says will help his career.
D.C. waives admission requirements for lawyers who pass the Florida bar. But McBride’s application was denied because he took the written portion of Florida’s bar exam and the Multistate Bar Exam — the 200 multiple-choice question part of the exam — at separate times. His experience was a product of how Florida handled the bar exam during the pandemic, and while the problem could feasibly ensnare others, he’s the first to come forward.
Read more about McBride’s arguments in the D.C. Court of Appeals, and what he tells Reuters about his ordeal.
- Members of a federal judiciary panel showed support for requiring greater disclosures of financial ties between litigants and outside groups that file amicus briefs, as Congress also weighs measures to do just that. "All things being considered I'd rather know who is behind a brief than not know," 1st Circuit Judge William Kayatta said. (Reuters)
- Jordan Thomas, a veteran plaintiffs lawyer and a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulator, has left securities law firm Labaton Sucharow to launch and lead a new firm, SEC Whistleblower Advocates. He’s joined by four other Labaton attorneys. (Reuters)
- Susman Godfrey has elected Vineet Bhatia as the Houston-based litigation firm’s next co-managing partner, succeeding Neal Manne, who held the position for more than 10 years. Bhatia will work with co-managing partner Kalpana Srinivasan, who is based in Los Angeles. (Reuters)
That’s how many states have signed on to the $21 billion settlement with drug distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, now that Nevada has agreed to join the deal resolving claims against the companies over their role in the opioid epidemic. The distributors said in September that 42 states, five territories and Washington, D.C., had agreed to participate in their $21 billion settlement, and another holdout, New Mexico, joined up last month. Nevada is also joining a settlement with Johnson & Johnson that will see that company pay up to $5 billion to resolve the cases against it. Read more about Nevada’s decision.
In 2020, a consortium of plaintiffs firms filed a series of shareholder derivative suits in New York state court against directors of gigantic foreign companies. Their goal seemed to be bold indeed: to turn New York into a hub of derivative litigation for shareholders who can’t bring federal securities claims against foreign companies. Alison Frankel reports on a pair of rulings last week that seem to imperil the consortium’s campaign.
"There is no safe way to conduct jury trials right now with the huge increase in COVID cases."
Terence Ward, the chief federal defender in Connecticut, who said Connecticut’s federal district court’s announcement that it would delay any trials set to begin before Feb. 1 in light of the Omicron variant’s spread was “the right thing.” That court is just one of several federal and state courts that have announced plans to push off trials for the time being while the country addresses yet another spike in COVID-19 cases. Read more about which courts are implementing the delays.
- Just a day before the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to give a speech updating the country on the DOJ’s investigations and prosecutions of people involved in the attack. He won’t be speaking about specific individuals or charges stemming from the event, which has resulted in approximately 700 criminal cases.
- Thomas Barrack, a billionaire friend of Donald Trump who chaired the former Republican president's inaugural fund, will appear for a status conference in Brooklyn federal court in the U.S. Justice Department’s case accusing him of illegally lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Barrack, represented by O’Melveny’s Daniel Petrocelli, has pleaded not guilty. Barrack’s defense lawyers plan to ask U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan to set a briefing schedule for their upcoming bid to dismiss the indictment.
- Kremlin-linked businessman Vladislav Klyushin is slated for arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler in Boston on charges he helped run an $82 million insider trading scheme predicated on corporate information stolen through hacking. Klyushin, who owns a Moscow-based information technology company, is represented by Maksim Nemtsev and is expected to plead not guilty.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan appeared skeptical of a bid by Britain's Prince Andrew to dismiss Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit accusing the Duke of York of sexually abusing her when she was 17 and being trafficked by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. (Reuters)
- The D.C. Circuit revived claims against 21 medical supply and manufacturing companies accused of helping to fund terror activity through corrupt payments to Iraq’s health minister. The companies, represented in the appeal by Kannon Shanmugam of Paul Weiss, have denied any wrongdoing. Kellogg Hansen’s Joshua Branson argued for the plaintiffs. (Reuters)
- Former Citigroup executive Michael Klein and his blank check firm's former directors must face a shareholder lawsuit challenging its $11 billion merger with health care-focused data analytics company MultiPlan, Vice Chancellor Lori Will of the Delaware Chancery Court said in a ruling. Will left in place claims from investors represented by Bernstein Litowitz that accuse Klein and the SPAC board members of illegally preventing shareholders from selling their shares back to the SPAC before the October 2020 merger. (Reuters)
- Amazon and The Gap have been hit with proposed class actions in New York federal court from Watkins Law claiming the companies violated state law by routinely turning away job applicants in the state with criminal convictions. (Reuters)
- U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan dismissed claims by a water management company that E.I. du Pont de Nemours and three related companies should pay for upgrades to five water-treatment plants due to the companies' alleged role in pollution of the state's water with toxic PFAS. The judge sided with the chemical companies, which were represented by McCarter & English and Ballard Spahr, finding that he lacked jurisdiction over some of the defendants and that the claims weren’t specific enough. (Reuters)
- A defendant’s 6th Amendment right to confront witnesses was not violated when a police officer exposed to COVID-19 testified at trial via the remote-video platform Zoom, a Minnesota appeals court said. (Star Tribune)
- Allen & Overy has added to its team in London with the hire of Sidley Austin's former global co-head of antitrust, Kristina Nordlander. (Reuters)
- Frank Gorman, who was most recently acting deputy director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, has left the agency to join Wilmer Hale. (Reuters)
- Katten said Christopher Stetler has rejoined the Chicago-founded law firm after an 11-year career as a federal prosecutor that saw Stetler prosecuting several Illinois politicians. Stetler was an associate at the firm before he became a prosecutor. (Reuters)
- Willkie Farr said David Hong has joined the firm in Los Angeles as a partner focused on asset management. He was previously a partner at Munger Tolles. (Willkie Farr)
- DLA Piper added Alan Seem to its corporate practice in Northern California. Seem comes from Jones Day. (DLA Piper)
- McDermott partners Raphael Larson and Gary Adamson have jumped to King & Spalding to be partners on the firm’s special matters and government investigations team. Larson will be based in the Washington, D.C., office, and Adamson will work out of the New York office. (King & Spalding)
- Kirkland said it’s brought on Fred Lim as a debt finance partner based in the firm’s San Francisco office. Lim arrives from Goodwin Procter. (Kirkland)
Choosing the forum in which to bring an intellectual property dispute can be just as important as selecting the right IP to assert, write Deirdre Wells and William Milliken of Sterne Kessler. A comparison of assertion rates in federal district courts and in the International Trade Commission reveals the venues that have historically been popular for different types of intellectual property. Learn more about factors to consider before selecting the venue to enforce IP rights.
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