Good morning. The signs of the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence on bar examinations are adding up, as Nevada moves its February test online. Plus, the National Conference of Bar Examiners says it plans to begin pilot testing its “Next Gen Bar Exam” in 2026. A Washington, D.C., federal judge is set today to hear a trio of Jan. 6 lawsuits against Donald Trump, and Morgan Lewis is expanding its private investment fund team. It’s Monday, and we’re just getting started on another big week in the courts. Let’s go!
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Pandemic, revamp continue to bring changes to the bar exam experience
It’s clear that change is a constant for law grads taking the bar exam.
Nevada has announced that it is moving the February 2022 test online for the third year in a row, this time with a stripped-down version that doesn’t include the 200-question Multistate Bar Exam, reports our colleague Karen Sloan. It is a sign of the pandemic’s lasting influence over the milestone exam, as concerns about technical glitches and fairness clash with worries about COVID-19.
At the same time, the National Conference of Bar Examiners is moving ahead with reworking the multistate exam, which will do away with the current exam’s three separate components—the Multistate Bar Exam, the Multistate Essay Exam, and the Multistate Performance Test. The group will begin drafting questions this year, with plans to start offering the test in 2026, Sloan reports.
Read more about Nevada’s decision and the plans for the new exam.
- A Chicago attorney who was among the first to use Texas’ controversial abortion law to sue a doctor is facing a potential three-year suspension after Illinois officials said he sent threatening and harassing emails to lawyers at Barnes & Thornburg and Fox Rothschild. (Reuters)
- Steven Fabrizio, former top lawyer for the Motion Picture Association of America, was sentenced in Washington, D.C., Superior Court to about a year in prison for sexually abusing and blackmailing a woman. Fabrizio had pleaded guilty to one count of third degree sex abuse and one count of blackmail. (Reuters)
- Virginia’s top court upheld a state bar board's four year-suspension of an attorney who a federal court said concealed inventories of gold discovered by his ex-client in a shipwreck. The opinion rejected Richard Robol's contention that his "associate" status with the state bar made him a "non-lawyer" who was not subject to discipline after he was found to have violated Ohio state attorney conduct rules. (Reuters)
- Judy Sheindlin, known to millions as “Judge Judy,” donated $5 million to her alma mater, New York Law School, to create a scholarship program for female students. (Reuters)
In 2019, Congress amended the Anti-Terrorism Act so that plaintiffs accusing the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority of encouraging acts of violence would be assured of jurisdiction in U.S. courts. But on Thursday, Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan said the 2019 law was “legislative sleight of hand” that deprived the Palestinian groups of their due process rights. Alison Frankel explains Furman’s decision to dismiss a suit brought by the family of an American man stabbed to death in the West Bank.
Reuters video journalist Alex Cohen gives you an early view of the week ahead in legal news. Watch the video. And to hear what’s coming up this week, listen to Tom Rowe’s Audio Lookahead.
"More and more people are dying every day. More and more people are getting sick every day. And this is the policy that is most geared to stopping all this."
—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, appearing at a fast-tracked oral argument to support a Biden administration COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large employers. Conservative-leaning justices appeared to back arguments that OSHA failed to follow the proper administrative processes for issuing emergency regulations. Read more about the hearing, and what’s at stake.
- U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., is set to preside over three lawsuits from U.S. Capitol police officers and members of Congress accusing former President Donald Trump and others of inciting the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Plaintiffs include Democratic U.S. Representatives Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Eric Swalwell of California. Thompson’s lawyers include a team from the plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein, and Swalwell has turned to the firms Caleb Andonian, KaiserDillon and Coburn & Greenbaum.
- The D.C. Circuit will hear Bloomberg LP's challenge to the SEC’s plan to allow FINRA to create a centralized corporate bond data service that would compete with Bloomberg’s. Represented by Keith Bradley of Squire Patton Boggs, Bloomberg argues that there is no need for FINRA to crush the existing market for the data with a “quasi-monopoly.” Theodore Weiman of the SEC will argue for the agency.
- The 9th Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit by a coalition of environmentalists, farmers and food-safety advocates that accuses the EPA of having unlawfully determined that glyphosate, a popular weedkiller, is not a carcinogen when used as indicated. The plaintiffs, represented by the Center for Food Safety, are asking the court to vacate the agency's approval of the chemical's registration. Monsanto, represented by Richard Bress of Latham & Watkins, has intervened in the case to argue the EPA’s determination was correct.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Kness in Chicago is expected to decide whether global law firm Dentons can withdraw as counsel to a Japanese pachinko billionaire sued for allegedly stiffing another law firm, Bartlit Beck, on a $50 million legal fee. The billionaire, Kazuo Okada, has paid just under $400,000 on the bill, and Bartlit Beck has accused Okada of trying to shed the Dentons attorneys to delay the firm’s recovery further.
- On Wednesday, the criminal trial of former Rochester Drug Cooperative chief executive Laurence Doud is slated to kick off in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors said that despite the company's obligations not to ship drugs to pharmacies it knew were dispensing the drugs unlawfully, Doud agreed to ship opioids to pharmacies even when "red flags" existed demonstrating they were diverting them. Doud, who is represented by Derrelle Marcel Janey of The Janey Law Firm, has argued the charges amount to regulatory violations.
- Maria Vullo, the former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, on Thursday will ask the 2nd Circuit to dismiss a First Amendment claim against her by the National Rifle Association. The NRA accused Vullo of coercing banks and insurers she regulated to sever ties over the gun rights group's marketing of an insurance product that the state said offered to insure gun owners who killed people with their firearms, even if they did so with criminal intent. Vullo has said her comments about gun violence documents in agency guidance letters amount to protected speech.
- The Federal Circuit on Friday will hear an appeal of the International Trade Commission's decision that Renesas' imports of computer chips for in-vehicle infotainment systems didn't infringe Broadcom's patents. The ITC let Renesas and its partners including Toyota, Panasonic and Denso off the hook after finding the chips didn't infringe Broadcom's 'system-on-a-chip' patents. Broadcom, which is represented by Brian Johnson of Steptoe & Johnson, is challenging the non-infringement finding as well as the ITC's decision that one of its patents was invalid.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said she will allow Purdue Pharma to immediately challenge her rejection of legal protections for Sackler family members who own the OxyContin maker, and which were key to its bankruptcy reorganization plan. Purdue will have another shot at keeping intact a $4.5 billion opioid litigation settlement. (Reuters)
- Television and film actor Jon Cryer of “Two and a Half Men” fame can add another notch to his professional belt: plaintiff. Cryer, represented by national security lawyer Mark Zaid, is suing a federal agency to obtain records about his late pacifist uncle Peter Kiger of the War Resister’s League. (Reuters)
- The 7th Circuit, voting 2-1, revived a shareholder lawsuit against Boeing after two 737 Max crashes killed 346 people and led to the plane’s 20-month grounding. Cohen Milstein’s Carol Gilden argued for the shareholder, and Joshua Rabinovitz of Kirkland represented Boeing. The panel majority said the “plaintiff’s chosen forum in the federal district where Boeing is headquartered seems appropriate for the case.” (Reuters)
- A 5th Circuit panel is weighing whether to ask the Texas Supreme Court to take up an enforcement question about the state’s near total ban on abortion, or to allow the legal challenge from clinics to move forward in the federal district court as the U.S. Supreme Court permitted in a ruling in December. Circuit Judges Edith Jones and Kyle Duncan appeared poised to send the case to the state court, which would further delay a hearing on the merits of the lawsuit. Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson was inclined to remand the case to the federal court for proceedings there. Listen to the argument here.
- The Washington. D.C., law firm Tycko & Zavareei represents freelance writer Ruth Shalit Barrett in a lawsuit in federal court accusing The Atlantic of defaming her when it retracted a 2020 article about higher education. (Politico)
- Morgan Lewis is expanding its private investment fund team with four lawyers, including partners Zeke Johnson and Brian Jacobson, from Faegre Drinker. The group will work out of the firm’s Chicago office. (Reuters)
- Fox Rothschild said Howard Cohen has joined the Wilmington, Delaware, office as a financial restructuring and bankruptcy partner. Cohen formerly practiced at Gibbons. (Fox Rothschild)
- Morrison & Foerster added William Frentzen as a San Francisco-based white-collar partner. Frentzen formerly was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of California. (Morrison & Foerster)
- Blank Rome said R. Andrew Arculin has joined the Washington, D.C., office as partner in the financial institutions litigation and regulatory compliance practice. Arculin formerly led the financial services practice at Venable. (Blank Rome)
More than one insurance policy can apply to the same claim or injury, and in some circumstances having a second policy can become a necessity, write Erin Mindoro Ezra, Mallory Yumol and Walker Macon of Berger Kahn. Insurers, policyholders and attorneys confront “other insurance” issues when multiple policies cover the same loss or liability. Learn more about key questions, including which policies pay.
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