Good morning. U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s rulings will be under a microscope at her confirmation hearing next week, and a new Reuters analysis looks at her decisions on racial discrimination. The 5th Circuit won’t stop the Biden administration from using Obama-era values for calculating the cost of climate change, and the U.S. Congress today will hear from a former federal defender suing over the judiciary's harassment policies. Plus, a new law school admissions experiment would bypass the LSAT, and a blockchain company declares it is “done being nice” with the SEC. It’s a busy Thursday, and we’re glad you’re with us.
Our colleague Nimitt Dixit is co-writing The Daily Docket while Diana Novak Jones is on parental leave. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
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As a federal trial judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden's nominee to become the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, had opportunities to consider cases involving a range of issues, including claims of racial discrimination. Some U.S. Senate Republicans questioned Jackson on race issues at her earlier confirmation hearing last year for the D.C. Circuit, and matters of race could resurface at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing beginning on Monday.
Reuters reporters Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley reviewed 25 cases involving alleged racial discrimination in which Jackson issued substantive rulings as a trial court judge in Washington from 2013 to 2021. Jackson ruled in favor of plaintiffs in only three of the cases. Employment lawyer Aron Zavaro said Jackson's rulings reveal that she followed Supreme Court precedent in how to analyze cases brought under the federal law that prohibits employment discrimination, a claim that can be difficult to prove because plaintiffs rarely have direct evidence of bias.
Republican Senator John Cornyn asked Jackson at her D.C. Circuit hearing last April: "What role does race play in the kind of judge you have been and the kind of judge you will be?" Jackson replied: "I don't think race plays a role in the kind of judge I have been and would be. She said race "would be inappropriate to inject" into her consideration of a case. Biden's nomination of Jackson fulfilled a 2020 campaign promise to name the nation's first Black woman justice, a "long overdue" milestone, he said.
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The Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT, is piloting an “alternative pathway” that would enable would-be law students to apply to law school without taking a standardized test. The experiment would let undergraduate students at participating schools complete a tailored curriculum before graduation that could make them eligible to apply to law schools without an LSAT score. (Reuters)
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The Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group reviewed the judiciary’s approach to workplace sexual harrasment and released a report that recommends regular surveying of employees, revamping how complaints are heard and adopting a policy on romantic relationships. The report was released ahead of a congressional hearing today to consider workplace harassment in the judiciary and whether legislation is needed to address it. (Reuters)
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Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson named telecom service provider Veon’s former GC Scott Dresser its next chief legal officer, replacing Xavier Dedullen. Ericsson has been at the center of a scandal over possible payments to the Islamic State and faces U.S. Justice Department accusations that it breached a 2019 deal with prosecutors by failing to properly disclose misconduct and compliance failures in Iraq. (Reuters)
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The California bar has hired a team from Cooley to advise the agency at $550 an hour on matters tied to the unintended disclosure of thousands of confidential attorney discipline files on a third-party website. (Law.com)
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That’s the number of months a former top lawyer for a California-based fintech company must spend in federal prison for allegedly misusing business funds to pay for dog boarding and other personal expenses. U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco also ordered Brooke C. Solis to pay $500,000 in restitution to Good Money Inc, identified as the wire-fraud victim in a court filing. Read more.
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After years of agitation by emeritus Harvard Law School professor Hal Scott, Johnson & Johnson shareholders will vote next month on a mandatory arbitration proposal that would eliminate investors’ right to file securities class actions. But that’s not all Scott wants. As Alison Frankel reports, he’s also suing J&J for a preliminary injunction that would require the company to tell shareholders that his mandatory arbitration proposal is legal under state and federal law — even though Scott has failed in three years of litigation against J&J to obtain a court ruling that it is.
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Video: 'Truth telling' world court orders Russia to stop military operations in Ukraine |
Sidley Austin international arbitration co-head Tai-Heng Cheng discusses why the International Court of Justice's opinion matters in a "new kind" of war. Watch the video produced by Reuters video journalist Alex Cohen.
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"It is true that we don't like the SEC."
—Blockchain publishing company LBRY chief executive and co-founder Jeremy Kauffman, speaking with Reuters about his company's tweet that said it is "done being nice" with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and that it would engage in "psychological warfare" as it fights a lawsuit from the agency. The SEC has accused the Perkins Coie client of selling unregistered securities. An attorney at the firm said it had not instructed its client to take the actions described in the tweet, such as attending a deposition "looking sharp but smelling awful." Kauffman said the tweet was "partly a joke."
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A U.S. House judiciary subcommittee will examine what it called “the flaws in the judicial branch’s efforts to protect its employees from sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and other forms of misconduct.” Current and former judicial branch officials will testify, including 9th Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown and Kansas U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson. Former federal public defender Caryn Devins Strickland, pursuing a legal challenge to the judiciary's process for handling sexual harassment complaints, also is expected to testify. She had been suing under a pseudonym but stepped forward
to testify publicly before the subcommittee. The 4th Circuit is weighing Strickland’s claims that she was forced to quit after complaining about sexual harassment and that the process for handling harassment cases is riddled with conflicts of interest.
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The U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee will hear from several U.S. officials at a hearing focused on pandemic response and accountability. Witnesses include U.S. Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz, chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee; and Larry Turner, inspector general at the U.S. Labor Department. The DOJ last week named former Latham partner Kevin Chambers to lead the department's efforts to help investigate schemes involving COVID-19 fraud against government assistance programs.
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The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will meet to discuss the role of digital assets in illicit finance. Witnesses are expected to include Shane Stansbury of Duke University School of Law and Michael Mosier, who recently served as acting director of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Welcome back to the Penalty Box, where The Daily Docket highlights new and notable attorney and judicial discipline orders, hearings, articles and more. We’re looking out for cases and issues of importance, so please do share any observations with us. -
James Hammerschmidt, co-president of Paley Rothman and head of the Washington, D.C.-area firm’s employment practice, was informally admonished by the D.C. disciplinary counsel’s office for neglecting a client in 2020 amid a broader flood of matters tied to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such admonition is the least severe penalty a lawyer in D.C. can face. Hammerschmidt did not contest an ethics claim, and the disciplinary office took into account his cooperation and acceptance of responsibility.
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A former Morgan Lewis attorney was suspended from practicing law by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for filing false affidavits, misrepresenting his work and missing a key case deadline. The court suspended Daniel Dixon for one year and one day over his conduct in a tax case that also led to his June 2018 termination from Morgan Lewis. He had told the court's disciplinary board that he was "in no way prepared" to handle his position at the firm due to his mental health issues.
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The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct recommended the state's high court accept a six-month stayed suspension for a Taft Stettinius & Hollister partner who allegedly had a sexual relationship with a client in violation of state ethics rules. The recommendation, which family law attorney Jessica Mager agreed to, said a stayed suspension was adequate in part because Mager had not been previously disciplined. Mager acknowledged she “made a serious error in judgment” and accepted responsibility.
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The 5th Circuit said the Biden administration can continue using Obama-era values for calculating the cost of climate change in government decisions, pending its appeal of a previous ruling. The appeals court granted the government’s request to stay a preliminary injunction imposed by a lower federal court judge. (Reuters)
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Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, asked U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan to reject a request by former top Russian Olympics official Akhmed Bilalov to freeze the bank’s assets on the grounds that Western sanctions sparked by the war in Ukraine could hinder his ability to collect any judgment he wins in a $1 billion lawsuit against the bank. Sberbank is represented by White & Case and Debevoise, though the firm say they plan to withdraw from the case. (Reuters)
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A 2nd Circuit panel said the Small Business Administration was within its rights to deny pandemic relief to nonprofit Springfield Hospital, represented by Andrew Helman of Dentons and Adam Prescott and D. Sam Anderson of Bernstein Shur, because it was in bankruptcy. The 2nd Circuit is the first appeals court to find that the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program did not qualify as a grant program and is not protected under bankruptcy law as the funding it offered came in the form of a loan. (Reuters)
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The full Federal Circuit voted 7-3 to reject a request by biopharmaceutical company Biogen, represented by William Lee of WilmerHale, to reconsider a decision invalidating a part of a key patent for its best-selling multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera. The decision clears the way for drugmaker Mylan (now part of Viatris), represented by Nathan Kelley of Perkins Coie, to continue producing its generic competitor, which Biogen claimed in 2017 infringed its patents. (Reuters)
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Adam Rogas, the former CEO of cyber fraud prevention company NS8, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to lying about the company's finances to solicit $123 million in investments. Rogas, represented by Bill Sullivan of Pillsbury Winthrop, was arrested in September 2020 after prosecutors alleged he doctored NS8's bank statements to inflate revenues by tens of millions of dollars. (Reuters)
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Dave Sanchez will join the agency as director of the municipal securities office effective April 11 from Norton Rose Fulbright, where he was a senior counsel. Sanchez’s legal career has included stints as a counsel at Sidley and associate at Orrick. (SEC)
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Sheppard Mullin hired Edward Welch as a partner in the firm’s corporate and securities practice group in New York. He joins the firm from Fried Frank. (Sheppard Mullin)
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Erin Ashwell left her position as Virginia’s chief deputy attorney general to join McGuireWoods as a partner in its government investigations and white-collar group in Richmond. (McGuireWoods)
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Womble Bond Dickinson said Rodney Miller joined the firm’s Atlanta office as an intellectual-property partner. Miller was at Hall Booth Smith. (Womble)
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Greenberg Traurig added Jeff Chiow as a shareholder in its government contracts practice in Washington, D.C. Chiow previously co-chaired the same practice at Rogers Joseph O’Donnell. (Greenberg Traurig)
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Barnes & Thornburg added Alice Kyureghian as a Los Angeles-based partner focused on insurance recovery and counseling. Kyureghian earlier practiced at Reed Smith. (Barnes & Thornburg)
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Goodwin Procter added commercial litigator Jonathan Shapiro as a partner in its complex litigation and dispute resolution practice in San Francisco. Shapiro previously chaired Baker Botts’ California litigation group. (Goodwin)
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Many trade secret plaintiffs sue before properly investigating the existence of a specific trade secret, writes R. Mark Halligan of FisherBroyles. U.S. district judges are becoming increasingly intolerant of plaintiffs using the discovery process to create a "trade secret" after a complaint has been filed. Learn more about pre-filing investigations.
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Correction: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Garrity’s last name was misspelled in The Daily Docket section In the Courts on March 16. |
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