Good morning. Appellate stars Paul Clement and Erin Murphy just opened the doors to their new firm, and fresh off their U.S. Supreme Court win they already have a new case tackling another New York gun law. Plus, Kobre & Kim have signed up Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich as a new client, and an independent expert might be called in to a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary’s bankruptcy to determine the value of lawsuits alleging that the company's talc products caused cancer. Thanks for being here.
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Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, who left Kirkland & Ellis over its decision to no longer handle Second Amendment litigation, already have a gun case at their new firm. The pair left Kirkland late last month just hours after Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, notched a major win on gun rights at the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with Clement and Murphy’s client in a ruling striking down New York state's limits on carrying concealed handguns in public.
Now the new firm, Clement & Murphy, has been hired by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to appeal a judge's rejection of its challenge to a New York law that allows the state and people affected by gun violence to sue the gun industry. NSSF, a firearms industry trade group, and gun manufacturers including Smith & Wesson Brands and Sturm, Ruger & Co are asking the 2nd Circuit to overturn the May dismissal of their lawsuit.
Read more about the case and Clement’s work with the gun industry. |
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Newly released emails from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s office show that President Joe Biden planned to nominate Chad Meredith, a Republican opposed to abortion, as a federal judge in Kentucky a day before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. (Reuters)
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New York-based law firm Kobre & Kim told the U.S. Justice Department that it will represent Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in the United States. The firm’s “foreign agent” registration filing, in which the firm said it will bill between $875 and $1,450 per hour, appeared to mark the first such disclosure by U.S. lawyers to work for a Russian client since Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. (Reuters)
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Former K&L Gates partner Stephen Humenik is jumping to Crypto.com to head the digital currency exchange’s derivatives legal team. Humenik earlier practiced at Covington, and he held policy and enforcement roles at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Another K&L Gates partner left the firm this year to lead Crypto.com’s North America legal team. (Reuters)
- There’s room for two Monument lobbying shops in Washington, D.C., after Monument Advocacy settled its lawsuit against older rival Monument Strategies. Monument Advocacy sued Monument Strategies earlier this year to stake a claim to the name. The settlement terms were not revealed, but the firms will keep their monikers. (Reuters)
- Justice Lisa Holder White will become the first Black woman to serve on the Illinois Supreme Court, when she takes her oath of office today and fills a vacancy stemming from the retirement of Justice Rita Garman. The appointed term of Justice Holder White, elected to the state appeals court bench in 2014, concludes in December 2024, when the seat will be subject to the November general election that year. Watch a livestream of the ceremony here. (Illinois Supreme Court)
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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration |
That’s the number of Federal Trade Commission memos that Meta’s lawyers at Kellogg Hansen have asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., to force the agency to turn over in its blockbuster antitrust case accusing the company of monopolizing the personal social networking services market. The FTC created the documents as part of its 2012 investigation of Meta’s purchase of Instagram and its 2014 purchase of WhatsApp. The FTC, which let those deals go forward, has since asked the court to order both of the mergers to be undone. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta also wants certain notes from the FTC.
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The online dating company Match Group really, really does not want anyone to know that it’s in a big fight with the Federal Trade Commission over the FTC’s investigation of a Match subsidiary that allegedly shared users’ photos with a facial recognition company. After the FTC filed a petition in May that challenged Match’s claims of privilege for 136 documents, Match has moved to keep the case secret, even suggesting (according to the FTC) that the entire docket be sealed or that it be allowed to litigate under a pseudonym. Alison Frankel says there are two big reasons — even beyond the usual presumption of public access to court proceedings — why this case should be litigated in the open. Read on to see what they are.
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"But offensive, controversial speech can still be protected."
—The 10th Circuit, which sided with a Colorado father and his son in a lawsuit challenging a Denver-area school’s expulsion of the boy after he posted an anti-Semitic comment on Snapchat. The family, represented by Jamie Hubbard of Stimson, Stancil, LaBranche, Hubbard and Andrew McNulty of Kilmer, Lane & Newman, said the discipline violated the boy’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the 10th Circuit agreed. Read more about how the appellate court came to its conclusion.
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Scandinavian airline SAS, represented by a team from Weil Gotshal, will make its first appearance in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, kicking off a restructuring process meant to cut its debt load as the company grapples with a pilot strike. SAS Chief Executive Anko van der Werff said the strike had accelerated the airline’s decision to file for Chapter 11 status. The strike will cost it $10 million to $13 million per day, the company said in its court filing.
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Agilent Technologies will ask a San Jose federal court to block Synthego's sales of a synthetic RNA kit for making gene editing faster and more efficient. The patent-infringement dispute involves gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. Agilent calls Synthego's founders "computer engineers who saw an opportunity to jump on the CRISPR bandwagon" by copying its technology. Synthego has denied the claims and said its technology has been "cited in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications” and is “utilized by thousands of commercial and academic researchers." Lawyers from Bunsow De Mory represent Agilent, and a team from Weil Gotshal represents Synthego.
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In the Federal Circuit, lawyers for Personalized Media Communications (PMC) will ask a panel of judges to reinstate a $308 million patent verdict against Apple that a Texas federal court threw out last year. PMC's "submarine" strategy, involving protracted delays for maximal payoff, to obtain its digital-rights management patent was a "conscious and egregious misuse of the statutory patent system," U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap said in his decision tossing the verdict that Apple's FairPlay system infringed PMC intellectual property. PMC’s lawyers at Goodwin Procter contend the decision was a "radical and unjustifiable expansion of the prosecution laches doctrine." Apple is represented by Kirkland & Ellis.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in Trenton, New Jersey, said he may appoint an independent expert to assess the value of lawsuits alleging that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. Kaplan said mediation talks between the plaintiffs, who are represented by David Molton of Brown Rudnick, and LTL Management, a J&J subsidiary represented by Jones Day, have thus far failed to produce a viable framework for settling the cancer claims, threatening to engulf LTL’s bankruptcy case in protracted litigation. J&J assigned its talc liabilities to LTL, which filed for bankruptcy last year. (Reuters)
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A Tampa, Florida medical practice has agreed to stop asking its employees to provide their family members' COVID-19 test results to settle an investigation by the EEOC, which says the practice is illegal. The commission said that asking for employees' relatives' COVID test results violates the federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which prohibits, among other things, employers from asking employees medical questions about family members. (Reuters)
- Vanguard Group will pay $6.25 million to resolve Massachusetts state regulatory charges that the mutual fund company failed to warn many fund investors that they would face surprisingly big tax bills. Vanguard did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. (Reuters)
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- Sidley brought on partner Steve Hessler in New York to lead the firm’s restructuring group. Hessler arrives at the firm from Kirkland, where he had spent nearly 20 years. (Sidley)
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BakerHostetler brought on Winston Kirton as a Washington, D.C.-based partner on the firm’s FDA team. Kirton earlier practiced at Winston & Strawn. (BakerHostetler)
- Cooley hired Stacey Song as a partner in the firm’s fund formation practice in New York. She arrives at the firm from Fried Frank. (Cooley)
- Paul Hastings added New York-based white-collar partner Avi Weitzman, a former federal prosecutor who arrives at the firm from Gibson Dunn. (Paul Hastings)
- Sheppard Mullin said healthcare partner Richard Rifenbark joined the firm’s office in Century City, California. He formerly was at Polsinelli. (Sheppard Mullin)
- King & Spalding added trial lawyer Antonio Lewis as a partner based in the firm’s Charlotte, N.C., office. He most recently served as Honeywell’s chief litigation counsel for its safety and productivity solutions and building technologies businesses. (King & Spalding)
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