Good morning. The U.S. Supreme Court takes up President Joe Biden's plan to cancel $430 billion in student debt, a dispute testing the scope of executive power. Plus, the U.S. bar exam pass rate drops for first-time takers, and a former Napoli Shkolnik lawyer fired back with her own lawsuit after the firm sued her for alleged “quiet quitting.” Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch said some Fox hosts “endorsed” the notion of a stolen 2020 presidential election, and Ohio residents suing railroad Norfolk Southern struck a deal over evidence at the East Palestine crash site. Let’s dive in.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a pair of appeals from the Biden administration as it defends its effort to cancel billions of dollars in student debt. A Texas federal judge deemed the program unlawful, and the 8th Circuit in a separate case upheld an injunction sought by Nebraska and a group of other Republican states that said the plan exceeded agency authority. Our colleagues John Kruzel and Andrew Chung look at what’s at stake.
Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell, making his Supreme Court oral argument debut, will advocate for the states, and J. Michael Connolly of Consovoy McCarthy, also making his argument debut, will represent the challenger in the case from Texas. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will argue for the U.S. in both cases, each set for one hour.
The student loan cases provide a new chance for the justices to examine and possibly apply the “major questions” doctrine, which allows the courts to strike down agency action that lacks express U.S. congressional approval. The major questions doctrine “allows courts a great deal of leeway to pick and choose which agency actions to strike down and which to sustain," University of San Diego law professor Mila Sohoni told Kruzel.
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A former lawyer at New York law firm Napoli Shkolnik sued the firm for alleged racial discrimination, and said it filed a lawsuit falsely accusing her of “quiet quitting” in retaliation for her asserting bias claims. Heather Palmore, who is Black, sued the firm in Manhattan federal court. She filed the case just three days after the firm sued her in Nassau County court for allegedly failing to deliver promised business to the firm. (Reuters)
California should continue to use a bar exam to license attorneys but should develop its own distinct test, a panel recommended. The Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the Bar Exam is a joint effort between the California Supreme Court and the California state bar formed in 2021 to evaluate potential changes to the bar exam. (Reuters)
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Quarles & Brady will combine with a small Denver intellectual property firm, becoming the latest law firm to expand into Colorado this month. Milwaukee-founded Quarles will complete its second merger of 2023 through a deal effective March 1 with law firm Adsero IP. (Reuters)
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"The only solid prediction one can make about the upcoming recruiting cycle is that it won't be dull." |
—National Association for Law Placement Executive Nikia Gray, who talked to Karen Sloan about what a downturn in the legal industry combined with an unusually large law school class graduating next year could mean for new lawyers’ job prospects. New data from NALP showed a nearly 2% decline in offers for summer associate positions extended to current second-year law students, a red flag for those who expect to graduate next year.
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Several rebuttal witnesses are set to testify for the prosecution in the double-murder case against disbarred South Carolina lawyer Richard Alex Murdaugh. Lawyers for Murdaugh said they planned to rest their case on Monday after calling three final witnesses, and secured the judge's approval for the jury to visit the scene of the double murders. Murdaugh, who has pleaded not guilty, has denied any involvement in the murders of his wife and son, who were fatally shot at dog kennels on the family estate in 2021. But Murdaugh has admitted to lying to investigators about his whereabouts on the night of the killings. Once the jury visits the estate, it will hear closing arguments and start deliberations, likely in the second half of the week.
Defense lawyers for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell are due to file their opening brief in their appeal of her conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls over more than a decade. The brief from John Leventhal of Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins is expected to make arguments about statute of limitations and juror misconduct. Maxwell in April lost her bid to overturn her conviction after a juror acknowledged having falsely stated before the trial that he had not been sexually abused. Maxwell's lawyers said his false answers on a pretrial questionnaire justified granting a new trial.
GrubHub’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn will urge a judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Massachusetts' attorney general accusing the company of charging restaurants that use its online ordering platform with fees in excess of a cap imposed by the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. GrubHub said that while it did “not believe the temporary price control was either legal or appropriate, we complied with it while it was in effect and for an additional month after it expired, effectively conveying millions of dollars to local restaurants across Massachusetts.”
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Shareholders of Tesla are suing the electric vehicle maker and its Chief Executive Elon Musk in California federal court for allegedly overstating the effectiveness and safety of the company’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies. The plaintiffs allege Tesla defrauded them with false and misleading statements that concealed how its technologies "created a serious risk of accident and injury." Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reuters)
The U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear a dispute over the lawfulness of the CFPB’s funding structure in a case that the Biden administration has said threatens the ability of the consumer agency to function and risks market disruption. The agency in November asked the justices to review the 5th Circuit’s ruling that invalidated the funding scheme as unconstitutional. (Reuters)
Lawyers for Live Nation and Ticketmaster at Latham are looking to push an antitrust suit over the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco into arbitration. The companies in a court filing pointed to a recent 9th Circuit order upholding Ticketmaster’s arbitration terms that they contend is controlling. Live Nation is under increased scrutiny over the botched rollout of Swift tickets for her first tour in five years. (Reuters)
On the eve of trial, TD Bank, HSBC and Independent Bank Group agreed to pay $1.35 billion to resolve litigation by former Allen Stanford investors who accused them of contributing to the imprisoned financier's massive Ponzi scheme. The money will go to a court-appointed receiver who is repaying victims of Stanford's $7.2 billion fraud, which was uncovered two months after the arrest of Bernard Madoff. (Reuters)
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Dr. James Luketich, the head of its cardiothoracic surgery department, have agreed to pay $8.5 million to resolve a suit alleging they submitted fraudulent bills to Medicare and Medicaid for complex surgeries. A whistleblower claimed Luketich would book surgeries simultaneously and sometimes keep patients under unnecessary anesthesia. UPMC said Luketich’s work complied with federal requirements, and the doctor’s attorney, Efrem Grail of Grail Law, called the claims “baseless.” (Reuters)
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King & Spalding added Alicia O’Brien as a D.C.-based special matters and government investigations partner. She returns to the firm from the Biden White House, where she was a senior counsel. (Reuters)
O’Melveny brought on Peter Herrick as a New York-based antitrust and competition partner. He was previously at Axinn Veltrop. (O’Melveny)
DLA Piper added D.C.-based partner Era Anagnosti to the SEC and capital markets practice. She was previously at White & Case. (DLA Piper)
Selendy Gay Elsberg brought on Temidayo Aganga-Williams, a former senior investigative counsel for the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Selendy)
Proskauer picked up Matthew Kerfoot as a partner in its finance group. Kerfoot was previously a managing director at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking. (Proskauer)
Michael Milazzo jumped to Latham’s New York office, where he’ll be a partner in its transactional tax practice. Milazzo was previously at Kirkland. (Latham)
>> More moves to share? Please drop us a note at LegalCareerTracker@thomsonreuters.com.
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