class action settlements

  • Morning Docket: 01.05.18
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 01.05.18

    * President Trump ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing in the Russia probe — and Sessions, after not recusing and incurring Trump’s wrath, later submitted his signed resignation letter (which the mercurial Trump, who had told Sessions to resign, then declined to accept). [New York Times]

    * Brazilian oil company Petrobras just announced a $2.95 billion class action settlement, which will be the largest settlement of a class action U.S. securities fraud suit this decade if approved (by Judge Jed Rakoff, so it’s not a foregone conclusion). [Corporate Counsel]

    * Congratulations to litigation finance firm Lake Whillans, which just concluded a $125 million round of funding. [American Lawyer]

    * Leigh Corfman, one of several Alabama women who accused unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct, is now suing Moore for defamation. [Washington Post]

    * Speaking of defamation claims, the Trump tax bill contains some very bad news for plaintiffs in such cases (and tort cases more generally, it seems). [Slate]

    * Tallahassee prosecutor Georgia Cappleman has thrown her hat into the ring for a judicial vacancy; what does this mean for the Dan Markel case, which she’s currently handling? [Tallahassee Democrat]

    * The Motel 6/ICE mess has triggered a lawsuit against the company by Washington State’s attorney general. [ABA Journal]

    * Journalist Roy Strom surveys the year ahead for Biglaw — and highlights Bruce MacEwen and Janet Stanton’s noteworthy prediction of a prominent U.S. law firm forming a joint venture with a “New Law” entity. [Law.com]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.06.15

    * Per a recent Super Lawyers survey, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Supreme Court justice with whom the nation’s top lawyers would most like to share a lunch date. Come on, admit it: you just want to get wasted with the Notorious R.B.G. [TIME]

    * Perhaps in anticipation of a SCOTUS ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, states across the country are dreaming up legislation that would allow businesses to refuse service to gay couples. Man, we’re such jerks. [New York Times]

    * Taking over China with its Dacheng merger wasn’t enough for Dentons, and what’s now the largest firm in the world by attorney headcount still wants to conquer the United States. Dentons is trying to woo McKenna Long & Aldridge, again. [Am Law Daily]

    * Dewey know which firm’s ex-COO is denying knowledge of any financial funny business? Defense lawyers for D&L’s former top brass are now relying on his statements that staffers may have been inept, but surely weren’t doing anything illegal. [New York Law Journal]

    * Remember that BARBRI antitrust class-action settlement that was reached almost a decade ago? The lawyers and law firms involved are still fighting over legal fees in the case, namely how many millions they think they ought to receive. [National Law Journal]

  • Anthony Kennedy, Antitrust, BARBRI, Biglaw, Clarence Thomas, Fast Food, Food, Kids, Morning Docket, Movies, Partner Issues, SCOTUS, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court

    Morning Docket: 03.15.13

    * “We are a teaching institution. We teach by not having television. We are judged by what we write.” Justices Kennedy and Breyer aren’t ready for their close-ups — they’re adamantly opposed to cameras in the courtroom. [Blog of Legal Times]

    * Another thing Justices Kennedy and Breyer are adamantly opposed to is the sequester. They say that these unnecessary budget cuts will hit the criminal justice system where it hurts: its already overflowing docket. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * A liberal film critic took a shot at Justice Clarence Thomas by likening him to Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of the head house slave in Django Unchained. Methinks this is a RACEIST™ comparison, n’est–ce pas? [Reason Magazine]

    * Reed Smith has a new managing partner, Edward Estrada, who plans to “aggressively recruit laterals.” No relation to Erik Estrada, but if he gets a pair of those cool sunglasses, we approve. [New York Law Journal]

    * A better deal was reached in the BAR/BRI antitrust case. Say goodbye to the coupons, and hello to $9.5 million in cold hard cash… which means you’re going to get like $80 if you’re lucky. [National Law Journal]

    * “This is a very disgusting case.” Why yes, yes it is. A mother is suing because she claims her son ate a used condom off the floor of a McDonald’s play area. It’s doubtful that she approved of the special sauce. [Reuters]

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  • 10th Circuit, Barack Obama, Cars, Confirmations, Federal Judges, Guns / Firearms, Health Care / Medicine, Kids, Masturbation, Morning Docket, Politics, Reader Polls, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Television, Travel / Vacation

    Morning Docket: 12.27.12

    * Justice Sonia Sotomayor just ruined Hobby Lobby’s new year by refusing to block the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptives mandate. All of the members of the company’s legal team will have to scrapbook and crochet for hours to get over this loss. [Reuters]

    * Harvard Law graduate Barack Obama is being feted as CNN’s “Most Intriguing Person of 2012,” but he’s currently trailing in fourth place in the most important year-end poll of all: Above the Law’s Lawyer of the Year competition. Get out there and vote! [CNN]

    * Federal district court judges aren’t being confirmed as quickly as they once were, and it’s partly because our president isn’t submitting nominees as quickly as those who came before him. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * But even if the president nominated judges more quickly, he’d continue to face harsh opposition from the NRA, which matters because the gun group has an entire party in its pocket. [Opinionator / New York Times]

    * A legal problem and a journalism problem wrapped up in a little pretty bow: David Gregory of NBC’s “Meet the Press” is being investigated for displaying an alleged 30-round magazine on the air. [Washington Post]

    * One of New York’s most prestigious private schools agreed to settle the sex abuse suit brought against it by former students. Simpson Thacher partner Phil Culhane must be doing a victory dance. [New York Daily News]

    * You got a fast car, and now this case will pay all our bills. Toyota settled a class action suit over unintended acceleration, and it’s touted as one of the largest product-liability settlements in history. [New York Times]

    * Ay dios mio! You know that you’re never going to enjoy another vacation when you catch a hotel employee spreading his seed all over your clothes. But what did you expect? It’s Mexico. [Courthouse News Service]

  • American Bar Association / ABA, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, California, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Election 2012, Election Law, Harvard Law Review, Law School Deans, Law Schools, LeBoeuf Lamb, Morning Docket, Nude Dancing, Partner Issues, Politics, Texas, Weddings, William Birdthistle

    Morning Docket: 10.11.12

    * Everyone’s happy about the Dewey & LeBoeuf settlement except the Ad Hoc Committee and its LeBoeuf retirees, who called Judge Martin Glenn’s attempt to slap them down an “insult to injury.” [WSJ Law Blog]

    * While South Carolina’s voter ID law wasn’t found to be inherently discriminatory, its enforcement was still blocked because people will be unable to get their sh*t together in time for the election. [Bloomberg]

    * VP debate moderator Martha Raddatz’s 1991 wedding guest list has come under fire because Barack Obama was invited. Clearly there’s a conflict of interest worth arguing about here. [Washington Post]

    * This man is nobody’s “butt boy”: Tom Keefe, the interim dean over at Saint Louis Law School, will be footing a $14,212 bill for his students in the form of ABA Law Student Division memberships. [National Law Journal]

    * Strippers in California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Texas, and Nevada will be making it rain, because they just scored a $12.9M class action settlement. That’s a whole lot of “college tuition”! [Courthouse News Service]

  • Airplanes / Aviation, Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Bonuses, Books, Deaths, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Jeffrey Toobin, Money, Morning Docket, SCOTUS, Securities Law, Supreme Court

    Morning Docket: 10.01.12

    * Bank of America agreed to pay $2.43 billion, one of the biggest securities class-action settlements in history, to put the Merrill Lynch mess behind it. According to Professors Peter Henning and Steven Davidoff, B of A “is probably quite happy with the settlement given that it could have potentially faced billions of dollars more in liability in the case.” [DealBook / New York Times]

    * “Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting.” Here is Robert Barnes’s take on the SCOTUS Term that starts today. [Washington Post]

    * And here is Professor Garrett Epps’s review of Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the Supreme Court, The Oath (affiliate link). [New York Times]

    * How Dewey justify paying a big bonus to a member of the management team “when it has been widely pointed out that excessive compensation to the firm’s upper management significantly contributed to the firm’s collapse in the first place?” [Bankruptcy Beat via WSJ Law Blog]

    * A high-profile Vatican trial raises these questions: “‘Did the butler do it?’ Or rather, ‘was it only the butler who did it?’” [Christian Science Monitor]

    * Ben Ogden, an Allen & Overy associate who was killed in a Nepalese plane crash, R.I.P. [Am Law Daily]

  • Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Facebook, General Counsel, In-House Counsel, John Edwards, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, SCOTUS, Shoes, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court, Tax Law, Trials, Women's Issues

    Morning Docket: 05.18.12

    * Rob me once, shame on you; rob me twice, shame on me? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed for a second time, but this time as the victim of a burglary on May 4. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * Dewey know when this ship is finally going to capsize (so we can stop making these puns)? Two of D&L’s Hong Kong partners have decided to defect to DLA Piper, and more may be joining them soon. [Asian Lawyer]

    * He might’ve been a “bad husband,” but that doesn’t mean he’s guilty. The jury in John Edwards’s campaign finance trial will begin deliberating today. Let’s see if they convict him of being more than an adulterer. [CNN]

    * After his citizenship stunt, Eduardo Saverin can look forward to being defriended by the United States — not like that’s a bad thing, because to be honest, the movie version of him is much cuter. [New York Daily News]

    * And this is why lawyers shouldn’t try to be funny. Safeway’s General Counsel, Robert Gordon, is being branded a sexist for telling a recycled joke about pigs and D.C.’s most powerful women. [Corporate Counsel]

    * A three month suspension has been recommended for a former Treasury Department attorney who attempted to steal ties from Nordstrom. What, he couldn’t spring for a Neiman’s run? [National Law Journal]

    * If you bought those stupid ass Skechers Shape-Up shoes in the hope that your booty would look like Kim Kardashian’s, you can get a piece of the $40M settlement. Not bitter, not at all. [Los Angeles Times]

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  • Biglaw, Deaths, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Fashion, Fashion Is Fun, Food, John Edwards, Law Schools, Morning Docket, New Jersey, Shoes, Trademarks, Trials

    Morning Docket: 05.01.12

    * Dewey really need to keep coming up with punny headlines about D&L’s painful probe? Pass the lube, ’cause you better believe we dew! Steven Davis, the firm’s former chairman, has hired Barry Bohrer, a white-collar criminal lawyer. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “Of course all of that money for my baby mama is legal. I… uh… checked with my lawyers. Um, yeah. Just get the money in.” Cheri Young gave some pretty damning testimony yesterday during the John Edwards campaign-finance violations trial. [CNN]

    * As if you didn’t have enough to worry about during finals, Law School Transparency has come out with a new clearinghouse that includes employment outcomes, salaries, and student debt loads. [National Law Journal]

    * “I do not own a color. I own a specific color in a specific place.” Christian Louboutin was seeing red when he responded to interview questions over his trademark infringement suit against Yves Saint Laurent. [Fox News]

    * Remember that Nutella class action suit? Ferrero settled, and you can cash in if you bought their delicious hazelnut crack during the relevant time period. Needless to say, they owe me $20. [American Thinker]

    * Richard Bellman, the lawyer behind New Jersey’s “Mount Laurel doctrine,” RIP. [New York Times]

  • Bloomberg, Job Searches, Law Schools

    Twenty Additional Law School Class Action Suits Are in the Works; Is Your School One of Them?

    David Anziska vowed to make 2012 the "year of law school litigation." Anziska told us that Team Strauss/Anziska's strategy going forward would be to sue as many law schools as possible in the first half of 2012. How's that working out for them? Anziska recently sat down with Bloomberg Law for an on-air interview where he revealed some noteworthy information about the next wave of law school lawsuits. The most relevant piece of information? Twenty more law school class action suits are coming down the pipeline. Which schools will be named as defendants?
  • Books, Constitutional Law, In-House Counsel, Law Professors, Litigators

    Inside Straight: Torpedoing Class Actions

    In 2009, Professor Martin H. Redish of Northwestern Law School published a book arguing that class actions are in large part unconstitutional: Wholesale Justice: Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class Action Lawsuit (Stanford Univ. Press 2009). Where is the practicing bar? I understand that nobody reads law review articles or books published by […]
  • California, Cars

    Former Attorney Sues Honda... in Small Claims Court

    A former attorney in Los Angeles is unsatisfied with her Honda Civic hybrid's gas mileage. It seems her supposedly high-efficiency car was emitting more smog than smug. A class action lawsuit against the auto manufacturer probably won't give her the relief she wants. So she is taking on Honda in an unusual judicial venue and hoping to remove lawyers from the equation....