Class Actions

  • Morning Docket: 02.22.18
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.22.18

    * Only 23 percent of law school grads think their education was worth the cost. That number seems high. [CNBC]

    * Apparently, judges can’t use their office to trade leniency for nude photos. You learn something new every day. [Courthouse News Service]

    * Professor Epps patiently explains how bad Clarence Thomas is at basic constitutional law. [The Atlantic]

    * Ogletree slapped with a sexual harassment suit on the heels of a big gender discrimination suit. Somebody over there really needs to learn labor law. [The Recorder]

    * Just as a recap: Protecting minority voting rights — not a priority for the DOJ. Challenging a settlement to give people $2 wine coupons — absolutely a priority for the DOJ. [National Law Journal]

    * Summer programs are shrinking again, so go ahead and start panicking. [American Lawyer]

    * Boies is leading a coalition challenging the “winner-take-all” electoral system — but not the Electoral College itself — as an affront to “one person, one vote.” Because when I think about improving fairness, it’s turning over the task of choosing Electors to gerrymandered maps. [Bloomberg]

    * School superintendent about to get a crash course on basic constitutional law. [Washington Post]

  • 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]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 12.29.17
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 12.29.17

    * Luke Skywalker’s legal duty to save the galaxy. (Spoilers for The Last Jedi.) [The Legal Geeks]

    * Will the class-action lawsuits against Apple for throttling older phones lead to a resurgence in class-actions? [Law and More]

    * The latest episode of the Amicus podcast explores how to combat a history of harassment in the judiciary in the wake of the Alex Kozinski scandal. [Slate]

    * Tracking the use of the phrase “help me” by Supreme Court justices in oral arguments… which is to track the passive-aggressive stylings of the Court. [Empirical SCOTUS]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWP6Qki8mWc

    * Yup, this is how the President of the United States used his Twitter account in 2017. [The Hill]

    * Speaking of the President, he teases a Constitutional crisis in an impromptu interview. [Huffington Post]

    * Could a feminist perspective change the tax code? [TaxProf Blog]

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  • Morning Docket: 03.10.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.10.17

    * Arizona Summit Law School announces its plan to affiliate with an established university… Bethune-Cookman?!? Because when you think of a for-profit law school in Phoenix, you obviously think of an HCBU in Florida. [AZ Central]

    * 150 law firm leaders wrote a letter asking the government to continue funding legal services, which is nice, but Jim Harbaugh’s already on the case. [Am Law Daily]

    * House passes tough new regulations for class action certification… just what rural, Rust Belt voters were hankering for. [National Law Journal]

    * K-Y sued over trade secret theft allegations. I don’t know about this case, but I always thought those guys were slippery. [P&T Community]

    * A blow-by-blow of the day Kellyanne started shilling for cheap jewelry on national television. [NBC News]

    * Restaurant sues to force Trump to divest from his hotel, citing unfair competition when a sitting president can entice people to eat at his well-done steak and ketchup establishments. [Law.com]

    * Add Turkey to the list of countries with ethically dubious ties to the Trump campaign. [Huffington Post]

    * The EU is figuring out that the “right to be forgotten” provides a gaping loophole for CEOs to cover up their mistakes and abuses. [Courthouse News Service]

  • Morning Docket: 02.16.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.16.17

    * Are federal authorities investigating Fox News? [Law360]

    * Has Trump made law school “cool again”? No. Law school was never cool. [Quartz]

    * What do you know? Looks like some firms are finally waking up to the fact that they didn’t have good years and really couldn’t afford to jack up associate salaries. [ABA Journal]

    * That said, Davis Polk just had its self-described “best year ever.” Did nobody tell these people Bowie died? [Am Law Daily]

    * Judges say they understand technology, but contradictory rulings about discovery and “the cloud” may say otherwise. [Law.com]

    * The litigation finance industry is leery of class actions. Should they be? [The Recorder]

    * Then again, maybe it won’t matter because this Congress is trying to gut class actions by making it next to impossible to find lawyers willing to take on these cases. [Forbes]

    * Hofstra Law is opening a clinic to serve immigrants dealing with deportation. [Newsday]

    * Nobody actually likes the Rams or Chargers. That’s why Biglaw is in deep with a gaggle of antitrust suits brought by the people of Los Angeles over having to buy NFL Sunday Ticket. [Law.com]

  • Morning Docket: 11.28.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 11.28.16

    * “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” President-elect Donald Trump can’t keep himself away from his Twitter account thanks to the recount that’s going on, and now he seems to have accidentally called into question the legitimacy of the election in its entirety. Oopsie! [New York Times]

    * Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has jumped on Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s election recount bandwagon, but according to campaign general counsel Marc Elias, it’s only “to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.” Thus far, Wisconsin has already agreed to perform a recount. [CBS News]

    * Just like the president-elect who’s included him on his Supreme Court shortlist, Judge Raymond M. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit seems to be incredibly blunt. The judge expects civility between parties in briefs, but is well known for his “caustic rebuke[s]” and “eviscerat[ing] [litigants] like first-day law student[s].” [Big Law Business]

    * Per recent TV ads, “Wells Fargo is making changes to make things right,” but only if those changes don’t involve public court records: Wells Fargo customers who had unauthorized accounts opened in their names have filed a class-action suit, but the bank is trying to quash their claims by forcing plaintiffs into arbitration. [CNN Money]

    * “If you look at other parts of the state — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio — everybody has a law school.” But that doesn’t mean that everybody needs to have a law school. A dearth of potential applicants be damned, because lawmakers in the Texas Rio Grande Valley are going ahead with plans to establish a public law school in the area. [Valley Star]

  • Morning Docket: 10.19.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.19.16

    * The LSAT may be “destroy[ing] socioeconomic diversity” in law schools. Will a low score on the Logic Games section of the LSAT keep you from becoming employed as a lawyer? Probably not, but it may keep you from attending a top law school, unless you can afford an expensive LSAT tutor, and many prospective law students are priced out from the get-go. [The Atlantic]

    * Darby Dickerson, dean of Texas Tech Law, is resigning to assume the deanship at John Marshall Law-Chicago, a school whose enrollment has faltered over the past several years. She was asked during a job interview why she would leave a ranked law school for an unranked one, and her response may surprise you. [Crain’s Chicago Business]

    * The first oral argument of the new SCOTUS term marked one of the first times that complete gender equality was reached at the high court. Five men — all justices — and five women — three of them justices and two of them representing their clients — were all present for Bravo-Fernandez, which is a relative rarity. [Washington Post]

    * “I feel that as a result of the experiences I had, I had a lot to offer.” With the assistance of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s former GC, Hinshaw & Culbertson is launching a crisis management and consulting practice. The firm is now in competition with businesses like Zeughauser Group, Altman Weil, and Hildebrandt Consulting. [Big Law Business]

    * A class-action suit has been filed over Samsung’s recall of its fiery smartphone, alleging breach of warranty, breach of good faith, and common law fraud. You can expect the size of the proposed nationwide class of plaintiffs in this suit (or at least those in California, Pennsylvania, and Nevada) to explode faster than the Galaxy Note 7. [WSJ Law Blog]