Good morning. Welcome back to The Daily Docket, your new go-to morning newsletter from Westlaw Today for the latest on courts, lawyers and the legal profession. Trump’s effort to shield his tax returns goes before the 2nd Circuit, law firm laterals are dropping in every market except one, UB Law has new required reading and more.
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Trump, Manhattan D.A. face off in crucial appellate argument
President Donald Trump's effort to shield eight years of his tax returns from prosecutors under Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance goes before an appellate court today. Here's what to expect.
What's happening: A three-judge 2nd Circuit panel will consider whether to put on hold pending appeal U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero's decision rejecting Trump's claims that Vance's grand jury subpoena to his accounting firm Mazars USA was overbroad and issued in bad faith. He pushed those arguments after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his argument that he enjoyed immunity from state criminal probes while president.
What's Trump's argument? "Absent a stay, the subpoena will be enforced and this appeal will be mooted," Trump's lawyers, led by Consovoy McCarthy's William Consovoy, wrote. They have said Marrero wrongly concluded Trump did not plausibly allege the subpoena was overbroad and not narrowly tailored to examine what prosecutors have said are hush money payments made by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
How does Vance counter? Vance's office, led by general counsel Carey Dunne, says continued litigation is effectively giving Trump the immunity the Supreme Court rejected and that the probe is also examining other Trump business transactions.
Lateral moves projected to drop in every market -- except one
Lateral partner movement over the first three quarters of 2020 is expected to drop in nearly every major U.S. market except for one -- San Francisco. According to data compiled by competitive intelligence firm Decipher, that city in 2019 saw 102 partners switch firms between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30. In 2020, 114 moves are projected for the same period.
Outside of the Bay Area the data suggests that lawyers are staying put and that firms are not pouring money into lateral partner acquisitions, which are expensive, at a time when money may be scarce, David Thomas reports. San Francisco’s strength could signal how coveted tech clients are. Lateral partner moves in New York are projected to drop 28%; in Los Angeles and Chicago, 32%; in D.C., 40%; and in Boston, a whopping 52%.
The data came from the 350 largest firms in the U.S. by head count. Michael Ellenhorn, Decipher's founder and CEO, said these numbers are just one data point about the health of these legal markets, and he emphasized that they are projections. "But the numbers are pretty clear," he added.
Bankruptcy judge skeptical about Boy Scouts' effort to curtail ads to abuse victims
The Boy Scouts of America likely will have to scale back its attempts to halt what it says are misleading attorney advertisements aimed at sexual abuse victims after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Delaware deemed the request too broad in a hearing on Monday. She said she needed more time to consider the matter but also said she’s not inclined to issue a "blanket order" the Boy Scouts requested because it could encompass advertisements that are neither misleading nor deceptive, Maria Chutchian reports.
The Boy Scouts, represented by Sidley Austin, say the ads are confusing to survivors because they are designed to send potential claimants to law firms touting their services without clarifying that survivors can file, without a lawyer, an official claim with the Boy Scouts’ claims agent.
But the Coalition of Abused Scouts, which says it represents more than 12,000 victims and itself is represented by lawyers from Brown Rudnick and Blank Rome, argued that survivors are entitled to information about their options that comes from someone other than the Boy Scouts and that any restrictions on the ads would be a violation of the group's First Amendment rights.
Coming up today
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California will urge the 9th Circuit to allow the state to apply the law AB5, which makes it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors, to the trucking industry. A lower court judge blocked its application at the request of the California Trucking Association, repped by Mayer Brown's Andrew Tauber.
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Dental services company Benevis and lawyers including Jackson Walker's Matthew Cavenaugh will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur in Houston to approve its proposed sale procedures. The company already has lined up a bid from creditor New Mountain Finance Corp but will entertain other offers.
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The Federal Circuit will consider reviving a lawsuit by International Technologies accusing Samsung Electronics of infringing a patent on a credit card reader. Alston & Bird's John Haynes and Fish & Richardson's Ruffin Cordell represent ID Tech and Samsung, respectively.
"I was upset with us not being able to make videos at a time when people needed to watch silly cat videos the most. The world needed that."
Jessica Josephs, one of the owners of famed internet cats Cole and Marmalade, who are back online after settling a lawsuit with now-former partners Digital Pet Media. (Tampa Bay Times)
Gearing up for the new semester, UB Law prioritizes anti-racist curriculum
The University at Buffalo School of Law has implemented changes to promote anti-racism and an inclusive culture at the school. For the first time, incoming first-year students are required to read "Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America." The non-fiction book is an account of a 1949 criminal case against four wrongly accused Black defendants.
"One of the reasons we chose this book was because we wanted to think about a way we could honor Black lives in a way that wasn’t just reactive but in a way that would provide our students with some of that historical and legal context for these issues and also cause them to think about why this is relevant today as they begin their journey to become attorneys," Tolulope Odunsi, UB Law’s assistant dean of diversity, equity and inclusion told The Daily Docket.
Odunsi said requiring students to read the book is "a bit of a pilot program" and is part of a larger push for a new, more inclusive curriculum at the school, which is in the works. UB Law, the only law school in the SUNY system, is aiming for the new curriculum to help grads better serve the diverse Buffalo community.
Industry buzz
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It was a busy week for in-house hires. Google, Walmart and Allstate all tapped new general counsel. (Reuters)
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The secret to surviving a 14-hour Zoom hearing? Mountain Dew, according to trial lawyer Eugene Murphy Jr. The hearing, in which he represented a real estate developer, ended at 3 a.m. with a decision to bar a marijuana dispensary from opening in Chicago’s upscale Gold Coast neighborhood. (Law.com)
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Lawyers say the criminal justice system in England and Wales is under a "triple threat," with a shortage of defense attorneys, postponed trials due to the pandemic and the end of the UK's furlough assistance. (The Guardian)
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Reed Smith attorneys in the United States will remain remote until at least January 2021. (Reuters)
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At least 13 law firms are granting employees some type of time off to vote on Election Day. (Reuters)
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McDermott boosted lateral hiring by 66% so far in 2020, adding 39 partners and 16 counsel. (Reuters)
In the courts
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Chipotle, represented by Paul Weiss, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an April ruling by the 2nd Circuit that said more than 500 Chipotle "apprentices" could sue as a collective even though their job duties varied. (Reuters)
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The 2nd Circuit tossed a Trump administration bid to suspend a regulation that more than doubled penalties for automakers failing to meet fuel efficiency requirements. (Reuters)
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The D.C. Circuit denied a bid by Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, to immediately end the criminal case against him for lying to the FBI about his talks with a Russian official before Trump took office in 2017. (Reuters)
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The D.C. Circuit also denied a bid by the U.S. House of Representatives to enforce a subpoena issued to former White House Counsel Donald McGahn. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said "the House will immediately pursue an en banc rehearing of this decision." (Reuters)
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A Florida appeals court ruled that the state's order reopening schools doesn’t unlawfully force students or teachers back into classrooms and should remain in effect while the courts hear cases challenging the order’s constitutionality. (Orlando Sentinel)
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In the second challenge to a new Tennessee law, abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit in a Nashville federal court opposing part of the 38-page law that would require doctors to tell women seeking a drug-induced abortion that it can be halted halfway, which is a claim medical groups say is not backed up by science. (AP)
Columnist spotlight: Get ready for Round 4 of the LSAT in the COVID Age
About 20,000 would-be lawyers are taking the LSAT online this week. But what happens if a test taker doesn’t have a compatible device, a quiet spot to take the test or reliable internet? (In short: loaners and hotel rooms.) Jenna Greene caught up with current test takers and some who sat for the LSAT’s last online iteration about the ups and downs of taking the test virtually.
Lawyer speak: What can the legal community learn from Taylor Swift?
With the onset of streaming and social media turning artists into "influencers" and "brands," attorney Elizabeth Vulaj argues that Taylor Swift, who owns the master rights to her two most recent albums "Lover" and "Folklore," and other artists who have managed to do the same can serve as a roadmap to navigating the new landscape of the music industry. Young artists have more ways to earn money than ever, leaving them less likely to sign away their rights to their masters or agree to the record contracts of old.
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