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3. House committee drops information request…

Education Law

House committee drops information request about law clinics amid ‘ongoing negotiations’ with Northwestern

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 14, 2025, 10:59 am CDT

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce has withdrawn its request for information on law clinics at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, citing “ongoing negotiations” with the university and an intent to pursue “other means of inquiry.”

The committee withdrew the request Thursday during an emergency hearing in federal court in Chicago, a day after two law professors filed a lawsuit challenging the request.

A letter filed with the court April 10 said the withdrawal was based on the committee’s “ongoing negotiations with Northwestern University” related to alleged antisemitism, Law360 reports.

“We expect to pursue other means of inquiry in coming weeks as part of Congress’ oversight authority under the U.S. Constitution,” the April 10 letter adds.

The committee had initially sought information in a March 27 letter that expressed concern about antisemitism and funding of “left-wing advocacy with its institutional resources,” raising “significant concerns about the university’s role as a steward of taxpayer dollars.”

The suit alleged that the information request violated two clinical law professors’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech and association and their right to petition for redress of grievances. The suit also alleged retaliation for expression of First Amendment rights and violation of their clients’ Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights.

“Here, defendants threaten federal funding to Northwestern based on the viewpoints and associations of plaintiffs and their clients,” the suit said. “Defendants are leveraging funding to regulate speech on the basis of viewpoint and content.”

The committee’s request for information from Northwestern University was one of five information requests sent to colleges March 27, according to a press release announcing the committee’s retreat.

The suit plaintiffs are Sheila A. Bedi and Lynn Cohn, who work with programs operating within Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. Bedi is the director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, while Cohn is a clinical law professor at the Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice.

Jon Yates, a Northwestern University spokesman, previously said Bedi’s civil rights clinic represents clients across the political and legal spectrum, and cases chosen by the clinic don’t necessarily reflect the views of the school.

Yates also said the school is collaborating with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law “to fight antisemitism.”

The case is Bedi v. U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Publications covering the dropped request, in addition to Law360, include Reuters and the Daily Northwestern.

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3. Former Littler lawyer drops California suit…

Law Firms

Former Littler lawyer drops California suit against firm, bringing end to departure dispute

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 3, 2024, 12:27 pm CDT

A former lawyer at Littler Mendelson has dropped a California lawsuit alleging that the law firm violated a $950,000 agreement to settle their dueling claims in connection with her departure.

Uliana Kozeychuk’s request for dismissal of the California case states that she is “recovering $10,000 or more in value by this action,” Law360 reports. An Orange County, California, court agreed to dismiss the case Aug. 16.

In the California case, Kozeychuk had alleged that the firm violated a deal in a Dallas County, Texas, case in which the firm would pay her $950,000 for back pay, emotional distress, attorney fees and costs, if she satisfies certain conditions.

The Dallas County dispute stemmed from a Littler suit alleging that Kozeychuk uploaded more than 7,900 documents to an external Dropbox in February 2023 before quitting her job. Some of the documents contained client information and belonged to Littler, the suit claimed.

Kozeychuk claimed, however, that the firm was targeting her for complaining about bullying by one of its shareholders, according to Law360.

The Texas settlement called for Kozeychuk to delete mentions of the firm from her social media accounts and to allow a forensics expert to remove firm documents from her electronic files. She also agreed to drop a pending claim with the California Division of Labor Standards, according to Law360.

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3. After sanctions threat, Trump lawyer in $83.3M…

Trials & Litigation

After sanctions threat, Trump lawyer in $83.3M defamation case drops conflict claim stemming from BigLaw overlap

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 31, 2024, 10:24 am CST

A lawyer for former President Donald Trump is backing away from a claim that an opposing lawyer and the judge in a defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll had an undisclosed conflict of interest.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba had told the New York Post she will appeal an $83.3 million verdict against Trump partly because the plaintiff’s lawyer and the judge both worked at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in the 1990s.

Habba said in a Jan. 30 letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York she is now satisfied that there was no “mentor-mentee relationship” between Kaplan and opposing lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who are not related, when they worked at Paul Weiss.

Law360, Reuters and Bloomberg Law have coverage.

Habba had raised the issue in a prior letter, leading Roberta Kaplan to respond that the accusation of such a relationship was “utterly baseless” and she reserved the right to seek sanctions if Habba continues her “false accusations of impropriety.”

“From the very start of the recently concluded trial, Donald Trump and Ms. Habba have pushed a false narrative of judicial bias so that they could characterize any jury verdict against Trump as the product of a corrupt system,” Kaplan wrote in her own letter to the judge.

Jurors awarded $83.3 million to Carroll on Friday in the writer’s second defamation lawsuit against Trump for denying her claims of sexual assault in a department store dressing room during two time periods—before October 2022 and after a defamation verdict in May 2023 in the first case. Jurors awarded Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages for defamation and $65 million in punitive damages.

Jurors in the first case found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll but did not rape her. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages in the prior case partly for the sexual assault under a law giving survivors a one-year window to sue for time-barred claims and partly for defamation stemming from a denial by Trump in October 2022.

Habba still plans to appeal both verdicts. Habba said in her first letter to Kaplan his “overtly hostile” treatment of Trump and his “preferential treatment” of Carroll’s lawyers would be an issue in her appeal.

Another issue in the second case could be whether the punitive damages are excessive under the due process clause.

See also:

“Judge chastises Trump in defamation trial, lectures lawyers on procedural rules, says ‘this is not a tag-team lawyering’”