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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The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce has withdrawn its request for information on law clinics at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, citing “ongoing negotiations” with the university and an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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BISHOP, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management Bishop Field Office is announcing an increased reward of $4,000 for information on the individuals responsible for damaging petroglyph panels at the Volcanic Tableland, north of Bishop. The perpetrators vandalized three locations within the site.
“Those responsible have destroyed an irreplaceable part of our national cultural heritage,” said Bishop Field Manager Sherri Lisius. “We hope the additional information released will help bring the responsible parties to justice.”

The perpetrators accessed the site by climbing over a fenced area, proceeded to climb on the site and break off sections of rock. Where the damage occurred, the vandals carved obscenities that included a Nazi swastika. Rehabbing the site will be extensive.

The site is protected under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This site is one of the most significant rock art sites in the region and has significant cultural importance to the local Tribes. Violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act can lead to felony charges. First-time offenders can be fined up to $20,000 and face up to two years in prison. Repeat offenders may face fines up to $100,000 and up to five years in prison. The law also allows federal or tribal authorities to impose civil fines. Courts can also seize vehicles and equipment used during the violation as an additional punishment.

If you have any information regarding this vandalism you are encouraged to call WeTip immediately at 1-800-78-CRIME (27463), or report online by scanning the QR code or visiting www.wetip.com. You can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $4,000 if your tip results in an arrest and conviction.
 

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3. KPMG’s bid to deliver legal services delayed…

Law Firms

KPMG’s bid to deliver legal services delayed as top Arizona court seeks more information

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 29, 2025, 3:21 pm CST

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday pushed back a decision on whether to allow a new subsidiary of accounting company KPMG to practice law in the state.

KPMG Law US is seeking to operate through Arizona’s alternative business structure program, which allows nonlawyers to own or invest in law firms. The state supreme court has requested “additional information or clarification on aspects of the application” before reaching a decision, a court spokesperson told Bloomberg Law and Law.com.

The Arizona Supreme Court’s Committee on Alternative Business Structures had unanimously recommended approval of KPMG’s application earlier this month. The committee acted after a KPMG representative answered questions, including a query about how the firm would provide legal services in other states without violating ethics rules.

The new firm plans to work with staffing agencies and local lawyers to serve clients in other jurisdictions, KPMG compliance lawyer David Rizzo told the committee.

KPMG, which has more than 3,750 employees, already has legal practices in more than 80 jurisdictions.

Law360 recently spoke with Christian Athanasoulas, a U.S. tax partner and head of tax services at KPMG, about the accounting company’s plans.

KPMG Law US plans to hire Arizona-licensed lawyers who will deliver legal services in the state. The new firm does not intend to offer legal services to audit clients but will seek opportunities with clients served by its tax and advisory businesses.

“We’ve recognized that there is a need for services related to legal that are very much adjacent to the services we deliver today,” Athanasoulas said. “That’s not a full portfolio of legal services but rather a handful of pinpointed legal services that address client pain points and are adjacent to our existing portfolio and service offerings.”

Athanasoulas noted that Arizona wants to bring innovation to the legal profession. KPMG has already “invested incredible resources in technology, including AI,” and that investment could help KPMG Law US deliver “a better work product in a faster, more efficient way,” he said.

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3. Chief Justice Roberts steered rulings benefiting…

U.S. Supreme Court

Chief Justice Roberts steered rulings benefiting Trump, report says, citing internal information

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 16, 2024, 3:52 pm CDT

A confidential memo and disclosures about internal deliberations show how Chief Justice John Roberts took an active role in three U.S. Supreme Court decisions that benefited former President Donald Trump, according to a story by the New York Times.

In the confidential memo, Roberts urged Supreme Court justices to consider whether presidents have immunity from prosecution and offered “a startling preview of how the high court would later rule,” the New York Times reports.

Roberts wrote the memo after Trump sought to end his trial for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election based on immunity. Roberts’ memo said he thought that the justices would see the case in a different light than the federal appeals court that ruled for prosecutors.

The immunity decision is one of three in which Roberts used his authority “to steer” the high court to benefit Trump, the New York Times says. Its story “draws on details from the justices’ private memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders, both conservative and liberal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are supposed to be kept secret,” the newspaper reports.

Roberts wrote the high court’s opinion in all three cases. They are:

  • Trump v. United States, the July decision holding that presidents have absolute immunity when exercising core constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for acts “within the outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities.

  • Trump v. Anderson, an unsigned March decision holding that Colorado can’t kick Trump off the primary ballot because it is up to Congress, not the states, to enforce the constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office.

  • Fischer v. United States, a June decision holding that Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol rioters can’t be charged with obstruction because they didn’t impair the availability or the integrity of documents in an official proceeding. The decision affected Trump because he had also been charged with obstructing the certification of the 2020 election.

In Trump v. United States, Roberts’ confidential February memo sided with the three liberal justices who didn’t want to delay hearing the immunity case until next term and then “froze them out,” the article reports. Besides recommending that the Supreme Court hear the case, Roberts addressed how it should be decided. The memo “tore into the appellate court opinion green-lighting Mr. Trump’s [election-interference] trial, calling it inadequate and poorly reasoned,” the New York Times says, citing sources who had seen the document.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor had signaled that she was willing to agree on some points in hopes of producing a more moderate opinion in the immunity case, but Roberts did not respond, sources told the New York Times.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, on the other hand, praised an initial draft of Roberts’ opinion and thanked him for “exceptional” and “remarkable” work.

In Trump v. Anderson, Roberts had indicated that he wanted the decision to be unanimous. But he sided with four conservative justices who wanted to rule not only that Colorado couldn’t remove Trump from the ballot but also that it was up to Congress to decide whether insurrectionists should be on the ballot. That led four concurring justices to argue that the high court should not have reached the issue of Congress’ role.

In Fischer v. United States, Justice Samuel Alito was initially assigned to write the decision on the reach of the obstruction statute. But Roberts decided to assign the opinion to himself after news stories surfaced about an upside-down flag flown at Alito’s home after the 2021 Capitol riot.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed that the obstruction statute was being applied too broadly and offered to join the majority if the justices remanded the case, rather than tossing charges against the rioters. Conservative justices agreed to the offer, according to the New York Times.

Roberts assigned himself seven majority opinions this term, and five of them were in “blockbuster cases,” the New York Times says. Some wondered whether Roberts had overextended himself.

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3. Lawyers, witnesses used privilege to ‘obfuscate…

Entertainment & Sports Law

Lawyers, witnesses used privilege to ‘obfuscate and hide information’ in Eagles stolen-lyrics trial, judge says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 7, 2024, 10:54 am CST

A judge in New York City has tossed charges of conspiring to possess stolen property—namely, Eagles handwritten lyrics—after band front man Don Henley waived attorney-client privilege during the trial, leading to late disclosure of 6,000 pages of material, some of which could be helpful to the defense.

Judge Curtis Farber of the trial-level New York Supreme Court dismissed the charges Wednesday against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz and two others at the request of prosecutors, who acknowledged that the disclosure included relevant information.

Farber tossed the case after testimony by Henley, Eagles manager Irving Azoff and lawyers from Manatt Phelps & Phillips and Loeb & Loeb, Law360 reports.

They had testified that a biographer stole the notes from Henley’s barn in the 1970s. Emails and other material released after the privilege waiver contradicted that version of events, according to the publication.

“Among other things,” Law360 reported, “the emails show Henley and his lawyers acknowledging the possibility that the Eagles may have voluntarily given [the biographer] the lyric notes pursuant to a 1979 contract for him to author a never-published biography of the band. Henley’s team also had possession of Sanders’ original biography manuscript but never produced it, according to the new evidence.”

Besides Law360, other publications with coverage include Rolling Stone, the New York Post, the Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. The other coverage does not mention the names of the law firms.

“It is now clear,” Farber said, that Henley, Azoff and “and their lawyers, two of which also shielded themselves from thorough and complete cross-examination by relying on Mr. Henley’s invocation [of privilege], shielded themselves from thorough and complete cross-examination,” according to Rolling Stone.

Those four witnesses, Farber said, “used the privilege to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen. This is a basic confrontation violation.”

Rolling Stone and the other publications did not identify which lawyers had testified.

Farber said the disclosure was “jarringly late.” Prosecutors were “eating a slice of humble pie,” Farber said, but they were also “displaying the highest level of integrity in moving to dismiss the charges.”

During the trial, prosecutors alleged that the biographer sold the notes to Horowitz, who sold them to the other two defendants, according to the New York Times.

Loeb & Loeb said in a statement cited by the AP that it respects the attorney-client privilege decisions and is “confident that its attorneys acted in accordance with their professional and ethical responsibilities.”

Spokespeople for Manatt Phelps & Phillips and Loeb & Loeb did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s requests for comment, made respectively in a voicemail and an email.

Henley’s new lawyer, Daniel M. Petrocelli, told Rolling Stone and Law360 that Henley “has once again been victimized by this unjust outcome. He will pursue all his rights in the civil courts.”

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3. Utah Supreme Court rules for adult adoptee…

Family Law

Utah Supreme Court rules for adult adoptee who wanted to unseal records for medical and genetic information

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 28, 2024, 8:42 am CST

A district court misinterpreted the law when it ruled that an adult adoptee can’t obtain her 1978 adoption records to provide her doctors with information about health predispositions, the Utah Supreme Court has ruled.

At issue is whether adoptee Marianne Tyson had shown “good cause” to obtain the records as required by Utah law, which seals adoption records for 100 years.

A district court had ruled that Tyson didn’t satisfy the “good cause” standard because the health and genetic information that she sought was not related to a specific medical condition.

The district court reasoned that giving Tyson access to the records would undermine the law’s privacy protections for birth parents.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled that the district court erred by trying “to breathe a more specific meaning into the phrase ‘good cause.’ Although it is understandable that the court would want more guidance than the statute provides, it interpreted the statute in a fashion that rewrote the law.”

“Stated differently,” the Utah Supreme Court said in its Feb. 22 decision, “if the legislature had wanted to impose a requirement that a petitioner point to something more than wanting to know her medical history, it could have put that in the statute. It did not, and it was error for the court to do so.”

The district court had determined that Tyson’s reasons for obtaining the records did not outweigh her birth mother’s interest in privacy.

“But instead of balancing both interests” as required by a Utah procedural rule, the district court “focused solely on the birth mother’s privacy interests,” the Utah Supreme Court said.

The state supreme court said it was returning the case to the trial court to conduct a balancing “that gives weight to both the birth mother’s privacy interests and Tyson’s reasons for wanting to see her adoption records.”

Law.com covered the case, In re M.A.

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3. As ABA gathers more information on JD-Next,…

Legal Education

As ABA gathers more information on JD-Next, law schools still have to obtain variances to use test

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 26, 2024, 11:43 am CST

Law schools that want to use the JD-Next exam in admissions will have to continue to seek a variance, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar determined at its Feb. 22 meeting.

The council wants to gather more data before deciding whether the test, a prelaw school exam administered by Aspen Publishing, is valid and reliable, as required by ABA accreditation standards.

Reuters and Law.com have coverage.

The council vote follows a consultant’s report that said JD-Next should only be used “as a lightly weighted addition” to acceptance decisions. More traditional measures of a student’s likely law school success, such as undergraduate grades or more established tests, should carry the weight of acceptance decisions, the report said.

“The JD-Next exam is a reliable and valid predictor of early law school grades but with multiple cautions and caveats that cannot be evaluated with the present data and may represent threats to its validity if used operationally for high-stakes decisions,” said the report by the ABA-commissioned consultant, Nathan Kuncel, an industrial organizational psychology professor at the University of Minnesota.

Fifty-one law schools have already received variances to use the test, according to Daniel Thies, vice-chair of the council, who spoke with Law.com.

The Law School Admission Council, which administers the Law School Admission Test, told Law.com in a statement that it supports “the council’s decision that the JD-Next exam should not be considered a valid and reliable test without far more evidence and resolution of the issues surrounding accommodations for people with disabilities.”

David Klieger, the program director for Aspen Publishing, said in a statement the council’s decision not to grant full approval is disappointing.

“We are incredibly proud of the JD-Next program and its results to date,” Klieger said in a statement published by Law.com. “We take pride in the fact that [many] institutions have already adopted the program, demonstrating their commitment to innovation and equity in the admissions process.”

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3. Proskauer settles with ex-COO accused of…

Law Firms

Proskauer settles with ex-COO accused of stealing sensitive information before new job

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2024, 11:47 am CST

Proskauer Rose has reached a confidential settlement with a former chief operating officer accused of downloading sensitive information before a planned move to a competitor law firm.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York dismissed Proskauer’s lawsuit against former COO Jonathan O’Brien on Friday after the parties reached an agreement in principle. On the same day, Torres issued a permanent injunction to bar O’Brien from keeping or using Proskauer’s “proprietary, confidential and/or trade secret information.”

Law360 reported on the dismissal order and injunction. Reuters, Bloomberg Law and Law.com also have coverage of the settlement, made public in a legal filing on Thursday.

Proskauer had accused O’Brien in January 2023 of acting in a “brazen and malicious” manner by downloading 34 gigabytes of data.

He was also accused of printing a “black book binder” showing partner compensation and performance, as well as allocation of the firm’s profits. He had claimed that he took the information with him, so that he could work while on a vacation in Africa.

The firm also alleged in a revised May 2023 suit that O’Brien withheld raises and promotions for key Proskauer employees to spur resentment and make them amenable to joining his would-be new firm, Paul Hastings. Proskauer also alleged that O’Brien defrauded the firm through “pervasive and protracted” expense abuses and reimbursement fraud.

Paul Hastings withdrew the job offer when Proskauer’s suit became public.

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3. 4th Circuit upholds ordinance requiring gun…

First Amendment

4th Circuit upholds ordinance requiring gun sellers to distribute suicide prevention information

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 24, 2024, 2:02 pm CST

A federal appeals court has upheld a county ordinance requiring gun dealers to distribute literature on suicide prevention and conflict resolution to buyers of guns and ammunition.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia, ruled Tuesday that the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, ordinance does not violate the First Amendment rights of gun dealers.

Bloomberg Law has coverage.

The ordinance was passed in 2022 after the county created a task force to address how to reduce gun violence. The task force, appointed after the 2018 mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, found that suicide deaths had increased, and guns were the most often means used.

In response, the county adopted the ordinance requiring the health department to prepare informational literature for gun dealers. The department used a pamphlet created by a collaboration of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a national nonprofit organization, and developed a flyer on county conflict-resolution resources, including a suicide prevention toolkit.

The plaintiffs in the case were four Anne Arundel County gun dealers and Maryland Shall Issue Inc. They claimed that the literature conveyed the message that guns cause suicide and was intended to discourage gun sales.

A federal district judge rejected the challenge, and the 4th Circuit affirmed in a Jan. 23 opinion.

The appeals court analyzed the issue using the standard governing compelled commercial speech established in the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio.

The 4th Circuit said the compelled speech is constitutional under Zauderer because it is commercial, it is factual and uncontroversial, it is reasonably related to the county’s interest in preventing suicide, and it is not unduly burdensome.

“We conclude that the pamphlet is simply, and no more, a public health and safety advisory that does not discourage the purchase or ownership of guns,” the appeals court said in an opinion by Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan.

“And we are confident that gun purchasers in Anne Arundel County will recognize it as such. While such an advisory surely does not discourage gun ownership or undermine Second Amendment rights, it does encourage generous responses to a serious public health issue, and gun dealers might well find it admirable to join the effort,” the 4th Circuit said.

The case is Maryland Shall Issue Inc. v. Anne Arundel County, Maryland.