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3. After Texas chief justice criticizes ABA,…

Law Schools

After Texas chief justice criticizes ABA, state supreme court reconsiders ABA accreditation for law schools

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 8, 2025, 3:54 pm CDT

The Texas Supreme Court is inviting comments on a requirement that law grads seeking bar admission in the state must have graduated from a law school accredited by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

In an April 4 order, the Texas Supreme Court requested feedback on whether to “reduce or end” reliance on the ABA as an accrediting agency and “alternatives the court should consider.”

The state supreme court is inviting comments from the Texas Board of Law Examiners, Texas law school deans, the bar and the public, the order said.

Law360 covered the story.

The Texas Supreme Court did not comment on the reason for its order. But Chief Justice James D. Blacklock criticized the ABA in his February State of the Judiciary address for “aggressively taking sides in the fight going on in Washington about the scope of the president’s executive power.”

ABA President Bill Bay has criticized the Trump administration’s “wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress,” as well as “efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit.”

The Texas Supreme Court’s order follows a similar move last month by Florida’s top court. It has created a subgroup to reconsider the requirement that law grads taking the Florida bar exam must have graduated from an ABA-accredited law school.

The Florida Supreme Court took action because of “reasonable questions” about an accreditation standard on diversity and “the ABA’s active political engagement,” according to a press release. The Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has suspended enforcement of its diversity standard as it works on revisions.

The Association of American Law Schools is making the case for national accreditation of law schools in an April 8 open letter that has also been submitted to working groups considering the accreditation issue in Texas and Florida.

Thirty-three law schools, most of them in California, don’t have ABA accreditation. Most have “extremely low bar exam pass rates, poor job outcomes and high attrition rates,” the letter said.

The letter said national accreditation is critical for ensuring “a minimum baseline of quality in legal education and practice.” Most states don’t have the resources to sufficiently evaluate law schools, and “piecemeal, fragmented or overlapping regulation would increase costs on law schools, their students and the profession,” the letter said.

Creating different barriers to a law license that vary by state would also hamper lawyer mobility and add to lawyer deserts, the letter said.

The letter also clarified that the ABA does not accredit law schools. Instead, that job is handled by the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, “a national accrediting entity that is separate and independent from the bar association.”

Jennifer L. Rosato Perea, the managing director accreditation and legal education for the ABA, issued a statement to the ABA Journal.

The council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar “understands the [Texas] Supreme Court’s need to thoughtfully consider the council’s continued role in accreditation and hear from a variety of perspectives to ensure that this accreditation continues to serve its admission requirements,” the statement said.

“The council’s primary purpose in accreditation has been and continues to be contributing meaningfully to the production of effective and ethical lawyers, as well as serving the interests of the public in Texas and all other states throughout the United States.”

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3. Trump administration invokes state secrets…

Immigration Law

Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege for deportation flights, disputes Nazi analogy

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 25, 2025, 11:02 am CDT

Government lawyers are arguing that the state secrets privilege protects the Trump administration from divulging details about deportation flights to El Salvador in Central America, and that the Venezuelans aboard weren’t entitled to notice that would give them time for a hearing.

Lawyers made those assertions Monday to a federal judge and a federal appeals court considering the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members. The deportees were taken to a prison in El Salvador, where the conditions “are reportedly parlous,” according to Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., who is overseeing the challenge to the law.

The New York Times, the Associated Press, Politico, the Washington Post, NPR and NBC News have coverage.

In a March 24 notice, the government invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosing further details about flights carrying the deportees in what the New York Times termed a “stubborn response” and “a patent act of defiance.”

Boasberg had sought information about the timing of the flights to determine whether the government violated his March 15 temporary restraining order telling U.S. officials to stop or turn around the flights.

The government court filing said disclosing information about tracking of the flights “would both endanger the government personnel operating those flights and aid efforts by our adversaries to draw inferences about diplomatic negotiations and coordination” regarding the removal of “terrorists and other criminal aliens from the country.”

The New York Times said the government stance “is extraordinary in part because it is refusing to provide information to Judge Boasberg—a former presiding judge of the nation’s national security surveillance court—even privately and in a secure facility for handling classified information.”

Earlier Monday, Boasberg refused to vacate his TRO that bans the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act, last invoked during World War II, for the deportations.

The government has argued that Venezuelan gang members were acting under the direction of the Venezuelan government, a hostile nation, and their arrival in the United States was a “predatory incursion,” according to the New York Times.

Boasberg said in his opinion the government’s “unprecedented use” of the act outside wartime “implicates a host of complicated legal issues.” But there was no need to resolve the “thorny question” about the use of the act, Boasberg said, because the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the claim that they were entitled to hearings before deportations.

That issue was before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday as the government sought a stay of the TRO. According to the Washington Post, government lawyers acknowledged that the suspected gang members are entitled to hearings but said the government doesn’t have to tell them that they have been deemed to be “alien enemies” or give them time to request hearings.

D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett commented that there were no procedures in place to notify the suspected gang members.

“Nazis got better treatment,” Millett said, referring to the use of hearing boards to remove suspected Nazis during World War II.

“We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign.

The case is J.G.G. v. Trump.

See also:

Trump’s deportation push tests courts’ ability to check his power

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3. Nearly 30 legal entities may leave Utah’s…

Access to Justice

Nearly 30 legal entities may leave Utah’s regulatory sandbox program after state tightens rules

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 4, 2025, 1:45 pm CST

At least 27 law firms and businesses may be leaving a Utah program that permits nontraditional legal services providers to operate in the state, including firms operated by nonlawyers, according to a published report.

The exodus follows a tightening of regulations governing the program, Reuters reports.

Under the new rules, program participants must show that they will reach Utah consumers currently underserved by the legal market, and that the impact is substantial compared to an entity’s overall reach. National and international companies serving only a small number of Utah residents don’t qualify.

Utah appellate court administrator Nick Stiles told Reuters that at least 27 participants in the program have left or may be leaving because they are withdrawing or being terminated because of the changes.

Only about a dozen participants remain in the program, according to Reuters. Records indicate that those companies use technology to lower legal costs or use nonlawyers to provide legal services in areas such as medical debt and domestic violence, the article reports.

Rocket Lawyer is among the companies withdrawing from the program, Reuters reports. The online legal services company is shifting efforts to Arizona after it won approval in the state’s program, said Jack Rives, president of Rocket Lawyer subsidiary Rocket Legal Professional Services, in a statement to Reuters. Rives is the former executive director of the ABA.

Rocket Lawyer was one of the first entities approved to participate in the Utah program.

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3. Who won election to top North Carolina court?…

Election Law

Who won election to top North Carolina court? Case belongs in state court, for now, 4th Circuit says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2025, 3:03 pm CST

A federal court shouldn’t decide lawsuits over a contested election for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, at least not yet, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia, ruled Tuesday.

The 4th Circuit ruled in consolidated appeals stemming from the race between the Democratic incumbent, Justice Allison Riggs, and her Republican challenger, North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin.

Law360, the Associated Press, the New York Times and the News & Observer have coverage, while How Appealing linked to the per curiam, unpublished Feb. 4 opinion.

Riggs leads by 734 votes, but Griffin is questioning the counting of about 66,000 ballots, according to the AP. Griffin wants to throw out ballots in which voters did not prove identity with a driver’s license or partial Social Security number when they registered to vote. He is also seeking to toss overseas ballots, including those cast by voters who didn’t produce a photo ID with their absentee ballots.

Riggs and the North Carolina State Board of Elections wanted two cases filed by Griffin transferred to federal court.

“While Riggs and the State Board of Elections argued that his case implicated national election laws,” the News & Observer reports, “Griffin argued that it should be left to the jurisdiction of North Carolina courts—where Republican judges predominate.”

The New York Times reports that the case has “unsettled election experts and government watchdogs across the country, who say that overturning the election would undermine democracy and provide a blueprint for doing it again in the future.”

Judges on the 4th Circuit panel were Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush; Judge Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., an appointee of President Donald Trump; and Judge Toby J. Heytens, an appointee of former President Joe Biden.

One case filed by Griffin asked the North Carolina Supreme Court to stop the elections board from counting challenged ballots. Another asked the superior court in Wake County, North Carolina, to review the elections board’s rulings against him.

The 4th Circuit ruled that Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II was correct when he refused to assert federal jurisdiction. But Myers, a judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina, should have based his decision on the Pullman doctrine, the 4th Circuit said. That doctrine can be applied when there are unclear issues of state law that once resolved could moot federal constitutional issues.

Under the doctrine, the federal court retains jurisdiction of the federal constitutional claims, while state court issues are addressed in state court.

The 4th Circuit provided an example of how the federal case could become moot. If the elections board prevailed on state law issues, the resolution of federal claims may not be necessary, the appeals court said.

Another section of the opinion addressed Griffin’s writ of prohibition filed with the North Carolina Supreme Court, which dismissed the application Jan. 22. That sent the case back to state court in Wake County.

Because the appeal had asked the 4th Circuit to retrieve the case from the North Carolina Supreme Court, the issue is moot, the 4th Circuit said.

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3. Lawyer arrested at state bar meeting for…

First Amendment

Lawyer arrested at state bar meeting for carrying petitions reaches settlement

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 22, 2025, 2:58 pm CST

An Arkansas lawyer who was arrested for carrying ballot petitions at a state bar meeting in June 2024 has reached an out-of-court settlement that calls for payment of $200,000 to her lawyers.

Lawyer Jennifer Standerfer of Bentonville, Arkansas, settled with the Arkansas Bar Association; the city of Hot Springs, Arkansas; its police department and a city commission that owns the convention center where Standerfer was arrested for solicitation, the Arkansas Times reports. The settlement followed a mediation.

A joint statement by the parties said they “regret the fact of Ms. Standerfer’s arrest,” and they acknowledge that the lawyer had a constitutional right to carry the petitions.

Standerfer had argued that the First Amendment protected her. She had carried the petitions into the Hot Springs Convention Center, at first in a small wagon with a sign and on a second day by clipboards. She didn’t seek signatures but made the petitions available to anyone who wanted to sign them, she told KARK.com and the Arkansas Advocate after the meeting.

One proposed ballot measure would broaden the reach of the state’s Freedom of Information Act and stiffen penalties for violations, according to the Arkansas Advocate. The other would amend the Arkansas Constitution to create a government obligation to share information.

Standerfer was a committee member of the group sponsoring the petition drive, Arkansas Citizens for Transparency. After Standerfer’s arrest, the group obtained materials about the arrest through the state’s Freedom of Information Act, KARK.com reported.

Video obtained by the group showed officers telling Standerfer that she was being asked to leave. When she refused, officers handcuffed the lawyer and removed her from the event. She was not formally charged.

A state bar representative had texted the convention center asking staff members to ask Standerfer to leave because of the petitions, documents indicated. The bar had said after Standerfer’s arrest, no one authorized to speak for the association had sought Standerfer’s removal.

Standerfer had explained why she backed greater transparency in an April 2024 opinion column for theNorthwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“The FOIA is how we know what our government is doing,” she wrote. “It is how we hold politicians accountable, and we should do a whole lot more than question any politician who says that we should sacrifice our rights under the FOIA in the name of ‘efficiency.’”

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3. State chief justice with ‘millions of reasons’…

Judiciary

State chief justice with ‘millions of reasons’ to fire court employees can’t do so unilaterally, top Arkansas court says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 7, 2025, 3:37 pm CST

The Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in Friday, when the state’s new chief justice tried to fire nearly a dozen employees, including the director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts.

In a Jan. 3 administrative order, the state supreme court said Chief Justice Karen Baker can’t fire the director of the administrative office without the approval of a court majority. And the chief justice can’t fire other court employees, with the exception of her law clerks and administrative assistant, absent an order from the director of the administrative office, the state supreme court said.

The Legal Profession Blog, Law360, the Arkansas Advocate (via How Appealing), 4029TV.com and KARK.com have coverage.

The Arkansas Supreme Court rescinded Baker’s termination orders, calling the situation “unnecessary and unfortunate.”

The events giving rise to the order began Jan. 2, when Baker called to her office the chief of supreme court police and the director of the administrative office. During the meeting, Baker “confronted the director and police chief about their responses to Freedom of Information Act requests involving her,” the state supreme court said, without offering specifics.

Baker indicated that she had prepared letters to fire both officials but was unsure whether she would do so, the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The next day, Baker told the police chief that he was fired and tried to fire at least 10 administrative office employees, including the office director.

A fellow justice who learned of the attempt asked to meet with Baker about her decisions, but the chief justice refused. When asked why the employees were being fired, Baker said she had “millions of reasons,” the state supreme court said.

Some of the employees have pending human resources complaints against the chief justice “for recent incidents,” the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The state supreme court’s decision did not delve into the FOIA request that appeared to prompt the attempted firings.

But a December report by Talk Business & Politics said Baker had contacted the police chief after a reporter with Arkansas Business asked about surveillance footage purporting to show her entering the administrative offices.

“There better not be footage going around,” Baker reportedly said in a voicemail to the police chief. Baker later told Talk Business & Politics that she never entered locked offices, and she did not know whether the reporter had made a FOIA request for the footage.

A separate FOIA controversy concerned a fellow justice, Justice Courtney Rae Hudson.

Baker was the only dissenter when the state supreme court tossed a lawsuit by Hudson seeking to block release of emails to Arkansas Business that had been sent to her by the then-director of the state’s attorney ethics body, the Arkansas Office of Professional Conduct.

The emails, it turned out, “mostly concern operational matters at OPC, including an employee’s request for leave, a proposal for sizable raises for OPC staff, and a disagreement over whether the $195.50 purchase of an air fryer at Sam’s Club counted as a legitimate office expense,” according to an October story by the Arkansas Advocate.

The email clash in September prompted the state supreme court majority to refer Hudson and her lawyer to ethics regulators for investigation for “flagrant breaches of confidentiality” in the suit. Baker, in turn, referred the five-justice majority in the email case for disciplinary investigation.

Hudson did not participate in the email decision or in the Jan. 3 decision curbing the chief justice’s authority to fire employees.

Baker told KARK.com that the previous three chief justices had the power to hire and fire.

“As the first woman elected to be the chief justice for the state of Arkansas in the state’s history, I will accept no less authority than my predecessors have,” Baker told the broadcast station.

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3. Opioid suits can’t be based on nuisance law…

Tort Law

Opioid suits can’t be based on nuisance law in Ohio, top state court rules in $650M win for pharmacies

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 12, 2024, 3:23 pm CST

A decision by the Ohio Supreme Court on the state’s product-liability law is good news for three national pharmaceutical chains ordered to pay more than $650 million for contributing to the opioid epidemic.

The state supreme court ruled Dec. 10 that the Ohio Product Liability Act eliminated all common-law nuisance claims in connection with the sale of products, Court News Ohio reports. The state supreme court ruled after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati asked for a ruling on the impact of the state law as amended.

The 6th Circuit certified the question to the Ohio Supreme Court in an appeal of a $650.6 million judgment against CVS, Walmart and Walgreens. The lawsuit was among several bellwether cases used to test claims and defenses chosen from about 3,000 opioid suits consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Two Ohio counties had contended that the damages awarded were for abatement of the nuisance, rather than for compensatory damages. As a result, the law didn’t bar their claims, they argued.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled, however, that the type of relief requested is immaterial under the law as written. The state supreme court also rejected the counties’ claim that the nuisance suit didn’t meet the definition of a product-liability claim because there were no allegations of a product defect.

The three drug companies praised the ruling, Bloomberg Law reports. Walgreens said in a statement the decision “allows us to put this litigation behind us so we can continue focusing on the health and well-being of our patients, customers and team members in northern Ohio and across the country.”

Peter H. Weinberger represented the plaintiffs—Lake County and Trumbull County in Ohio. He told Bloomberg Law that the decision “will have a devastating impact on communities and their ability to police corporate misconduct.”

Nationwide, he said, opioid settlements with drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies total nearly $60 billion. The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision “undermines the very legal basis that drove this result,” Weinberger told Bloomberg Law.

The Ohio Supreme Court is the second top state court to rule that public-nuisance laws cannot be used in opioid suits.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court held in November 2021 that Johnson & Johnson’s opioid marketing did not create a public nuisance because it concerned the sale of a lawful product. The decision overturned a $465 million verdict.

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3. Appeals judge told state attorney how to…

Judiciary

Appeals judge told state attorney how to handle resentencing while badmouthing others, texts indicate

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 12, 2024, 11:34 am CST

A Florida appeals judge who obtained a 2004 murder conviction of an alleged gang leader texted advice to the Miami-Dade, Florida, state attorney handling his resentencing while “denigrating defense attorneys and badmouthing local judges,” according to the Miami Herald.

The judge, Judge Bronwyn Miller of the Third District Court of Appeal in Florida, is a state’s witness in the resentencing of the defendant, Corey Smith, who was convicted in four murders.

Prosecutors announced Sunday they would no longer seek the death penalty in Smith’s resentencing, the Miami Herald reports in a separate story. Prosecutors attributed the decision to the passage of time and the unavailability of witnesses.

Smith was being resentenced because two capital murder convictions were based on less-than-unanimous juror votes, a practice that had been banned in a 2017 Florida law.

“Miller’s text messages show a close relationship with Miami-Dade’s elected state attorney and a low regard for the judge overseeing the case and defense attorneys in general,” the Miami Herald reports. “Though she left the state attorney’s office about 20 years ago, the texting reveals a familiarity allowing Miller to browbeat [Miami-Dade State Attorney] Fernandez Rundle and second-guess how she runs the office.”

In the text messages, sent between January and July, Miller:

  • Told Rundle that “there is a huge factual error” in a document that referred to “potential favors provided to witnesses.” Miller’s requested changes were included in a later court filing. The text was sent in April, while the Smith case was pending before the Third District Court of Appeal. The case was moved to another appeals court in July.

  • Criticized Rundle for allowing a “misogynistic pervert anti-death penalty campaigner” to work on the Smith case. The prosecutor had written a novel called Death Penalty Desired: Passion and Murder that was, in the Herald’s words, “rife with sexual violence and misogyny.” Two weeks after Miller sent her text, the prosecutor was told to leave within two months.

  • Told Rundle that two judges, including the one handling Smith’s resentencing, disliked Rundle because she didn’t back elements of a bail reform plan that they supported. Judge Andrea Wolfson “will destroy you because of the bail bond issue,” Miller wrote. Wolfson kicked two prosecutors off the resentencing case in March.

In February, Miller testified about a memo that she wrote in the murder trial that said witnesses were given favors, such as food, beverages and cigars. Defense lawyers said they were unaware of the memo. Miller testified that she didn’t know about a witness having sexual contact at the police department, as had been alleged.

The state attorney’s office released a statement to the Miami Herald on Sunday that said Miller sent “occasional and brief texts” to Rundle “in pursuit of the truth.” The statement said Rundle is “engaged in the decision-making on all major cases prosecuted by her office and specifically those involving the death penalty.”

Smith’s lawyers, Allison Miller and Craig Whisenhunt, alleged in an email to the Miami Herald that Miller “simultaneously played the parts of judge, prosecutor, witness,” and the texts call into question her ability to serve as a judge.

Miller told the Miami Herald that she can’t comment. She cited the advice of an ethics expert who said she should not make public comments because they could affect the pending proceedings.

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3. Attorney discipline records short of disbarment…

Ethics

Attorney discipline records short of disbarment would be expunged after 8 years under state bar plan

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 21, 2024, 9:00 am CST

The California Supreme Court is being asked to automatically expunge records of attorney discipline other than disbarment after eight years, provided that there is no further discipline during that period.

The State Bar of California’s board of trustees approved the proposal Nov. 14 and sent it to the state supreme court, according to a Nov. 15 press release. The board also directed staff to remove administrative suspensions from online attorney profiles.

The changes stemmed from recommendations by the state bar’s Ad Hoc Commission on the Discipline System. The commission viewed expungement as a way to address racial disparities in discipline and align the system with the practices of other regulatory agencies, the press release stated.

A November 2019 study found racial disparities in probationary discipline, disbarment and discipline-related resignation, with the greatest disparities between Black and white male lawyers.

Reuters and Law360 had coverage of the expungement proposal.

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3. Judge who allowed secretary to work remotely…

Judiciary

Judge who allowed secretary to work remotely didn’t violate ethics rules, state supreme court says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 29, 2024, 8:45 am CDT

The New Jersey Supreme Court has tossed a pending ethics complaint against a judge who sometimes allowed his secretary to work remotely in violation of office policy.

The New Jersey Supreme Court found no ethics violations by New Jersey Judge Douglas H. Hurd in an Oct. 16 order, report Law360 and Law.com. Hurd is civil presiding judge in the Mercer vicinage in Trenton, New Jersey.

It is rare for the New Jersey Supreme Court to dismiss a disciplinary case before a ruling by the New Jersey Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, sources told Law.com.

New Jersey courts were working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. When in-person operations resumed, a new policy allowed remote work for one and then two days per week. But the new policy did not apply to judges, secretaries of judges, and judicial law clerks, according to the Jan. 30 ethics complaint.

Despite the requirement for in-office work, Hurd’s secretary was allowed to work remotely “on a periodic basis” for about six months in 2022, the ethics complaint said.

Hurd thought that he had discretion to allow remote work in light of the secretary’s “incredible work ethic,” according to an amended answer to the ethics complaint.

The secretary worked remotely about three to six days per month during a five- to six-month period. Hurd immediately ended his approval for remote work when he was advised that he didn’t have the discretion to allow it.

Hurd declined to comment on the dismissal of the complaint when Law360 contacted a representative.

Law.com spoke with lawyers who were relieved to hear that the ethics complaint was tossed.

Michael Donahue, managing shareholder of Stark & Stark in Hamilton, New Jersey, told Law.com that Hurd had “an unblemished reputation.” While the complaint was pending, Hurd “kept his head up and the vicinage running,” Donahue said.

“I am incredibly relieved and gratified to hear the news that the New Jersey Supreme Court has seen the right side of this issue,” Donahue said.

A new policy adopted after the ethics complaint was filed allows law clerks and secretaries to work remotely up to four days per month with judicial approval, according to Law.com.