Reuters Legal

A data-deletion firm that has sued over 100 businesses accusing them of running afoul of a New Jersey law designed to shield the release of addresses and other personal information of judges, police and prosecutors is being backed by a third-party litigation funder, according to court papers. Atlas Data Privacy, a software firm that has been assigned claims by over 19,000 people eligible for protection under the law, disclosed it expected to soon deploy funding provided by Parabellum Capital in an Oct. 10 filing in New Jersey federal court. The New York-based litigation funder, which has over $1 billion in assets under management, spun out of Credit Suisse in 2012 and provides third-party funding to litigants in commercial disputes in exchange for a share of any recovery. Nate Raymond has more: https://reut.rs/485NDKu

The bar exam will remain the only way for new attorneys to become licensed in California. The Supreme Court of California on Oct. 10 rejected a proposed alternative pathway that would have enabled law school graduates to become licensed after spending four to six months working under the supervision of an experienced attorney and submitting an acceptable portfolio of legal work. Obtaining a California law license through the Portfolio Bar Exam, which would have involved applicants working with actual clients, would have implicated an ‘array of ethical and practical problems’ the court wrote in its order denying approval of the alternative. Proponents of alternative licensing programs say they can help bring legal services to underserved communities, address racial gaps in bar exam pass rates, lower costs for law graduates, and better gauge the real-world skills that lawyers need to succeed in practice. Read more: https://reut.rs/3YjQoV3 

Republicans are suing in three crucial battleground states to try to stop what they call illegal overseas voting, even as their presidential candidate Donald Trump courts Americans living abroad. In lawsuits filed in Michigan and North Carolina state courts, the RNC argued that state election laws improperly allowed U.S. citizens living abroad who had never lived in those states - but whose relatives had - to vote there. In a separate federal case filed in Pennsylvania, a group of Republican Congress members argued their state was improperly exempting overseas voters from verification requirements. Learn more in The Afternoon Docket. Subscribe: https://reut.rs/4aVlZjE

The eight U.S. universities known as the Ivy League on Oct. 10 won dismissal of a prospective class action by current and former student athletes challenging the schools’ bans on sport scholarships and other compensation for their athletes. Connecticut-based U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson ruled that the students could not establish that the schools were harming competition in a specific, relevant market as required for antitrust claims. The Ivy League schools stand alone among the more than 350 schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I – the top level for college sports – that do not offer athletic scholarships. The lawsuit, among a wave of compensation claims by student athletes in recent years, accused the schools of forming an illegal price-fixing agreement. Mike Scarcella has more: https://reut.rs/3NlAdAA

A federal judge is set to hold a hearing to consider objections from relatives of people killed in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes to the U.S. planemaker's agreement to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud regulators. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, is slated to hear arguments from Boeing and federal prosecutors arguing he should accept the plea deal, and lawyers for the relatives urging him to reject it. The judge may decide whether to accept the plea deal or rule on it later. The judge has fielded hundreds of pages of legal briefs from the parties over the past several weeks. The families of the 346 people who perished in the plane crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019, contend the plea agreement is a ‘sweetheart’ deal that doesn't go far enough in holding Boeing or its executives accountable for the deaths of their loved ones. Read more: https://reut.rs/4f0xqIJ

American Airlines is seeking more than $139 million in legal fees after winning just $1 in damages in an antitrust trial. American Airlines has been battling over the fees for two years with Sabre, the country's largest owner and operator of an electronic network travel agents use to search and book flights listed by the airlines. Subscribe to The Daily Docket: https://reut.rs/4dsTnQ1 #legal #antitrust

A U.S. judge in Washington, D.C., cut in half a $185 million legal fee payout for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, awarding the law firm $92.4 million for its work on a multibillion-dollar federal healthcare insurance case. Judge Kathryn Davis of the U.S. Federal Claims Court said the reduced amount was a reasonable reward for Quinn Emanuel. Quinn was awarded $185 million for its work on the case in 2021, but a federal appeals court last year struck down the award as excessive and ordered Davis to reconsider it. Davis on found the 900-lawyer firm's hours were ‘improperly inflated and must be reduced.’ Quinn Emanuel had urged the judge at a hearing in July to again approve the firm’s $185 million fee. A group of health insurers led by UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan opposed the fee amount, calling it ‘astronomical.’ Learn more: https://lnkd.in/g4XheP5R #legal #lawfirms #legalindustry

The California Supreme Court rejected an alternative lawyer licensing plan that would have enabled law school graduates to become licensed after spending four to six months working under the supervision of an experienced attorney and submitting an acceptable portfolio of legal work. A federal judge is set to hold a hearing on Oct. 11 to consider objections from relatives of people killed in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes to the planemaker's agreement to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud regulators. A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary can pursue its third attempt to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its talc products caused cancer in a federal bankruptcy court in Texas, a judge ruled, allowing the company to avoid a venue that shot down its two previous efforts. A U.S. judge in Washington, D.C., cut in half a $185 million legal fee payout for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, awarding the law firm $92.4 million for its work on a multibillion-dollar federal healthcare insurance case. Here's your legal file 👇

A federal rules-making judicial panel agreed to study whether to adopt a nationwide rule requiring disclosure of third-party litigation funding in lawsuits at the urging of major companies, business groups and Republican lawmakers. After a decade of weighing whether it should do anything to regulate the emerging field of litigation finance, the U.S. Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on Civil Rules at a meeting in Washington, D.C., agreed to create a subcommittee to examine the issue. ‘I agree it is an important issue, and I agree it's an issue that is not going away,’ said U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, a Florida-based judge who chairs the committee. Subscribe to The Daily Docket: https://reut.rs/4dsTnQ1 #legal #courts #legalindustry

The U.S. Supreme Court during its last term handed Donald Trump victories in three major cases. But those may not be the last of the former president's legal entanglements that the court is asked to decide. Seven important cases featuring Trump as the defendant are currently in the lower courts — two involving federal criminal charges, two state criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. These eventually could be appealed to the Supreme Court, though it is not likely to hear any of them during its new nine-month term that began Oct. 7. And this does not count the potential for litigation over voting results in the Nov. 5 U.S. election. Trump is the Republican candidate facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, with the winner becoming president on Jan. 20. The fate of at least two of the cases with Trump as a defendant could hinge on the election's outcome. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gv8WUY2k #trump #legal #scotus