New Perimeter, DLA Piper's nonprofit affiliate that provides long-term pro bono legal assistance in under-served regions around the world, recently welcomed three new members to its Advisory Board.
HOUSTON – Presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke grabbed a myriad of headlines last month by proposing to spend $5 trillion in an effort to combat climate change.
What garnered little attention from the media, however, was a single sentence in the “guarantee net-zero emissions” part of O’Rourke’s plan: “Enforcing our laws to hold polluters accountable, including for their historical actions or crimes.”
AUSTIN – Austin resident Michael Cargill adhered to the bump stock ban and surrendered two of his devices at the local Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) field office.
A federal jury has convicted a 50-year-old internal medicine doctor and 47-year-old hospital owner of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, 17 counts of health care fraud and three counts of money laundering, announced U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick and Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.
The Trump Justice Department, following a tougher policy toward dubious False Claims Act lawsuits by private citizens, has moved to dismiss a pair of lawsuits by a former hedge-fund manager who shorted stock in pharmaceutical companies he accused of a wide-ranging price-fixing conspiracy.
Football fans will tell you that not every whistle blown or flag thrown by a referee represents a genuine infraction of the rules. Some calls are reviewed and overturned. Fans will also tell you that obvious violations are sometimes not seen by the officials, or even ignored. (Just ask a New Orleans Saints fan.)
TEXARKANA – The U.S. government does not have an absolute, unreviewable right to dismiss meritorious lawsuits brought under the False Claims Act – that’s the argument Lanier Law Firm lawyers are making to keep their whistleblower complaints alive.
McGinnis Lochridge is pleased to welcome Daniel Atkinson, who joins the firm’s Employment, Labor and Employee Benefits Practice Group as an associate in Dallas.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - The Department of Justice's recent effort to toss lawsuits it says it wasted hundreds of hours investigating is emblematic of a strategy under President Donald Trump to rein in trial lawyers who are using a federal whistleblower law to seek millions of dollars.
Is it Beyoncé’s fault that some of her fans are blind? Is the performer a “public accommodation,” like a hotel, restaurant, or department store? Is it society’s obligation to rectify all misfortunes in life’s lottery? These questions may seem silly, but they lie at the heart of a cottage industry of abusive class-action litigation against websites pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a well-intentioned but poorly conceived—and horribly drafted—law that continues to generate unintended consequences decades following its passage in 1990. Computer users afflicted with various disabilities—blind consumers seem especially litigious—regularly sue companies hosting websites that allegedly aren’t sufficiently “accommodating” of their condition. Beyoncé and her website (beyonce.com), through her management company, became their latest target.
In 2009, millionaire Texas attorney Mark Lanier filed suit against Facebook, alleging that the social networking site had violated the privacy of users who voluntarily signed up to share personal information about themselves.
TEXARKANA – The U.S. Department of Justice is asking federal judges around the country to dismiss lawsuits it says are brought by shell companies that misrepresent their true purposes - filing meritless litigation against health care companies.
In the Trump administration, at least, the government will no longer look the other way as asbestos lawyers negotiate lenient terms that make it easy for their current clients to get money at the expense of future claimants and federal entitlement programs.
Leading a 10-state coalition, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a response brief in U.S. District Court in advance of Wednesday’s hearing where the states seek to end the unlawful Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Among other points, the brief corrects misrepresentations made in a business coalition’s brief opposing the lawsuit.
Governor Greg Abbott named Jeff Oldham as General Counsel to the Governor following the confirmation by the U.S. Senate of Andrew Oldham to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Jeff Oldham (no relation) previously worked as a private practice attorney at Bracewell LLP in Houston, TX.
HOUSTON – A stipulation of settlement between the Environmental Protection Agency and E.I. Du Pont de Nemours regarding a chemical spill was filed on July 23 in the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas.
Governor Greg Abbott and the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) announced a $1 million grant for overtime expenses of law enforcement officers involved in the response efforts after the shooting at Santa Fe High School.
A prior post (entitled “Who Runs the Legal Academy?”) attracted some much-needed attention from other sites, including Overlawyered.com, Instapundit, and the Tom Woods Show. The governance of law schools, although not a secret, is poorly-understood and seldom discussed. This lack of transparency empowers—or at least emboldens—some of the behind-the-scenes influencers to take unreasonable positions and to pursue self-interested goals that are contrary to the ostensible objective of training students to be effective and ethical lawyers. The result is a dysfunctional legal academy.
