NJ Justices Say Teacher Was 'Essential' During Pandemic

By Carla Baranauckas

An Ocean Township teacher who died from COVID‑19 in 2020 was an "essential employee" entitled to a statutory presumption that her illness was work-related, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed Thursday, rejecting the school district's arguments that the workers' compensation judge improperly granted summary relief without supporting affidavits.

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March Trial Date Set For Ex-NJ Judge's Pension Fight

By George Woolston

A trial date has been set in a former New Jersey Superior Court judge's challenge to the denial of her disability pension application, according to a Wednesday text order.

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Connell Foley Beats DQ Bid In NJ Investment Bias Case

By Jake Maher

A federal judge on Thursday threw out a renewed bid by an investment firm suing the state of New Jersey to disqualify the state's counsel at Connell Foley LLP, finding there was no previous attorney-client relationship to justify disqualification.

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NJ Cannabis Co. Challenges Law Requiring Deal With Unions

By Katherine Smith

A cannabis company is urging a New Jersey federal court to pause an upcoming arbitration proceeding with a United Food and Commercial Workers local over its firing of several employees, claiming that it had been coerced into entering an agreement with the union by an unconstitutional state law.

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FEMA's Freeze On Disaster Mitigation Funds Ruled Unlawful

By Lauren Berg

The Trump administration unlawfully terminated Federal Emergency Management Agency funds intended to pay for disaster mitigating projects, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled Thursday, describing the case as an "unlawful executive encroachment on the prerogative of Congress to appropriate funds" for specific purposes.

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NJ Sens. Urge Cooperation On Next NJ US Attorney Nom

By Courtney Bublé

The New Jersey senators are looking to collaborate with the White House to find a new nominee for U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey after the president's initial pick failed.

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State AGs Call For AI Chatbot Safeguards

By Emily Field

More than 40 attorneys general have pushed Big Tech companies like Meta and Microsoft to adopt safety measures on AI chatbots, writing a letter that pointed to recent news of children and vulnerable people whose chatbot conversations ended in violence.

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NJ Judge Won't Lift Bid Deadline On Tunnel Rail Project

By Emily Brill

A New Jersey federal judge said Thursday she won't lift a deadline to bid on a railway-construction project associated with building a new tunnel to New York City, saying a New Jersey construction company isn't likely to win its challenge to a project labor agreement tied to the venture.

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3rd Circ. Won't Toss Drug Plea Over Judge's Involvement

By Parker Quinlan

The Third Circuit on Thursday refused to vacate a plea agreement in a drug case, finding that while a Pennsylvania federal judge violated judicial rules by imposing a longer sentence than prosecutors wanted, the defendant was unable to prove that the interference substantially violated his rights.

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NBA, MLB Betting Indictments: Slam Dunks Or Strikeouts?

Recent fraud charges against bettors, NBA players and MLB pitchers raise questions about what the government will need to prove to prosecute individuals involved in placing bets based on nonpublic information, and it could be a tough sell to juries, say attorneys at Ford O'Brien.

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Series

Knitting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Stretching my skills as a knitter makes me a better antitrust attorney by challenging me to recalibrate after wrong turns, not rush outcomes, and trust that I can teach myself the skills to tackle new and difficult projects — even when I don’t have a pattern to work from, says Kara Kuritz at V&E.

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Wash. Justices Retroactively Lower Bar Exam's Passing Score

By Ben Adlin

As Washington state is preparing to transition to a new bar exam, its Supreme Court has ordered a retroactive adjustment to the current exam's minimum passing score, making an estimated hundred-plus law school graduates who narrowly failed in recent years newly eligible for admission to practice law.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Dems Demand Release Of 2nd Jack Smith Report

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday demanding she release the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents after he left office the first time.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Shell hit with a climate change claim from 100 survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines, London Stock Exchange-listed Oxford Nanopore bring legal action against its co-founder, and the editors of Pink News sue the BBC for defamation following its investigation into alleged sexual misconduct at the news site.

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Higgs Fletcher Forms White Collar, Regs Enforcement Team

By Andrea Keckley

San Diego-based law firm Higgs Fletcher & Mack LLP has launched a white collar crime and regulatory enforcement defense practice group, citing heightened regulatory scrutiny in the financial and healthcare sectors and rising enforcement risks for licensed professionals and institutions.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

President Donald Trump issued an executive order to review the influence that proxy adviser firms have, and law firms saw a 9.8% increase in compensation expenses along with a similar increase in billable rates. ​These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Watchdog Sues White House For Records On Law Firm Deals

By Emily Sawicki

A Washington-based nonprofit watchdog has sued the Trump administration, seeking records related to deals BigLaw firms struck to provide an estimated nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal services to further the administration's priorities, following the president's executive orders to withhold security clearances and investigate the firms.

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Ex-NJ Municipal Court Admin Says COVID Got Her Fired

By George Woolston

The former municipal court administrator for West Windsor Township, New Jersey, has alleged that the town failed to accommodate her disability when it fired her instead of giving her a short medical leave of absence after she contracted COVID-19.

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US Atty Nominee For Wyo. Was Outside Capitol On Jan. 6

By Courtney Bublé

One of President Donald Trump's U.S. attorney nominees, who was on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and recently told senators he still thinks "there were imperfections" in the 2020 election process, has been advanced toward Senate confirmation.

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Del. US Atty Resigns Citing 'Politics,' Successor Appointed

By Rose Krebs

The acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware said Friday that she is resigning, citing "a highly politicized, flawed blue-slip tradition" for nominees and saying she "fully" supports her first assistant, who has been appointed by a federal judge to succeed her.

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Bonus Spotlight

Axinn Veltrop's Bonuses Reach Up To $240K

By Andrea Keckley

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP is giving out bonuses of up to $240,000 for its associates, according to an in-house memo seen by Law360 Pulse.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Ninth Circuit handed Epic Games Inc. a partial win by mostly affirming an injunction blocking Apple Inc. from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its systems.

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