Judges 'gone wild,' ABA warns lawyers on e-mails, law schools expand fundraising ambitions, Winston wants $6.6 mln after women’s soccer pay-gap deal
Reuters Legal
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On Wednesday, a federal appeals court judge argued that his judicial peers too often succumb to a "judges gone wild" mentality of writing "show off" opinions that may trend on Twitter but risk alienating the public instead of being persuasive.
U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said judges should focus more on writing "in a way that ordinary citizens can understand," during a lecture at Harvard Law School.
As an example of how to write clearly for the public, he pointed to his own decision after the 2020 election rejecting a bid by Trump's campaign to block now-President Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania over unproven claims the election was unfair.
He said judges fall prey to other mistakes in writing opinions, including by filling them with distracting jargon, bad jokes, and pop culture references, such as Star Wars in one case, rather than delivering "clear and succinct" rulings.
Asked by a student how judges feel when a significant ruling like his election decisions garners them "newfound fame," Bibas said:
?"The kind of cheerleading you get from Twitter is really dangerous."
On Tuesday, the American Bar Association said in a?formal ethics opinion that lawyers who include their clients on emails to opposing counsel open the door for those lawyers to make contact with their clients through a "reply-all" response.
Such reply-all responses generally aren't a violation of the ABA's model rule that prohibits lawyers from contacting a represented person without the consent of their counsel, according to the opinion from the ABA's Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. The inclusion of a client on an email to opposing counsel implies consent for opposing counsel to respond in a reply-all message, it found.
The new opinion said:
"Lawyers who would like to avoid consenting to such communication should forward the email or text to the client separately or inform the receiving counsel in advance that including the client on the electronic communication does not constitute consent to a reply all communication."
However, there are some exceptions in the ABA's new guidance. According to the new opinion, an oral or written remark from the sending lawyer that there is no consent for a reply-all response overrides the implied consent. The presumption of consent applies only to electronic communications, such as emails or group texts, not to paper letters.
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Law schools have grown increasingly ambitious in fundraising over the past decade as the cost of a law degree has climbed and schools have expanded their programming. Columbia Law School is the latest law school to wrap up a blockbuster fundraising campaign, with $325 million raised over five years.
The school announced Tuesday that its Campaign for Columbia Law exceeded its $300 million goal with funds from more than 12,000 donors. That money will help the school "more effectively meet the challenges of the moment" and prepare future leaders, Dean Gillian Lester said in an announcement.
The University of California at Los Angeles School of Law in 2020 announced that its latest capital campaign raised upwards of $181 million, more than the initial $150 million goal. The University of Virginia is three years into a six-year campaign that aims to raise $400 million. It has already raised more than $343 million.
Law firm Winston & Strawn asked a federal judge in California on Tuesday?for an award?of $6.6 million in legal fees for its work on a $24 million settlement resolving equal-pay claims that the U.S. women's national soccer team brought against governing body U.S. Soccer.
The Chicago-based law firm touted its legal services securing what it called a landmark agreement for the team. The firm said its demand amounted to 30% of part of the settlement awarding damages under the U.S. Equal Pay Act.
Lead plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey Kessler, Winston's co-executive chair and a veteran antitrust and sports law trial lawyer, said:
"The firm took on the players' gender discrimination case entirely on contingency — recognizing that there might never be payment for the thousands of hours worked or millions of dollars invested in the case."
Winston said the firm would seek to collect fees "incrementally" over four years in a structure allowing the players "to realize millions of dollars faster."
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