Law firm trade names are finding place, three Biden picks confirmed and no tuition fee for Native American students at Berkley law
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?? Good morning. In today's Legal File: With a series of holdout state bars across the country revising their rules to allow trade names, Waymaker LLP is paving the way forward. Three more?Biden White House?picks for federal court seats in New York and California win Senate confirmation. Berkeley Law is aiming to increase its Native American enrollment by picking up the tab for students’ tuition and finally, watch why citizen enforcement laws are gaining prominence.
It doesn’t take an astute observer to notice a pattern in law firm names: White Guy, White Guy & White Guy, columnist Jenna Greene writes.
Until relatively recently, bar rules in several states including New York prohibited law firms from using trade names, limiting them instead to identifying themselves by the names of current, retired or deceased partners. As of mid-2021, however, a series of holdout state bars across the country had scrapped such rules, greenlighting the use of broader trade names.
Los Angeles-based trial and appellate boutique Waymaker LLP is on board. Formerly known as Baker Marquart, the 18-lawyer firm founded in 2006 by two Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan alums changed its name to Waymaker last year.
In 2020, Utah-based consumer protection firm LawHQ sued disciplinary and bar officials in nine states that still prohibited law firm trade names, arguing that the bans violated the 1st Amendment and served no valid purpose.
So is it time for law firm to rethink their names, shedding the monikers of their founders in favor of more catchy, less stodgy descriptors?
“Nobody could claim that consumers would be better protected if trade names were prohibited in other industries — if the law required Facebook, for example, to be called Mark Zuckerberg & Associates or Apple to be called Jobs & Wozniak,” lawyers for LawHQ?argued. “Law firms are no different.”
Welfare of the Native American community in focus:
The University of California Berkeley School of Law is aiming to increase its Native American enrollment by picking up the tab for students’ tuition.
The school said this week that it will cover all tuition for current and future students who are both California residents and members of federally registered tribes. Berkeley is the latest elite law school to eliminate tuition for at least some underrepresented students. Both?Yale Law School?and?Stanford Law School?recently said they will erase tuition for students from low-income families.
Native Americans comprised fewer than 1% of first-year law students nationwide this academic year, and Berkeley had only one in its new class, according to American Bar Association data.
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Meanwhile, a first-of-its-kind U.S.?government investigation?is helping to reveal the deadly and commonplace brutality of the former Native American “boarding school” system, a 150-year program of separating children from their families that was part of a federal policy to eradicate Native communities’ identity and forcibly take indigenous lands.
An?initial report?released on May 11 found that the U.S. operated or supported more than 408 boarding institutions in 37 states between 1819 and 1969, many of which were run by churches and religious organizations. There were 431 schools identified in total when counting schools with multiple sites.?
The Senate on Wednesday voted 51-44 to confirm Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson to become a federal judge in the Northern District of California.
The panel also confirmed Riverside County Superior Court Judge Sunshine Sykes to serve in the state's Central District.
The Senate also voted 51-47 to approve President Joe Biden's appointment of Jennifer Rochon, a former Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel partner who since 2013 has been the Girl Scouts' top lawyer, to be a judge in the Southern District of New York.
Senate Democrats are racing to confirm as many of Biden's judicial nominees as possible before the November midterm elections when they face the risk of losing their narrow 50-50 control of the chamber.
Several states have considered or passed measures recently turning citizens into cops policing voting rights, abortion access and gun bans. Alex Cohen explores why these laws have become more popular and how they may lead to a chilling effect on activity.
This video features commentary from Professor Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law and Professor Jon Michaels of the UCLA School of Law.
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