Online law school seeks bar exam eligibility, firm to pay $200K over data breach, Crowell sues to recoup rent, and Arnold & Porter gets NY Fed lawyer
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Indiana could become the second state to allow graduates of online law schools to take the bar exam.
Concord Law School at Purdue University Global, which became the first online law school in the United States when it launched in 1998, is seeking a rule change from the Indiana Supreme Court that would enable its graduates to sit for the state's attorney licensing exam. The court is now seeking?public comments?on the proposal.
California is currently the only state that allows graduates of online law schools to sit for the bar. In Indiana and elsewhere, students must first graduate from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association, which requires schools to have a brick-and-mortar campus.
Purdue law dean Martin Pritikin said allowing its law graduates to take the bar in Indiana will help improve access to justice in the state by making a legal education more accessible to people living in its rural and underserved areas.
"For people who live in the farther corners of the state, they don't have to move or commute to the law school...They can stay where they are and serve their communities," he said.
The Indiana Supreme Court in 2022 formed a working group to consider Purdue's proposed rule change, but it was unable to reach a consensus. It noted the online law school's relative affordability and diverse student population as factors weighing in favor of the change in a?February report. However, the working group also noted that the online law school is not as selective as the state's three ABA-accredited law schools and that its graduates might drive down the state's bar pass rate.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said Monday that midsize law firm Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach agreed to pay $200,000 to the state over data security lapses that led to a 2021 data breach.
In late 2021, James' office said an attacker exploited vulnerabilities in the firm's Microsoft email server, gained access to its systems, and later deployed malware and took files from the firm's systems. The firm had left its server exposed to an attack after failing to apply patches for the vulnerabilities, which Microsoft had released several months before, it said.
An investigation into the breach, which compromised the private data of nearly 115,000 hospital patients, including more than 61,000 New Yorkers, found the law firm failed to comply with health information privacy and security rules and state law, the New York attorney general's office said.
Law firms and other legal services providers that hold sensitive and confidential data have increasingly faced cybersecurity attacks involving their clients' data and their own business information.
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Crowell & Moring has sued its Washington, D.C., landlord to recover $30 million that the law firm said it was not required to pay in rent amid office space disruptions brought on by the COVID pandemic.
Washington-based Crowell said it paid TREA Trust more than $30 million in rent between April 2020 and May 2021 but is entitled to a 98% abatement because office access "was reduced to less than 2% of the normal use and access" under the lease.
The courts have grappled with myriad real estate and insurance disputes arising from the pandemic, which spurred state, local and federal orders directing employers and others to take steps to minimize physical contact.
Law firm employees were among the millions of Americans who began working from home to help reduce the spread of the virus. Most firms have since encouraged or required lawyers and professionals to work from the office at least part of the week.
Law firm Jenner & Block and its landlord in Chicago?settled?dueling pandemic-related claims in 2021. Schulte Roth & Zabel is pursuing a $10 million rent abatement claim against its landlord in New York, and a trial is expected later this year.
U.S. law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer said Monday it hired a former top lawyer at the New York Federal Reserve as a partner in the firm's financial services practice.
James Bergin, who will be based in the firm's New York office, will advise banking and other financial services clients on regulatory issues as the sector grapples with an ongoing crisis, particularly among U.S. regional banks.
Bergin spent about 18 years at the New York Fed, most recently as acting co-general counsel and deputy general counsel, where he advised on monetary policy and helped the regulator respond to market disruptions.
He said he anticipated helping clients navigate both the short and long-term fallout from the recent turmoil touched off by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this month.
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