Return to normalcy for law school admissions, job numbers show resilience in the legal sector, bellwether PFAS chemicals case seeks delay, and more ??
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The pandemic-era law school applications frenzy is officially over.
The number of people applying to law school has dropped for the second straight year—further indication that the?13% applicant surge?in 2021 was a COVID one-off.
Law school applicants were down 2.4% over last year as of Thursday, according to the latest data from the Law School Admission Council. By that time last year, the council had received 96% of the applicant total. That means this cycle's national applicant pool is likely to be slightly smaller than the previous year, which was?12% smaller?than in 2021.
"It's a return to normalcy." said Susan Krinsky, the council’s executive vice president for operations. "It's very consistent with the last five years except for 2021."
During that period, the number of applicants remained fairly steady, with anywhere from 57,00 to 64,000 applying to law schools each year.
The U.S. legal services sector continued to add jobs in May, even as the industry grapples with scattered layoffs at some of the highest-grossing law firms in the country.
The legal sector jobs totaled 1,180,400 last month, up 700 jobs from April, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on June 2. The count includes lawyers, paralegals, and other legal workers.
U.S. legal employers shed jobs early in the pandemic, but many large law firms bulked up in 2021 and 2022 to take advantage of an unusually high client demand for advice on corporate deals and other legal work.
After reaching a historic high in July, the number of legal sector jobs dropped again since last summer, but more modestly, and with a rebound beginning in the spring. According to BLS's preliminary numbers, the sector has added 3,000 jobs since March.
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A U.S. judge has allowed the delay of a trial in which Florida's Stuart city sued industrial conglomerate 3M?over water contamination from toxic "forever chemicals," a court filing showed on Monday.
3M was scheduled to face trial in South Carolina federal court on June 5 in a lawsuit brought by the Florida city accusing the company of manufacturing PFAS, or per- and polyflouroalkyl substances, despite knowing for decades that the chemicals can cause cancer and other ailments.
The city of Stuart claimed in its 2018 lawsuit that the company made or sold firefighting foams containing PFAS that polluted local soil and groundwater and sought more than $100 million for filtration and remediation.
Set to have been a test case, the lawsuit is one of more than 4,000 filed against 3M and other chemical companies by U.S. municipalities, state governments, and individuals that have been consolidated in federal court in South Carolina.
The request for a delay came after three major chemicals companies - Chemours, DuPont de Nemours, and Corteva?- last Friday said they had reached an agreement in principle for $1.19 billion to?settle claims?that they contaminated U.S. public water systems with PFAS.
U.S. law firm Cooley said Monday that it has hired three longtime lawyers from intellectual property law firm Fish & Richardson.?
Chad Shear, Betsy Flanagan, and Geoff Biegler, who join Palo Alto-founded Cooley as partners, represent life sciences companies in "make-or-break" patent infringement matters, the firm said.?
The three lawyers focus on representing life sciences, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical brands in matters including branded Hatch-Waxman litigation and competitor drug cases, the firm said.
Their?clients have included biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and biotechnology company Kite Pharma, Shear said.?
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