SCOTUS overturns Roe v. Wade, Paul Clement leaves Kirkland, Steptoe cuts pay for 'underutilized' lawyers
Reuters Legal
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???Good morning. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.?Law firm Steptoe & Johnson has cut pay for 'underutilized' lawyers, Paul Clement is starting a new litigation firm as Kirkland withdraws gun cases, and a New York lawyer has been disbarred after admitting to a litigation funding scam. We break it all down below in today's Legal File ??
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday took the dramatic step of overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a woman's constitutional right to an abortion and legalized it nationwide, handing a momentous victory to Republicans and religious conservatives who want to limit or ban the procedure.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative majority, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The vote was 5-4 to overturn Roe, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing separately to say he would have upheld the Mississippi law but not taken the additional step of erasing the precedent altogether.
The justices held that the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb - between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy - was wrongly decided because the U.S. Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote:
"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.
By erasing abortion as a constitutional right, the ruling restores the ability of states to pass laws prohibiting it. Twenty-six states are seen as either certain or likely now to ban abortion.
Steptoe & Johnson has cut pay and hours for associates who aren't meeting billable hour goals in a move industry watchers say may portend future pay roll-backs across other large law firms.
A “small number” of Steptoe associates who are consistently putting in below 80% of their expected billable hours were moved this week to reduced work schedules with lower pay through the end of 2022, according to a firm spokesperson.
"At year end, we will review again associate utilization and performance and expect to continue to reward our high performers."
Associate salaries have been the single-largest driver of law firm expense increases since 2021 and have cut into firm profits, according to May figures from Thomson Reuters Institute's latest Law Firm Financial Index.
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Prominent litigators Paul Clement and Erin Murphy said in a statement they are leaving Kirkland & Ellis to start their own small litigation firm, shortly after Kirkland said it will no longer represent clients in Second Amendment matters.
The Washington, D.C.-based pair said they would leave as Kirkland's decision would affect their long-held client relationships.
"The representations in question were approved years ago, and withdrawing from them now would cost the clients years of institutional memory."
Kirkland announced the new policy and the pair's departure hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York state's limits on carrying concealed handguns in public in a 6-3 ruling.
A New York state court has disbarred the founder of a litigation finance firm who will be sentenced next month in federal court for his role in a multimillion-dollar securities fraud scheme.
Jaeson Birnbaum, a member of the New York state attorney bar since 2003, pleaded guilty to securities fraud tied to his litigation funding company Cash4Cases in September last year. The New York appeals court's June 21 disciplinary order said Birnbaum's felony conviction required automatic disbarment.
Birnbaum, according to charging documents, "solicited and obtained more than $3 million in investments for Cash4Cases based on fraudulent misrepresentations" from 2017 to 2019.
Birnbaum's sentencing is scheduled for July 7 before U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan. He faces a sentencing guideline range of between 41 and 51 months in prison, court records show.
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