Trump blasts his trial judges then his supporters call for violence, ABA finds law school scholarships favor white students, and more ??
Reuters Legal
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?? Trump blasts his trial judges. Then his fans call for violence
Donald Trump’s?angry and incessant broadsides against the judges handling the criminal and civil suits against him are inspiring widespread calls for violence, our colleagues?Peter Eisler,?Ned Parker?and?Joseph Tanfani?write in a new special report. Trump’s language can signal to his followers that judges are no different from partisan rivals worthy of attack, threatening the legitimacy of the independent judiciary, experts on political violence told Reuters.
In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that?called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Experts on extremism say the constant repetition of threatening or menacing language can normalize the idea of violence – and increase the risk of someone carrying it out. Mitch Silber, a former New York City Police Department director of intelligence analysis, compared the Trump supporters now calling for violence against judges to the U.S. Capitol rioters who believed they were following Trump’s “marching orders” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them.
Trump himself hasn’t called for violence on judges. Trump spokesperson?Steven Cheungdid not respond to specific questions about the posts. Trump has a right to criticize what he called “un-Constitutional witch hunts,” Cheung said.?
?? Biggest law school scholarships disproportionately go to white students, ABA finds
White law students are more likely to land full scholarships and less likely to receive scholarships covering less than half their tuition compared with their non-white classmates, according to new data, from the American Bar Association.
White students were awarded 70% of the full-tuition scholarships given by law schools this year but comprise about 61% of the national pool of full-time law students, the new data show.
By contrast, students of color make up nearly 32% of full-time law students but received fewer than 23% of full-tuition scholarships. They were awarded nearly 34% of scholarships worth less than half tuition—a greater share than white law students based on their proportions of the national student pool.
This is the first year the ABA has collected and reported data breaking down law school scholarships by race, though previous research, has highlighted racial disparities in scholarship distribution and led to warnings that students from lower socioeconomic groups are subsidizing the tuition of wealthier classmates.
“The data should prompt law schools to assess their scholarship awarding practices to ensure that they are defensible and rooted in equity,” said Aaron Taylor, executive director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence, which advocates for affordability and access to law school.
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?? Column: Uber-backed proposal to cap Nevada lawyers' contingency fees survives initial challenge
A Nevada ballot initiative that would impose the most sweeping and draconian contingency fee limit in the United States has survived its first legal challenge.
District Court Judge James Russell of Carson City ruled, on May 10 that the ballot initiative to cap contingency fees in all civil cases at 20% complies with Nevada requirements for petitions seeking signatures from Nevada voters.
Opponents of the fee cap vowed to appeal the decision to the?Nevada Supreme Court.
?? PVC pipe maker JM Eagle sues US asbestos law firm in racketeering case
Plastic pipe maker JM Eagle has sued a U.S. law firm that filed hundreds of asbestos personal injury cases against it, marking the latest counterstrike by a defendant against the asbestos plaintiffs bar.
JM Eagle's lawsuit, filed May 10 in Chicago federal court under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, alleged that law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy suppressed evidence, used perjured or falsified testimony and statements, and committed fraud in the course of recovering billions of dollars from asbestos defendants in thousands of cases.
"These untrue statements have caused J-M Manufacturing to incur vast sums of litigation fees and expenses defending against claims brought by the firm," the lawsuit said.
JM Eagle, which calls itself the world's largest plastic and PVC pipe manufacturer, was previously known as J-M Manufacturing.
Simmons Hanly is based in Alton, Illinois, and specializes in asbestos-related mesothelioma claims. The firm's managing partner, Laurence Nassif, said in a statement that JM Eagle's claims are "baseless" and that the company is trying to avoid "accountability for its dangerous practices and the harm it has caused innocent people."
Simmons Hanly has filed more than 430 cases against JM Eagle since 2001, according to the lawsuit. JM Eagle said it has settled more than 75 of the cases, but would have reduced the settlement amounts or not paid if it knew some of those lawsuits contained "falsehoods peddled by Simmons Hanly."
JM Eagle is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. In addition to its federal racketeering claim, its lawsuit alleges unjust enrichment, fraud and civil conspiracy.
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