New Jersey

Expert Analysis

• Uniformity Goal Eludes Defend Trade Secrets Act, 5 Years On

  

  Five years after the enactment of the Defend Trade Secrets Act, work remains to be done on achieving uniformity across jurisdictions, because state law differences being imported into the DTSA are creating the same patchwork of law the act was intended to rectify, say attorneys at MoFo.

• Judge's Rebuke Of Mass. AG Has Lessons For All Attorneys

  

  A Massachusetts federal judge’s recent rebuke of the state Attorney General’s Office for refusing to respond to discovery requests in Alliance for Automotive Innovation v. Healey highlights six important considerations for attorneys who want to avoid the dreaded benchslap, say Alison Eggers and Dallin Wilson at Seyfarth.  

• How 5-Year-Old Defend Trade Secrets Act Has Met Its Goals

  

  Case law and data reveal that, five years after its enactment, the Defend Trade Secrets Act has opened up federal courts to litigants and has proven effective against extraterritorial misappropriation, while concerns about inconsistency and overuse of ex parte seizures have not borne out, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

• Font Considerations To Give Your Legal Briefs An Edge

  

  Following the D.C. Circuit’s recent notice discouraging use of the font Garamond in legal briefs, Jason Steed at Kilpatrick looks at typeface requirements and preferences in appellate courts across the country, and how practitioners can score a few extra brief-writing points with typography.

• Make Profitability Management Part Of Your Law Firm Culture

  

  As the legal industry continues to change in the post-pandemic world, law firms should adapt to client demands by constantly measuring and managing the profitability of their services, says Joseph Altonji at LawVision.

• 4 Trends In Discoverability Of Litigation Funding Documents

  

  Recent rulings shed light on how courts and international arbitration tribunals decide if litigation funding materials are discoverable and reaffirm best practices that attorneys should follow when communicating with funders, say Justin Maleson at Longford Capital and Michele Slachetka and Christian Plummer at Jenner & Block.

• Cannabis Legalization's Effects On Insurance Industry

  Excerpt from Practical Guidance

  

  Resolution of the legal uncertainty presented by the dueling federal and state approaches to cannabis will pave the way for legal cannabis businesses to access the insurance protections the industry needs for everything from workers' compensation to auto insurance to general liability, says Christy Thiems at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

• 7 Lessons For Young Lawyers Starting Their Careers

  

  This year's law graduates and other young attorneys must recognize that the practice of law tests and rewards different skills and characteristics than law school, and that what makes a lawyer valuable changes over time, says Vernon Winters, retired partner at Sidley.

• COVID Eviction Bans May Not Continue To Survive In Court

  

  State and local moratoriums against evictions during the pandemic are likely to withstand plaintiffs' constitutional challenges in the short term, but plaintiffs may start to see more success as time goes on, say attorneys at Goodwin.

• Demystifying The Virtual Civil Jury Trial Experience

  

  A year into many pandemic-induced court closures, attorneys at Dechert examine the successful transition to virtual civil jury trials in product liability cases, highlight some of the positive attributes of virtual proceedings and identify factors to consider for successfully trying cases with virtual components.

• NJ Justices' Pregnancy Bias Ruling Expands Employer Onus

  

  The New Jersey Supreme Court's recent decision in Delanoy v. Township of Ocean — that a police department’s light-duty policies violated the states’ Pregnant Workers Fairness Act — imposes significant new pregnancy and breastfeeding accommodation requirements for employers, says Jeremy Cole at Goldberg Segalla.

• The Pandemic's Bright Spots For Lawyers Who Are Parents

  

  The COVID-19 crisis has allowed lawyers to hone remote advocacy strategies and effectively represent clients with minimal travel — abilities that have benefited working parents and should be utilized long after the pandemic is over, says Chelsea Loughran at Wolf Greenfield.

• Opinion

  Revise Mansfield Diversity Mandates To Also Benefit Veterans

  

  The well-intentioned efforts and salutary purposes of the legal industry's Mansfield Rule diversity metric are tainted by the Diversity Lab initiative's omission of veterans, who are underrepresented at large law firms and entitled to advantageous treatment based on more than 200 years of public policy, says Robert Redmond at McGuireWoods.

• AGs To Fill Void As Justices Say FTC Can't Impose Restitution

  

  State attorneys general are likely to emerge as even more influential consumer protection enforcers, taking the lead in federal-state restitution partnerships, following the U.S. Supreme Court's determination Thursday in AMG Capital v. Federal Trade Commission that the FTC is not authorized to seek equitable monetary relief, say Alissa Gardenswartz and former Sen. Mark Pryor at Brownstein Hyatt.

• 2nd Circ. Ruling May Stifle Student Loan Discharge Flexibility

  

  In its recent decision in Tingling, the Second Circuit affirmed its rigorous Brunner test for discharging student loan debt in bankruptcy, which could have a chilling effect on bankruptcy courts that had been considering a more malleable approach, says Michael Herz at Fox Rothschild.