Judge Questions TPS Work Permit Rule's Scope

By Chris Villani

A Massachusetts federal judge on Thursday questioned whether the Trump administration was in bounds in enforcing a retroactive cap on work authorization that may impact thousands of immigrant workers, suggesting during a hearing that the directive may have been imposed without adequate notice.

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DOL Chief Nom Sonderling To Get Full Senate Vote

By Irene Spezzamonte

The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted Thursday in favor of sending acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling's nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote despite Democrats' concerns during a recent hearing about the department's proposed wage and hour rules.

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Advocacy Group Says Law Firm Fellowship Program Biased

By Patrick Hoff

A legal advocacy group said Thursday it had lodged U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges against a nonprofit and law firms including Jones Day, White & Case and Morgan Lewis, claiming Muslim and Middle Eastern students were getting unlawful preference in a fellowship program.

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Bronx Legal Aid Organization's Union Rejects New Pay Offer

By Andrea Keckley

The Bronx Defenders' executive director said on Thursday that the union representing the organization's over 300 attorneys and staff has rejected an updated offer on wages, with both sides still at odds over the prospect of separate salary scales for lawyers and social workers.

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Dem Bill Would End Forced Arbitration In Workplace Disputes

By Anne Cullen

Democratic lawmakers reintroduced a bill Thursday that would eliminate mandatory arbitration agreements in employment contracts and enhance workers' ability to band together to challenge unlawful employment practices.

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Ill. Atty Sanctioned For AI Slop In Starbucks Bias Suit

By Adrian Cruz

A unanimous Illinois appeals court sanctioned an attorney representing a former Starbucks employee in a workplace discrimination suit after determining that he submitted briefs using false citations and quotations hallucinated by artificial intelligence software.

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6th Circ. Orders Look At IRS Resignation Deal In Bias Suit

By Zak Kostro

An Ohio federal court must decide whether an IRS worker gave up her disability bias and retaliation claims against the U.S. Treasury Department in a resignation agreement, a split Sixth Circuit panel ruled, refusing to weigh the merits of an appeal she brought before entering the deal.

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4th Circ. Urged To Keep Trump Trans Health Orders Blocked

By Gianna Ferrarin

A group of transgender individuals and advocacy groups urged the Fourth Circuit to uphold a nationwide injunction they won against Trump administration executive orders banning federal funding of gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 19.

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Insurance Sales Agents Win Conditional Cert. In Pay Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A New Jersey federal magistrate judge conditionally certified a collective of insurance sales agents, finding they offered more than speculation that common policies deprived them of pay for computer work and bonuses.

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Home Improvement Co.'s Arbitration Bid Tests FLSA Suit

By Zach Dupont

A Colorado federal judge Thursday ended a motion hearing, uncertain if an arbitration agreement between a home improvement company and a group of former employees who claim they were misclassified as independent contractors is still valid even if the forum they agreed to arbitrate in changed.

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Analysis

CH Robinson's $604M Verdict Tests Freight Broker Defenses

By Linda Chiem

A Dallas County jury's $604 million verdict against C.H. Robinson over a fatal 2021 accident marks one of the first major tests of freight brokers' legal strategies since the U.S. Supreme Court reshaped their liability exposure, creating monumental stakes for the trucking industry's middlemen on how to navigate unpredictable duty-of-care standards and volatile verdicts.

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Ex-Worker Says RTX Exposed 1.5M In Employee Data Breach

By Jared Foretek

A former employee at aerospace defense contractor RTX has filed a proposed class action against the company, alleging that its security failures resulted in a data breach last month that exposed personally identifiable information from over 1 million people.

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Denver Worker Didn't Show Firing Over Mayoral Race Support

By MJ Koo

A Denver city employee who alleged that she was laid off in retaliation for supporting a mayoral candidate has lost her bid to keep her job, after a federal judge found she failed to show that her political affiliations or her lawsuit played a meaningful role in the layoff decision.

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Ex-CEO Pulls Credit Union Subsidiary Into Firing Suit

By Brian Steele

The former chief executive of Sound Federal Credit Union can draw a management entity that he is accused of shortchanging into a lawsuit stemming from his termination, a Connecticut state judge has ruled, apparently as an alternative to dismissing portions of two counterclaims.

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Employment Insurer Can't Ditch Firing Suit Coverage Dispute

By Danielle Ferguson

An Illinois federal judge has said an employment liability insurer cannot shake claims alleging it improperly denied coverage for a wrongful termination lawsuit, ruling it wasn't yet clear whether the termination should be linked to a medical leave letter involving the employee in a prior coverage year.

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Yellow Corp. Ex-Workers Sue Over SSN Breach, Notice Delay

By Ben Zigterman

A group of former Yellow Corp. workers on Thursday sued the defunct trucking giant and its liquidating trustee, alleging their personal information was exposed in a data breach last year and that the debtor waited 15 months to disclose it.

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Employer Lessons From Apple Ruling Resolving OT Question

In Costa v. Apple, a California federal court recently handed employers a win on a previously unresolved wage and hour question, offering a reminder that favorable outcomes on novel issues often hinge on the specific facts of a company's own program and compliance efforts, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

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Series

Teaching SEC Investigations Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Instructing a law school course on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations has made me a more thoughtful, deliberate practitioner because it requires me to continually reassess and challenge what I know about securities law enforcement, how I know it and how best to explain it, says David Chase at Miami Law.

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ABA Eyes Nixing School DEI Standards To Sway Trump Admin

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association is poised next week to eliminate the first of multiple diversity-related law school standards, a controversial move that it hopes will allow it to remain an accreditor despite an uncertain outcome in the face of a Trump administration increasingly wary of the association's role in legal education.

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WilmerHale Sued Over Accidental Client Data Disclosure

By Andrea Keckley

A proposed federal class action filed Wednesday accuses WilmerHale of failing to protect clients' personal information after an employee allegedly disclosed sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, to an unauthorized person who misrepresented their identity back in May.

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2 Traders Admit Guilt In Stolen BigLaw Info Scheme

By Chris Villani

Two men pled guilty Thursday in Massachusetts federal court to their roles in a sweeping scheme to trade on inside information stolen from huge corporate law firms about upcoming deals.

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Trump May Renominate Blanche If GOP Holdouts Block Vote

By Courtney Bublé

With Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., still on the fence about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation to be attorney general, President Donald Trump said Thursday he might renominate Blanche next year when the two senators are no longer serving in the Senate.

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DA Says Trump's NY Hush Money Conviction Must Stand

By Frank G. Runyeon

New York prosecutors told a state appellate court that President Donald Trump's 34-count felony conviction for falsifying business records is "unaffected" by the U.S. Supreme Court's watershed presidential immunity decision and should be upheld.

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Judiciary's Bid To Control Courthouses Gets Senate Push

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would create a pilot program for the federal judiciary to obtain direct authority to maintain its buildings, which the judiciary says is desperately needed.

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