New York

Expert Analysis

• A Likely Tipping Point For Nonlawyer Ownership Of Law Firms

  

  The Arizona Supreme Court's recent decision to eliminate prohibitions on nonlawyer ownership of law firms may show that the organized bar's long-standing rhetoric that such rules are essential to protecting the legal profession's core values is overblown, say Anthony Sebok at Cardozo School of Law and Bradley Wendel at Cornell Law School.

• Practical Lessons From 2nd Circ. Lehman Bankruptcy Ruling

  

  The Second Circuit's recent decision in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy litigation provides guidance for market participants who structure or invest in complex finance transactions involving derivatives, as well as a useful perspective for creditors seeking to protect their rights in a bankruptcy proceeding, say Thomas Mitchell at Orrick and attorney Steven Fink.

• Foreign Securities Class Actions 10 Years After Morrison

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank has had a sweeping impact on the application of the federal securities laws to transnational securities fraud, but it has not brought the predictability and consistency it promised and has exposed foreign issuers to greater U.S. class action liability, say attorneys at Cleary.

• Breaking Down The Top 3 COVID-19 Workplace Claims

  Excerpt from Practical Guidance

  

  Attorneys at Fisher Phillips identify litigation trends in the three most common types of COVID-19 claims filed against employers to date, and discuss risk-reduction and defense strategies.

• 2 NY Contract Cases Highlight Limits Of Impossibility Defense

  

  As parties consider invoking the common law doctrine of impossibility to defend contract nonperformance during the pandemic, two recent New York federal and state court decisions — Lantino v. Clay and Backal Hospitality v. 627 West — illustrate the challenges of establishing such a defense, say Muhammad Faridi and Timothy Smith at Patterson Belknap.

• A Road Map For Drafting Persuasive Discovery Motions

  

  Best practices that can help litigators write convincing discovery motions include thinking about the audience, addressing a few key questions, and leaving out boilerplate from supporting briefs, says Tom Connally at Hogan Lovells.

• How Congress Can Depoliticize The Supreme Court

  

  Congress has multiple means to take the politics out of federal judicial nominations and restore the independence of the U.S. Supreme Court — three of which can be implemented without a constitutional amendment, says Franklin Amanat at DiCello Levitt.

• Balancing Newly Divergent State, USPTO Ethics Rules

  

  In light of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's stringent ethics rules and failure to adopt a choice-of-law rule, intellectual property attorneys practicing in states that recently adopted more progressive ethics rules may have to modify their practice to avoid discipline, say attorneys Emil Ali and Michael McCabe.

• And Now A Word From The Panel: Justifying An MDL

  

  Recent oral arguments before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in the Ahern Rentals trade secret case demonstrate that justifying centralization of related actions into an MDL hinges on showing similarities between the actions — and especially on whether they will lead to common discovery, says Alan Rothman at Sidley.

• Competing Libor-Transition Proposals Create More Problems

  

  While the U.S., U.K. and EU have proposed legislation in anticipation of the approaching Libor end date, the multiplicity of their approaches gives rise to uncertainty for market participants rather than eliminating it, say Anne Beaumont at Friedman Kaplan and Janine Alexander and Audrey Favreau at Collyer Bristow.

• Opinion

  The Case For A Nonpolitical Federal Judiciary

  

  For the last 20 years, at the insistence of both parties, U.S. Supreme Court nominations have been fierce ideological battles — which is bad for the country and bad for the public's perception of the legitimacy of the court, say Judge Eric Moyé, Judge Craig Smith and Winston & Strawn partner Tom Melsheimer.

• Series

  AGs In A Pandemic: Nessel Talks Michigan Drop Shippers

  

  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel discusses her office's efforts to curb deceptive business practices by drop shippers — middlemen who entice purchasers using false or misleading information — and to educate consumers about the pitfalls of online shopping during the pandemic.

• The Keys To A Better Privilege Logging Paradigm

  

  Current privilege logging practices to identify what information is being withheld from discovery often lead to costly disputes, so practitioners should adopt a system based on trust and good faith, similar to the presumptions embedded in the business judgment rule for corporate directors and officers, say Kevin Brady at Volkswagen and Charles Ragan and Ted Hiser at Redgrave.

• Class Arbitration May Meet Its Demise At High Court This Term

  

  While the Second Circuit’s 2019 opinion in Jock v. Sterling Jewelers and the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Shivkov v. Artex exemplify how two interrelated inquiries have rescued class arbitration, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely address the issues this term and extinguish the practice, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

• NY Lenders May Face Barriers In Real Estate Dispositions

  

  Three recent New York County Supreme Court decisions demonstrate that although the governor's executive orders suspending commercial evictions and foreclosures do not expressly bar collateral dispositions, lenders attempting to sell defaulted real estate should expect judicial limitations during the pandemic, say attorneys at Patterson Belknap.