Transportation

Expert Analysis

• Opinion

  ADA Protects Lawyers With Disabilities, But We Must Do More

  

  As an attorney with cerebral palsy, Danielle Liebl at Reed Smith says that while the 30-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act has protected her against discrimination, the legal industry must do more to accommodate lawyers with disabilities and make them more comfortable in self-identifying.

• Perspectives

  Legal Deserts Threaten Justice In Rural America

  

  Many small towns and rural counties have few lawyers or none at all, which threatens the notion of justice for all Americans and demands creative solutions from legislators, bar associations and law schools, says Patricia Refo, president of the American Bar Association.

• How COVID-19 May Change Long-Term Aviation Outlook

  

  Survival is an immediate concern for many airlines facing pandemic-related drops in air travel, which is exerting economic pressure that will fundamentally change the landscape for companies throughout the aviation ecosystem, say Matthew Herman and Amna Arshad at Freshfields Bruckhaus.

• Neb. Ruling May Squash Consent By Registration Theory

  

  In Lanham v. BNSF, the Nebraska Supreme Court's first-of-its-kind decision — which rejected on constitutional grounds the argument that corporations consent to jurisdiction where they register to do business — opens up a new line of precedent that defense counsel may use to shut the door on this long-debated theory, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

• 1st Circ. Ruling Complicates Gig Worker Arbitration Pacts

  

  The First Circuit’s recent ruling that Amazon delivery drivers are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act opens the door to patchwork state enforcement, and will likely force gig economy employers to reevaluate arbitration agreements and class action waivers, say Christopher Feudo and Christian Garcia at Foley Hoag.

• Foreign Discovery Ruling May Provide New Defense Tool

  

  Motransa, a recent first-of-its-kind Florida federal court decision moving a foreign discovery proceeding to arbitration, may provide a new defensive option for U.S. targets of Section 1782 discovery demands, say Alexander Lawrence and David Hambrick at MoFo.

• Analyzing Upward And Downward Trends In Legal Tech

  

  Advances in legal technology are often accompanied by bombastic overstatements, but it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff by looking at where various technologies stand on the hype curve, says Lance Eliot at Stanford Law School.

• How Congress May Bail Out FERC On Tolling Orders

  

  The D.C. Circuit's recent ruling in Allegheny Defense Project v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission deals a major blow to FERC's use of tolling orders to forestall judicial rehearings, but Congress may soon come to the agency's aid, say Sandra Rizzo and David Skillman at Arnold & Porter.

• Climate Change Litigation Looms Over Trump Enviro Overhaul

  

  Updated regulations from the White House Council on Environmental Quality likely preclude government agencies from considering climate change in most National Environmental Policy Act analyses, making litigation over the revisions all but certain, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

• Opinion

  ABA's New Guidance On Litigation Funding Misses The Mark

  

  The American Bar Association should revise its recently approved best practices on third-party litigation funding as they do not reflect how legal finance actually works and could create confusion among lawyers, says Andrew Cohen at Burford Capital.

• Regulatory Concerns For US Cos.' Offshore Service Centers

  

  As more U.S. companies open and use offshore service-delivery centers amid the pandemic, assessment of important tax, intellectual property, cybersecurity and employment considerations can help mitigate regulatory risk and maximize the company's return on investment, says Sonia Baldia at Baker McKenzie.

• What Firms Should Ask Before Hiring Attorneys From Gov't

  

  In the final year of any presidential administration, there is an undeniable appetite on the part of large law firms for government-savvy legal talent, but firms need to first consider how they will actually utilize their new star hire, says Michael Ellenhorn at Decipher.

• The Ethics Of Using Chatbots For Legal Services

  

  Delegating legal work to robots involves several risks, including running afoul of statutes dictating unauthorized practice of law, but with the right precautions, law firms can lawfully employ artificially intelligent chatbots that can imitate human conversations, say attorneys at Haynes and Boone.

• Opinion

  ABA Must Seize Opportunity To Respond To Bar Exam Chaos

  

  The challenges of administering bar exams this year have put the future of the profession in jeopardy, but the American Bar Association at its ongoing annual meeting can adopt a resolution that would urge jurisdictions to take emergency actions with respect to licensure of new attorneys, says Nicholas Allard, former president of Brooklyn Law School.

• NLRB Ruling Corrects Overbroad Abusive Conduct Standard

  

  The National Labor Relations Board's recent ruling that employees' abusive language and conduct are not protected under federal law in General Motors rectifies an overly expansive standard and provides employers predictable jurisprudence to implement nondiscriminatory corrective action, say Amber Rogers and Gary Enis at Hunton.