The brief, just filed yesterday in district court is here; I was pleased to be one of the very many signers. Here's the Summary of Argument: The President's Order is a self-declared act of retribution that targets a law firm for representing clients and causes the President disfavors. In inflicting this retribution, the Order contradicts centuries of precedent safeguarding free speech, the right of association, and the right to petition. These precedents establish that the First Amendment "prohibits government officials from 'relying on the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion … to achieve the suppression' of disfavored speech." Nat'l Rifle Ass'n v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 176 (2024) (quoting Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 67 (1963)). Targeting Perkins Coie for representing clients and espousing views the President dislikes is viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple. The Order violates the…

In Dimeo v. Gross, (PA Super. Ct., April 2, 2025), a Pennsylvania state appellate court upheld a trial court's refusal to delay the start of a trial by one day. Defendant sought the delay so he could observe Yom Kippur without missing a day of his trial.  The court said in part:Preliminarily, we note that the parties’ briefs direct our attention to the various tests employed by the United States Supreme Court upon claims of violations of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.  Nevertheless, we believe that the issue presented here, i.e., the propriety of the denial of a request for the continuance of a civil trial, can be resolved without reaching the constitutional question. ...... [O]ur decision should not be interpreted as foreclosing continuance requests based upon religious observances.  Rather, we simply mean to amplify the notion that courts may demand a showing of diligence on the part of the movant before granting such…

(Originally published by The Atlantic on April 2, 2025.) Protections on free speech look weaker than they did when I became a permanent resident. Starting this week, I once again have the privilege of teaching law students about the First Amendment, a subject in which Americans rightly take great pride. But this term, the job will feel very different. I am in the United States on a green card, and recent events suggest that I should be careful in what I say—perhaps even about free speech. As I prepare my lecture notes, the Trump administration is working to deport immigrants, including green-card holders, for what appears to be nothing more than the expression of political views with which the government disagrees. These actions are chilling. Continue reading the opinion here.

There are lots of reasons why it's better to be employed by a private university rather than a public one. Add this to the list. The Court of Appeal holds that Section 2802 of the Labor Code, which requires employers to reimburse employees for their reasonable on-the-job expenses, doesn't apply to state employees, including faculty at public universities.There are other ways, of course, in which teaching at a public university is superior; in particular, in the protections afforded by the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause, which apply in public schools but substantially less so in private schools.Still. Definitely not perfect to be on the faculty at a public university. Lots of downsides. (Admittedly: Still a great job, though.)

More than a decade ago, Congress tried to pass SOPA and PIPA—two sweeping bills that would have allowed the government and copyright holders to quickly shut down entire websites based on allegations of piracy. The backlash was immediate and massive. Internet users, free speech advocates, and tech companies flooded lawmakers with protests, culminating in an “Internet Blackout” on January 18, 2012. Turns out, Americans don’t like government-run internet blacklists. The bills were ultimately shelved.  Thirteen years later, as institutional memory fades and appetite for opposition wanes, members of Congress in both parties are ready to try this again.  take action Act Now To Defend the Open Web   The Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA), along with at least one other bill still in draft form, would revive this reckless strategy. These new proposals would let rights holders get federal court orders forcing ISPs and DNS providers to…

Whatever its faults (and there are more than a few), “the rule of law” underpins democracy as a bulwark against authoritarianism. It is not only the system of laws that does this, but the actors who are most closely aligned with ensuring that the rule of law works: the judges and lawyers. Nothing makes the intent of creating an authoritarian system more evident than undermining the judiciary and lawyers. That the judiciary must be independent is well-known. Less so lawyers. The well-known phrase from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene II, “the first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers” has been interpreted in several ways. (On different interpretations, see Olivia Rutigliano, “What did Shakespeare mean when he wrote ‘let’s kill all the lawyers?’”, The Literary Hub, January 25, 2023). Some people think lawyers are good only for maintaining the powerful and killing them would constitute a…

Upcoming oral arguments before the Tennessee Supreme Court April 1, 2025 Nashville, Tenn. - The Tennessee Supreme Court has two cases set for its April 9, 2025, docket in Jackson, Tennessee. The two cases are related actions involving similar legal...

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field. Committed to advancing legal scholarship on freedom of expression, CGFoE is back to teaching. Last week, in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires, CGFoE’s Team members led a class on Freedom of Expression in the European and African Regional Systems. The instructors – Anderson Javiel Dirocie De León, Senior Legal and Policy Consultant; Lautaro Furfaro, Senior Legal Researcher; and Juan Manuel Ospina, Senior Legal Editor – focused on the European Court of Human Rights and the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with comparative references to…

Advance release contract law opinion: Pryor v. Brignole (Breach of contract; special motions to dismiss filed pursuant to anti-SLAPP statute (§ 52-196a); statutory interpretation of § 52-196a; matter of public concern pursuant to § 52-196a, discussed.)

The Connecticut Appellate Court reversed and remanded the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a breach of contract action brought against a law firm by a former associate In these related appeals, the defendants, Timothy Brignole and the law...

[thrown out for lack of evidence of "actual malice" (i.e., knowing or reckless falsehood on Newsweek's part).] A short excerpt from today's long decision by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil (S.D.N.Y.) in The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Newsweek Magazine LLC: The Satanic Temple, Inc. … [sued] Newsweek Magazine LLC … [for alleged defamation] in the article titled "Orgies, Harassment, Fraud: Satanic Temple Rocked by Accusations, Lawsuit" published by Newsweek. After this Court's [earlier] Opinion and Order on Defendant's motion to dismiss, only one statement, "Accounts of sexual abuse being covered up in ways that were more than anecdotal" (the "Article Statement"), remains at issue…. The court grants Newsweek summary judgment as to that last statement. The court concludes that there's a material factual dispute as to what the statement would mean to a reasonable reader (and whether it's false): The…

The “targeted advertising” data protection case of O’Carroll v Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd (KB-2022-004365) was settled on 21 March 2025 with a  Facebook has agreeing to stop the claimant’s personal data to target ads at her. Human rights campaigner, Tanya O’Carroll  had objected to Facebook’s use of her personal data for ad targeting, after she noticed she was receiving pregnancy-related ads before she had shared the news of her pregnancy privately. She argued that targeted advertising should be classified as direct marketing under UK law, giving users the right to opt out. The ICO supported this view, emphasising that “organisations must respect people’s choices about how their data is used.” Meta argued that its ads are targeted at groups of at least 100 users, not individuals, and that its model keeps services free. The case has set a precedent for others seeking to disable Facebook’s ads, however Meta has…

It was no coincidence that President Donald Trump announced on the campaign trail that he would seek to end birthright citizenship via executive order on the heels of the 125th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. For well over a century, Congress, the courts, the executive branch, and the American public have understood and adhered to the principle set forth by the Court in 1898 that U.S. citizenship is automatically conferred to anyone born in the United States (except the children of diplomats and occupying foreign powers). Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160, however, distorts the Wong Kim Ark decision, apparently in the belief that the Court’s language provides a blueprint to limit birthright citizenship only to the children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents (“LPRs” or green card holders). Not so. Despite the fact that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause does not include the words…

[The modern crime victims' rights movement has been remarkably successful in inserting the victim's voice into criminal justice processes.] This post is the second of three posts, serializing my comprehensive law review article on the crime victims' rights movement. In yesterday's post, I described the movement's roots in the history of private prosecution. This post describes the movement's last several decades, during which the movement has successfully created participatory rights for victims throughout America's criminal justice system. The modern victims' rights movement began to stir in the late 1960s, coalesced in the 1970s, and gained momentum in the early 1980s. The movement has continued ever  since "as one of the most significant and successful forces for reshaping the criminal justice process."  The movement's birth can be traced to the confluence of five developments: (1) the creation of an…

Most discovery disputes involve requests for production of documents.  This is because there are specific requirements for a party to properly respond to the request which has been the subject of many of my blogs, including a responding party’s obligation to state whether the documents you are seeking ever existed and where they are now as well as which request the documents being produced are responsive. However, there is nothing more combative in discovery than parties arguing over objections to a document request and the adequacy of the privilege log–assuming one was even provided.  To begin, in responding to the document request, a party is obligated to list the documents in a privilege log that are being withheld on the claim of privilege.  C.C.P. §2031.240.  According to Cal. Prac. Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (TRG 2024) §8:1474.5a, citing Hernandez v. Sup. Ct. (2003) 112 CA4th 285, pg.…

 According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, a DAO is a "term used to describe a 'virtual' organization embodied in computer code and executed on a distributed ledger or blockchain".  See Report of Investigation Pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: The DAO.  That does not answer the question, however, of the legal status of DAOs.  Two years ago, I wrote that U.S. District Court Judge  William H. Orrick  had ruled that  Ooki DAO was an unincorporated association under California law.  CFTC v. Ooki DAO, 2022 WL 17822445. Several months later, U.S. District Court Judge  Larry Alan Burns found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently pled the existence of bXz DAO as a partnership under California law.  Sarcuni v. bZx DAO, 664 F. Supp. 3d 1100 (S.D. Cal. 2023) In the meantime, California Assembly Member Matt Haney introduced legislation, AB 1229, that…

On September 29, 2024, the Governor of California signed into law a new bill that would create a uniform resentencing procedure. In the past decade, the California legislature has passed numerous bills that have provided incarcerated individuals with the opportunity to ask courts to have their sentences recalled and reduced. Some of these ameliorative statutes include AB 2942 – Recall of Sentence and Resentencing, which grants district attorneys the ability to make resentencing referrals; the RISE Act (SB 483); and SB 775/SB 1437, which effectively eliminated the role of the natural and probable consequences doctrine in murder cases and dramatically limited who can be charged under the felony murder doctrine. Those and other legislation have provided an opportunity for countless people to petition the courts to have their sentences reduced. The new laws have given defendants hope that the tough-on-crime policies of the past would not result in them serving unjust…

Whenever an employer investigates employee misconduct, there’s a chance it will find—and may have to disclose—negative facts. This is true when a hospital investigates the medical conduct of a doctor, or an employer investigates an employee for potential harassment. In both instances, and in the absence of malice, those investigations are protected by the litigation and the common interest privileges. Mounting Problems Dignity Health hired orthopedic surgeon Troy I. Mounts to work in a spine surgery practice at the San Luis Obispo French Hospital Center. Concerns regarding his clinical competence arose almost immediately. At the same time, he complained he wasn’t getting staff support or adequate time in the operating room to perform complex surgeries. Dignity put Mount’s complex surgeries “on hold” and required him to complete a previously scheduled surgery with a second surgeon he hadn’t worked with before.…