50th Reunion Photo – Harvard Law School Class of 1972
I was pleased to attended my 50th reunion at Harvard Law School last October. Much has changed, and much has not . . .
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Big Law-less
I went “Big Law-less” 6 yrs ago this month. Ironically, my professional independence has enabled me to interact with many more superb appellate specialists at Big Law firms than ever before – as well as with dozens of outstanding appellate attorneys in smaller, boutique, and solo-practice law firms, and at free-enterprise & individual-liberty advocacy organizations.
ALF Urges Supreme Court To Decide Whether COVID Liability Suits Are Removable To Federal Court
The certiorari petition in Glenhaven Healthcare LLC v. Saldana, No. 22-192, presents an important and frequently recurring question that has enormous implications for public health as well as civil justice: Whether COVID-19-related personal-injury and wrongful-death suits, which implicate the immunity-from-suit-and-liability provision and additional legal protections expressly afforded to healthcare facilities and workers by the Public Readiness and
Amicus Brief Urges Supreme Court To Overrule Century-Old Precedent On General Personal Jurisdiction Over Corporate Defendants
On behalf of the Atlantic Legal Foundation (ALF), I have filed a merits-stage amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hold in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Ry. Co., No. 21-1168, that a nonresident corporation cannot be subjected to a State’s general jurisdiction merely because, as required by the State, it registers to do business. This is
ALF & DRI Argue That Climate-Change Damages Suits Belong in Federal, Not State, Courts
Bolstered by climate-change activists and the plaintiffs’ contingency-fee bar, more than two dozen state and local governments around the nation have filed state-court suits seeking damages from fossil fuel energy companies for allegedly causing, or contributing to, global climate change through greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. Masquerading as state-law nuisance and trespass suits, they seek “climate
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ALF Amicus Brief Argues SEC Lacks Expertise To Rule On Its Own Constitutionality
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two separate cases that raise essentially the same question: Can an SEC or FTC civil enforcement target file a district court action challenging the constitutionality of how these independent regulatory agencies’ in-house adjudicatory proceedings are structured? Or to obtain judicial review of such a structural constitutional claim, does
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Exactly 50 Years Ago . . .
Exactly 50 years ago – all in the same week – I graduated from Harvard Law School, got married, and moved to Washington, D.C. Half a century later, at the age of 75, I’m still practicing law full time in Washington, D.C., and enjoying it more than ever, thanks to my long-time, loyal clients, and
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Justices Should Give Feds’ Roundup Amicus Little Weight
Law360 has published my sharply critical Expert Analysis of the amicus brief that the U.S. Solicitor General recently submitted to the Supreme Court in Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman, No. 21-241. My analysis explains that – “From the perspective of product liability defense attorneys, the brief from the solicitor general is a transparently partisan, short-sighted effort to
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Amicus Brief Argues “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied” In FTC Constitutional Challenge
The Atlantic Legal Foundation has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hold, contrary to the Ninth Circuit, that federal district courts can exercise their federal question jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to the structure of the Federal Trade Commission’s civil administrative enforcement process. In a divided opinion, a Ninth Circuit panel held in Axon Enterprise, Inc.
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Welcome News! The Supreme Court Proposes to Ditch the Amicus Brief Consent Requirement
The Supreme Court recently proposed to eliminate the requirement to obtain the parties’ consent, or the Court’s permission, to file an amicus brief. I have written a short insight piece for DRI’s new online publication, The Brief Case, about this important development. My article raises a fundamental point about amicus briefs: Since the purpose of
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