New Study Finds Most Law Firms Mum on Mandatory Arbitration for Summer Associates

June 11, 2018

Students at Yale Law School and 13 of the nation’s other top legal institutions made waves last month when they announced that they would require law firms interviewing on campus to complete a survey and openly disclose whether they will require summer associates to submit to forced arbitration provisions and related nondisclosure agreements. On Monday, students from those law schools released the results of that survey, which found that, while many firms will not require their summer associates to sign arbitration agreements, some are still pushing such deals on their young legal talent…“Almost half of the firms who received the survey—nearly two hundred—have decided to hide behind a wall of secrecy,” said a statement from Molly Coleman [`20], a rising second-year law student at Harvard Law School and one of the organizers of the campaign. “Especially in the #MeToo era, we are disheartened that they are unwilling to take a simple step to engage on this important issue.”

Manafort faces new indictment with witness tampering allegations. His attorneys deny he’s a flight risk

June 11, 2018

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III ramped up the pressure on Paul Manafort on Friday, releasing a new indictment accusing President Trump’s former campaign chairman of obstructing justice and conspiring to do so by contacting potential witnesses in his case. Manafort was already facing two rounds of previous indictments, starting in October, with nearly two dozen charges of financial crimes, including tax evasion and bank fraud related to his lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial in Virginia next month and in Washington later this year…Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law School professor and former federal prosecutor who has written about the special counsel case with Mariotti, said Mueller is moving forward “by the book.” “There is no overcharging, no nefarious strategy,” he said. “This is how it’s done day in, day out, in federal court.”

How nonprofits are boosting NYC’s brightest minority students

June 11, 2018

Hundreds of the city’s black and Latino kids have found a pipeline to success that Mayor de Blasio doesn’t mention…Their secret? A handful of nonprofit organizations scour the five boroughs to identify and recruit the brightest kids of color, put them through rigorous summer and weekend classes, and push them to excel…Caribbean-born Michael Thomas [`19] was shuttled into Manhattan’s Trinity School for the program while attending 6th grade in a Canarsie public school. Through Prep, he was admitted into Dalton in 7th grade, where he became a “peer leader” and football team captain. Thomas has since graduated from Princeton University and now goes to Harvard Law School. In February, he was elected the 132nd president of the Harvard Law Review — a post once held by Barack Obama. “Above and beyond the fantastic teachers and its rigorous academic program, the organization’s greatest power is its ability to raise expectations,” Thomas told The Post. “Though I didn’t always know that I wanted to pursue a law degree, Prep did everything in its power to help me reach my aspirations.”

To keep up with automation, train workers from early age, panelists say

June 11, 2018

Computers will keep getting smarter. And so must US workers, if they want to hang onto their jobs. That was the consensus of politicians, academics, and entrepreneurs who discussed the disruptive effects of technology at two panel discussions sponsored by the Boston Globe Friday afternoon. Although the panelists stressed that better education will help ensure that US workers don’t lose out to computers and robots, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun warned that today’s colleges aren’t prepared to deliver the kind of training workers will need…Harvard Law School professor Susan Crawford said the Trump administration hasn’t slashed science and technology funding as much as she feared, but added, “There really isn’t anybody in the West Wing who is qualified to give advice on science and technology policy. Unless we have that, it’s hard to see that the United States is going to make a lot of progress.”

DeVos Halts Partial Debt Relief Policy After Judge Slams Procedures

June 6, 2018

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has temporarily halted relieving the debt of some student borrowers who were defrauded by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, after a federal judge found her department misused earnings data to calculate loan forgiveness…The halt came after Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of Federal District Court in San Francisco found that the department had violated the Privacy Act by sharing student borrower information, such as Social Security numbers and birth dates, with the Social Security Administration to obtain earnings data. The judge ordered the Education Department to end the practice and its collection of Corinthian student debts…Judge Kim’s ruling resulted from a class-action lawsuit filed by the Project on Predatory Student Lending of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School and the group Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, which challenged Ms. DeVos’s partial-relief system shortly after it was announced. They argued that the new policy was arbitrary, capricious and illegal…“The court has already ruled that the Department of Education must immediately stop using its illegal partial denial rule,” said Eileen Connor, litigation director for the Project on Predatory Student Lending.

Why Is Trump Mad at Sessions? A Tweet Provides the Answer

June 6, 2018

For nearly a year, President Trump has been relentlessly attacking his handpicked attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation that has so nettled him. And so in that sense, his tweet on Tuesday morning was simply the latest in a long string. “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined … and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!”…Still, even some scholars who are not on Mr. Trump’s payroll argue that the legal situation is not that clear-cut, even if the intent of Tuesday’s tweet was. The president, in this view, does not need to browbeat Mr. Sessions about ending the investigation when he could simply order it scuttled on his own. “Yes, that is an explicit statement that Trump wanted an attorney general who would shut down the Russia investigation and is mad at Sessions for recusing himself and not shutting it down,” said Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and top Justice Department official under President George W. Bush.

Trump’s Claims Of Vast Power Could Be Heading Toward A Supreme Court Showdown

June 6, 2018

With the president and his lawyers claiming he is shielded from prosecution and simultaneously able to pardon himself for any federal crime, are there any checks on Donald Trump’s actions at all from the courts? And what happens if the courts rule against him on a matter he believes could threaten his presidency or even his liberty? As Trump’s claims of overarching, even regal powers have grown more fervid in recent weeks, those questions have become increasingly worrisome to constitutional experts…“There certainly is such a worry,” said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School.

The NFL Anthem Policy Violates Several State Constitutions

June 5, 2018

An op-ed by Nikolas Bowie. Ever since NFL owners announced last month that they plan to fine players who protest on the field during the national anthem, critics have conducted a scavenger hunt of sorts looking for evidence that the NFL’s policy is unconstitutional. Benjamin Sachs has written that the First Amendment, which generally applies only to governments, should apply to the NFL’s policy because the policy was the product of demands by government officials, including the president. Daniel Hemel has suggested that the First Amendment might apply to the NFL’s stadiums because of all the government subsidies used to pay for them. But these critics may be looking for unconstitutionality in the wrong place: It’s a much clearer case that the NFL policy violates a host of state constitutions.

Get Ready for a Future With a Genetic Crystal Ball

June 5, 2018

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Would you like your doctor to give you the results of genetic tests, informing you if you are susceptible to serious diseases, such as cancer and heart disease? Before long, that question is going to be relevant to millions of people. Primary-care doctors will increasingly be in a position to offer genetic testing as part of routine care – just as they check your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. In most contexts, it’s tempting to think: the more information, the better. But that’s much too simple.