While courthouses were closed because of COVID-19, members of San Diego’s legal community developed a new program designed to help parties tackle their civil disputes for free outside the court system.
Rehan Staton has always done things differently. “People say I take notes differently, I learn differently. People say in general I have a peculiar way of doing things, but it always worked for me,” Staton, 24, says.
The horrific shooting death of African American jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, has inspired calls for social justice and prompted the passage of hate crime legislation for the first time in the state’s history. In addition to criminal charges against the three men, the case poses legal ethics questions raised by the conduct of the initial prosecutors in charge.
“It came down to ‘How do we support this cause?’” says Jerome Crawford, co-chair of the ABA’s Men of Color Project. “We recognized that we represent a unique constituency that needed to be spoken up for. The issues that we’re talking about disproportionately affect men in communities of color, particularly Black and brown men.”
The state supreme court’s Limited License Legal Technicians initiative won over the state bar’s board of governors, as the panel unanimously approved a resolution indicating its strong endorsement of the rule. But in a stark 180-degree turn, the limited license program rapidly lost the support of the bar’s board and the court as the makeup of both bodies changed.
As various states cancel in-person July bar exams because of COVID-19 concerns, others appear undecided or even committed to keeping things as is—even in places experiencing significant infection increases.
Annual tuition at Harvard Law School is $65,875, and a student there thinks he should get at least some of that back. With the school’s June announcement that the fall 2020 term will be online, Abraham Barkhordar, a rising 2L at Harvard, has filed a suit demanding that tuition should be discounted.
As businesses reopen, the practice of asking customers to sign COVID-19 liability waivers is increasing throughout the United States, but it is uncertain how much weight those waivers will carry in court. And if the businesses aren’t complying with safety guidelines concerning COVID-19, they may still be found liable.
Few, if any, unions have as much power in bargaining for discipline, internal investigation stipulations and conditions of employment as police do, say labor lawyers interviewed by the ABA Journal. And although complaints about police union contracts are not new, the criticisms have amplified since May, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Small businesses are struggling. It’s been more than three months since the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to shut down, send their employees home and get by on little-to-no income. “I think a lot of people, even as many big law firms and others put out webinars, still have questions that are personal to their organization and their business,” says Lana Kleiman.
