The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus has renewed the focus on conditions inside the nation’s jails and prisons, many of which are struggling to implement proper cleaning and social distancing practices and protect their prisoners and staff. Elderly and sick prisoners have moved to the forefront of the conversation.
The power to respond to a public health crisis exists in the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, regulations and case law. But the way they fit together is not always clear, especially in the wake of a modern-day global crisis.
Former federal prosecutor and author James D. Zirin illuminates more than 45 years of Trump’s legal disputes in his new book, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. Zirin recently answered some questions from Robin Lindley, a Seattle-based writer and lawyer.
In a move being described as brave by some academics, the Utah Supreme Court has announced it will consider diploma privilege with no bar passage requirement for recent law school graduates, given that the coronavirus pandemic makes the July bar exam seem unlikely at this point.
“The students might be operating remotely, or the firms are not having a summer program, but they will pay the students some amount of money,” says Austen Parrish, dean of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
The COVID-19 pandemic has limited access to courts across the country, including in Massachusetts.
“We put together this team of attorneys from Carlton Fields and Troutman Sanders to start looking at how we could protect the opera and allow us to mobilize to get as many of these masks produced as possible,” said Micah Forston, managing director of the Atlanta Opera.
As law students worry about what the coronavirus pandemic will mean for their careers, some lawyers say those concerns should be eased by a Tuesday ABA resolution urging states to adopt emergency rules authorizing supervised limited practice for recent graduates, along with a bar pass requirement of no later than December 2021.
On April 3, personal injury lawyer Jim Mullen departed from his wife and toddler for a three-week assignment as a temporary nurse at a Level 1 trauma center in New York City. He completed his first shift—7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.—this past Sunday morning. He spoke to the ABA Journal shortly afterward and answered 10 questions.
While law students advocate for diploma privilege, and a growing number of deans are asking state supreme courts to consider supervised practice for 2020 graduates, the National Conference of Bar Examiners plans to proceed with administering the bar exam.