“Basic Ethics Breaks Supreme Court Because Too Many Justices Have Book Deals” —
- “The good news is that the Supreme Court took its self-imposed, entirely toothless ethical code seriously and multiple justices recused themselves from a major copyright case implicating publishers paying them hefty sums for their books. The bad news is… apparently the Supreme Court just can’t hear major copyright cases because they have too many conflicts of interest with publishers paying them hefty sums for their books. “
- “The case is Baker v. Coates, where author Ralph Baker alleged that fellow author Ta-Nehisi Coates plagiarized from Baker’s Stock Exchange in Coates’s The Water Dancer. As part of the lawsuit, Baker named a hodgepodge of media entities as defendants from Oprah to Disney to MGM to Apple. At a certain point, a caption populated with deep pockets creates potential conflicts.”
- “24-6839, BAKER, RALPH W. V. COATES, TA-NEHISI, ET AL.: Because the Court lacks a quorum, 28 U. S. C. §1, and since the qualified Justices are of the opinion that the case cannot be heard and determined at the next Term of the Court, the judgment is affirmed under 28 U. S. C. §2109, which provides that under these circumstances ‘the court shall enter its order affirming the judgment of the court from which the case was brought for review with the same effect as upon affirmance by an equally divided court.’ Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Barrett, and Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.”
- “As Fix the Court notes, four of the six recusing justices have had or will have books published by Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of a media conglomerate called Bertelsmann, a named defendant. Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson have books with Penguin. The fact that the Supreme Court’s weak ethical guidelines don’t require justices to explain their recusals(Opens in a new window) — even if it intended to inspire that sort of transparency — it’s not immediately clear what prompted Alito to recuse himself.”
- “But still, it should be a problem that the highest court in the land is paralyzed in the face of major media conglomerates. Given that antitrust hasn’t done a particularly good job of policing the media space, these conflicts will only deepen as long justices keep writing books.”
- “And why DO we have justices constantly writing books while still serving the public? It’s a function of paying a public servant salary while allowing aristocratic role. In a normal job where the public trust might be implicated, an official might wait until they retire to cash in on big money book deal. But when life tenure transformed from ‘insulation from partisan whims’ to ‘confirmation-to-grave job security,’ the justices stopped envisioning a memoir-fueled retirement at a reasonable age and decided to start writing early and often as a salary supplement.”
David Kluft notes: “Can the federal government order government contractors to disclose whether they hired a law firm the President doesn’t like?” —
- “A portion of an executive order required government contractors to disclose if they did business with a certain law firm, with the aim of punishing and intimidating the firm and its clients to satisfy the President’s personal grudge.”
- “D.D.C. Judge Beryl Howell found that this order impinged the firm clients’ First Amendment right to engage in private association, and thus needed to be narrowly tailored to support a substantial government interest.”
- “Judge Howell found that the government attorneys ‘misrepresented’ the scope of this provision, ‘confusingly .. ignored’ the government’s burden, and made “zero effort” to explain a substantial interest. The provision was enjoined.”
- The decision.
“Goodwin Procter Meets EEOC Demand to Supply Diversity Data” —
- “Goodwin Procter axed relationships with major diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit organizations that seek to diversify the legal profession in the wake of federal scrutiny.”
- “The firm sent the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission more than 200 pages worth of information that it had demanded, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg Law. The agency, directed by President Donald Trump, wrote to 20 law firms March 17 asking them to hand over information on their diversity initiatives and hiring decisions going back 10 years.”
- “‘These changes, in combination with the firm’s past and ongoing demonstrated commitment to EEO, reflect that the firm’s policies and actions are in accord with the commission’s current guidance,’ a lawyer for Goodwin told the agency.”
- “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led a coalition of states that asked the 20 firms to send them the same information. Allan Bloom of Proskauer, who is guiding Goodwin in the EEOC probe, asked for the information to be kept confidential in an April 15 letter to Paxton obtained by Bloomberg Law.”
- “The EEOC also requested specific, identifiable data of past fellowship recipients and those promoted to partner, including names, phone numbers, race and gender. The firm declined to hand over identifiable data but did share anonymously fellowship recipients’ race, gender, school, grade point average and location of the office where they worked.”
- “Reed Smith is in talks with the EEOC over its requests, Perkins Coie declined to respond to the request until its suit contesting a punitive executive order was resolved, according to letters obtained by Bloomberg Law. Hogan Lovells, another firm that was probed for details, requested an extension past the April 15 deadline.”
- “Six firms who also received the EEOC letter— Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, A&O Shearman, Skadden, and Milbank— made deals with Trump that included free legal services, in exchange for being released from the probe.”
