Want to get this daily news briefing by email? Here's the sign-up. 

|

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

NEXT STEP – The House Oversight and Reform Committee is expected to vote this week on holding Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for missing a subpoena deadline to produce documents about an attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

MOMENTUM – The New York State Bar Association is joining a nationwide trend as it launches today a blue-ribbon committee to determine if the state should remove questions about mental health disorders from applications for the bar. As part of Law.com's Minds Over Matters coverage, Susan DeSantis reports that in February, the national Conference of Chief Justices urged all states to remove mental health inquiries from its applications. Several states, including Connecticut, have already done so, and other states are studying the issue. A moral character working group convened by California's bar association held its first meeting Friday in San Francisco. Critics of the questions say law students avoid seeking help with mental health difficulties because they are concerned that doing so will negatively impact their bar admission.

CLASSY – The lawsuit brought by the former male engineer who filed a class action against the tech giant last year for allegedly discriminating against him and other employees who are conservative, white and male is moving ahead. Alaina Lancaster reports that a California judge in San Jose on Friday rejected Google's bid to toss the class action claims and found that the company failed to show there is “no reasonable possibility” to identify a class made up of people with shared political ideologies. Google fired engineer James Damore in 2017 after he distributed a 10-page memo that said the company's gender gap might not only be caused by bias but biological differences, such as women's disposition toward “agreeableness” and “neuroticism.” Damore last year withdrew from the lawsuit to pursue claims in arbitration but other plaintiffs remain.

|

EDITOR'S PICKS

|

Can You Hear the 'Heels of Justice'? This In-House Duo Is Turning Up the Volume.

University of Arizona General Counsel Describes How Coach's Bribery Scandal Hurt School

|

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

|

MAKIN' COPIES - A former Ropes & Gray London lawyer-in-training has been penalized by the ethics authority there for tracing the client's signature onto a document. Hannah Roberts reports that Louise Bolderstone, who was a trainee between August 2016 and February 2018, has been banned from working as a solicitor unless the ethics body approves. After an original document was lost, Bolderstone sent a version purporting to be the original to a third party, the ethics body found.

|

WHAT YOU SAID

|

“I will not allow my family's name to be associated with an educational system that advocates a state law which discriminates against women, disregards established federal law and violates our Constitution.”

—  HUGH F. CULVERHOUSE JR., A FLORIDA LAWYER, WHOSE $21.5 MILLION GIFT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA SCHOOL OF LAW WAS GIVEN BACK AFTER A PUBLIC DISPUTE INVOLVING THE STATE'S ABORTION BAN AND ACCUSATIONS OF DONOR MEDDLING.

 ➤➤ Sign up here to receive the Morning Minute straight to your inbox.