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

|

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

SUITS GALORE - Among the latest COVID-19-induced class actions: Food delivery apps like Uber Eats and GrubHub are the target of a civil antitrust suit that alleges they're driving up prices amid the pandemic; two class actions allege Six Flags has unlawfully continued to automatically charge monthly and season pass holders despite closing its amusement parks through mid-May; and attorneys on both coasts have filed a class action against Southwest Airlines alleging it failed to provide reimbursements for flights canceled as a result of the coronavirus.

SLOWING – The number of law students nationwide has declined 25% since The Great Recession, and Asian Americans have posted the single biggest enrollment decline among any racial or ethnic group in that time, according to a study by California Supreme Court Associate Justice Goodwin Liu and 2019 Yale Law School graduates Miranda Li and Phillip Yao. Karen Sloan reports that without a boost in enrollment, the number of Asian American lawyers in the U.S. will stagnate by 2030 after four decades of growth.

IN-PERSON – A federal judge in D.C. is set to hear arguments today over a TRO sought by immigration lawyers to halt in-person proceedings in the nation's immigration courts. Immigration judges and lawyers have protested the decision to have the courts, which are run by the DOJ, continue with hearings during the pandemic, saying it puts them and their clients at risk. Attorneys with Cleary have joined the case on the side of the immigration lawyers and are asking for the proceedings to be temporarily halted while DOJ officials draft and implement policies "to enable hearings to proceed remotely and safely."

|

EDITOR'S PICKS

Texas Judge Disciplined for Facebook Posts Congratulating Lawyers

 Just the Papers Please: DC Circuit Scraps More Oral Arguments During COVID-19

|

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

RECORD-BREAKING – China filed the most international patent applications in the world in 2019, overtaking the U.S. for the first time in more than 40 years. Vincent Chow reports that Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies was the top corporate patent filer for the third year in a row. China filed 58,990 applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization last year, an 11% increase from 2018, while applications from the U.S. totaled 57,840, a 3% increase from 2018.

|

WHAT YOU SAID

"It's unbelievable. It is of a scope and scale that is different than anything else anyone has seen in terms of the economy shutting down, the level of death and destruction."

— Jamie Gorelick, partner at Wilmer Hale, commenting on the coronavirus pandemic. She has handled crisis-related legal matters in public service and private practice, including the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.

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