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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

CORONAVIRUS CUTS CONTINUE – A recent survey from Wells Fargo Private Bank found that a strong start to 2020 helped soften the blow for many law firms when COVID-19 began to crush legal demand. But even as economies begin to reopen, the legal industry still has a long road out of the woods, as evidenced by continued cost-cutting measures by several firms, including, most recently, Holland & Hart, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and Fried Frank. Dan Packel reports that, since the beginning of June, those firms have implemented compensation cuts and/or staff buyouts, signaling that even healthy firms remain cautious as the pandemic lingers.

URGENT CARE - The DOJ faces a deadline today to file its opening brief with SCOTUS in the Affordable Care Act case California v. Texas. The Trump Justice Department has argued in support of repealing the entirety of the signature Obama-era health care law. The Texas trial judge's 2018 ruling declaring the ACA unlawful garnered rave reviews from a number of court watchers, who called it "embarrassingly bad" and "unmoored." But a divided Fifth Circuit panel largely affirmed the decision last December, finding that the ACA's individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. A coalition of Democratic-led states appealed and the justices are likely to hear the dispute later this fall in the new term, perhaps shortly before the 2020 presidential election.

COVID'S CONSEQUENCES FOR COURTS - The U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet is set to hold a hearing titled, "Federal Courts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Best Practices, Opportunities for Innovation, and Lessons for the Future." Not the snappiest name but it certainly lets you know right up front what you're in for. Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget McCormack, Senior U.S. Judge for the District of Arizona David Campbell, Berkeley Judicial Institute executive director Jeremy Fogel and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press policy analyst Melissa Wasser are set to testify.

EDITOR'S PICKS

'Appellate Project' Aims to Boost Diversity in Specialized Bar

Bayer Agrees to Pay Up to $10.9B to Resolve Roundup Lawsuits

The Good Years Made Law Firms Complacent Ahead of the Pandemic, Report Finds

How Trump's Latest Suspension of Worker Visas Could Affect Tech Industry

Judge Orders McDonald's to Improve COVID-19 Protections

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

FACELIFT - Facebook will need to overhaul its business model in Germany after the country's highest court ruled that the social media giant abused its dominant position to collect and pool user data, Eva von Schaper reports. The decision means Facebook must now give German users the choice of how the company can use data it collects from its own platform and from its WhatsApp and Instagram sites, as well as information gathered from third parties.

WHAT YOU SAID

 

"The members of this panel have enjoyed long careers in the practice of law. We've seen enough to make it difficult to shock us. But not, as it turns out, impossible."

 

— William Bedsworth , acting presiding justice of California's Fourth District Court of Appeal, reversing a trial court's "unreasonable" decision to lower a third-strike defendant's sentence to five years for a hate crime against a Black pregnant woman at a Fullerton, California, bus station.

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