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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

JUSTICE UNOPPOSED – Donald Trump and Joe Biden may be duking it out for the White House, but plenty of judges across the nation are breezing onto the bench without facing any opposition. More than 500 judges in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, and Georgia were automatically elected or won reelection this cycle because they faced no challengers on the ballot, Raychel Lean reports. Most of them were incumbents. For example, Florida had 235 circuit judgeships come up for election this cycle and 199 were elected without opposition. In Georgia, 131 out of 147 incumbent judges won reelection without facing any opponents. Experts say several factors play into the dearth of contested judicial races, including that most judges do a good job and that judicial elections largely function as a check on unethical jurists.

BUSH V. GORE 2.0? - Will the result of the presidential election land in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court just as it did 20 years ago? Two high-profile litigators who worked on opposing sides of that 2000 case centered on Florida's infamous hanging chads have different perspectives on that question, Vivia Chen reports. David Boies thinks it "very unlikely" that SCOTUS will decide who occupies the White House for the next four years. But his close friend and sometimes opponent in court Ted Olson predicts that this election will be more "complicated" than 2000 unless either Trump or Biden garners an insurmountable lead.

GC AS CORPORATE STRATEGIST- Today's general counsel aren't just expected to dole out legal advice, they're called upon to provide strategic business guidance as well, Dan Clark reports. That was the consensus from in-house lawyers who spoke Monday on a virtual panel on the expanding role of general counsel, which was part Law.com and Corporate Counsel's Women, Influence & Power in Law conference. Top corporate lawyers have already taken on added human resources and crisis communication roles, and increasingly the job entails advising executive teams on growth and other key business initiatives. It may not be long before most general counsel report directly to their CEOs, the panelists predicted.

 

EDITOR'S PICKS

Former Key Trump-Era DOJ Leader Ethan Davis Returns to King & Spalding