In 'stunning fall from grace,' med-mal lawyer is convicted of trying to extort medical system for $25M By Paralegal Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Documents Preparer November 27, 2024, 8:50 am CST

A medical-malpractice lawyer once regarded as a top plaintiff’s attorney in Maryland was convicted of attempted extortion Friday, a day after a federal judge found him in contempt and ordered his detention overnight for violating court orders while representing himself. The conviction of 77-year-old lawyer Stephen L. Snyder for proposing a $25 million consulting deal with the University of Maryland Medical System is “a stunning fall from grace,” the Baltimore Sun reports. He was convicted on one count of attempted extortion and seven counts of violating the federal Travel Act for using interstate travel, emails, a text message and phone calls to further the alleged extortion scheme. Prosecutors had contended that Snyder promised to refrain from disparaging the medical system’s transplant program in exchange for the consulting deal, which would prevent him from suing on behalf of medical-malpractice clients because of a conflict of interest. Snyder has said he offered to become a consultant to “help prevent any future tragedies.” Snyder is known around Baltimore for his slogan, “Don’t just sue them, Snyder them.” At the beginning of the trial, Snyder told jurors that the government “really turned around and Snyder’d me. And they Snyder’d me in a dishonest way,” according to the Baltimore Sun. Snyder contended that he was entrapped by the medical system, which strung him along while the FBI recorded several of his phone calls. He also said he had consulted with two ethics experts who said the consulting agreement would be legal and ethical. The Baltimore Banner reports that Snyder has won multiple nine-figure settlements and jury verdicts over the course of his 50-year career. “But by his own admission,” the publication reports, “Snyder is not at the top of his game. He has told the court that he is in poor health and struggling. He repeatedly ran afoul of the judge. Most of his direct and cross-examinations were peppered with sustained objections for not following court rules and [the judge’s] orders, including 100 in one day of testimony.” U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of the District of Maryland found Snyder in contempt after he delivered his closing argument Thursday, WBAL-TV reports. According to WBAL-TV, Boardman had “warned Snyder not to argue with witnesses, not to testify through statements, not to bring up topics he was aware the judge barred from the case in October—but he kept doing it anyway, including four times during his 75-minute closing argument.” Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 25. Snyder faces up to 20 years in prison for attempted extortion and each violation of the Travel Act. Hat tip to Law360, which also covered the verdict.

Lawyer mailed feces to federal judges, GOP politicians, ethics complaint says; he blamed his 'rage' on racism By Paralegal Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Documents Preparer November 27, 2024, 11:09 am CST

An Ohio lawyer on inactive status is accused of violating disciplinary rules by mailing human feces to federal judges and politicians along with messages accusing them of racism and kowtowing to President-elect Donald Trump. Richard John Steinle of Mogadore, Ohio, who was admitted to practice in 1981, is accused in a Nov. 25 ethics complaint noted by the Legal Profession Blog. He was accused after he was sentenced to two years of probation in March and fined nearly $9,700 in federal court for sending injurious articles through the mail. Mental health treatment was a condition of probation. Steinle sent feces and messages to judges in federal courthouses in Cincinnati and El Centro, California, according to the federal plea agreement cited in the ethics complaint. He also mailed parcels to Ohio state senators and the campaign donation address for a U.S. congressman. The targeted congressman was Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, according to Cleveland.com’s coverage of Steinle’s sentencing. The letters were also mailed to every Republican state senator in Ohio. Messages to the federal judges included, “S- - - goes down good after sucking Trump’s d- - -” and the word “racist” in all caps, the ethics complaint said. Messages to the politicians included, “Pigs eat s- - -—eat up oinker.” Steinle was 79 at the time of his sentencing, Cleveland.com reported in March. During the sentencing hearing, Steinle said he took full responsibility for his “vile and repulsive actions,” Cleveland.com reported. He said he had acted out of “frustration and rage” stemming from the state of the country, including problems of racism and gun violence. Steinle came to investigators’ attention after a postal inspector opened an investigation into letters to Ohio state senators that contained suspected human feces and the words “racist” and “pig” written on enclosed papers. The letters and parcels had printed return labels with the address of an Ohio state appeals court, the initials of an employee who worked there and two other return addresses not identified in the ethics complaint. The employee told investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service that she didn’t mail the items and suggested that Steinle could be involved. The employee said Steinle had been fired from his position as a court mediator. The employee’s husband had refused to represent Steinle in a civil lawsuit, and Steinle blamed her, the employee alleged. Steinle had blamed his 2017 firing on retaliation for his letter to the editor criticizing Ohio’s governor and the workers’ compensation system, according to a suit that he did file that was cited by Cleveland.com. A postal inspector conducting surveillance of Steinle in July 2022 saw him mail a letter while wearing a glove. The inspector retrieved the letter, which was addressed to a U.S. congressman, and opened it. The contents included a greeting card, what appeared to be feces and a one dollar bill. By Aug. 2, 2022, more than three dozen letters and parcels containing suspected feces were mailed to elected officials in Ohio; Kentucky; California; and Washington, D.C., the ethics complaint said. All had the court employee’s initials and the same addresses used on the items mailed to Ohio state senators. The ethics complaint alleges violations of ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from engaging in illegal acts that reflect adversely on their honesty or trustworthiness and that prohibit conduct adversely reflecting on fitness to practice law. The ABA Journal was unable to reach Steinle at a number listed on the Ohio Supreme Court’s attorney directory. A lawyer who represented Steinle in the criminal case did not immediately respond to a Journal email seeking comment.

Under Pressure: Understanding alcohol addiction in the legal profession By Paralegal Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Documents Preparer November 25, 2024, 8:53 am CST

Chad Pinkerton was 12 years old when he had his first alcoholic drink. By the time that he was a senior in high school, he says, he was abusing alcohol. And by his late 20s, he was a full-blown alcoholic. Just before starting law school in 2001, Pinkerton got pancreatitis and was told that he had to stop drinking or he would die. He stopped for two years. During his third year of law school, Pinkerton resumed drinking to deal with the stress of school and with the conflicts in his new marriage. “I was drinking extremely heavily,” Pinkerton says. “I had 10 to 12 drinks per day, four days a week.” Despite his heavy drinking schedule, Pinkerton graduated third in his law school class at the University of Houston Law Center in Texas, and in 2004, he started working at Ware, Snow, Fogel & Jackson (now known as Ware, Jackson, Lee, O’Neill, Smith & Barrow). “It’s very acceptable to drink in the practice of law,” says Pinkerton, who’s now a personal injury attorney in Houston. “You get together after a case, and you drink. This particular firm worked very hard and played very hard.” It’s no secret that lawyers have a high rate of problem drinking. According to data from the ABA, “as many as one in five lawyers is a problem drinker—twice the national rate.” Chad Pinkerton headshot_400px “I’ve always been able to focus and grind when it was necessary,” says Texas lawyer Chad Pinkerton. “I would work when I needed to work, but when I was off, I would drink with the partners.” These drinkers are able to keep their jobs because they’re considered to be either gray area drinkers or functional alcoholics. The former display early signs of an alcohol use disorder, while the latter appear to be somewhat in control of their drinking. “I’ve always been able to focus and grind when it was necessary,” Pinkerton explains. “I would work when I needed to work, but when I was off, I would drink with the partners.” Others aren’t so sure that gray area drinkers or functional alcoholics are able to function as well as they think. Jennifer Anderson, a legal consultant, a ghostwriter and a former attorney on Vashon Island in Puget Sound—west of Seattle—says gray area drinkers and functional alcoholics are easy to spot within the legal community. “They are the ones who are constantly rallying the troops to go out for drinks after work,” she says. “Once there, they tend to drink more and drink faster than their colleagues.” In larger law firms, Anderson says, you may see attorneys who are otherwise introverted sign up for social events with interns and summer associates, as the events associated with recruiting tend to be fueled by alcohol. In the morning, their eyes are swollen, they’re chugging water, and their thoughts are foggy. Anderson says she used to hear the managing partner of a small firm loudly vomiting in the restroom nearly every morning. For years, Anderson told herself that this level of drinking went hand in hand with a legal career. “I told myself for years that it was just a part of the job,” she says. “I knew so many people who drank too much too often. Being a lawyer is a stressful job—alcohol is a way to relieve some of the pressure.” Patrick Krill, a co-author of a 2021 study on the link between lawyers, mental illness and alcohol use, doubts that gray area drinkers or functional alcoholics are actually operative. “I view the term ‘functional alcoholism’ as a myth—a lie we like to tell ourselves in the face of nagging doubt about our or someone else’s drinking,” says Krill, founder and principal at Krill Strategies, a Pittsburgh-based behavioral health consulting company exclusively for the legal profession that helps reduce the effects on attorney mental health and substance abuse. Patrick R Krill headshot horizontal_400px “I view the term ‘functional alcoholism’ as a myth—a lie we like to tell ourselves in the face of nagging doubt about our or someone else’s drinking,” says Patrick Krill, founder and principal at Krill Strategies. (Photo by Bethany Jackson) No harm done? Todd Kinney, an attorney in Omaha, Nebraska, who considered himself to be a gray area drinker until he quit in 2019, thinks that gray area drinking is never truly harmless. But for some people, the negatives that come with it aren’t enough to prompt a change. Kinney usually constricted his drinking to weekends and social events, comparing his habits to a lot of suburban, professional dads, though on the inside, he says he had a tortured relationship with alcohol. Drinking for him was the main attraction—the main event. When he wasn’t drinking or recovering from drinking, he was thinking about the next time that he would be drinking. Finally, in 2019, after looking at his last six years of drinking, he says he finally quit, starting with a 90-day break and then committing to a six-month break. He extended the time again and again until he says he was committed for life. “The negatives of drinking began to outweigh the positives,” Kinney says. “There were too many benefits of quitting to ignore.” Functional alcoholism was also getting trickier for Pinkerton, who was now drinking his way through law school and also through dozens of trials. Pinkerton was becoming irritable, and he started struggling not to drink every day. Things took a nosedive for Pinkerton while on a business trip to Florida with his boss at the time. On the plane, Pinkerton drank an entire bottle of vodka, and he got close to having a fist fight with his boss, who didn’t think that Pinkerton was prepared for his deposition. His boss sent him home early, and Pinkerton checked into rehab, managing to stay sober for 10 months. Pinkerton then decided to start a firm—he’s the founder of the Pinkerton Law Firm. But after settling his first big case at his firm for $1.8 million, Pinkerton drank 14 Whiskey and Cokes, and he proceeded to fall down a flight of stairs. “That was the beginning of the end,” says Pinkerton, who returned to rehab and says he has been sober for 16 years. Anderson, too, says she was able to quit drinking, thanks to naltrexone, a medicine that blocks the highs that come with consumption.

BigLaw firm and ex-partner who sued for age bias agree on dismissal By Paralegal Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Documents Preparer November 26, 2024, 2:09 pm CST

A former Fox Rothschild equity partner who claimed that he was demoted to a position with lower pay and required to work under a series of one-year contracts has ended his age-bias lawsuit against the law firm. Former partner Michael J. Kline and the firm stipulated to dismissal of the suit without fees or costs against either party, Law360 reports. The stipulation does not say whether the suit settled. Kline, a former chair of the corporate department at Fox Rothschild, was 79 when he filed the suit in May in Mercer County, New Jersey, superior court. He alleged that, when he turned 73 in 2018, he was required to transition to the role of income partner and to accept a reduced annual salary of $200,000. He was later appointed as an assistant general counsel with lower pay of $150,000. When he complained about lower pay, the firm offered to pay him a $500,000 vested retirement benefit, at $100,000 per year for five years, to supplement his income, the suit said. Kline said the firm pressured him to sign a final contract that ended in March 2024. When he complained, he allegedly was told that it was time to “hang up [his] spurs.”

Lawyer went the extra 29 miles to shut down refinance scam - Paralegal and Certified Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M.

A lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, put the knowledge that he gained at a fall conference to use when he visited a homeowner and averted a financial scam. WSOC-TV has the story on lawyer Charles W. Hands III of the Hands Law Firm and his paralegal Devera Alston, who became suspicious when a man seeking a cash-out refinance was a no-show for a Zoom meeting. The man claiming to be the homeowner was in touch with the broker, UMortgage, by phone and text. He provided all the needed documents, including a copy of the homeowner’s driver’s license and tax records. Hands had attended a conference that discussed refinancing fraud and advised lawyers to always meet the homeowner face to face. Hands and Alston decided that they should visit the property being refinanced and made a 29-mile round trip to the home of Samuel Helmick. Hands told WSOC-TV that Helmick’s face matched that of the driver’s license sent to them online, but Helmick “had no idea who we were or knew anything about a refinance with us at all.” Helmick’s home was completely paid off. He told WSOC-TV that he was “absolutely stunned” to learn that someone was seeking about $450,000 in cash by refinancing his home. “They shut everything down, thank God,” Helmick said of Hands and Alston. “They took the time to come to my home, knock on the door and come on inside, and lay it all out for me. And I’ll always be appreciative of that.” UMortgage gave WSOC-TV a statement crediting “a system of checks and balances” for preventing financial loss to Helmick. “UMortgage takes cybersecurity very seriously and is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and security in our operations,” the statement said. WSOC-TV advises homeowners to freeze their credit and open all their mail, even if it looks like junk mail, to avoid such scams. Hands, Alston and Helmick would also like to see a rule requiring lenders to verify a homeowner’s identity in person.

AI-Generated Fake Case Law Leads To Sanctions In Wage Suit

The owner of a Missouri-based technology business that was ordered to pay an ex-employee roughly $311,000 in unpaid wages, damages and legal costs was sanctioned Tuesday by an appellate court for briefing "deficiencies," including submitting fake cases generated by artificial intelligence. The ruling was the first time the appellate court has had to weigh in on the "impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court," the opinion said. (iStock.com/photoschmidt) In a ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern Division rejected Jonathan R. Karlen's appeal of a 2022 order levying the $311,000 penalty against him and two companies associated with him, Indigo Three Limited and The Karlen Group, in a wage fight with Molly Kruse. It was the first time the appellate court has had to weigh in on the "impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court," the opinion said. "Due to numerous fatal briefing deficiencies under the Rules of Appellate Procedure that prevent us from engaging in meaningful review, including the submission of fictitious cases generated by artificial intelligence, we dismiss the appeal," Judge Kurt S. Odenwald wrote for the panel. "Given the frivolousness of the appeal, we also award damages to respondent [Kruse]." The appellate court ordered Karlen to pay Kruse $10,000 "in damages for filing a frivolous appeal." At issue in the case is a yearslong wage dispute between the parties. In a court filing, Kruse said she was hired by Indigo Three Limited, which operates as Indigo Three Strategies, in 2015 as its chief creative officer. She worked for the business, which identifies itself on its LinkedIn page as a builder of websites and applications, until 2019, according to the filing. After she was terminated, the company refused to pay her wages from 2018 and 2019, she said. Karlen is "the only known owner, officer and director of" Indigo Three Strategies and The Karlen Group, according to her filing. Kruse had filed a petition in 2021 seeking damages, and the following year a state judge ruled against Karlen and the two companies. The judge ordered Karlen and the companies to pay Kruse $72,936.42 for unpaid wages, $145,872.84 in damages and roughly $92,000 in attorney fees and legal costs. Karlen then mounted his appeal, "acting pro se purportedly on behalf of all defendants named in the original action," the appellate court's decision said. In its decision, the appeals court took Karlen to task for inadequate and problematic filings. Multiple issues arose during the appeal, the opinion said, including untimely filings, numerous deadline extensions and claims by Kruse that Karlen had failed to make certain required filings. "Particularly concerning to this court is that appellant submitted an appellate brief in which the overwhelming majority of the citations are not only inaccurate but entirely fictitious," the opinion said. "Only two out of the twenty-four case citations in appellant's brief are genuine." The panel said Karlen "offers citations that have potentially real case names — presumably the product of algorithmic serendipity — but do not stand for the propositions asserted." He also "erroneously" cited Missouri statutes and rules, the opinion said. "Throughout the appellate brief, appellant's cited statutory and rule authorities do not state what appellant claims," the ruling said. "For instance, some statutes and rules concern a completely different legal matter than what appellant purports, while others misstate the substance of the law." The appeals court also took aim at a reply brief in which Karlen "apologized for submitting fictitious cases and explained that he hired an online 'consultant' purporting to be an attorney licensed in California to prepare the appellate brief." "Appellant stated he did not know that the individual would use 'artificial intelligence hallucinations' and denied any intention to mislead the court or waste respondent's time researching fictitious precedent," the opinion said. "Appellant's apology notwithstanding, the deed had been done, and this court must wrestle with the results." The "bogus citations" in Karlen's filing represent "a flagrant violation of the duties of candor appellant owes to this court," the panel said. "We regret that appellant has given us our first opportunity to consider the impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court, an issue which has gained national attention in the rising availability of generative A.I.," Judge Odenwald wrote for the panel. In its ruling, the panel referred to the Mata v. Avianca case in New York federal court, in which a judge last year reprimanded attorneys for submitting a brief prepared by artificial intelligence that cited nonexistent case law. "To protect the integrity of the justice system, courts around the country have been considering and/or enacting local rules specifically geared towards prohibiting or disclosing the use of generative A.I. in court filings," the Missouri appellate court said Tuesday. Karlen's "fictitious citations alerted us and respondents to the probability of generative A.I.'s involvement even prior to appellant's disclosure after the fact," the panel said. "We urge all parties practicing before this court, barred and self-represented alike, to be cognizant that we are aware of the issue and will not permit fraud on this court in violation of our rules," the appeals court said. Judges Odenwald, Michael E. Gardner and Renée D. Hardin-Tammons were on the panel for the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. Karlen, who confirmed to Law360 that he is a candidate for a state legislature seat in Missouri, declined to comment Tuesday about the decision. Counsel for Kruse didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Karlen is representing himself. Kruse is represented by Bridget L. Halquist of Summers Compton Wells LLC. The case is Kruse v. Karlen et al., case number ED111172, in the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. --Additional reporting by Ryan Boysen. Editing by Alanna Weissman. Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly identified the state in which Karlen is a candidate for public office. The error has been corrected.

Bank Trade Chief Warns Of Rules 'Masquerading As Guidance'

The American Bankers Association's chief executive fired off a warning shot at federal regulators on Monday over their use of agency guidance, cautioning that several recent documents addressing certain bank fees and other practices are no substitute for formal rulemaking. Speaking at a conference in Texas, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols criticized what he described as a trend toward "regulation masquerading as guidance" at the banking agencies and said they should not be "circumventing the notice-and-comment process" by using guidance to prescribe new standards. "Banks welcome guidance that helps them understand and comply with legal requirements," Nichols said in prepared remarks at the conference, an ABA-sponsored event for community bankers. "But we're seeing a disturbing pattern lately of federal agencies — including federal bank regulators — issuing so-called 'guidance' documents that are, in fact, regulatory rules." Nichols expanded on those concerns in letters that he and other ABA officials sent Monday to top officials at the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Recent agency guidance has "too often" consisted of binding legal requirements that must go through notice-and-comment, and in the "most egregious cases," it has even exceeded their statutory authority, Nichols wrote in his letter. Other letters addressed to the FDIC and CFPB singled out five of their recent guidance documents as examples of what Nichols called "guidance gone wrong" in his Monday speech. Among the five were missives issued by the FDIC in 2022 that frowned on charging repeated non-sufficient fund fees, or NSF fees. That guidance is already the subject of an industry challenge pending in Minnesota federal court. The letters also flagged CFPB guidance from last year that warned about fees for "basic" bank account-related information, "pay-to-play" arrangements on mortgage comparison shopping sites, adverse action notices for lenders using artificial intelligence, and immigration-related credit discrimination. According to the ABA, these documents suffer from significant legal and procedural flaws, often create more uncertainty for banks, and should be scrapped until the agencies revise and re-issue them as proposals for public comment. "The failure to confer with industry about interpretive questions, operational impacts, and system constraints limits the utility of guidance, undermines its acceptance, and may limit its durability as administrations change," Nichols wrote.  Monday's letters built on an ABA white paper published last week that raised similar concerns about regulators' use of guidance and urged restraint going forward, including the adoption of a specialized notice-and-comment process for "significant" agency guidance. The paper said that while guidance can be "useful" as a way to clarify legal ambiguities and articulate enforcement approaches, regulators have frequently missed the mark by issuing guidance that is either poorly written or verges into rulemaking territory governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. This latter category of "ineffective" guidance, according to the paper, has included the FDIC and CFPB guidance highlighted in Monday's letters as well as an OCC bulletin issued last year on overdraft practices. But the paper also cited a few examples of "effective" guidance to emulate, such as an anti-money laundering-related issuance that the Fed, FDIC and OCC put out in April 2021. Neither the paper nor Monday's letters identified any specific Fed guidance documents as "ineffective" or otherwise problematic. Industry complaints about regulators exploiting guidance for backdoor rulemaking aren't new. A decade ago, for example, similar criticisms featured in debates over CFPB indirect auto lending guidance that federal lawmakers ultimately struck down as a de facto rule. During the Trump administration, the banking agencies and CFPB sought to reassure the industry by promising that they would limit how they use guidance and would not enforce based on it. The agencies codified this stance in a final rule published at the start of the Biden administration that remains on the books. But more recent regulatory efforts to rein in banks' fee practices, tighten the screws on digital assets and address other fintech-related risks have prompted renewed concerns in the industry about overuse of guidance. Bank trade groups have also shown greater willingness to push back in court on perceived agency excesses. The ABA, for example, is involved in two lawsuits against different CFPB regulatory actions and joined other trade groups last week in suing the Fed, FDIC and OCC to block their new community reinvestment rules. "It's never our preference to bring these kinds of lawsuits," the ABA's Nichols said in his Monday speech. "But we won't shy away from doing so when it's necessary and when we have no other recourse."

BREAKING: Trump Turns To Supreme Court In Criminal Case - by Certified Paralegal and Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

Former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to stay a D.C. Circuit panel's ruling that he is not immune from federal charges for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election.  The high court's intervention is needed to "forestall ... an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures," Trump argues, referring to the D.C. Circuit panel's order allowing the district court to move forward with proceedings even if the former president requested review by the entire bench. Trump wants the Supreme Court to grant a stay so that he can seek an en banc review with the D.C. Circuit. He adds the prosecution of a former president would be a "breach of precedent and historic norms" that the Supreme Court shouldn't allow.  "The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed administration will overshadow every future president's official acts – especially the most politically controversial decisions," Trump says.  A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel – comprising two Biden appointees and one H.W. Bush appointee – issued a unanimous per curiam opinion Feb. 6 rejecting Trump's assertion that he has so-called presidential immunity from prosecution for any official acts taken in the White House. The panel said Trump's claim for sweeping immunity "is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution." Trump is facing a four-count indictment in D.C. federal court that accuses him of undertaking a wide-ranging strategy to overturn the 2020 election results, including pressuring state lawmakers and organizing alternate slates of electors. He is charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring against citizens' right to vote. He contends the indictment must be tossed for three reasons. The courts, Trump claims, are powerless to review official presidential acts, public policy favors immunity and the U.S. Constitution bars the prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment. The D.C. Circuit panel addressed each argument separately in a 57-page opinion, first finding Trump's reading of Marbury v. Madison to say that official presidential acts "can never be examinable by the courts" was incorrect. The foundational ruling allows for judicial review of "ministerial" actions that officials are bound by law to perform while prohibiting review of discretionary decisions, the panel said. Trump had no discretionary authority to defy "generally applicable" criminal laws and must be held "answerable in court for his conduct," the panel ruled. The public's interest in criminal accountability and the executive branch's interest in upholding presidential elections also outweigh any risks that Trump alleges would arise if former presidents could be criminally prosecuted, the appellate panel held. The judges rejected claims that future presidents wouldn't take necessary actions during their time in office due to a threat of post-term prosecution. "Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the president, the Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review," the panel said. "We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter." Finally, the panel held that Trump's argument that the impeachment clause prohibits prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment rests on a "logical fallacy." The clause was explicitly written to not limit an official's criminal liability, and it shouldn't be read any other way, the panel said. Trump is represented by John F. Lauro and Gregory M. Singer of Lauro & Singer, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove of Blanche Law, and D. John Sauer, William O. Scharf and Michael E. Talent of James Otis Law Group LLC. The federal government was represented at the D.C. Circuit by Jack Smith, J.P. Cooney, Michael R. Dreeben, James I. Pearce, Molly Gaston, Thomas P. Windom, Raymond N. Hulser, John M. Pellettieri and Cecil W. VanDevender of the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Counsel's Office. The case is Trump v. United States, case number 23A745, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Iran capable of building nuclear bomb in one week, report finds as Middle East tensions flare - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Document Preparer

An Iran watchdog group says the country has enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear weapon in just one week. The Institute for Science and International Security published the findings in a report on Monday, saying Tehran could produce a total of six bombs in a month. "The volatile situation in the region is providing Iran with a unique opportunity and increased internal justification for building nuclear weapons while the United States and Israel’s resources to detect and deter Iran from succeeding are stretched thin," the report states. "Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities are more dangerous than they have ever been, while its relations with the West are at a low point." Iran can "break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a week, using only a fraction of its 60% enriched uranium," the report continued. "This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access." An Iran watchdog group says the country has enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear weapon in just one week. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) Iran has been steadily growing its ability to produce enriched uranium in recent years. The substance needs to be enriched to roughly 90% before being used in a nuclear weapon. Iran has an extensive supply of 60% enriched uranium that could quickly be siphoned off and enriched further. The report comes as tensions in the Middle East continue to skyrocket. Iran's proxy terrorist groups have launched missiles into Israel and attacked U.S. forces operating in Iraq, Syria and the Red Sea. The U.S. Navy has shot down numerous anti-ship ballistic missiles launched by incoming Iran-backed Houthi missiles in the Red Sea. President Biden's administration says it is working to prevent Israel's war against Hamas from spilling over into a regional conflict. Nevertheless, the U.S. has carried out a series of airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and other groups. The uptick in U.S. strikes came after three American service members were killed in a drone attack on a base in Jordan in late January.

Mass. Attys Shrug Off 'Brilliant' Top Court Pick's Ties To Gov.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey's selection Wednesday of a former romantic partner to fill a vacancy on the state's highest court didn't raise eyebrows among prominent Bay State attorneys, who touted Appeals Court Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian's "impeccable" resume on the bench and in BigLaw. Justice Wolohojian, 63, if confirmed, will replace Justice David Lowy, who left the Supreme Judicial Court to serve as general counsel of the University of Massachusetts. Justice Wolohojian, a graduate of Columbia Law School, has served on the Appeals Court, an intermediate appellate court, since 2008. Prior to that, she was a partner at WilmerHale, where she first met Healey. While the two were involved in a long-term relationship and lived together in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, Healey did not address their past connection in her announcement. She called Justice Wolohojian the best candidate for the position. "There is no one more qualified or better prepared to serve on the Supreme Judicial Court than Justice Wolohojian," Healey said in a statement announcing the nomination. "She will bring over three decades of broad trial and appellate experience, including sixteen years on the Appeals Court." Healey's relationship with Justice Wolohojian ended prior to her election as governor in 2022, according to published interviews of the governor and her new partner, Joanna Lydgate, who is also an attorney. The nomination was vetted by the Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission, and will now go to the Governor's Council. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 21. One member of the Governor's Council called Healey's decision "courageous." "I frankly think that it's kind of courageous of the governor to nominate her," Governor's Council member Terrence Kennedy told Law360 on Wednesday. "She knows she's going to catch heat." "She's absolutely brilliant," Kennedy said of Justice Wolohojian. Kennedy said he had encouraged her to apply for a vacancy on the court during the administration of then-Gov. Charlie Baker. "She's really, really smart and really qualified," Kennedy said. "When you look at it objectively, she has impeccable credentials," said Martin Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association. "It's a solid pick." "I don't think it's going to be an impediment," Healy said of the prior relationship. Justice Wolohojian has strong support within the legal community, said Healy, and brings "tons of experience" both as a practicing attorney and a jurist. "She'll hit the ground running," he said. Justice Wolohojian joined what was then known as Hale & Dorr in 1991, following clerkships for U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel and U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Judge Bailey Aldrich, according to a biography provided by the governor's office. She eventually became partner and chair of the firm's litigation department, focusing on complex commercial cases, including product liability and consumer class actions. Justice Wolohojian spent 16 months as an associate independent counsel on what came to be known as the Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton in 1994 before returning to the firm, which merged with Wilmer Cutler & Pickering in 2004. She was appointed to the Appeals Court by then-Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008. Besides a workload that has included authoring more than 900 decisions for the Appeals Court, Justice Wolohojian chairs the Supreme Judicial Court's Advisory Committees on the Rules of Appellate Procedure, and the Appeals Court's Committees on Judicial Mentoring and Training, Education, Policies and Practices, and En Banc Rehearings. Prior to Columbia Law School, where she received her law degree in 1989 and served as a Columbia Law Review editor, Justice Wolohojian earned a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Oxford in 1987, and a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University in 1982. The selection earned praise from retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine S. Hines, who called Justice Wolohojian "uniquely qualified" for the role in the statement announcing the nomination. "This is a difficult job that demands intellectual vigor, respect for the rule of law, an unwavering commitment to equal justice under the law, and an impeccable work ethic," Justice Hines said. "From our time together on the Appeals Court and from my conversations with colleagues who have continued to serve on the court, I can say that Justice Wolohojian is richly blessed with these qualifications, as exemplified in her record of achievement as a lawyer and jurist." Outside her legal work, Justice Wolohojian is also a violinist who has performed with the Boston Civic Symphony for 35 years, and has served as president of the organization's board. She also serves as an overseer of a radio program called "From the Top," which features children performing classical music. The governor on Wednesday also nominated four new state district court justices, who if confirmed will sit in community courts in the greater Boston area. Among the nominees is longtime Supreme Judicial Court clerk Francis V. Kenneally, who has overseen the court's docket for the past decade. The other nominees include Lynnfield solo practitioner Leo Fama, Middlesex County Assistant District Attorney Courtney C. Linnehan, and Executive Office of Public Safety and Security attorney Marjorie P. Tynes, who is the agency's deputy executive director of the office of grants and research.

Dish's Bid For More Fees Called 'Nightmare' By Fed. Circ. Judge

A Federal Circuit judge told counsel for Dish Network LLC on Wednesday that to secure more fees after the cable giant defeated a patent case in district court that was found to be "exceptional" to cover the costs of challenging the patent at the patent board would create "an effing nightmare." Dish had argued to the three-judge panel that it should be able to bill a shell patent company for expenses incurred challenging the patent through an inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board after Dish defeated the related patent suit against it. The patent company, Dragon Intellectual Property LLC, was also appealing the $1.45 million in fees that Dish already won, along with the $1.86 million won by attorneys for Sirius XM Radio Inc. in a different case over the same patent. But the hearing was dominated by arguments over efforts by Dish's lawyers to score more money out of Dragon IP and potentially its lawyers — taking up over an hour of debate among the panel of judges. In that endeavor, Dish had cited the 1989 Sullivan v. Hudson ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which gives the courts discretion to award fees to lawyers in a Social Security administrative proceeding. According to the filings, Baker Botts LLP billed Dish for $673,905 in fees from patent board proceedings and wanted that money added to the $1.45 million. Sirius XM was hoping to clock $134,272 in additional fees. U.S. Circuit Judge Kara Farnandez Stoll told Baker Botts lawyer Lauren Dreyer that she had a "practical" question about this argument. "The district court is in the best position to determine whether or not something is exceptional or not because they're in the day-to-day running of the case. That's not so with an IPR," she said. "The district court knows nothing about what happened at the IPR." U.S. Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore was more wary of the possible effect of Dish's request in a legal climate where "every single patent litigation has a companion IPR now." This would open up an entirely new avenue for victorious patent lawyers to litigate further, Judge Moore said. "So, what you're now asking for is every time we're thinking about attorney's fees, anytime an IPR is successful, you're going to have the district court being put in what Judge Stoll was just articulating [is] the very awkward position of trying to evaluate the exceptionality of what was argued and decided, not in his or her forum but in an administrative forum," Judge Moore said. "That sounds like I'm creating an effing nightmare." In response, Dreyer tried to argue that these motions would not come all the time if Dish succeeded just this once. "I think [this case] is the exception; it's not the rule, and it only occurs in the rare cases in which there is frivolousness and an unreasonable manner of litigating," she said. That didn't go down well with Judge Moore. "With all due respect, every time you guys win, that's what you claim," Judge Moore told her, audibly annoyed at Dreyer's repetition of legalese. U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo, on the panel by designation, acted to move the lawyers along in talking about "the circumstances in this case" and said there could be some general grounds for "sweeping the IPR" into a fee bid, as it "wasn't a waste of time [since] you didn't lose there." Judge Moore then told Dreyer that it appeared Judge Bencivengo was "arguing your case better than you are." The 12-member appeals court is down one of its regular members following the suspension of Judge Pauline Newman for refusing to undergo medical tests as part of a probe into her mental fitness. On Wednesday, a national panel that reviews judicial misconduct cases affirmed the suspension of the 96-year-old judge, saying that she hadn't shown good cause for not complying. Judge Bencivengo appeared occasionally mystified at the larger legal effort by Dish to go after Dragon in the first place. "Basically, you have a hollow victory here if you win because plaintiff Dragon is a shell. An empty shell. ... You can get zero. They're judgment proof," she told Dreyer. In addition to asking for more money, Dreyer said Dish was also hoping to get the appeals court to hold Dragon IP's lawyers liable for paying those fees. But Dreyer made little headway again. "All of what you discussed [with Judge Bencivengo] is not in this record. You attempted to supplement this record with a deposition that would have brought to light all of those points. They are not before this court, are they?" Judge Moore asked. Dreyer acknowledged they were not. "So we can't rely on any of that," the judge told her. Judge Moore also took issue with how defense-side patent lawyers use "exceptionality" findings in federal courts. "It feels like in a lot of these exceptional case findings, what really bothers me is that you all come in, and you complain that the district court should have done some sort of redo of all the things it didn't do in order to conclude that the originally asserted positions should have been deemed exceptional," she said. "You're asking us to adopt a rule in which district court judges are now going to have to evaluate conduct, behavior and an outcome in a proceeding they had no involvement with and determine whether fees should be awarded for that in their forum, which would have evaluated the exact same issues under an entirely different burden of proof." The exclamation seemed to surprise Dreyer, who responded that "there shouldn't be a bright-line rule" about it. "Oh, that's good," responded Judge Moore, who later warned that "floodgates will open" from victorious defense-side lawyers if Dish wins what it wants from the appeals court. "I'll be honest. I don't know how many exceptional case findings that have been appealed to me that have ever been overturned," she said. "I'm sure there's some law professor out there that will let us all know on Patently-O." Judge Bencivengo suggested that the court could create "factors" that judges could use to consider if the IPR fees could be included. After Dreyer said that sounded like a good idea, Judge Moore responded: "Out of curiosity, did you make any of those arguments?" "Yes, your honor, we did," Dreyer said. "Really? I would love to see them. On what page in your brief?" Judge Moore asked. Dreyer then acknowledged that actually she hadn't quite made that argument. "I think the answer is 'No, I didn't make those arguments,'" the judge told her. Dragon IP's lawyer also didn't appear to start off on the best footing with Judge Moore. In arguing against the fee awards, Dragon IP lawyer James McDonough III of Rozier Hardt McDonough PLLC said, "I believe reasonable minds could interpret the statements and the prosecution history differently." But Judge Moore told him she was likely not to be swayed. "Let's just start from the premise that is most likely, which is 'I completely disagree with everything you just said,' could you just move on?" she asked. The patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent No. 5,930,444. U.S. Circuit Judges Kimberly A. Moore and Kara Stoll and U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo sat on the panel for the Federal Circuit. Dragon IP is represented by James McDonough III of Rozier Hardt McDonough PLLC. Dish is represented by Lauren Dreyer, Jamie Lynn, G. Hopkins Guy III and Spencer Packard of Baker Botts LLP. The case is Dragon Intellectual Property LLC v. Dish Network LLC, case number 22-1621, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Georgia's Top Judge Asks Legislators To Keep Judges Safe Explains Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

Attacks on and threats to judges across the nation are a serious threat that must be addressed in order to ensure "the very independence of our judiciary," Georgia's chief justice told legislators during his second State of the Judiciary address in Atlanta on Wednesday. Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs of the Georgia Supreme Court urged the Georgia General Assembly to support legislation proposed by the Judicial Council of Georgia that would require state and local governments to keep the personal identifying information of judges confidential. Such protections are needed due to the increased threats and attacks faced by judges across the country over the last two years, Justices Boggs said, citing the June 2022 murder of retired Wisconsin state Judge John Roemer, the October murder of Maryland state Judge Andrew F. Wilkinson and the December arrest of a Nevada man who was charged with solicitation to murder two state court judges. Roemer, Justice Boggs said, was murdered in his home by a man he had sentenced to prison, while Wilkinson was murdered outside his home by a man involved in a child custody dispute. "No doubt, these attacks and threats are meant to intimidate and influence courts away from serving as fair and impartial arbiters of justice," Justice Boggs said. "Georgia's judges will not be threatened or intimidated into abandoning their constitutional duties, but incidents like these are repugnant to the rule of law and, if left unchecked, they threaten the very independence of our judiciary." Justice Boggs, who became Georgia's top judge in July 2022, said one way the legislature could help address the problem would be to support legislation proposed by the Judicial Council of Georgia's standing committee on judicial security. Under the proposed legislation, which the council discussed at its most recent meeting, states and local authorities would not be allowed to publicly post or display the personal information of those identified as "protected." In the event that a protected person's information was shared, the draft legislation says, authorities would have 30 days to remove the posts before injunctive relief could be sought. Justice Boggs also emphasized the importance of addressing "workforce development challenges" that make it more difficult for Georgia's courts to run quickly, smoothly and efficiently. Seven rural Georgia counties have no licensed attorneys, Justice Boggs said, and there are 41 assistant district attorney vacancies statewide. Eight of Georgia's 50 judicial circuits have assistant district attorney vacancy rates of 25 percent or higher. Similarly, Justice Boggs said the Georgia Supreme Court had undergone a staff attorney turnover rate of more than 57% since January 2019, and 10 law clerks and administrative assistants have left the Georgia Court of Appeals for "better pay or retirement" over the last 18 months. Even the Georgia Legal Services Program, which arose in the late 1960s to address the dearth of lawyers in rural areas, is facing challenges with more than a dozen openings in Albany, Valdosta, Columbus, Dalton, Macon and Savannah and in its Piedmont region, Justice Boggs said. That's a problem, he said, as it makes it more difficult for survivors of domestic violence, those in need of housing and others to receive the civil legal services they need. "The ugly truth is that many people in Georgia simply do not have access to a lawyer at the most critical time in their lives, either because of where they live or because they cannot afford one," Justice Boggs said. Analyzing the issue, the justice said that while 732 new lawyers passed the July Georgia bar exam, many of them likely plan to practice in and around Atlanta, where private-sector jobs tend to pay higher salaries. Pay for attorneys willing to work in the public sector, he said, is not as competitive today as it was in the 1980s and 1990s. "We must reckon with the fact that this trend depletes our pool of seasoned legal professionals and necessitates time-consuming recruitment and training efforts for their replacements," Justice Boggs said. Age is another factor affecting talent retention, the justice said. The average age of court reporters in the state, whom he identified as vital "spokes on the wheels of justice," was 54 before the pandemic began, with 70% of those court reporters being over the age of 50. Many of these people are now approaching retirement or have retired already, he said, and fewer new court reporters are becoming licensed. This, he said, means "there won't be new ranks to replace the outgoing ones." "Just as it is critical to have enough doctors, nurses and teachers to adequately deliver health care and education services to our citizens, so too must Georgia have enough law enforcement and public safety officers, lawyers and court staff professionals to effectively and efficiently keep the wheels of justice turning," Justice Boggs said. "Without enough court reporters to meet the demand, trials and other proceedings will slow once again." Even so, Justice Boggs, said the state of Georgia's judiciary remains "strong." The number of pending serious violent felony cases in Georgia has decreased by 11% in recent years thanks to American Rescue Plan Act funding allocated by the governor's office to the judicial branch, Justice Boggs said. That is "significant progress," he said, given the challenges affecting judges' efforts to move backlogged dockets that are "still feeling the aftershocks" of the COVID-19 pandemic. "I want to assure you that despite challenges, we remain steadfast in applying and interpreting — not making — the laws and constitution of our state," Justice Boggs said. "And, as always, I want to again express our appreciation for the trust and support that you all in our legislative branch have shown us as we seek your partnership in addressing a wide array of issues affecting our courts." In his first State of the Judiciary address last year, Justice Boggs also lamented workforce challenges that impeded the effort to address case backlogs after the worst of the pandemic.

Giuilani Says Unpaid Bills Mounted As Legal Career Sputtered

Rudy Giuliani laid out his downward financial spiral in acute personal detail over three hours on Wednesday, answering questions from a government bankruptcy watchdog about his approximately $10.6 million of assets, offset by unpaid bills for everything from golf club memberships to condo fees and credit cards. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in Washington on Dec. 11. On Wednesday, Giuliani answered the U.S. Trustee's questions about some $10.6 million in assets he claimed in a Chapter 11 case he filed after a jury found he owed $148 million to two former election workers. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) The former mayor of New York City, who struggled at times to recall details including the timeline of his legal career, shed light on a multitude of catch-up payments he is making — for taxes, dry cleaning and his ex-wife's 90-year old mother's care, for instance — and the spate of lawsuits he is facing, including the $148 million judgment that drove him to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December. The Republican firebrand and ally of former President Donald Trump claimed to have no life insurance and no insurance for his Manhattan co-op apartment, which he said is now listed at $5.9 million, in answering questions from Andrea Schwartz for the Office of the U.S. Trustee. Schwartz was running a so-called "Section 341 meeting of creditors" in Giuliani's case, a routine step in the early stages of bankruptcies where the debtor must personally face the U.S. Trustee and creditors to lay bare any assets that could be pursued for the benefit of the estate. "She asked all the right questions and I gave her all the information that I have. I have nothing to hide," Giuliani said as he exited the courthouse Wednesday. Schwartz combed through the details of Giuliani's financial filings for information about how his once lucrative law practice began to fail after he started representing Trump pro bono. Flanked by his bankruptcy counsel, wearing a dark suit and sitting at a table across from Schwartz, Giuliani explained his move from Bracewell & Giuliani LLP to Greenberg Traurig LLP, which he had to leave in 2018 because clients complained about his representation of Trump — with whom he eventually worked "kind of ... 24 hours a day." After the 2020 election, Trump tapped Giuliani to lead a team of lawyers pursuing claims of election fraud. He was supposed to get a salary but didn't, and is now owed an estimated $2 million, which his estate could pursue in bankruptcy. But he took "a major financial hit" when he lost his law license in New York and the District of Columbia in 2021 after speaking at a rally before the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, he said. Since then, he has built up Giuliani Communications, a subsidiary of Giuliani Partners. He earns about $15,000 a month on average from his WABC radio show, which airs every weekday, and a livestream called "America's Mayor Live." The company also employs a handful of other people who are guests, cohosts, producers and security. Giuliani's assets include a $1.2 million retirement account; $30,000 worth of watches, a diamond ring and three Yankees world series rings; a roughly $6 million Manhattan co-op apartment; a $3.5 million Palm Beach condo; and a 1980 Mercedes Benz previously owned, he said, by actress Lauren Bacall. He pays $800 a month for a storage unit in the Bronx holding awards, books, artwork, furniture and files. "I don't think there's anything very valuable," Giuliani said. He has not had his 1951 Joe DiMaggio Yankees' jersey valued. And he spends more than $500 a month on dry cleaning because he wears a different suit every day, he said. Giuliani owns Uber shares, though he could not remember how many or where they are and had forgotten about them until his wife found them during their divorce. He said he received them for early work he did for the ride-sharing company. At other times, Giuliani and Schwartz traded brief banter about church and their personal lives. Counsel for a few creditors was present in the room, but none asked questions. Giuliani "earned everything he has in life through honest hard work," said spokesman Ted Goodman in a statement Wednesday. "The American people are waking up to the abhorrent weaponization of our justice system for partisan political gain, and the fact that we are here today is just another example of this great injustice." Ronald Kuby, who represents creditor Daniel Gill — the Staten Island ShopRite worker who sued Giuliani after he accused him of assault when he slapped him on the back — had a different take. Kuby did not ask any questions during the meeting Wednesday but said afterward that Giuliani was "pathetic" and "doddering" and "utterly unaware of his own finances." Giuliani is represented by Heath S. Berger and Gary C. Fischoff of Berger Fischoff Shumer Wexler & Goodman LLP. The case is In re: Rudolph W. Giuliani, case number 1:23-bk-12055, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

GOP Sens. Blast Ill. Judges' Moves For Diversity In Oral Arguments - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

Two Republican senators are questioning what they say are "unethical and unconstitutional" standing orders issued by at least three judges in the Southern District of Illinois that aim to promote participation by newer, female and minority attorneys. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John Kennedy, R-La., the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee's Constitution and Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights subcommittees, respectively, questioning the judges' alleged practice of granting oral argument requests based on an attorney's race or sex. In a letter sent Wednesday to Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Diane S. Sykes of the Seventh Circuit, which oversees the Illinois court, Cruz and Kennedy cite a legal complaint against the court's purported practice brought late last month by the conservative legal advocacy group America First Legal, which was founded by two top Trump administration officials. "In January 2020, Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel, along with Judge Staci M. Yandle, and later in October 2020, Judge David W. Dugan, issued nearly identical standing orders implementing a new policy regarding oral arguments in an effort to 'encourage the participation of newer, female, and minority attorneys in proceedings' in reaction to concerns about 'increasing opportunities for courtroom advocacy,'" reads the letter, shared exclusively with Law360, ahead of its public release. There were some variations between the orders, but "each establishes a policy under which oral argument requests are granted based on an attorney's race or sex rather than the substantive merits of the case or the importance of oral argument in clarifying the issue before the court," Cruz and Kennedy wrote. "Those disfavored notice. So do potential clients who realize they can get a leg up by hiring lawyers whose sexes and races are preferred by the court," the group said in a complaint. "Few judicial acts are as confidence-shaking as an announcement by a judge that she will handle a case depending in part on the sex or race of a litigant's attorney." They added this is "unethical and unconstitutional," especially since the U.S. Supreme Court over the summer struck down affirmative action in higher education admissions. Cruz and Kennedy asked Judge Sykes for answers to a list of questions to better understand the scale and scope of what they deem a "discriminatory" practice. They also ask for information about any training the Seventh Circuit or Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has provided for judges following the high court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard . The district judges could not be immediately reached for comment, and the Seventh Circuit said it could not comment currently.

Trainer Who Doped Horses Avoids Prison In Cooperation Deal - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., Certified Legal Document Preparer (Call or Text: (800) 590-6698 or Email: cldp@mail.com)

A New York trainer who admitted drugging horses so that the outcomes of their races could be fixed avoided prison Wednesday after a Manhattan federal judge credited his extensive cooperation with prosecutors to include testifying at two trials. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil directed defendant Ross Cohen, 52, of Middletown, to pay a $5,000 fine, to forfeit $40,000 and to contribute to more than $28 million of restitution in the feds' crackdown on corruption in horse racing. "You have likely offered the most significant cooperation of any defendant charged in this case," Judge Vyskocil said. "You seem to have changed and you seem to have broken the pattern of repeated drugging." Cohen, who had been a licensed racehorse trainer for 25 years working at Yonkers Raceway and other venues prior to his arrest, pled guilty in 2020 to a count of drug alteration and misbranding conspiracy. Prior to his arrest, Cohen had been fined for doping and suspended by at least one racing venue, the judge noted Wednesday. Under his cooperation deal with the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, Cohen testified at trial against two co-defendants, veterinarian Seth Fishman and racetrack worker Lisa Giannelli-Voshell, both of whom were found guilty and sentenced to prison. More than 25 people were charged in the crackdown, including most famously thoroughbred trainer Jorge Navarro. Navarro, nicknamed the "Juice Man," pled guilty and in 2021 was sentenced to five years by Judge Vyskocil. In a tearful statement, Cohen, who now works in sales, told the court that he is still working to repair the harm his actions caused. "In simple terms, I was greedy and selfish," he said. "People lost money because they bet on races that I helped fix. Then I received money that I was not entitled to. I also could have harmed the horses I was partially charged with caring for. I did irreparable harm to the horse racing industry because there will be people who will never regain trust that the races aren't fixed." Cohen faced a five-year sentence, the maximum possible for the conspiracy count to which he pled guilty. Without getting into specifics, Judge Vyskocil also said that Cohen assisted prosecutors in matters beyond the cases that are before her. The government's sentencing memorandum detailing Cohen's cooperation is not public. Cohen's lawyer Aida Leisenring said after the sentencing that Cohen showed honest remorse. "Second chances were invented for people like Ross Cohen. We are grateful to court for recognizing that Mr. Cohen tackled many obstacles to right the wrongs he committed," she told Law360 via email. Cohen is represented by Bruce Barket and Aida Leisenring of Barket Marion Epstein & Kearon LLP. The government is represented by David Felton of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. The case is USA v. Navarro et al., case number 1:20-cr-00160, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Ex-Wilmer Partner Among Biden's Latest District Court Picks - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP Certified Legal Document Preparer

President Joe Biden announced four judicial nominees on Wednesday morning to serve in district courts in New York, California and South Dakota. President Joe Biden, shown here on Jan. 6, announced four new judicial nominees Wednesday. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) The nominees are U.S. Magistrate Judge Sanket J. Bulsara for the Eastern District of New York, Judge Dena Michaela Coggins for the Eastern District of California, Eric Schulte, partner at Davenport Evans Hurwitz & Smith LLP, for the District of South Dakota and Judge Camela Theeler for the District of South Dakota. Judge Bulsara has served on the Eastern District of New York since 2017 and became the first South Asian American to serve on any court within the Second Circuit, according to his court bio. Before serving on the bench, he was deputy general counsel for appellate litigation, adjudication, and enforcement and then acting general counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Judge Bulsara also rose through the ranks to become a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, served a brief stint as special assistant district attorney at the Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney's Office and was an associate at Munger Tolles & Olson LLP. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he clerked for Judge John G. Koeltl on the Southern District of New York, the White House announcement said. Judge Coggins has been the presiding judge for the Juvenile Court of the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento since 2023 and a superior court judge since 2021, according to an announcement from the court.  She was previously an administrative law judge for the State of California's Office of Administrative Hearings in the general jurisdiction and special education divisions, the White House said. Judge Coggins has also served as a supervising attorney and hearing officer at the State of California Victim Compensation Board and deputy legal affairs secretary for the governor of California. In addition to her government work, she was an associate at Downey Brand LLP and at Morrison Foerster LLP, the White House said. Judge Coggins received her law degree from the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law. Schulte has been a partner at Davenport Evans Hurwitz & Smith LLP since 2006 and before that was an associate there for five years, his firm bio states. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk for the South Dakota Second Judicial Circuit in Sioux Falls. Schulte graduated from the University of South Dakota School of Law, his bio said. Judge Theeler has served on the Second Judicial Circuit of the South Dakota Unified Judicial System since 2018. She was previously an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of South Dakota, an associate then a partner at Lynn Jackson Shultz & Lebrun PC, and an associate at Morgan Theeler Law Firm LLP. Judge Theeler clerked for the First Judicial Circuit of the South Dakota Unified Judicial System after receiving her law degree from the University of South Dakota School of Law, according to the White House. Biden also announced on Wednesday his intent to nominate Col. John E. Richardson, executive assistant to the president of Alabama State University, to serve as U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Alabama. Law360 is tracking Biden's judicial nominees from the White House to the Senate to the federal bench.

Spouses Ran PPP Fraud In Secret, Ga. Defendants Tell Jury - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

A Georgia man and woman standing trial for charges that they helped orchestrate a scheme to illegally obtain $11 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans were unwittingly implicated in the fraud by their respective spouses, the defendants' lawyers told a federal jury Wednesday. Attorneys for Teldrin Foster and Carla Jackson, whom prosecutors say were instrumental in the 22-person fraud ring, argued during opening statements that both had in fact been bystanders, wrongly accused thanks to their close connections to the real perpetrators. Jackson's attorney, David Marshall, said that despite "all of these lawyers" the government assembled, he was confident there was "no evidence" his client — who is accused of using her business to help launder the proceeds of the loans — played any part in the scheme. Instead, Marshall continued, it was Jackson's ex-husband John Gaines who kept "secrets upon secrets upon secrets" from her. Not only did Gaines hide his involvement with the scheme, he said, but he also cheated on Jackson and fathered children out of wedlock prior to their divorce. "Carla Jackson committed no crime," Marshall said, adding the planned testimony of Gaines — who pled guilty to his role in the scheme last week — would "inject into this case more than the reasonable doubt required" to acquit Jackson. This week's trial is the culmination of a nearly 4-year-old investigation into the fraud ring the government said was masterminded by Duluth, Georgia's Darrell Thomas. According to prosecutors, Thomas recruited a wide cast of accomplices to file PPP loan applications during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, enacted as part of 2020's CARES Act, was designed to provide immediate relief to business owners by doling out hundreds of billions of dollars so they could keep workers on their payroll during the initial shutdown from the virus. Thomas pled guilty to profiting immensely from the initiative using forged IRS papers for front businesses, raking in more than $14.7 million from the PPP and other pandemic relief programs. Originally set to begin Monday, the proceedings were delayed after Jackson and Foster's co-defendant Jerry Baptiste failed to appear in court. Federal marshals were dispatched to track down Baptiste, but he remained unaccounted for as of Tuesday morning, when U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee elected to move into jury selection without him. The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately have an update on Baptiste's status. In presenting the government's case Wednesday, the DOJ's Siji Moore painted a portrait of a sophisticated criminal enterprise with Thomas at its head. Below Thomas were operatives like Foster, Moore added, who helped prepare falsified IRS documents, while other members recruited agents to register front businesses. The proceeds were then laundered by businesses like Jackson's "that only existed on paper"; Moore said it had no bank transactions in the first months of 2020, a period of inactivity abruptly followed by a series of six-figure deposits. "This case is about Teldrin Foster and Carla Jackson's decision to participate in fraud during a time of national crisis," Moore told the jury, a contention backed up by "a long paper trail" of bank records, computer files and digital communications. Foster and Thomas had a relationship predating the scheme, Moore said, but key to its success was the fact that Foster's wife worked for the Internal Revenue Service. Gena Pyfrom-Foster — who pled guilty to using her post to further the conspiracy and is due to begin a 41-month prison sentence this summer — served as the group's inside contact who worked with Foster to create the fake documents, he said.  But Foster's attorney, Leigh Ann Webster, argued it was Foster's wife whose dirty hands stained her client. In Webster's telling, Pyfrom-Foster and Thomas engaged in the scheme behind Foster's back. Both had access to Foster's email account, which the government says was used to communicate the details of the fraud, constituting "significant evidence" that Foster was never involved. Thomas reportedly owed Foster tens of thousands of dollars from prior business ventures together, Webster said, leaving Foster to assume any money he received from the scheme was simply a belated repayment of those debts. "From the government's perspective, this story is simple," Webster said, adding "there's more — a lot more — to this story." The government is represented by Siji Moore of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section and Nathan Parker Kitchens, Tal C. Chaiken, Radka T. Nations, Sekret T. Sneed and Samir Kaushal of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Carla Jackson is represented by David D. Marshall. Teldrin Foster is represented by Saraliene Durrett of Saraliene Smith Durrett LLC and Leigh Ann Webster of Strickland Webster LLC. The case is USA v. Thomas et al., case number 1:20-cr-00296, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

A federal jury in Maryland on Tuesday found former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby guilty of lying on mortgage applications for one of her two Florida vacation homes, but not guilty on the application for the other home. After a more than two-week trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, the jurors convicted Mosby of making a false mortgage application, ruling after a day of deliberations that Mosby lied about receiving a $5,000 gift from her husband as she closed on a condominium in Longboat Key, Fla., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. The jury, however, acquitted her on similar charges related to the purchase of an eight-bedroom house in Kissimmee. The split verdict is a second conviction for Mosby, Baltimore's top prosecutor from 2015 to 2023. In November, a separate federal jury convicted her of two counts of perjury in connection with her withdrawal of thousands of dollars from her city retirement account under a federal law designed to help people suffering amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosby is facing up to 30 years for the mortgage fraud conviction, and the perjury counts from the November trial each carry a maximum of five years' incarceration. Still, actual federal sentences are usually less than the maximum. U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron, whose Maryland office prosecuted the case, said in a statement following the verdict Tuesday: "We humbly respect the court's considered rulings, opposing counsels' zealous advocacy, and the wisdom of both jury verdicts in this case and we remain focused on our mission to uphold the rule of law." Local media reports say Mosby did not comment as she left court. During Mosby's latest trial, federal prosecutors vied to prove that Mosby spun a web of lies — about her federal tax debts, rental intentions and the $5,000 gift — as she purchased two homes in Florida with the retirement funds that she withdrew. Mosby's lawyers contended that Mosby was a first-time homebuyer and real estate rookie who leaned on professionals throughout the home purchase processes. Evidently, jurors were pushed toward conviction by the so-called gift letter that Mosby sent to her mortgage company in February 2021. In it, she said she had received a $5,000 gift from her then-husband and Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby. Marilyn Mosby had the money and needed it to lock in a lower interest rate on the Longboat condo, but the funds were tied up in a custodial account that she shared with her daughter and the lender wouldn't accept. So, prosecutors said, Mosby wired the $5,000 to her husband, and he sent the money to an escrow agent. Marilyn Mosby testified that she wired the money because she was not confident that her husband could come up with the cash by closing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Delaney, on the other hand, said during closing statements Monday that the gift letter is a smoking gun. "On the gift letter, it's open and shut," he told jurors. Although jurors hung their hats on the letter, opening and closing statements focused heavily on the $64,000 in back taxes that Nick and Marilyn Mosby racked up in tax years 2014 and 2015. Mosby still owed thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service when she applied for mortgages on the vacation homes in 2020 and 2021, prosecutors said, but she indicated that she was not in default or delinquent on any federal debt. Mosby's legal team, meanwhile, insisted that Mosby was unaware of the lingering debt because her now ex-husband lied to her for years about paying it off. The couple divorced last year, and both Marilyn and Nick Mosby testified at trial. Prosecutors also accused Mosby of signing a contract that promised to maintain exclusive control over the Kissimmee property despite having already given control to a vacation rental company. In addition, prosecutors said Mosby sent a letter to her mortgage company falsely stating that she had lived in the Kissimmee property for the past 70 days. The government is represented by Sean R. Delaney and Aaron S.J. Zelinsky of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. Marilyn Mosby is represented by James Wyda, Maggie Grace, Sedira Banan and Cullen Macbeth of the Office of the Federal Public Defender. The case is U.S. v. Marilyn Mosby, case number 1:22-cr-00007, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Read more at: https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1794544?nl_pk=7089bcf1-8829-40c2-883f-4d8f8fbbf1ea&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=legalethics&utm_content=1794544&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0?copied=1

Mosby Guilty On One Count Of Lying For Fla. Mortgage - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

A federal jury in Maryland on Tuesday found former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby guilty of lying on mortgage applications for one of her two Florida vacation homes, but not guilty on the application for the other home. After a more than two-week trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, the jurors convicted Mosby of making a false mortgage application, ruling after a day of deliberations that Mosby lied about receiving a $5,000 gift from her husband as she closed on a condominium in Longboat Key, Fla., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. The jury, however, acquitted her on similar charges related to the purchase of an eight-bedroom house in Kissimmee. The split verdict is a second conviction for Mosby, Baltimore's top prosecutor from 2015 to 2023. In November, a separate federal jury convicted her of two counts of perjury in connection with her withdrawal of thousands of dollars from her city retirement account under a federal law designed to help people suffering amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosby is facing up to 30 years for the mortgage fraud conviction, and the perjury counts from the November trial each carry a maximum of five years' incarceration. Still, actual federal sentences are usually less than the maximum. U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron, whose Maryland office prosecuted the case, said in a statement following the verdict Tuesday: "We humbly respect the court's considered rulings, opposing counsels' zealous advocacy, and the wisdom of both jury verdicts in this case and we remain focused on our mission to uphold the rule of law." Local media reports say Mosby did not comment as she left court. During Mosby's latest trial, federal prosecutors vied to prove that Mosby spun a web of lies — about her federal tax debts, rental intentions and the $5,000 gift — as she purchased two homes in Florida with the retirement funds that she withdrew. Mosby's lawyers contended that Mosby was a first-time homebuyer and real estate rookie who leaned on professionals throughout the home purchase processes. Evidently, jurors were pushed toward conviction by the so-called gift letter that Mosby sent to her mortgage company in February 2021. In it, she said she had received a $5,000 gift from her then-husband and Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby. Marilyn Mosby had the money and needed it to lock in a lower interest rate on the Longboat condo, but the funds were tied up in a custodial account that she shared with her daughter and the lender wouldn't accept. So, prosecutors said, Mosby wired the $5,000 to her husband, and he sent the money to an escrow agent. Marilyn Mosby testified that she wired the money because she was not confident that her husband could come up with the cash by closing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Delaney, on the other hand, said during closing statements Monday that the gift letter is a smoking gun. "On the gift letter, it's open and shut," he told jurors. Although jurors hung their hats on the letter, opening and closing statements focused heavily on the $64,000 in back taxes that Nick and Marilyn Mosby racked up in tax years 2014 and 2015. Mosby still owed thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service when she applied for mortgages on the vacation homes in 2020 and 2021, prosecutors said, but she indicated that she was not in default or delinquent on any federal debt. Mosby's legal team, meanwhile, insisted that Mosby was unaware of the lingering debt because her now ex-husband lied to her for years about paying it off. The couple divorced last year, and both Marilyn and Nick Mosby testified at trial. Prosecutors also accused Mosby of signing a contract that promised to maintain exclusive control over the Kissimmee property despite having already given control to a vacation rental company. In addition, prosecutors said Mosby sent a letter to her mortgage company falsely stating that she had lived in the Kissimmee property for the past 70 days. The government is represented by Sean R. Delaney and Aaron S.J. Zelinsky of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. Marilyn Mosby is represented by James Wyda, Maggie Grace, Sedira Banan and Cullen Macbeth of the Office of the Federal Public Defender. The case is U.S. v. Marilyn Mosby, case number 1:22-cr-00007, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M. Certified Legal Documents Preparer (800) 590-6698 (Telephone) cldp@mail.com (E-Mail) https://cldpmarcsmith.com (Website) American Bar Association No.: 6036858 Please feel free to reach out via social media as well: https://www.instagram.com/marksmithcldp/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/marksmithcldp https://medium.com/@cldpmarksmith https://twitter.com/cldpmarksmith https://mrmarksmithllmcp.quora.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@cldpmarksmith https://www.pinterest.com/cldpmarksmith/ https://www.facebook.com/certifiedlegaldocumentspreparermarksmith

ACLU Atty On How To Protect Civil Liberties In The AI Era - Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

 Because artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems often operate in the shadows, there's a new need for legislation, regulation and enforcement to ensure the technology doesn't undercut civil liberties by engaging in discrimination in housing, education or employment, according to Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Cody Venzke

Working on issues of surveillance, privacy and technology, Venzke applies his training as a privacy lawyer toward ensuring everyone from students to job seekers aren't having their civil rights and civil liberties infringed upon by algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence tools in either the public or private sectors.

But Venzke said this isn't just hypothetical, stressing that already marginalized groups have been seeing discrimination by algorithmic systems that can determine whether they will have access to certain housing or job opportunities.

Regulating how people's data can be used is also a high priority right now, Venzke said.

"When there are state-level attacks on vulnerable groups of people, it means that algorithmic systems and the use of our data can make them even more vulnerable," he said. "We've seen this, for example, in attacks on reproductive rights, where the lack of comprehensive privacy legislation and certain loopholes in existing privacy protections have allowed law enforcement to pursue a digital trail of data." 

Venzke spoke with Law360 about what safeguards he thinks are most needed to protect people — including marginalized groups who are already seeing harm — from discriminatory algorithmic systems and AI tools. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Are there AI-oriented government policies that the ACLU is concerned about?

President [Joe] Biden's executive order [Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence] enshrined a lot of the principles that we have been advocating for [regarding] uses of artificial intelligence, including auditing and identifying potentially discriminatory uses of AI and then mitigating those discriminatory harms. Seeing civil rights centered in the administration's AI policy is a major win for us.

One of the things that we are looking forward to over the course of the next year or so is ensuring that those policy principles are enshrined in agencies' actual practices. We think that is a good building block to begin working from. There's additional work to be done, including addressing AI uses in the private sector.

What are you looking out for in the private sector's usage of AI?

I think that what we would be looking for is to see many of the principles that were in the artificial intelligence executive order and in the administration's blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights be extended to the private sector. That means ensuring that algorithmic systems aren't resulting in discriminatory harm. That means mitigating those discriminatory harms and providing people with really meaningful recourse if they've been harmed by artificial intelligence. For example, this means that you would be aware of the fact that your job application is being processed and assessed by artificial intelligence, getting notice of that assessment and the decision that's made, and getting an opportunity to either challenge that decision or correct any incorrect data that it relied on.

Are there regulations that you or the ACLU are pushing for in the year ahead?

We've been championing more detailed guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to help ensure that both employers and the companies that develop and sell hiring tools, understand that civil rights law applies to them even when the hiring decisions are made by artificial intelligence.

We released a report earlier this year on high-tech surveillance in the education space, including monitoring kids' online activity, the use of facial recognition in schools and similar surveillance technology. We are looking forward to action from the U.S. Department of Education, including guidance for schools on how civil rights law intersects with artificial intelligence and how the [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] applies to artificial intelligence.

One of the places where the executive order, we think, fell short is in national security and adjacent fields such as domestic law enforcement and immigration. National security and immigration uses of artificial intelligence are some of the most impactful places where AI can affect individuals' rights and individuals' liberties. Those spaces were largely left untouched by the executive order — not entirely — but they're largely subject to a future, yet-to-be-drafted memorandum on AI in the national security space.

What kind of challenges are people coming to the ACLU with regarding AI policies?

One of the biggest ones we're seeing on the litigation side is the use of AI and law enforcement, particularly the use of facial recognition technology, which has resulted in disparate, incorrect arrests of Black people when the facial recognition technology wrongly identified them as leads in investigations and that was simply used to then make an arrest.

The executive order requires law enforcement agencies to really assess the way that algorithmic systems are used throughout the criminal legal system. So that includes not just the use of facial recognition technology for identifying leads in investigations, but other algorithmic systems that make decisions about people. For example, some algorithmic systems are used to determine the terms of parole — which individuals might pose a risk to the community. These systems are ones where we would love to see increased auditing of potential discriminatory impacts from those systems and mitigation of any discriminatory impacts, because of the significant impact those systems can have on individuals.

How might something like that be mitigated?

Well, one of the ways is ceasing to use the system if you can't address discriminatory impacts that it's having on people. Beyond that, ways that algorithmic technology can have the harms mitigated include by examining the data that's used to train the system. Often, what we see is the data that's used to train an algorithmic system, or that's fed into it to make decisions about individuals, reflects existing societal biases against people of color, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. In addition, providing certain procedural safeguards — like providing notice to the individual, providing an opportunity to challenge the algorithmic system and providing the opportunity to correct information — are ways that you can help mitigate those discriminatory uses.

One final way, I think, that's really essential is that as entities consider whether to deploy an algorithmic system, or are assessing algorithmic systems they've already deployed, they consult with a wide array of stakeholders, especially those that are most likely to be impacted by the system. They might be able to provide insight observations about the system's use and its potential impacts that might otherwise be missed.

What do you think needs to be cleared up when it comes to crafting AI policies?

One of the key things that I think policymakers need to ensure that they are grappling with as they think about AI is addressing algorithmic systems and AI systems that are already in place and already affecting people's lives. I think that generative AI, like ChatGPT, is sort of grabbing lots of headlines, and that means a lot of the proposals that we are seeing are focused on things like generative AI and deepfakes. And although those are probably worthy of legislative attention, that leaves lots of algorithmic systems that are making decisions in education, in governmental benefits and hiring unaddressed. For example, 99% of Fortune 500 companies are using algorithmic systems to make hiring decisions about people, where an artificial intelligence system will score resumes and advance the highest scoring resumes on to the next round. Studies have shown that these algorithmic hiring circumstances can lead to discriminatory effects where they will favor employees that have already been favored by existing biases in society.

Is there any AI regulation coming in 2024 that you're expecting?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is required to develop a strategic plan on the use of algorithmic systems in governmental benefits. I think it's going to be a critical step. The ACLU has litigated against the use of algorithmic systems in various Medicaid programs, which are administered by state agents, and in some of those circumstances what we've seen is that state agency employees develop the algorithm to determine people's benefits with almost no vetting, no grounding in statistical measuring and no notice or recourse for affected individuals.

One of the major things that underlies the use of algorithmic systems is our data, and we're seeing lots of agencies respond favorably to regulating, as much as they can, the uses of our data. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is preparing a proposed rule on regulating data brokers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Federal Trade Commission has had long-simmering rulemaking on commercial surveillance, and the Department of Education has long indicated that they are working on an update to rules under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. So I think all of those would be really meaningful protections for people to control their data amid the increased prevalence of AI in those sectors.

Why is it important to you and to the ACLU to get AI policy right?

Frankly, there are many critical areas of our lives where we have long and rightfully been protected by civil rights laws and by procedural protections to ensure that entities aren't making sort of arbitrary decisions about our access to housing, to education, to employment and other critical opportunities. The advent of AI should not change that at all. Unfortunately, AI is often functioning in the shadows. We might be unaware of its use. We might be unaware of how it came to those decisions about us. Legislation, regulation and enforcement are critical for ensuring that AI doesn't undercut those long-standing protections.

Mr. Mark Smith, LL.M.
Certified Legal Documents Preparer
(800) 590-6698 (Telephone)
cldp@mail.com (E-Mail)
https://cldpmarcsmith.com (Website)
American Bar Association No.: 6036858

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