A federal judge on Thursday held Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian Colleges students, according to a Washington Post report.

The Post‘s Danielle Douglas-Gabriel explains:

“Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco slapped the Education Department with a $100,000 fine for violating a preliminary injunction. Money from the fine will be used to compensate the 16,000 people harmed by the federal agency’s actions. Some former students of the defunct for-profit college had their paychecks garnished. Others had their tax refunds seized by the federal government.”

Kim wrote that the defendants violated the preliminary injunction and those violations harmed borrowers.

Read the  Post report.

One of President Donald Trump’s appointees to the federal bench issued a controversial opinion with a startling opening line that amounted to a ringing endorsement of law enforcement and a dire warning to its critics, reports CNN.

“If we want to stop mass shootings, we should stop punishing police officers who put their lives on the line to prevent them,” James Ho of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in an opinion.

His statement came in a dissent from a denial en banc. The case involved a wrongful death suit against Kaufman County, Texas, in the officer shooting of a man who was carrying a toy pistol.

A district court dismissed the case, holding that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, according to CNN’s Ariane de Vogue. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit sent the case back down for further proceedings.

Read the CNN article.

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The ABA Journal reports that an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit claims that the former general counsel of Wynn Resorts approved a “secret undercover operation” to gather derogatory information about a former salon employee who provided information to the Wall Street Journal.

Plaintiffs claim that former Wynn general counsel Kim Sinatra was part of a civil conspiracy targeting Jorgen Nielsen, the former artistic director of a salon at Wynn Las Vegas.

The Journal‘s Debra Cassens Weiss reports: “The suit alleges that Sinatra and two other defendants participated in a plan to send ‘an undercover operative’ posing as a client to the new salon that employed Nielsen. The place was the salon at Palms Casino Resort.”

Read the  ABA Journal article.

All five shareholders in the trial and appellate firm Johnston Tobey Baruch are recognized in the 2020 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and three earned the distinction of being selected Lawyers of the Year for Dallas-Fort Worth.

Firm managing shareholder Randy Johnston’s work with plaintiffs in professional malpractice solidified his selection as Lawyer of the Year. Renowned in Texas legal circles, his experience in commercial and mergers and acquisitions litigation, along with legal and professional malpractice law, secured his Best Lawyers honors.

Shareholder and firm co-founder Robert Tobey earned Lawyer of the Year honors for his legal malpractice work on behalf of plaintiffs. He also won recognition for malpractice defense and commercial litigation. Shareholder Chad Baruch’s exceptional appellate work also earned him a Lawyer of the Year designation.

No other law firm this size in Texas has received this many Lawyer of the Year honors for 2020.

Shareholder Karen Fitzgerald’s work with individuals in employment law and her litigation skills in labor and employment led to her selection. Coyt Johnston earned Best Lawyers honors for his commercial and mergers and acquisitions litigation skills.

Read more about the honors and
five benefits of hiring a smaller firm.

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP announced the expansion of its national public finance practice with the addition of Darren C. McHugh. The tax and public finance lawyer joined the firm as a partner in its Austin office.

In a release, the firm said McHugh has tax law experience as it relates to public finance transactions, including governmental, 501(c)(3), housing and healthcare bonds. He also advises clients regarding the structuring process and tax requirements associated with tax-exempt transactions.

The firm said McHugh has advised clients on tax-advantaged bond financings and has experience representing issuers and conduit borrowers in tax controversy matters, including Internal Revenue Service examination, voluntary closing agreement program requests, and administrative appeals.

McHugh received his undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Colorado, a master’s in accountancy from the Metropolitan State University of Denver, and his law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Stacy Manobianca and Jeanne Crandall have joined Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. as of counsel attorneys in the Northeast and Southeast offices, respectively.

In a release, the firm said Stacy is experienced in litigation, including depositions and motion practice as well as settlement negotiations, mediations and arbitrations, trials and appellate practice. In addition to representing builders and condominium associations in multi-faceted construction defect litigation, she has also represented manufacturers of automobiles and consumer products in complex product liability and personal injury suits involving catastrophic injuries, including traumatic brain and severe burn injuries, and wrongful death. Most recently, Manobianca worked for a major insurer as a senior complex analyst analyzing coverage, liability and damages in professional liability healthcare claims.

The firm said C randall has experience as lead trial and appellate counsel in highly complex commercial, insurance defense, securities and antitrust litigation in federal and state courts in multiple jurisdictions. She was the first female partner at a well known Dallas firm, and her career includes 20 years at a firm she founded. There, she successfully resolved hundreds of litigation matters as outside counsel for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Most recently, she was national counsel for a major insurer in professional liability cases against real estate appraisers.

Richard T. Kienzler, a partner in Freeborn & Peters LLP’s Litigation Practice Group, is one of Law Bulletin Media’s 2019 40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty, which recognizes the “most talented young attorneys working in Illinois” under age 40. A Freeborn attorney has been included in the 40 Under Forty each of the last 20 years.

Publisher of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer magazine, Law Bulletin Media selected the 40 Under Forty from among more than 1,500 nominations. The honorees are chosen for their intelligence, passion, success in the office, desire to help their community, and willingness to work hard at their profession.

The firm said Kienzler represents large companies, owner-managed businesses and individuals in state and federal cases across the country, as well as in arbitrations and other proceedings conducted outside of court. A large part of his practice involves disputes concerning non-competition and non-solicitation agreements, as well as fast-paced, emergency proceedings in which parties seek temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. In addition, he has successfully resolved significant, large-scale commercial contract disputes, partnership and shareholder disputes, and class action lawsuits.

Kienzler received his J.D. (magna cum laude) from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Iowa.

Exterro has published the 2019 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report, comparing in-house legal processes among 180 participating legal departments.

Compared to last year’s results, legal teams are choosing to coordinate services with fewer outside partners and are moving more operations in-house.

The report can be downloaded at no charge from the Exterro website.

Exterro says on its website that the report provides:

• 4 important takeaways to help improve your legal processes in 2020

• Results to 29 questions surrounding in-house legal activities

• Data to help drive change in your in-house legal department

Download the report.

Chief Justice John Roberts

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that — if President Trump is impeached — he wants the subsequent trial in the Senate to be handled briskly. But the presiding officer at an impeachment will be the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts.

In an essay at Slate, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman writes: “Given his deep commitment to professionalism, John Roberts can be counted on to deflect any behind-the-scenes pressures for speed. These inclinations would be reinforced, moreover, by the recent controversy surrounding the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh. Everybody remembers McConnell ramming the nomination through without a full investigation of multiple allegations of misconduct; Roberts cannot allow the same hardball tactics to repeat themselves.”

And a handful of skeptical Republican senators may deny McConnell the majority support he would require to force through a revision of the rules that could marginalize the chief justice’s role, Ackerman explains.

Read the Slate article.

José Angel Toledo is the subject of 31 disciplinary complaints filed with the Florida Bar by his clients and a medical provider, according to a petition the Bar filed with the Florida Supreme Court.

“The complaints against José Toledo say he stopped responding to client inquiries and failed to distribute funds in legal settlements,” according to the Tampa Bay Times. “The complaints echo one another, with some clients saying they never received money from settlements and others saying they had trouble getting in touch with him.”

Investigators have been unable to find him, too. His landlord evicted him from his office in September, and a Bar investigator entered the office and found nine filing cabinets and six credenzas filled with clients’ files.

Read the  Tampa Bay Times article.

Texas lawyer Jamie Balagia, 62, the “DWI Dude,” is on trial in federal court in Sherman, accused of shaking down his three Colombian clients — alleged drug kingpins — by making false promises of freedom in exchange for hefty fees, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Prosecutors allege that Balagia and his cohorts were paid roughly $1.5 million by Segundo Segura, his brother Aldemar Segura, and Hermes “Megatron” Ordonez, all of whom allegedly operated cocaine labs in the jungles of Colombia.

Prosecutors say that Balagia and his Florida investigator falsely told their clients that they could buy information to help reduce their sentences.

Kevin Krause of the Dallas News reports that evidence against Balagia harks back to a scandal that broke in Miami in 2000 with the arrest of a Drug Enforcement Administration informant named Baruch Vega.

Read the  Dallas News article.

The nation’s three top drug distributors and a major drugmaker reached a $260 million settlement with two Ohio counties Monday over the deadly havoc wreaked by opioids, striking a deal just hours before they were set to face a jury at the start of the first federal trial over the crisis, reports CBS News.

“The settlement means the closely watched trial will not move forward now,” according to CBS News. “The trial involved only two counties — Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and Akron’s Summit County — but was seen as an important test case that could gauge the strength of the opposing sides’ arguments and prod them toward a nationwide settlement that ultimately would involve billions of dollars.”

Read the CBS News article.

John Eisenberg, the attorney who is emerging as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, is a quiet and unassuming presence in a White House dominated by more colorful personalities, according to a Politico report.

“He says little, frequently keeping his head down as he walks the halls of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building,” writes Politico’s Daniel Lippman. “He has few internal enemies. He’s not known to speak to reporters. He keeps such a low profile that, for a while, the president didn’t even know his name, repeatedly referring to him as ‘Mike.’”

One former colleague at the National Security Counsel called him “extremely paranoid,” while another said he never says anything when he can nod his approval and never puts anything in emails if he can say it to your face.

Read the Politico report.

The University of Georgia law school led the list of best value law schools compiled by preLaw magazine, a National Jurist publication.

The study ranked schools based on ultimate bar pass rate and two-year pass rate (15 percent); employment rate (35 percent); tuition (25 percent); cost of living (10 percent); and average indebtedness upon graduation (15 percent).

State university law schools make up most of the slots in the list of the top 25 best-values.

Read the article.

The Associated Press reports that negotiations aimed at reaching a major settlement in the nation’s opioid litigation reached an impasse Friday.

The AP’s Geoff Mulvihill writes that one of the negotiators, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, said late Friday that local governments did not accept a deal worth $48 billion in cash, treatment drugs and services.

“Paul Farrell, a lead lawyer for the local governments, told The Associated Press that one hang-up was the states’ desire to be in charge of dividing the money. They said that the deal would provide free Suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, across the country,” according to Mulvihill.

Read the AP article.

Haynes and Boone reports that there has been an uptick in the number of North American oil and gas producer bankruptcies so far this year, with 33 filings as of the end of September. And 27 of those files have come since the beginning of May.

The firm’s Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor reports:

“Since our August 12 report, an additional 7 producers have filed bankruptcy with an aggregate amount of total debt in excess of $2.0 billion. This increase in year-over-year filings indicates that the reverberations of the 2015 oil price crash continue to be heard in the industry.”

Read the article.

In order to preserve the right to seek punitive damages and attorney fees from an employee or former employee who has misappropriated trade secrets, the employer must have provided notice of the whistleblower-protection provisions of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

“Notice of the whistle-blower protection provisions must be included ‘in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information,’” explains author Anthony George in the article on the website of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

He advises employers to include the DTSA whistleblower-protection provision, or to amend existing contracts if necessary.

Read the article.

While often thought of as not controversial and relatively non-substantive, boilerplate provisions play an integral role in clarifying the relationship between the contracting parties. Neglecting those provisions can lead to unintended legal consequences, warns Thompson Coburn LLP.

Authors Brent Trame and Taylor Melching discuss examples of common boilerplate provisions that warrant closer review: Assignment, governing law and jurisdiction/venue, and the entire agreement clause.

Read the article.

The U.S. District Court for the District of the Virgin Islands recently compelled arbitration after concluding that a personal guaranty incorporated an arbitration agreement from an underlying contract and rejecting various arguments to the contrary, reports Carlton Fields’ Reinsurance Focus.

The case involved a leasing agreement that contained an arbitration provision, but the personal guaranty did not. The personal guaranty did, however, provide that the “performance of any and all financial obligations of the Lessee to the Lessor … subject to the terms and conditions contained in the … Leasing Agreement.”

The court found that the plain language of the personal guaranty incorporated the arbitration provision from the leasing agreement.

Read the article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed action on a number of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees Oct. 17, including circuit court picks who faced pushback at their confirmation hearings.

“White House lawyer Steven Menashi and U.S. District Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden likely will have to wait at least a week for the committee to again consider their nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second and Fifth Circuits, respectively,” writes Bloomberg’s Madison Alder.

Two district court nominees, Justin Walker in Kentucky and Sarah Pitlyk in Missouri, have been rated not qualified by the American Bar Association. The panel approved Walker’s selection, but held over Pitlyk’s.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.