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Expert Analysis

• Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: February Lessons

  

  In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five federal appellate court class certification decisions and identifies practice tips from cases involving breach of life insurance contracts, constitutional violations of inmates and more.

• Navigating The Trump Enviro Rollback And Its Consequences

  

  The Trump administration's rapid push for environmental deregulation will lead to both opportunities and challenges, requiring companies to adopt strategic approaches to a complex, unpredictable legal environment in which federal rollbacks are countered by increased enforcement by states, and risks of citizen litigation may be heightened, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

• Series

  Competitive Weightlifting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  The parallels between the core principles required for competitive weightlifting and practicing law have helped me to excel in both endeavors, with each holding important lessons about discipline, dedication, drive and failure, says Damien Bielli at VF Law.

• Opinion

  Undoing An American Ideal Of Fairness

  

  President Donald Trump’s orders attacking birthright citizenship, civil rights education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs threaten hard-won constitutional civil rights protections and decades of efforts to undo bias in the law — undermining what Chief Justice Earl Warren called "our American ideal of fairness," says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

• How Ill. Ruling Could Influence Future Data Breach Cases

  

  The Illinois Supreme Court's recent decision in Petta v. Christie Business Holding, which was based solely on standing, establishes an important benchmark for the viability of Illinois-based lawsuits arising out of data security incidents that defendants can cite in future cases, say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

• Opinion

  Inconsistent Injury-In-Fact Rules Hinder Federal Practice

  

  A recent Third Circuit decision, contradicting a previous ruling about whether consumers of contaminated products have suffered an injury in fact, illustrates the deep confusion this U.S. Supreme Court standard creates among federal judges and practitioners, who deserve a simpler method of determining which cases have federal standing, says Eric Dwoskin at Dwoskin Wasdin.

• In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

  

  Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.

• CFPB's Message To States Takes On New Weight Under Trump

  

  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's January guidance to state enforcers has fresh significance as the Trump administration moves to freeze the bureau's work, and industry should expect states to use this series of recommendations as an enforcement road map, say attorneys at Brownstein Hyatt.

• Navigating Title IX Compliance In The NIL Era

  

  As universities push to move more name, image and likeness activity in-house, it's unclear how the NCAA and its members will square implementation of the House settlement with Title IX requirements, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

• Series

  Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

• Opinion

  Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

  

  Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

• What Justices' FLSA Ruling Means For 2-Step Collective Cert.

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in EMD Sales v. Carrera may have sounded the death knell for the decades-old two-step process to certify collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which could lead more circuits to require a preponderance of the evidence showing that members are similarly situated, says Steven Katz at Constangy.

• How Cos. Can Use Data Clean Rooms To Address Privacy

  

  Implementing comprehensive administrative controls, security processes and vendor management systems are vital steps for businesses leveraging data clean rooms for privacy compliance, especially given the Federal Trade Commission's warnings of complicated user privacy implications, say attorneys at Troutman.

• Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

  

  Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

• Perspectives

  Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

  

  KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.