ABA Journal

Federal Government

3252 ABA Journal Federal Government articles.

Health care providers divulge patient information to Facebook, other third parties, lawsuits allege

An increasing number of lawsuits are alleging that tracking tools on health care websites and patient portals allow Facebook and other third parties to obtain confidential medical information.

Weekly Briefs: Legal sector continues to gain jobs; Roe v. Wade archive auctioned

Legal sector adds 1,500 jobs

The legal services sector continues to add jobs, despite reports of layoffs at some BigLaw firms. The sector gained 1,500 jobs in February, according to…

Louisville, Kentucky, police department discriminates and uses excessive force, DOJ concludes

A review of Louisville, Kentucky, policing after the 2020 death of Breonna Taylor in a botched raid has led the U.S. Department of Justice to conclude that the city and its police department have engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional conduct.

First lawyer who advised Jan. 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson should face ethics probe, group tells regulators

A group called Lawyers Defending American Democracy is asking ethics officials to investigate the lawyer who originally represented Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who testified before the Jan. 6, 2021, committee about events regarding the U.S. Capitol attack.

Meet Abbe Lowell, the Hunter Biden lawyer who formerly represented Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

Winston & Strawn partner Abbe Lowell is representing President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden in congressional investigations after building ties to the Trump White House and representing former President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, the New York Times reports.

Trump doesn’t have absolute immunity from civil suits stemming from Jan. 6 Capitol riot, DOJ says

Former President Donald Trump isn’t shielded from liability in civil lawsuits stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot if his speech before the event “encouraged imminent private violent action and was likely to produce such action,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a brief filed with a federal appeals court.

Backers of Equal Rights Amendment lose mandamus bid in DC Circuit

The states of Illinois and Nevada lost their bid to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution on Tuesday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that they did not satisfy the high threshold needed to obtain a writ of mandamus.

Chemerinsky: Student loan relief cases will have lasting effects whatever Supreme Court decides

No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court does in the cases involving the Biden administration’s student loan relief plan, there is sure to be a major effect on many people’s lives and on the law. On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the court heard oral arguments in two cases—Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown—that raise myriad legal issues and any path taken by the court will have significant consequences. (I was among 24 legal scholars who signed an amicus brief in support of the Biden administration).

Student debt relief meets with skepticism from majority of Supreme Court justices

President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel $400 billion in student debt appeared to run into trouble during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments Tuesday.

Legal advocates compare proposed asylum rules to Trump-era restrictions

President Joe Biden proposed new asylum restrictions Tuesday that some legal advocates are condemning for being too similar to measures imposed under the former Trump administration.

Florida man impersonates general counsel, law firm partner in fake Epstein probe

A Florida man posed as a general counsel and another senior-level executive at two financial firms in Manhattan, New York City, and directed personnel to pay for fake internal investigations that were supposed to determine whether there were ties between people in those firms and deceased multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, federal prosecutors have alleged in a criminal complaint that was unsealed last week.

Meet Holly Cook, director of the ABA Governmental Affairs Office

When Holly Cook joined the ABA in January 2012, she brought with her more than two decades of experience in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “I thought I was going to Afghanistan and deploying yet again. But I got a phone call one day saying they were looking for someone to come to the Governmental Affairs Office,” Cook says. “I loved working with the Hill. So I thought, ‘All right.’”

7 judges on 5th Circuit question ‘perpetual funding’ of government programs; is Social Security at risk?

Seven judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans have embraced the view that “perpetual funding” of government agencies or programs violates the Constitution’s appropriations clause.

ABA supports right to travel for abortion services and other medical care

All government entities should enact laws and regulations that protect the right of any individual to travel across state lines to access medical care, the House of Delegates said at the 2023 ABA Midyear Meeting in New Orleans on Monday.

In Zoom convention, legal scholars of varied ideologies backed these 5 constitutional amendments

Should Arnold Schwarzenegger be allowed to run for president? Should U.S. Supreme Court justices have 18-year terms?

Read more ...