ABA Journal

The National Pulse

443 ABA Journal The National Pulse articles.

School districts sue social media platforms, saying they’re harming youths’ mental health

Municipal ordinances can banish low-level offenders for petty offenses

Policy allowing migrants to be expelled during COVID-19 emergency has ended; what will be its legacy?

A federal policy used to expel migrants expired May 11, when the COVID-19 pandemic public health emergency ended. The government’s authority to invoke the public health policy had been used to expel migrants without evaluating their potential asylum claims. Legal analysts are now turning their attention to the longer-term influence of the policy and potential precedents.

Protecting Polyamory: Municipalities expand rights, domestic partnerships to include nontraditional relationships

Polyamory is a slightly narrower form of consensual nonmonogamy in which people agree to have multiple, loving relationships openly and with full consent. Structure and agreements vary widely.

Firms are helping employers navigate post-Dobbs health benefits and abortion coverage

With dozens of state legislatures holding their first sessions of the post-Roe v. Wade era, some firms are proactively counseling clients on the highly complex, politically charged and quickly shifting landscape surrounding employee benefits and abortion laws. In doing so, attorneys have to consider real and hypothetical civil and criminal liabilities.

When artists gain fame after death, questions can arise over copyright ownership

Several legal fights have pitted family members of an artist who died without a will against parties accused of commercially exploiting the artist’s work. Collectors or entrepreneurs who have obtained an artist’s physical work may then be tempted to try to profit from its underlying intellectual property, but they are different things.

Legal community supports Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war against Ukraine

The Ukrainian Mothers and Children Transport initiative, or UMACT, is a collaboration of lawyers, professors and law students that helps Ukrainian families secure travel visas. Its name aims to evoke the Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 Jewish children to the United Kingdom as World War II loomed, says law professor Michael Bazyler, a former refugee from Poland of Ukrainian descent.

New recreational cannabis laws could make it harder for employers to fire impaired workers

New Jersey now has the equivalent of hall monitors in some workplaces. Except these hall monitors—known officially as workplace impairment recognition experts—are keeping an eye on the adults in the building. They are looking for signs the adults are high.

Should disbarred lawyers be given second chances?

Currently, disbarment is always permanent in New Jersey and a minority of other states. In some other states, including Louisiana, disbarment can either be permanent or temporary. But in the majority of states and in the District of Columbia, disbarred lawyers may apply for readmission after a period of time—often at least five years.

State laws targeting social media platforms face First Amendment challenges

Social media platforms say they have a First Amendment right to curate content and should not be compelled to host content that they don’t want. But supporters of laws in Florida and Texas regulating social media platforms say the measures are necessary to avoid what they term “Big Tech” or “Silicon Valley” censorship.

How social media hijacked the Depp v. Heard defamation trial

Law firms are wondering what steps they can take to prevent bias like this going forward. And if they can’t prevent it, how can they use social media apps like TikTok in their favor?

Will mandatory arbitration be banned beyond in workplace sex assault and harassment complaints?

Forced arbitration has long been a controversial practice in the United States. At least one component of forced arbitration, however, has now ended.

Gaming the System? Inside the ‘Texas two-step’ strategy profitable companies use to file for bankruptcy

In recent years, Purdue Pharma, USA Gymnastics and Boy Scouts of America have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to avoid civil liability. But it is J&J’s use of a 1989 Texas statute on divisive mergers that is facing scrutiny in federal courts and in Congress.

Progressive prosecutors are encountering pushback

When Alvin Bragg Jr. ran for district attorney of New York County last year, he broadly promised to decline prosecuting some defendants arrested for low-level crimes, prioritize treatment for mental illness and drug abuse, and to end the use of cash bail.

Tennessee court pilots new ODR platform to mediate medical debt disputes

One Tennessee small claims court is attempting to address this issue by piloting an online dispute resolution platform to keep medical debt collection out of the courtroom. Through the platform, patients can communicate with the hospital or health center about payment options and ways to potentially reduce their bills, and they can use the pro bono services of a trained mediator to reach a settlement, if needed.

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