Category Archives: Uncategorized

Stark Gender Disparities in Income Shown in Law Firm Survey

That's the title of this article by Katelyn Polantz. The survey says that big private law firms have the greatest disparities, and with smaller private firms have smaller disparities, with men making more than women in both settings. But there's this: Public interest law and solo ­practices were the only job settings where the median […]

How much do district court judges tell us about the ideology of a President’s appointees?

Earlier this month, the Washington Post blogged about a study purporting to show that President Obama’s judicial appointments are (in the words of the headline) “liberal, but not that liberal.” That may well be a fair characterization; anecdotally, it sounds right. But the study purports to do something much more serious than give an off-the-cuff […]

Student-loan collection

Our readers may be interested in Collection of Student Loans: A Critical Examination by law professor Doug Rendelman and lawyer Scott Weingart. Here is the abstract: Although the collection of college student loans centers this article, some background precedes its main topic. It begins by defining and distinguishing federal and private student loans. Next is […]

Octane Fitness: Supreme Court rejects bad faith and clear and convincing evidence requirements for fees in patent cases

by Paul Alan Levy     In a decision issued this morning in Octane Fitness v. Icon Health and Fitness, the Supreme Court held that attorney fee awards in patent cases depend on an assessment of the totality of the circumstances, and that either the substantive weakness of the losing party's litigating position (including both facts and […]

Ninth Circuit reverses denial of class certification in age discrimination case

by Jocelyn Larkin, guest blogger The Ninth Circuit issued a favorable opinion yesterday in Stockwell v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 12-15070, reversing the denial of class certification in a disparate impact age discrimination class action.  The opinion was written by Judge Marsha Berzon, and joined by Judges Fisher and Wallace.  The decision […]

Why the FDA is moving to expand its tobacco-control authority to e-cigarettes and other non-traditional products

By now, you may have read about the FDA's proposed regulations that would, if finalized, extend the agency's tobacco-control authority to additional, non-traditional tobacco-related products (such as e-cigarettes). By legitimizing some of these products, the FDA may boost the industries that sell them. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg wrote this short blog post explaining why the agency […]