Free Republic

Prosecutors went after Hunter Biden's attorneys during an hours-long hearing Wednesday on several motions to dismiss criminal tax evasion charges against the president's son.

The bar exam will no longer be required to become a lawyer in Washington, the state Supreme Court ruled in a pair of orders Friday. The court approved alternative ways to show competency and earn a law license after appointing a task force to examine the issue in 2020. The Bar Licensure Task Force found that the traditional exam “disproportionally and unnecessarily blocks” marginalized groups from becoming practicing attorneys and is “at best minimally effective” for ensuring competency, according to a news release from the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts. Washington is the second state to not require the...

If you want to seek a redress of some grievance, most people start with a lawsuit. This is partially responsible for the fact that in 2023 there are 1.33 million attorneys in America and only 1.08 million doctors. What happens when people figure out how to use these lawsuits not just for a redress of grievance but to attack others? Take, for example, the case of Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer. In this case, Acheson Hotels claims that Deborah Laufer filed a lawsuit against them not because she was harmed by their hotel but because she is an activist using...

Three of Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys moved to withdraw from his ongoing case Friday after his two tax misdemeanors were dismissed without prejudice by a Delaware judge at the request of Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors. Latham & Watkins LLP attorneys Brian C. McManus, Timothy H. McCarten and Matthew S. Salerno filed a motion to withdraw as counsel the day after Delaware U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika granted the DOJ’s request to dismiss the tax charges in Delaware. This allowed for the possibility of charging Biden in Washington, D.C. or the Central District of California. “Brian C. McManus, counsel for...

Law schools began as trade schools, training future lawyers to sell legal services as licensed providers. Modern law schools, however, have increasingly adopted the routines of political institutions. Even at more practical regional schools, the effect can be insidious, as faculty bring with them a progressive bias from their extensive academic exposure. Sometimes, this ideological emphasis is subtle and difficult to detect, because it can be integrated into the basic framework of how law is taught. At other times, the effect of ideological preoccupation in the legal academy is observable in how law students behave. Recent dramatic disruptions in such...

A federal judge ordered all the attorneys involved in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case to move forward with the process to get security clearance. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon told all the attorneys to "complete all outstanding applicant tasks required to obtain the requisite security clearances in this matter" by July 13. Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, previously ordered all the attorneys to begin the process by reporting to the Litigation Security Group of the Department of Justice. Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people...

A cabal of Political Action Committees is funneling money overwhelmingly to left-wing political causes using funds secured by affiliated groups through "sweetheart contracts" with the public sector, a watchdog group has warned.A recent report from Alliance for Consumers describes a "shady trial lawyer pipeline" in which the PACs make nearly all of their donations in support of Democratic candidates using money channeled from the beneficiaries of open-ended, ambiguous contracts intended to provide "consumer protection.""While the Shady Trial Lawyer Pipeline helps politicians funnel public money toward left-wing politics, it leaves everyday consumers and taxpayers with a horrible deal," the report reads.File...

We previously reported on Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, Alan Dershowitz sharing his thoughts on the politically-motivated prosecution of former President Donald Trump in Miami.Now Dershowitz, one of Trump’s attorneys during the first impeachment trial, is giving an insider view of what he says is intense pressure by one liberal group intent on keeping attorneys from working on Trump’s behalf.In Thursday’s edition of his Substack newsletter, entitled “Why Donald Trump Cannot Get a Top-Tier Lawyer,” he lodges some damning accusations. After stating that the former president has been arraigned and pled not guilty to the classified documents charges, Dershowitz writes of...

One of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys has withdrawn from his ongoing defamation suit against CNN just days after removing himself from the embattled pol’s federal defense team. Jim Trusty cited “irreconcilable differences” between himself and his client as the reason for his request to be withdrawn as the 77-year-old’s attorney in his suit against the cable news channel, according to federal court papers filed Friday. Those differences, Trusty wrote in the three-page filing, mean he “can no longer effectively and properly represent” the former president. On June 9, Trusty and fellow Trump attorney John Rowley resigned from the former...

Attorneys for the family of Jordan Neely on Monday ripped into former Marine Daniel Penny’s statement that he “never intended to harm” the homeless man when he placed him in a deadly chokehold on the subway last week. Lawyers Donte Mills and Lennon Edwards said both Penny’s actions aboard the train and his apparent lack of apology or regret in a statement issued through his attorneys on Friday “show why he needs to be in prison.” “He never attempted to help [Neely] at all,” the attorneys wrote. “You cannot ‘assist’ someone with a chokehold … In short, his actions on...

Booking photos of Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman taken on May 30, 2020. In a dramatic hearing on Thursday, a federal judge sentenced a corporate attorney who firebombed a police car during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests to a year in jail, arguing that his prestigious education — boarding school, Princeton, a law degree from New York University — should have rendered him a peacekeeper, not an instigator. “You’re not one of the oppressed. You’re one of the privileged,” senior Eastern District of New York Judge Brian Cogan told Colinford Mattis, even as he expressed admiration for what the...

Memphis police officers beat motorist Tyre Nichols for three minutes, treating him like “a human piñata” in a “savage” encounter reminiscent of the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King, attorneys for the family said Monday. Attorney Ben Crump said police video viewed by the family on Monday showed that Nichols was shocked, pepper sprayed and restrained after the 29-year-old FedEx worker and father were pulled over Jan. 7 minutes from his home while returning from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset. Another attorney, Antonio Romanucci, said that Nichols, who was Black,...

President Joe Biden’s personal attorneys reportedly misled the Department of Justice (DOJ) in November about classified documents being stored at his Wilmington residence. Shortly after documents at the Penn Biden Center were unearthed on November 2, the White House and DOJ reportedly agreed to hide the scandal from the American people. It’s unclear why Biden’s personal attorneys were initially searching for his illegally stashed documents. The White House has failed to provide the initial reason or cause for the search. After the initial discovery on November 2, Biden’s personal attorneys told the DOJ that the only location where troves of...

Why has Gov. Tom Wolf’s Office of General Counsel paid nearly $400,000 of taxpayer money to several private law firms? It’s a simple question, and there may be a simple and reasonable answer. But the administration’s failure to answer it raises questions about what causes and activities the governor has used state resources to pursue, and why he didn’t use the state’s attorneys to do it. Secrecy always raises suspicions, even if they are entirely unwarranted. In terms of legal bills for complex institutional litigation, $367,500 spread across six firms is a pittance. The Office of General Counsel employs hundreds...

MK Ben Gvir filed a defamation lawsuit against the Haaretz newspaper and against Haim Levinson: "They are running a false smear campaign against me, whoever lies will pay" Channel 7, 7th in Kislev 5783, 1.12.22 The chairman of Otzma Yehudit, MK Itamar Ben Gabir, filed this morning (Thursday) a defamation lawsuit for about 150 thousand NIS through attorney Hanmal Dorfman against Haaretz newspaper and reporter Haim Levinson after publishing a long series of defamations and lies in Haaretz newspaper against him. "Haaretz newspaper published a false, falsified article that constitutes severe libel, despite knowing that the facts, to say the...

A local attorney is speaking out about the terrifying night he was drugged and robbed by two women he met at a bar in Beverly Hills. He says the women drugged him, then ransacked his Hollywood Hills home, running off with thousands in cash and jewelry. The victim says the alleged robbery happened a few months ago on July 25 when he met the two women at a local bar in Beverly Hills. The victim was out with friends enjoying bars on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills when his friends began chatting with the alleged suspects — two women who...

A crazed attorney from Austin, Texas, was caught on camera allegedly trying to shoot his ex-girlfriend at the bar she worked at on Saturday, police said. Gavin Rush, 41, is out on bond after he allegedly stormed into the Anderson Mill Pub with a gun around 11:30 a.m. Saturday and approached his ex, who was behind the bar, according to arrest records obtained by KVUE. He put a small leather satchel on the table and asked if he could speak with her. When she said no, he drew the gun and pointed it at her, with the laser sight aimed...

By now millions of Americans well-informed about the pandemic know that the cheap, safe and effective generic medicine ivermectin (IVM) was blocked for wide-scale use from the very beginning by the federal government. It was a critical but medically wrong tactic within the wait-for-the-vaccine strategy. Preventing early use of IVM has surely killed and harmed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A few courageous doctors have successfully been using IVM during the pandemic, but most feared punishment as they lost their medical freedom. Now comes a mind-boggling statement from an attorney defending the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a lawsuit...

This past week we reported on an attorney in New York who was asked to represent President Trump who suddenly died. This successful attorney received information on the ‘We Build the Wall’ case he represented only hours before his yet unexplained death. Today the corrupt Obama judge overseeing the case ignored major issues with a juror in the trial. The attorney learned about this information shortly before his untimely death. We reported within the last week on the sudden death of attorney John Meringolo. Meringolo was successful in defending individuals in multiple cases against the state. It turns out that...

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by attorney Robin Keller describing how she lost her job at a large law firm after daring to speak up in favor of the Dobbs decision. This didn’t happen at a general staff meeting but on a conference call explicitly held to allow staffers to discuss the decision.After the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, global law firm Hogan Lovells organized an online conference call for female employees. As a retired equity partner still actively serving clients, I was invited to participate in what was...