On The Merits

During the pandemic, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, were all the rage in the financial markets. They were seen as a faster, easier way to go public that bypasses the laborious process of a typical IPO.But now that the SPAC boom has gone bust, it's clear that some of the companies that did this weren't ready for the scrutiny that comes with being publicly listed. Bloomberg Tax & Accounting reporter Nicola M. White looked into one of these companies, Lottery.com. What she found was a head-spinning story of financial mismanagement that involved an exiled Russian businessman, an ill-timed Monaco yacht party, and a very large loan from a Southern California pastor.On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Nicola unpacks how things went so wrong for Lottery.com and how damaging it can be for a company to go public before it's ready.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Since a landmark Supreme Court decision against it three years ago, the NCAA has suffered a string of legal losses in its effort to block changes to how, and whether, its athletes are compensated. Now, it's trying to turn this trend around by moving the fight from the courthouse to Capitol Hill.The NCAA has at least two allies in Congress, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). The pair have introduced legislation that would roll back many of the NCAA's recent adverse court decisions. In the meantime, the setbacks for the NCAA keep coming. A court decision last week forced it to allow licensing deals for recruits, and next week Dartmouth College athletes will vote on whether to unionize.On this episode of our podcast, Bloomberg Law reporters Diego Areas Munhoz, Katie Arcieri, and Parker Purifoy join us to talk about what type of legal problems the NCAA is having, what to expect from the upcoming union vote at Dartmouth, and what's happening in Congress.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Being a white collar defense lawyer requires a special type of soft skill: the ability to effectively counsel a titan of industry more accustomed to giving orders, not taking them.But the guests on today's episode of our podcast, On The Merits, say this type of work has gotten a little harder because many white collar clients now believe the government agencies prosecuting them are acting in bad faith.J. Nicholas Bunch and Kit Addleman, two defense attorneys with the firm Haynes Boone, discuss how the country's contentious political climate is shaping this mindset and how to overcome it to secure the best outcome for your client—in some instances, despite themselves.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The cost of an attorney is far out of reach for many middle- and low-income Americans. This has serious negative consequences on both society and the rule of law, according to Ray Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School and author of a new book about the future of the legal profession.Increasing the supply of attorneys is one potential solution. But Brescia says another is to turn the legal profession into a commodity with the help of technology—specifically, artificial intelligence.In this episode of our news podcast, On The Merits, Brescia talks about the ways that AI and other technology broaden the public's access to justice, while also potentially disrupting the legal industry itself. Brescia discusses these issues and more in his new book, "Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession."Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Many have long suspected that the legal profession, and so-called "Big Law" in particular, has a liberal lean. A new study looking at Supreme Court amicus briefs supports this suspicion with some of the strongest empirical evidence yet.The study found that firms overwhelmingly choose liberal clients instead of conservative clients when working on pro bono cases before SCOTUS. Legal journalist and Bloomberg Law columnist David Lat says this finding isn't surprising, but what's interesting is thinking about why this is and what, if anything, firms should do about it.Lat joins our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about ideological diversity in the legal industry and why even Jones Day, one of the most conservative firms in the country, files lots of briefs on behalf of liberal clients.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Elon Musk was unhappy, to put it mildly, with the ruling last week from a Delaware court that invalidated a $55.8 billion pay package he received from Tesla, his electric car company.Shortly afterward, he threatened to move Tesla's incorporation out of Delaware to a less shareholder-friendly state. But, as we discuss in this episode of our news podcast, On The Merits, doing so will likely just land Musk back in the same Delaware court that's the target of his current ire.Bloomberg Law reporters Mike Leonard and Jennifer Kay explain why this court voided Musk's massive pay package, and why the things about Delaware that aggravate him are also what make it the corporate home for nearly every public company in America.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

November's general election is still nine months away, but the preliminary battles between Republicans and Democrats that will shape this year's Congressional races are about to begin.States will begin to hold congressional primaries starting in early March. And special elections will continue to play out throughout the year, including next week's contest to replace disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY).Bloomberg Government's Greg Giroux joins us on this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about which races to watch in the months ahead, why retaining the Senate will be difficult for Democrats, and why neither party has the upper hand in the House.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The legal industry used to have a stigma against attorneys representing legal malpractice clients who are suing other attorneys. But that stigma, if it still exists, has definitely faded.Data from legal malpractice insurers shows that the dollar amount of these suits has ballooned in recent years. That includes one of the most high profile suits: Elon Musk's claim against the mega-firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz disputing $90 million in fees for work on his Twitter purchase.On this episode of our news podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporter Tatyana Monnay talks about how firms handle legal malpractice suits, why they're more common in bad economic times, and how insurance plays into all of this.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The Republican National Committee's release of an AI-generated ad last year turned a lot of heads among professional campaigners, and it led some of them to say this new tech has no place in political races.But is this stance sensible, or is it another instance of "AI panic" sweeping the culture? Jessica Furst Johnson, an election law attorney with the firm Holtzman Vogel who's worked in Republican politics for years, thinks it's closer to the latter.Johnson joins our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about how AI, when used properly, could be an effective—not to mention cost-saving—tool for cash-strapped campaigns. She also discusses how efforts to outright ban the technology from elections could run afoul of candidates' First Amendment rights.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

John Lewis, the late Congressman and civil rights hero, authored a law in 2007 that tasked the Justice Department with reopening and reinvestigating racially-motivated killings from the Civil Rights era. More than 15 years later, the Justice Department has failed to bring charges in nearly all of the cold cases it has reopened.On our weekly podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporter Ronnie Greene talks about why the DOJ has had such little success prosecuting these cases. Moreover, he says, civil rights advocates worry the Justice Department's lack of results may cause Congress to lose patience with the program and defund it.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.