On The Merits

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson spent a good portion of the first day of her Supreme Court nomination hearings in the U.S. Senate defending her work as a defense lawyer.Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled the nominee about her time as a public defender, including her work defending prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Senators also targeted sentences she handed down to people convicted on child pornography charges when she was a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.On this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, we talk to Bloomberg Law reporter Jordan Rubin about how the hearings have been going so far, why Republicans are choosing this line of attack, and whether there's anything the GOP might do to stop Judge Jackson from becoming Justice Jackson.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Law firms that do business in Ukraine or in Russia have had to make a series of rapid decisions over the past weeks that could have the highest of consequences.Maintaining relationships with Russian clients, aside from earning them public condemnation, could put law firms afoul of new sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of its neighbor last month. But dropping clients could also subject their Russian staffers to state-sanctioned retaliation.And this is to say nothing of the firms that have offices in Ukraine itself, where just ensuring the physical safety of their attorneys is a challenge.On today's On The Merits, our weekly legal news podcast, Bloomberg Law editor Chris Opfer talks about why some firms have turned on a dime to drop their Russian business, while others haven't and still others can't. Chris also talks about why the developments of the past weeks show that reputational risk is a much bigger factor in law firms' decision making than it was just a few years ago.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

In this special bonus episode, listen to Bloomberg Law reporter Ayanna Alexander read her story about women who reject the partner track at big law firms.

The former president of the United States is waging a complex defensive legal battle on numerous fronts. From Manhattan to Albany to Atlanta and elsewhere, prosecutors are circling Donald Trump, his business, and his family.The latest blow came last month when accounting firm Mazars USA LLP not only cut ties with Trump but also announced it was disavowing a decade's worth of his financial statements. It was a move that some speculated may indicate Mazars is now cooperating with prosecutors investigating Trump's businesses.On today's episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, we speak with three reporters covering the intricate legal dealings of the former president. Amanda Iacone, Erik Larson, and Greg Farrell talk about some of the most prominent investigations into Trump, why they're moving so slowly, and about whether Trump will have enough resources to keep fighting them.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

In this special bonus episode, listen to Bloomberg Law columnist Roy Strom read his story profiling one of the largest and most powerful law firms in America, Kirkland & Ellis.

Within a decade or so, at least several states will have banned the sale of new gas-powered automobiles. The electrification of America's cars is coming, but is America ready?To get the country ready, President Biden and Democrats in Congress gave states more than $7 billion to install electric vehicle charging stations across the country. But, as Bloomberg Government's Lillianna Byington found, an Eisenhower-era law means these charging stations can't be built on highways, as many EV advocates had hoped.On today's episode of our On The Merits podcast, Lillianna explains why road-tripping EV drivers will have to get off of the highway to charge up. She also talks about some of the other obstacles EVs must overcome before overtaking their gas-powered predecessors.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The Rooney Rule started in the NFL, but it has since transcended the league—and professional sports altogether—to become a diversity initiative used across corporate America.The rule, named after former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, requires any organization that implements it to interview at least one minority candidate for senior job openings. But, as last week's explosive lawsuit from former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores shows, the Rooney Rule has some glaring limitations.On this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, we discuss those limitations with Bloomberg News courts reporter Chris Dolmetsch and Bloomberg Law employment reporter Erin Mulvaney. Chris tells us about the origins of Flores' suit and the high-profile lawyer representing him, while Erin explains the current thinking on whether the Rooney Rule is still effective.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

No property tax system is totally fair, but few are as unbalanced and often skewed in favor of the wealthy as New York City's.A law passed in Albany in the early 1980's was supposed to keep taxes on the Big Apple's single-family homes from rising too quickly. But what that means is that now a co-op in Staten Island has a tax bill 2,000% higher than a similarly priced brownstone in Brooklyn.On today's episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, we hear from Bloomberg Law's Donna Borak and Andrew Satter, who just published a big investigation into this topic. They tell us about what they've learned and about exactly how the city's Kafkaesque property tax system hurts its homeowners.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Justice Stephen Breyer is known for letting his flamboyant intellect shine on the bench. And, according to those who clerked for him, Breyer's personality outside of the courtroom was no different.It was reported earlier today that this will be the 27-year veteran of the Supreme Court's final term. To learn more about who Breyer is, we spoke with some of the attorneys who clerked for the Justice over the years.Breyer was described as someone with an insatiable, extroverted mind, who thrived on conversation—sometimes to a fault. Andrew Crespo, a former clerk and current Harvard Law School professor, said going to lunch with the Justice required finding a restaurant with lots of space "so that, when we're sitting down and he's telling us all these stories about the Court, that we weren't accidentally sitting next to a reporter."In this special episode of our Cases & Controversies podcast, former Breyer clerks share stories from their time at the Court and about the man they describe as a "happy warrior," who remained optimistic despite a tenure spent, for the most part, in the Court's ideological minority.In this episode we hear from: Danielle Gray, global chief legal officer for Walgreens Boots Alliance Pratik Shah, a partner at the firm Akin Gump Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center Andrew Crespo, a professor at Harvard Law School Do you have feedback on this episode of Cases & Controversies? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

There's been a big push in recent years to make the legal profession more diverse, especially within Big Law. So why has this largely excluded people with disabilities?The stigma against people with disabilities in the workplace is strong, even—and especially—at law firms, according to Bloomberg Law reporter Ayanna Alexander.On today's On The Merits podcast, we present a live online discussion with Ayanna about her recent story about the push to diversify the diversity movement within the legal profession. Ayanna talks about why so few law firms have signed an ABA pledge on people with disabilities and why firms likely employ many more attorneys with disabilities than they realize.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.