AIDS Legal Referral Panel

Thursday, March 14th, 5:30pm - 7:00pm

Employee Benefits Claims and Appeals

• Presented by Kirsten Scott, Esq. – Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP

• Bar Association of San Francisco, 301 Battery Street, 3rd Floor, Board Room, San Francisco, CA 94111

• 1.5 General CLE Credits

• Overview: Come learn about employee benefit claims, the administrative appeals procedure, and strategy tips in representing a participant through this process. This training will largely focus on employee benefits under ERISA, but will also touch on non-ERISA benefits as well.

Please RSVP:

mcle@alrp.org | (415) 701-1200 x303

Bloomberg Law

March 5, 2019

"Whether shareholders can be required to arbitrate federal securities claims raises an abundance of legal and policy questions. The ultimate legal question is whether the federal securities statutes guarantee access to a court, and thereby override the Federal Arbitration Act’s mandate to enforce arbitration agreements."

https://biglawbusiness.com/insight-can-shareholders-be-forced-to-arbitrate-claims-1

ABA Journal

March 2019

"A new California law, SB 1421, makes certain police personnel records available through California’s public records law—not just to defense lawyers or prosecutors, but to anyone who asks. The information available is limited to specific kinds of misconduct and will be scrubbed of most personal information. But some police misconduct lawyers still see it as a win."

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california-police-personnel-records

Bloomberg Law

March 5, 2019

"So far, at least three complaints have been filed against Walmart in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Wisconsin over the retail giant’s imposition of an April deadline for phasing out greeter positions as they now exist, according to Cheryl Bates Harris, a senior disability advocacy specialist at the National Disability Rights Network. Elderly and disabled employees who hold many of those positions have been told to reapply for “customer host” positions that, among other things, can require standing for long periods. Walmart declined to elaborate on the specific different job requirements for the new role."

https://biglawbusiness.com/walmarts-elimination-of-greeters-may-open-new-front-on-ada-law

IP Watchdog

March 3, 2019

"In recent months, AIDS activist groups have called on Gilead and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to end patent protection for Truvada in order to get lower cost generic versions of the drug onto the market. #BreakThePatent is one such group that collects online signatures supporting march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, arguing that one month’s supply of Truvada only costs Gilead $6 to create. The website also contends that Gilead didn’t invent PrEP and that the federal government and U.S. taxpayers fronted 100% of the costs to develop Truvada. In late February, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson publicly endorsed the #BreakThePatent campaign, becoming one of the most prominent U.S. politicians to support march-in rights to create access to generic Truvada. ACT UP New York, an AIDS awareness group founded at the height of the epidemic during the 1980s, has also come out publicly against Gilead’s pricing of Truvada."

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/03/03/examining-truvada-breakthepatent-debate-gilead-responds/id=106906/

Law Sites

March 4, 2019

On Feb. 26, 2019, the Supreme Court of Texas entered an order amending Paragraph 8 of Rule 1.01 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. The amended comment now reads (emphasis added):

Maintaining Competence

8. Because of the vital role of lawyers in the legal process, each lawyer should strive to become and remain proficient and competent in the practice of law, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill of a competent practitioner, a lawyer should engage in continuing study and education. If a system of peer review has been established, the lawyer should consider making use of it in appropriate circumstances. Isolated instances of faulty conduct or decision should be identified for purposes of additional study or instruction.

In the seven years since, 36 states have formally adopted this duty of technology competence.

https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/03/texas-is-latest-state-to-adopt-duty-of-technology-competence.html

Library Of Congress

Streamed live on Feb 14, 2019

The Law Library of Congress and the Supreme Court Fellows Program will present a conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday, Feb. 14 at 3:30 p.m. at the Library of Congress.

The conversation will be moderated by the Honorable Robert A. Katzmann, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission, and Eloise Pasachoff, professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Supreme Court Fellows Program. Law Librarian of Congress Jane Sánchez and Supreme Court Fellows Program Executive Director Jeffrey P. Minear, who is counselor to the Chief Justice of the United States, will introduce the program.

The Supreme Court Fellows Program, founded in 1973, offers mid-career professionals, recent law school graduates and doctoral degree holders from the law and political science fields an opportunity to broaden their understanding of the judicial system through exposure to federal court administration.

https://youtu.be/JbOYsdz9k6s?t=1

The Chronicle of Social Change

March 1, 2019

As the controversy around SB 1391 — the new law in California that prevents youth younger than 16 years old from entering the adult criminal justice system — continues to play out in courts across the state, a group of legal scholars have issued a white paper defending the law’s constitutionality.

https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/news-2/legal-experts-defend-california-juvenile-law-sb-1391-white-paper

Contra Costa Lawyer

March 1, 2019

"The importance of minor’s counsel in these disputes cannot be over emphasized. The courts are charged with making decisions that will have a lifetime impact on these children’s lives. Minor’s counsel is often the only way that courts can receive evidence about the child and his/her family from that an attorney charged solely with presenting evidence purely focusing on the child’s needs, not the needs/desires of the competing adults." 

http://cclawyer.cccba.org/2019/03/minors-counsel-protecting-childrens-rights-in-family-and-probate-court/