LEGAL

Mary Mancusi wins 2022 Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition | News | The Law School

Mary Mancusi wins 2022 Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition | News | The Law School

Mary Mancusi wins 2022 Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition | News | The Law School

Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Ethics, Compliance & Inclusion has announced that rising third-year student Marilyn “Mary” Mancusi is the winner of the 2022 Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition.

Mancusi’s paper, “Attorneys, E-Discovery, and the Case for 37(g),” addresses the concern that federal courts do not have a reliable and uniform system that allows them to impose sanctions on attorneys who violate e-discovery obligations.

Addressing the fact that much more evidence and information is now found through various electronic forms, and that attorneys play such a major role in the discovery process, Mancusi’s paper proposes a new rule be added to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The rule defines a uniform, reliable system for federal courts to impose sanctions on attorneys who participate in e-discovery misconduct. 

Her paper also discusses the rise of e-discovery as digital technology became more prevalent, the ethical and common-law expectations that attorneys currently have in e-discovery, and the ways that federal courts have previously sanctioned attorneys for their role in e-discovery abuse.

Professor Veronica Root Martinez, director of the Law School’s Program on Ethics, Compliance & Inclusion, said, “Mary’s submission stood out for its timely topic, analytical rigor, and reasoned proposal. I am

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Florida Supreme Court hears gun law challenge amid national debate over restrictions

The law being challenged is part of a decades-old “preemption” law approved by the Florida Legislature that prohibits local governments at the city or county level to pass measures stricter than those at the state level. The case the state Supreme Court is weighing will not affect the underlying 1987 preemption law.

“This is a legislative fire hose to put out a birthday candle,” said Edward G. Guedes, an attorney representing the plaintiffs trying to overturn the law.

The state’s high court considered the legal fight in the aftermath of a spate of mass shootings across the country, including one last month in Uvalde, Texas school that left 19 elementary students and two teachers dead, and another in Buffalo, N.Y. that claimed 10 lives. Those shootings and others spurred lawmakers across the country to again fight over how to restrict firearms in the country.

The Florida law was initially overturned in Leon County Circuit Court, but last year the 1st District Court of Appeals overturned that lower court ruling, which prompted Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is also running for governor, and 30 local governments to appeal the decision to the Florida Supreme Court.

“We should be talking

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Senators reach a bipartisan deal on gun safety legislation : NPR

Senators reach a bipartisan deal on gun safety legislation : NPR
Senators reach a bipartisan deal on gun safety legislation : NPR

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Senators have reached a deal on gun control legislation.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators say they have reached a deal on a package of safety and gun-related measures narrowly focused on preventing future shootings similar to the one in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed in their school.

The proposal, which has not been written into legislative text, includes money to encourage states to pass and implement so-called “red flag” laws to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, money for school safety and mental health resources, expanded background checks for gun purchases for people between the ages of 18 and 21 and penalties for illegal straw purchases by convicted criminals.

The agreement has the support of at least 20 senators who worked closely over the past several weeks to find the areas of common ground that could pass the closely divided Senate. The group includes 10 Republicans, meaning a final bill could potentially garner the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.

The negotiators called it a “commonsense” proposal that would reduce the threat of violence across the country.

“Our plan increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals

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Why Major Companies Are Outsourcing Legal Solutions

Why Major Companies Are Outsourcing Legal Solutions

Why Major Companies Are Outsourcing Legal SolutionsMore legal departments are looking to outside talents to bolster their ranks and grow their business. Wolters Kluwer’s new survey of 100 legal executives shows that 93% of legal or compliance departments have outsourced work in the last three years.

And these are more than just smaller companies: The respondents came from entities making more than $500 million in revenue, with the increase most prevalent among institutions with $1 billion-$4 billion in annual revenue.

Why are even institution-sized firms pulling in external experts? And what duties are those hires performing?

Why Now? 

As the survey responses show, outsourcing legal solutions solves multiple problems for legal departments.

One: It eases workflow, allowing companies to redistribute workload to dedicated experts, thereby freeing their in-house counsel to manage and tackle larger, more complex aspects of their project.

Two: On-demand in-house counsel keep the budget down without sacrificing quality. As Wolters Kluwer found, GCs anticipate a 25% increase in workflow, but 88% anticipate needing to trim their budgets. On-demand solutions let them do both.

Third, hiring on-demand counsel for bespoke solutions allows companies to grow their business without burning out their staff. Plus, it lets legal departments test new methods that keep

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Knesset debate over Civil Law in Israel threatens protections on settlers

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HEBRON, West Bank — Noam Arnon and Issa Amro live within a few blocks of each other in the center of this biblical city, but they live under two different sets of laws. Amro, along with Hebron’s other 200,000 Palestinian residents, is subject to military law imposed by the occupying Israeli forces. Soldiers can, and have, entered his house and body-searched him on the streets without warrant or warning.

Arnon and the other 800 residents of an Israeli settlement in Hebron’s Old City live under Israeli civil law, enjoying the same protections against warrantless searches, the arrest of minors and other police powers as their countrymen living in Israel. “Israeli law must apply here,” said Arnon, who believes that Jews have a biblical and historical claim to these ancient lands. “Hebron is more Israeli than Tel Aviv.”

But the decades-old system in which Israel extends its legal code to its citizens settling in the Palestinian territories is suddenly imperiled. Lawmakers in Jerusalem are deadlocked on renewing the arrangement in a schism that could dissolve the unusual two-tiered legal system and subject the West Bank’s Israelis to the same martial law as their Palestinian neighbors.

It

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