DIGEST: When a lawyer rather than a broker prepares a real estate contract, the lawyer may not disclose the contract to the broker without the client's informed consent, which must include disclosure of any personal, financial, or business interest of the lawyer in responding to the broker's request for disclosure of the information.
Recently in Primary Source Documents Category
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An external review of the New York City Department of Education's handling of due process complaints points to a flawed system. The report cites a lack of hearing officers and inadequate space to hold hearings. The result is that many students suffer without appropriate programs for months, sometimes years at end.
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The purpose of this site is to provide easy access to reports and other materials useful in opinion practice, without charge, for non-commercial use.
The ABA Business Law Section Legal Opinions Committee and the TriBar Opinion Committee have issued influential reports that have shaped opinion practice for over two decades. In recent years the Federal Securities Law Opinions Subcommittee of the Section's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities has begun issuing authoritative reports, and other Section committees may issue reports in the future of interest to the practice. Law firms and law departments are encouraged to link their internal websites permanently to this resource.
The ABA Business Law Section Legal Opinions Committee and the TriBar Opinion Committee have issued influential reports that have shaped opinion practice for over two decades. In recent years the Federal Securities Law Opinions Subcommittee of the Section's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities has begun issuing authoritative reports, and other Section committees may issue reports in the future of interest to the practice. Law firms and law departments are encouraged to link their internal websites permanently to this resource.
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A federal judge has refused to block a subpoena from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for eight years of financial records from the accounting firm for President Donald Trump.
Trump filed a lawsuit against Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House committee, last month.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of Washington, D.C., said Congress had sufficient justification to seek the records from Mazars USA, report the New York Times, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, the Hill, the Washington Post and the National Law Journal. The decision, filed Monday, is here.
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Over the past year, a spate of suicides by taxi drivers in New York City has highlighted in brutal terms the overwhelming debt and financial plight of medallion owners. All along, officials have blamed the crisis on competition from ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft.
But a New York Times investigation found much of the devastation can be traced to a handful of powerful industry leaders who steadily and artificially drove up the price of taxi medallions, creating a bubble that eventually burst. Over more than a decade, they channeled thousands of drivers into reckless loans and extracted hundreds of millions of dollars before the market collapsed.
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By ANNA FLAGG
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A lot of research has shown that there's no causal connection between immigration and crime in the United States. But after one such study was reported on jointly by The Marshall Project and The Upshot last year, readers had one major complaint: Many argued it was unauthorized immigrants who increase crime, not immigrants over all.
An analysis derived from new data is now able to help address this question, suggesting that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates.
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DOJ Alumni Statement
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We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.
Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.
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By Susan DeSantis
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In an era when politicians and pundits alike are bemoaning society's lack of civility, the New York State Bar Association is announcing today that it has adopted new standards that tell lawyers how they should behave in the sandbox, so to speak. But don't worry: you most likely won't get sanctioned for throwing a temper tantrum.
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Mueller Report by on Scribd
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The report begins with an overview of the astronomical increase (1700%) in ICE courthouse operations since 2016 and shows the negative impact of this increase on countless stakeholders. Statewide, law enforcement agencies, from district attorney offices to the Attorney General's Office, have publicly condemned ICE for disrupting the trust between New York's immigrant residents and law enforcement. District attorney offices that participated in the Coalition's data-gathering describe how victims, survivors, and witnesses were often too fearful to pursue justice in courts or to participate in their services geared toward immigrant residents. Advocates similarly point out a pronounced chilling effect among victims, survivors, and witnesses in reporting abuses to law enforcement or pursuing legal claims. Most disturbingly, advocates also reported how ICE's highly publicized tactics have emboldened abusers, who use threats of deportation to keep their clients from seeking legal redress. Public defender organizations recount how disruptive ICE's recent tactics have been to not just their attorneys' daily work but also to their resource allocation and morale.
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By Colby Hamilton
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New York state's Office of Court Administration issued updated rules Wednesday that immigration advocates hailed as a check on the ability for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests inside state courthouses, just a week after a new, 80-page report detailed the impact of federal immigration officials operating in the state courthouses.
"We have concluded that this report provides us with a sufficient basis to take the step that many have asked us to take to require that ICE present a judge-issued warrant before conducting an arrest in a state courthouse," Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks told the New York Law Journal. "Although we're not aware that any other court system in the country has taken this step, this comprehensive, well-documented report has convinced us that this change in policy is now appropriate and warranted."
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Jon Campbell,
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Hundreds of thousands of New York filers are receiving letters asking for proof of the state taxes withheld from their wages in 2018, with the Tax Department demanding copies of W-2s or paycheck stubs from the filer's employer.
The letters are not a hoax.
By Jud Webre
To get a New York Dealer License, you'll need to complete an NY Dealer License Application, get a Sales Tax ID Number, purchase insurance, secure a surety bond, and provide other necessary documents and fees.
Links to all of those forms and agencies can be found here. Its probably not a coincidence that the site sponsor also sells surety bonds, as needed for the Dealer License. No endorsement is expressed or implied.
Fighting animal cruelty is both a consumer protection issue and a public safety issue. The New York State Office of the Attorney General's Animal Protection Initiative is aimed at shutting down criminal animal fighting rings, protecting consumers from unscrupulous pet sellers, and encouraging consumers to report animal cruelty to their local law enforcement agencies and/or their local SPCA.
The Initiative aims at ensuring compliance with New York State's Pet Lemon Law, which is designed to safeguard the public and to ensure the humane treatment of dogs and cats by requiring pet dealers to guarantee the good health of any such animal sold by a pet dealer to a consumer. The Initiative also uses civil and criminal remedies to target allegations of animal fighting rings.
The Initiative is comprised of Investigators and Assistant Attorneys General from across the entire state, including from our Regional Offices, the Consumer Frauds Bureau, the Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau, the Organized Crime Task Force and the Investigations Bureau, who will work to bring the perpetrators of these and other animal crimes to justice.
"...As a supplement to the notifcation provided on Friday, March 22, 2019, I am writing today
to advise you of the principal conclusions reached by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and
to inform you about the status of my initial review of the report he has prepared..."
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by Dena Bunis, AARP
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If you're not sure whether Original Medicare will pay for a particular test or medical service your doctor says you need, the answer could be as close as a new app on your phone or other mobile device. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled the new tool called "What's Covered" on Monday.
It is available in GooglePlay and the AppleApp Store. You can look for a particular service or test by typing a description into the search bar, and the app allows you to browse all services via an alphabetized list of everything from acupuncture to yearly wellness visits. It also provides a list of preventative services that Medicare pays for, and a help feature lets you call the Medicare hotline (800-Medicare; 800-633-4227) or takes you to the full Medicare.gov website.
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Plaintiffs who claim Pacer fees are illegally excessive are getting lots of support in amicus briefs filed in their pending federal appeal.
Among the amici are seven retired federal judges who argue that Pacer should be free, report the New Republicand Law.com. The judges include former Circuit Judge Richard Posner of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The judges' brief argues that docket-access fees reduce judicial transparency and the legitimacy of the courts. Other retired federal judges filing the brief include Shira Scheindlin, W. Royal Furgeson and Nancy Gertner.
Other amici supporting the plaintiffs include former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the original sponsor of the law at issue in the suit; several legal research platforms; media organizations; the American Civil Liberties Union; and the Cato Institute.
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Pacer cost slightly more than $3 million to operate in 2016, but it brought in more than $146 million in fees, according to the New Republic article.
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BY JASON TASHEA
In a technical oversight, lawyers for former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort failed to redact a recent filing correctly, making previously confidential information public.
