Lawrence is an attorney and CEO of Law Commentary. His legal background includes corporate and general business law, litigation, transactional matters, and law practice management. His litigation experience has included complex matters involving antitrust, insurance bad faith, and medical malpractice. On the transactional side, Lawrence has worked with buy-sell agreements, Regulation D disclosures, stock option plans, and business matters. Lawrence draws on his legal and business experience to help make court decisions, litigation, legislation, public policy, and other legal developments more accessible to the general public and to give readers clear context for understanding the law and how it affects businesses, consumers, and communities.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction requiring the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to ensure that if any Jewish students are barred from campus programs, activities, or areas, access to all students must also be restricted. This ruling, which takes effect on Thursday, comes...
Read
More »
The US District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced a Van Nuys, California resident, David Nicholas Dempsey, to 20 years in prison on Friday for his violent actions against police officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Dempsey, who traveled from California to Washington, DC,...
Read
More »
Reuters reported that the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied Missouri's request to delay former President Donald Trump's sentencing in a high-profile felony case involving hush money payments. The Court's decision leaves in place a related gag order on Trump until after the upcoming presidential election on November 5.
The...
Read
More »
On Thursday, a U.S. appeals court blocked the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) attempt to reinstate net neutrality rules, siding with broadband providers in their legal challenge. The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals temporarily halted the FCC's April decision to reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet and reinstate open internet...
Read
More »
In a move ahead of the 2024 presidential election, US President Joe Biden has proposed major reforms to the Supreme Court and presidential immunity. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, Biden outlined a three-part plan aimed at overhauling the structure and ethical standards of the nation's highest court...
Read
More »
Justice Elena Kagan passionately advocated for an enforceable code of conduct for U.S. Supreme Court justices, stressing the urgency of the issue. She argued that the current system, which relies on justices to self-regulate, lacks necessary enforcement mechanisms. Speaking at a judicial conference on Thursday, Justice Kagan emphasized that enforceable...
Read
More »
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Kelley Hodge upheld the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban noncompete agreements, denying a preliminary injunction sought by ATS Tree Services. The company's request aimed to block the FTC's new rule prohibiting noncompete clauses, which is set to take effect in September....
Read
More »
Former Harvard women’s hockey coach Katey Stone has filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, alleging sex discrimination and wrongful termination. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, comes after Stone's abrupt exit last year amid allegations of a toxic culture within her program.
Stone, who led...
Read
More »
According to an official press release from the Court Technology Services (CTS) Division, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County experienced a ransomware attack on Friday, July 19, 2024, which disrupted its internal systems.
The attack was identified in the early hours of Friday morning, prompting the Court to disable...
Read
More »
U.S. District Judge Tana Lin dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit against Amazon, which accused the e-commerce giant of misleading customers about the benefits of its Prime subscription service, specifically regarding a $9.95 delivery fee for Whole Foods purchases. The ruling, delivered in Seattle federal court on Thursday, found that...
Read
More »
As reported by Reuters, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Thursday that "earned wage" advances on worker paychecks should be considered consumer loans under federal law. This move aims to establish federal guidelines for a rapidly expanding market.
In its proposed interpretive guidance, the CFPB stated that...
Read
More »
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was found guilty on all 16 criminal charges against him, including bribery. The verdict was reached in a federal court in Manhattan after a trial that spanned nine weeks and three days of jury deliberation.
Despite the verdict, Menendez, who has been a Senator...
Read
More »
On Friday (July 12), U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall dismissed a New York state trooper’s retaliation claim portion of a lawsuit against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo while keeping the sexual harassment claim against him untouched. The basis of her ruling was that the alleged retaliatory action had...
Read
More »
Thursday (July 11), the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that college players in Division I revenue-generating sports, such as football and basketball, cannot be categorically excluded from U.S. labor protections. This ruling challenges the NCAA's longstanding stance that athletes are "student-athletes, " not employees.
The decision came in...
Read
More »
A federal judge in Texas has declared a 156-year-old ban on at-home distilling unconstitutional, siding with a group advocating for the legalization of personal spirit production. This ruling marks a shift in the regulation of homemade alcoholic beverages, potentially paving the way for hobbyists to distill spirits like whiskey and...
Read
More »