Arguing that the Senate “cannot ignore a nomination” to the Supreme Court, a New Mexico lawyer on Tuesday took to another level in the federal courts his one-man effort to force a vote on President Obama’s choice of Circuit Judge Merrick G. Garland to become a Justice. Steven S. Michel of Santa Fe, whose challenge to Senate… Read More

For the first time, the election of Donald Trump as President is having a direct impact on the federal government’s operations — specifically, on President Obama’s sweeping new orders aimed at delaying the deportation of upwards of four million undocumented immigrants. In a joint motion filed in a federal trial court in Texas Friday morning, lawyers for the… Read More

In a ruling likely to be a deep embarrassment for experienced lawyers, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to decide a major dispute it had agreed to hear because the attorneys for the companies involved had switched their argument as the case moved toward a hearing. The combined cases of Visa v. Osborn and Visa… Read More

With time running out on President Obama’s nomination of Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland to be a Supreme Court Justice, a federal trial judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday threw out a New Mexico lawyer’s lawsuit seeking to force a vote in the Senate. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, in a five-page opinion, did not rule… Read More

The Supreme Court’s expressed hope that lawyers on both sides of the controversy over the birth-control mandate in the new federal health care law would come to an agreement is no nearer realization after six months. The two sides are facing a series of deadlines to file new reports in eight separate federal appeals courts… Read More

With conservative advocacy groups pressing the new Donald Trump administration to reverse national policy that up to now has strongly favored transgender rights, this newest campaign for legal equality may have to shift its focus – to the states but with some continued emphasis on court cases, especially in the lower federal courts. The Supreme… Read More

Lawyers for the federal government and for the 26 states that challenged the Obama administration’s sweeping change of immigration policy are due to meet this week to see if they can agree on how that controversy is to unfold from here on. The further review of the policy in the federal courts, however, may be… Read More

On the day after America voted, one thing is all but certain about the Supreme Court, and a second thing is highly probable. What is close to a certainty is that President Obama’s nominee to the existing vacancy on the ourt, Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland, will not become a Justice. What is probable is… Read More

If lenders of home mortgages discriminate against minority borrowers, and that sets off a chain that ultimately ends in racially segregated residential neighborhoods, who along that chain gets to sue for damages? And, in particular, if cities at the end of that chain can show they were harmed, can they sue and, if so, how… Read More

On the eve of the presidential election, the Supreme Court refused a Democratic party plea to intervene to protect Ohio voters from intimidation or harassment by followers of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The state Democrats had asked the Justices to put back into effect a Cleveland federal judge’s order explicitly barring Trump “poll watchers”… Read More