A toast to making it through the first work week of 2018, and to the first Top 10 in Law Blogs of the new year! Jeff Sessions made it a busy week in the legalized marijuana industry by rescinding the Cole Memo; Hilary Bricken of the Canna Law Blog covered the breaking news and discussed what the Memo included, and Steve Levin at Cannabis Law Now published a post on the ramifications of this decision. Other top posts this week include Kathryn Rattigan’s piece on how drones could influence the way we watch sports in the future, and David Lazarus’ meditation on the future of “fake news.” We hope the new year finds you happy and healthy, and we’ll see you for another set of the Top 10 in Law Blogs next week.
BREAKING NEWS: Bye, Bye Cole Memo, Hello Uncertainty for Marijuana – By Hilary Bricken of Canna Law Blog: It’s finally happening — Attorney General Jeff Sessions will, today, rescind the 2013 Cole Memoregarding federal enforcement in states that legalized cannabis. The Cole Memo, which came on the heels of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington back in 2012, set forth the Obama administration’s enforcement policies regarding state-legal marijuana. It set out eight main enforcement directives that essentially allowed states to move forward with legalization so long as they had “robust” regulations to control undesirable side effects. In turn, cannabis operators who consistently complied with hardcore state marijuana regulations basically saw themselves as off-limits to the Feds because of the Cole Memo. Nonetheless, the Cole Memo did not legalize or decriminalize marijuana and marijuana remains federally illegal today. View Full Post
The Sessions Memo – By Steve Levine of Cannabis Law Now: Attorney General Sessions rescinded, effective January 4, 2018, previous enforcement priorities of the DOJ related to marijuana – including the Cole Memo. The Sessions Memo dictates that federal prosecutors should follow the “Principles of Federal Prosecution” originally set forth in 1980 and subsequently refined over time in chapter 9-27.000 of the U.S. Attorney’s Manual. Sessions goes on to state in his memo that “These principles require federal prosecutors deciding which cases to prosecute to weigh all relevant considerations, including federal law enforcement priorities set by the Attorney General, the seriousness of the crime, the deterrent effect of criminal prosecution, and the cumulative impact of particular crimes on the community.” It is important to note that Sessions has not previously set any specific enforcement priorities with respect to marijuana, nor has this memo created any new enforcement priorities of the DOJ. View Full Post
Looking Ahead to the Future of ‘Fake News’ – By David Lazarus of In the Arena: Law & Politics Update: The rise of social media has brought multiple, recent charges of forgery and fraud in the dissemination of political attacks. The nature of such attacks is nothing new. Since the dawn of American elections, candidates have seen their words, views, and deeds fraudulently portrayed by political enemies. During the 1972 presidential election, an aide to Richard Nixon reportedly wrote a false letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader claiming that Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination, laughed at the use of an ethnic slur against Americans of French-Canadian descent. In 1880, a New York newspaper published a fraudulent letter, allegedly written by presidential candidate James A. Garfield, stating Garfield’s support for unrestricted Chinese immigration. View Full Post
The Taxman Cometh for Sexual Harassment Settlements – By Anne Knox Averitt of Labor & Employment Insights: Happy New Year! We hope you had a joyful holiday season and your 2018 is off to a good start. As you know, over the last few months, sexual harassment allegations have surfaced all over the place, from Hollywood to Capitol Hill to the Today Show. The hot topic of harassment in the workplace has garnered attention from employers and legislators alike, and it has prompted Senators to amend the new tax bill in an effort to curb nondisclosure agreements in sexual harassment settlements. View Full Post
CFPB Releases State of the Credit Card Market Report – By Ebone Dryver and Stephen C. Piepgrass of Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor: On December 27, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released “The Consumer Credit Card Market,” its report on the state of the industry. Mandated to be released every two years by the Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act, the report was last released in 2015. The 2017 report focused on tracking credit card market trends and developments. View Full Post
Texas Court Affirms Constitutionality of Statute Prohibiting Brewers from Selling Distribution Rights to Their Products – By Barrett K. Lopez of Alcohol Law Advisor: Texas craft beer distributors received an early Christmas present in 2017. On December 15, 2017, the Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District, at Austin issued an opinion in Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission v. Live Oak Brewing Co., et al. (NO. 03-16-00786-CV) in which the court overturned a lower court’s determination that a statute prohibiting self-distributing brewers from selling the distribution rights to their products was unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution. View Full Post
Apffel: State Bar incubator is producing success stories – By Trey Apffel on the Texas Bar Blog: Did you know that the State Bar of Texas will soon have one of the largest legal incubators anywhere? And that the program is helping not only new attorneys but also people who normally can’t afford legal services. The State Bar launched the Texas Opportunity & Justice Incubator, or TOJI, in April 2017 under the superb leadership of Immediate Past President Frank Stevenson. Its mission is to expand access to justice for low- and moderate-income Texans by helping new lawyers establish sustainable practices that serve this population. View Full Post
Happy new year – or economic meltdown? – By Tom Whitton of eSquire Global Crossings: At the turn of the new year, economists provide their financial predictions akin to the great Nostradamus. They predict a bleak outlook for the UK economy in 2018, but such forecasts are not always accurate. The continuing uncertainty of the Brexit negotiations is likely greatly to affect the prospects of any improvement in the UK economy in 2018. Respondents to the Financial Times annual survey of economists (“FT Survey”) also cited as concerns for the UK economy high levels of debt amongst consumers and fears of a downturn in UK trade productivity in comparison to the upturn in the rest of the world. View Full Post
Buckle Your Seatbelts: 2018 Will Be a Watershed Year in Business Immigration – By Suzan Kern of Hunton Immigration & Nationality Law Blog: If 2017 is any indication, the new year will bring a fresh cascade of changes – both announced and unannounced, anticipated and unanticipated – in the business immigration landscape. Few, if any, of these changes are expected to be good news for U.S. businesses and the foreign workers they employ. In 2017, while much of the news media focused on the Trump Administration’s draconian changes to practices and policies that affected the undocumented. View Full Post
Drones and the Future of Watching Sports – By Kathryn Rattigan of Data Privacy + Security Insider: Some may consider drones to be annoying and noisy, but in the next few years, drones are going to become quiet, small, safe and almost effortless to fly. And because of these changes, drones will also change the way sports are covered by the media. Why? Well, drones are the perfect action cameras. Like many of the athletes they film, drones can defy physical limitations. They are more flexible and spontaneous than media camera rigs. They can film pretty much anywhere: a cliff face, over open water, or behind a dirt bike moving at 60 mph. Drones can mimic the way athletes move and with the ability to do that, drones can obtain footage beyond typical sports coverage. Drones can convey not only the image but also the feeling of the movement we are watching. View Full Post