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The Law for Lawyers Today
Trump and Trade

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Nancy M. Barnes

Latest from Thompson Hine LLP

If you’re admitted to handle a case PHV, mind your P’s and Q’s. Translation:  Pro hac vice admission to practice before a court outside the state where you’re licensed requires attention to a range of ethics duties, and running afoul of them can have bad consequences.  Two recent cases spotlight some of the issues. We’re looking at you…. A Louisiana lawyer was admitted pro hac vice to represent a client in the Western District of…
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Three weeks after the partial federal government shutdown began and shuttered most of the trade-related government agencies in Washington, D.C. (see Trump and Trade Update dated December 26, 2018), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) – which had remained fully operational – has indicated that it will begin to furlough staff on January 14, 2019. According to an Office of Management and Budget contingency plan, USTR is normally staffed by 265 personnel,…
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Everyone knows that we have an ethical duty of competence, and in most jurisdictions this includes a duty to be aware of the “benefits and risks” of relevant technology.  Examples of possible technology issues affecting our practices:  encryption (and cyber-security in general), cloud storage, e-mail handling, the internet of things — there are many more.  And snafus from failing to understand technology or handle it properly can have fallout for lawyers and…
International trade and international trade disputes were a predominant focus of President Trump and his trade officials throughout 2018. Thompson Hine’s Trump and Trade team has prepared a slide presentation to provide our readers with a broad overview of the most significant trade actions taken by the Trump administration last year. From the renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is now the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), to the many ongoing trade actions…
If you’re corporate counsel to an organization, you know how hard it can be to navigate privilege issues.  In a single day, you can be involved in talking to business managers, communicating with your CEO and dealing with the board.  When are your communications privileged, and how can you protect them?  A recent Colorado district court opinion has some pointers, based on a finding that a memo partly authored by in-house counsel was not privileged. Legal advice, or just…
On December 21, 2018, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced its first round of product exclusions for U.S. imports from China receiving a 25 percent tariff increase on July 6, 2018, as part of the Section 301 process. In a December 28, 2018 Federal Register notice, the USTR announced that it will modify the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) to grant nearly 1,000 product exclusion requests. As set out in the annex…
On December 21, 2018, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) submitted to Congress and released to the public a summary of the Trump administration’s specific negotiating objectives for its U.S.-Japan Free Trade Agreement negotiations. This follows the USTR’s notification to Congress on October 16, 2018, of the Trump administration’s intention to enter into negotiations (see Trump and Trade Update dated October 17, 2018 and Update dated October 26, 2018), the submission of public comments –…
Do we need another reminder about the perils of posting internet comments on cases and matters we are connected with?  Apparently we do, and here’s a strong one.  Earlier this month, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana was disbarred based on hundreds of comments he posted pseudonymously on the website of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  The posts included many related to high-profile cases he or his colleagues in the U.S. Attorney’s office were…
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With the partial federal government shutdown beginning at 12:01 a.m. on December 22, 2018, most of the U.S. government’s trade-oriented agencies have either shut down or had their operations severely restricted. What follows is a listing of the current operational status of many of these agencies: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) In a conference call with interested parties, CBP indicated that the ports will be “staffed as normal” to ensure that the “flow of…
With growing congressional and business concerns over the backlog of Section 232 product exclusion requests and the lack of transparency in the review and decision-making processes of the Department of Commerce (Commerce), U.S. Senators Pat Toomey, Doug Jones and Thomas Carper submitted a letter November 26, 2018, to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a formal review by this government agency as to how Commerce has been granting these tariff exclusions. Among the issues the…