Morning Docket: 06.11.25

Welcome back to Let’s Talk About Prenups, our blog series that will familiarize you with terminology that doesn’t need to be taboo. We will answer questions both simple and complex, debunk the myths, and illustrate situations and options.  Feel free to contact us with a particular issue or to schedule a consultation. In the first blog of this series, we suggested that a prenuptial agreement be considered as a financial planning tool for a couple’s future together and as a way to have difficult and honest conversations before problems arise. In this second blog, we will address the elements needed for a prenup to be enforceable in New Jersey. As you’ll see, correct drafting and execution are critical. The Prenup’s Role in Divorce Proceedings One of the primary benefits of a well-crafted prenup is that it can simplify and streamline divorce proceedings.  This is done by addressing how financial matters will be handled in the event of…

St. Louis, MO — Greater Goods has announced a recall of several models of its digital kitchen scales due to serious safety concerns related to the ingestion of lithium coin batteries. The recalled products violate federal safety regulations under Reese’s Law, which is designed to prevent injury from button cell or coin battery ingestion. The recall was initiated after it was determined that the kitchen scales do not comply with mandatory safety requirements: Children can easily access the lithium coin battery. A spare coin battery included in the packaging is not housed in child-resistant packaging, as required by law. The product lacks the safety warnings regarding the risks of coin battery ingestion. These violations pose a significant risk. If swallowed, button cell or coin batteries can cause internal chemical burns, severe injury, or death. This recall includes the following Greater Goods Digital Kitchen Scale models: Model Numbers: 0480, 0455, 0456, 0458,…

Seventy-nine years ago, President Harry Truman signed a law that, to this day, most Americans have never heard of. Even the title of the law — the Administrative Procedure Act or APA — is a guaranteed yawner.  Yet this law is central to the rule of law and, among other things, to environmental protection.  We are learning from the current Administration’s efforts to evade the APA just how important it is. Administrative procedure is a complicated subject that takes up most of a full semester course in law school.  But at heart, it consists of three principles: Agencies cannot exceed the powers granted by Congress and must follow their own rules and congressionally mandated procedures. Agencies must give reasoned explanations when they decide factual or policy issues. People harmed by agency decisions have the right to judicial review. You might say that this is nit-picky lawyer stuff. But these principles are crucial to preventing lawless or…

How ethics reforms in Arizona led to LegalZoom’s law firm

Pacific Legal Foundation and the Catholic University Law Review seek papers for a symposium on “Searching for Constitutional Limits on Environmental & Natural Resources Law,” to be held in spring 2026 at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. The full call for papers is available here. We seek papers that explore the limits of Congress’s regulatory authority over environmental and natural resources policy. We would like papers that address this topic from numerous perspectives, including: Does the Commerce Clause limit the application of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, or any other environmental statute? As an empirical matter, how many federal environmental regimes reach non-commercial and intrastate activity? Rulings in United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison reintroduced some constraints on the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce. Does the…

WaPo: A Wisconsin nonprofit organization focused on fighting for fair elections has filed a legal complaint alleging that billionaire Elon Musk illegally bribed voters by giving out cash prizes this year in his attempt to help conservatives take control of… Continue reading The post “Lawsuit accuses Musk of bribing Wisconsin voters with cash prizes” appeared first on Election Law Blog.

This post was authored by Luke Jenkins, Touro University Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center Plaintiff-Appellant, property owner, brought suit against the City of Chicago (City) alleging the City’s enactment of an ordinance designating a district as a Chicago landmark under the Chicago Landmark Ordinance violated his rights to substantive due process and equal protection under the state constitution. The facts and procedural history and set forth below. The Chicago Landmarks Ordinance set forth a procedure to protect and encourage the use of districts within the City eligible to be designated as Chicago landmarks. The “Arlington-Deming District” was noted by the Landmark Commission as potentially meeting the requirements of being designated a Chicago landmark. After a study and designation report outlining the satisfaction of landmark requirements, the commission recommended to the City Council to adopt an ordinance designating the District as a Chicago…

President Donald Trump is off to a fast start in his second term in the White House. Along with a bevy of other consequential actions, the president has called into question the constitutionality of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) independence. At first blush, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States would seem to prevent the president from removing FTC commissioners without cause. But that is incorrect. On March 18, President Trump removed Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC, notwithstanding a statute that specifies only certain allowable justifications for their removal. The president appears to believe that Article II of the Constitution—which vests the executive power in the president alone and which obligates the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—supersedes that statutory limitation on his power to remove FTC commissioners. Enter the 90-year-old…

For the Balkinization symposium in honor of Ken Kersch Sanford Levinson Nothing I could write could add to Roger Smith’s wonderful tribute to a truly wonderful person, Ken Kersch.  His work was obviously important, and it would be worth remembering even if he were a lout.  But he wasn’t.  All who encountered him as a person knew that he was special, not only a person of great intelligence, with a willingness and ability to tackle truly important issues, but also a mensch, a person one wanted to have as a friend.  I was privileged to know Ken for quite a few years, and we usually had dinner at least once (which was not enough) during the semesters that I happened to be in Boston.  I last saw him in September.  Neither of knew, of course, that it would be for the last time.  Our conversations were usually casual.  Now I wish I had taken more opportunity to explore interests we had in common and to find out more about where his…

Authors’ Note: The members of the Fact-Finding Mission were appointed by the President of the UN Human Rights Council; they are not U.N. staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights Office provides support in the Fact-Finding Mission, the members serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including the U.N. Any views or opinions presented herein are solely those of the mandated members. In September 2022, massive protests broke out across Iran, sparked by the unlawful death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman while in the custody of Iran’s morality police. They had arrested her days earlier for allegedly not wearing the “mandatory hijab.” As anti-government protests swept the country, Iran’s security forces responded with violence. To investigate these events, the United Nations Human Rights Council established the UN Independent International…

From September 2022 to September 2023, at least 500 people were killed by Iranian security forces, tens of thousands were arrested, nine men were executed after sham trials, and thousands of people, including children, were tortured. Their crime: peacefully participating in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The protests were galvanized by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022. Amini was a young woman who was detained by the regime’s morality police for allegedly “improperly” wearing her hijab. People took to the streets across the country to protest the actions of the Iranian government and its treatment of women. Security forces immediately responded with violence. This brutal crackdown, however, did not stop the movement from sharing its message with the world. Protesters and bystanders used their cell phones to take photos and videos of what they saw around them. At great personal risk, they uploaded them to social media platforms with…

A family law Separation Agreement is a binding legal agreement signed by both spouses to document the resolution of all or some of the legal issues arising from their separation. Both parties must obtain independent legal advice regarding the Agreement. Separation agreements may be entered into by married and common law spouses. There can only be changes if both parties consent or if the court orders a variation. - Garry J. Wise, Toronto Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net Visit our website: www.wiselaw.net

On June 7, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum federalizing 2,000 California National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in and around Los Angeles pursuant to an obscure provision in federal law–10 USC §12406–which has not been used since 1970, when President Richard Nixon federalized the Guard to deliver mail during a postal strike. And the last time the National Guard was federalized over a governor’s objection was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson deployed the Guard to Selma, Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. The law allows federalization of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” Although the deployed military force may protect federal officers enforcing immigration law in Los Angeles, the federalized Guard is, like any federal military force, subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops…

Robert L. Tsai, Boston University School of Law, and Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School, have posted Under What Circumstances is “Caste” Likely to Be a Useful Analytic Concept (and Should We Care)?:There is growing interest among egalitarians to embrace "caste" to analyze forms of inequality in the United States. In this essay, we offer a few reservations about this trend. First, we note some general limits to arguments by analogy. Second, we point to some historical and legal differences between the caste system in India and the system of American slavery and segregration that followed. Third, if caste analysis were to take hold in American law, many more cultural practices (and perhaps even the value of pluralism itself) would need to be reconsidered. Fourth, there is some risk that the anti-caste project could lead to a proliferation of groups and conditions problematically characterized as "backward," and thereby paradoxically…

In Texas, it is illegal for contractors such as roofers or auto body repair shops to waive, absorb, or refund your insurance deductible. This is considered insurance fraud and can carry serious consequences for both the contractor and the consumer. What Is the Insurance Deductible? An insurance deductible is the portion of a claim that the policyholder must pay out-of-pocket before the insurance company covers the remaining cost. For example, if you have a $1,000 deductible on a $5,000 roof repair, you are responsible for paying $1,000, and the insurer pays the remaining $4,000. The Law in Texas Roofing Repairs Under Texas Insurance Code § 707.002, enacted through House Bill 2102 in 2019, roofing contractors are prohibited from offering to waive or absorb a property insurance deductible. This law was specifically designed to crack down on fraudulent or unethical practices by some roofing contractors. Key requirements under this law: Roofers must include language in their…

The federal government’s plans to regulate internet streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify through the Online Streaming Act have been mired in regulatory battles and court cases for many months. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the government’s plans finally took a small step forward last month, as Canada’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, completed weeks of hearings into what counts as Canadian content, or “Cancon.” Yet in the midst of the latest hearings, the Quebec government threw a monkey wrench into the entire process. Not content to wait for the CRTC process to play out, the provincial government introduced its own streaming regulation bill that is likely to spark a constitutional challenge. Quebec’s Bill 109 contemplates government intervention into how content is presented to subscribers, and would introduce unprecedented quota requirements that could lead to blocked…

I weigh in here on the recent unanimous SCOTUS ruling in Ames v. OH Dept of Youth Services on applying the same legal standard for majority as minority plaintiff discrimination cases. With insights also from law professor Joan Williams and...

Summary The landscape of enterprise legal management software is rapidly evolving, driven by the increasing complexity of legal operations and the demand for greater efficiency, transparency and strategic value. In 2025 and beyond, technology for ELM software is embracing artificial intelligence, including generative, agentic and predictive applications, workflow automation and unified platforms to help legal departments manage matters , contracts , spend, and compliance more effectively than ever before. What Is ELM Software? ELM software is enterprise legal management technology that anchors law departments. Legal operations professionals and legal teams leverage this critical, innovative software to streamline workflows, collaboration and productivity that enhances decision-making and positions their departments as strategic business partners. Solutions like LexisNexis® CounselLink® deliver the foundational ELM software necessary for legal departments to integrate…