On The Merits

Hetal Doshi, the top antitrust litigator at the Department of Justice, says she tries to make the cases her team pursues easy for the average person to understand. "If we are litigating cases inside an echo chamber, or like in a very narrow, technocratic way that only other lawyers can understand, then we're failing to do our jobs," Doshi says on this episode of our podcast, On The Merits. Doshi spoke to reporters Leah Nylen and Danielle Kaye about how this philosophy played into recent cases that blocked mergers in the airline and publishing industries. Doshi also talks about the idea that antitrust laws are meant to protect not only consumers from higher prices, but also to protect workers from lower wages. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The Commerce Department's disastrous rollout of a new payment system left some National Weather Service employees on the hook for their own business expenses, and even led utility companies to shut off power to some critical weather systems due to unpaid bills. Bloomberg Government reporter Jack Fitzpatrick found that even now, months after this system went online, the Department is still working through a backlog of unpaid invoices. And despite a report from its Inspector General, it's still not clear what exactly went wrong and who at the Department is to blame. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Fitzpatrick explains what happens when a federal agency can't pay its bills on time and what might happen when the Department expands this troubled payment system in the years to come. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Harvard, NYU, and several other elite universities have been hit with civil rights lawsuits from students who say the schools allow, or at least don't counter, campus antisemitism. Though these suits largely stem from an increase in antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, attorneys say the groundwork for them was laid with an executive order back in 2019. That's when the Trump administration adopted a broad definition of antisemitism for civil rights claims under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On today's episode of On The Merits, Bloomberg News reporter David Voreacos talks about the litigation and why the policy change could pose challenges for the universities facing the suits. We also hear from attorneys representing Jewish students in two of the suits. They explain why they believe universities should be held accountable for the actions of their students and faculty. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

It's becoming more common for investors to chip in money for a lawsuit in exchange for a share of any payout a party wins, a practice known as litigation finance. But, as a recent Bloomberg Law investigation found, the identities of these litigation funders is often shrouded in mystery—and can have national security implications. Bloomberg Law reporters Emily R. Siegel and John Holland learned about a Russian company with close ties to Vladimir Putin that financed the creditors in US and UK bankruptcy proceedings—even after several of its founders were sanctioned due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Holland and Siegel join our podcast, On The Merits, to explain why attorneys say this was an attempt to use litigation finance to evade international sanctions, and whether it will lead to new rules on this practice. They also talk about how the Russian company came within hours of receiving a more than $6 million payout before a bankruptcy judge put a stop to it. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Insurance companies like The Allstate Corp. and State Farm have experienced one too many devastating wildfire seasons in California. Many are looking to exit the market in impacted communities, but a powerful state lawmaker is trying to keep them. Mike McGuire is a Democrat representing a Northern California district directly affected by wildfires, and he just became the top ranking member of the California State Senate. Many of his constituents say they've gotten non-renewal notices or steep rate hikes. He wants to require insurers to issue policies to property owners who take wildfire mitigation measures. On this episode of On The Merits, our California correspondent Andrew Oxford tells us why insurers no longer want to cover climate-vulnerable areas and what politicians like McGuire can do about it. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Generative AI has the potential to transform the legal profession, and the guest on today's episode of our podcast, On The Merits, believes it will. But the tech also has led some lawyers to make embarrassing and costly mistakes. Lawyers have filed briefs in court that contain citations fabricated by AI tools. And a law firm in New York recently got a dressing down from a judge for using AI to estimate the fees it was entitled to. Katherine Forrest, a former federal judge and current partner at the firm Paul Weiss, talks with Bloomberg Law reporter Isabel Gottlieb about why AI isn't appropriate to use in many legal settings—at least not yet. Forrest also goes into some of the useful ways lawyers can take advantage of AI technology right now. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

A quarter of law students surveyed by Bloomberg Law late last year said they self-identify as neurodivergent, an umbrella term for people with ADHD, autism, or another condition that causes their brains to function differently than that of the average person. But the same survey found that more than three times fewer working attorneys identify as neurodivergent. Which means, as more of this upcoming cohort of lawyers enters the workforce, firms may need to change their policies to accommodate them—or, at the very least, to avoid being hit with disability discrimination complaints. Bloomberg Law analyst Jessica Blaemire analyzed the survey data, and also looked at federal data on discrimination complaints specifically related to neurodivergence. She joins our podcast, On The Merits, to talk about what these numbers mean and about what firms can do to make their workplaces more welcoming. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

In a remote part of Nevada, an energy company is trying to build a climate-friendly power plant—but the plant is being blocked by conservationists and a decades old environmental law. A geothermal plant built atop desert hot springs sits half-completed after the discovery of a new toad species in the area, and an environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Conservation groups are suing, arguing the plant could drive the toad to extinction. But that seemingly puts them at odds with clean energy advocates in the fight against climate change. Bloomberg Law's Daniel Moore and Andrew Satter visited the site and join our podcast, On The Merits. They discuss the plant, the toad, NEPA, and why these "green-on-green" fights could become common as renewable energy projects expand. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

A ruling last month from the Alabama Supreme Court declaring frozen embryos to be legally equivalent to children scared many would-be parents in and out of the state. Late Wednesday night, the state legislature there passed a law meant to ease the worries of both patients receiving in-vitro fertilization services and the doctors who provide those services. But, as Bloomberg Government reporter Alex Ruoff explains in this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, the new law doesn't actually overturn the ruling but instead enacts a narrow liability shield for the reproductive health care field. That has many worrying that access to IVF in Alabama will still be restricted, he says, and looking to Congress for nationwide clarity. Ruoff is joined by Bloomberg Law reporter Celine Castronuovo, who explains the legal minefield now facing IVF doctors and patients, and also why there's little stopping judges in many other states from issuing similar rulings. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

During the pandemic, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, were all the rage in the financial markets. They were seen as a faster, easier way to go public that bypasses the laborious process of a typical IPO. But now that the SPAC boom has gone bust, it's clear that some of the companies that did this weren't ready for the scrutiny that comes with being publicly listed. Bloomberg Tax & Accounting reporter Nicola M. White looked into one of these companies, Lottery.com. What she found was a head-spinning story of financial mismanagement that involved an exiled Russian businessman, an ill-timed Monaco yacht party, and a very large loan from a Southern California pastor. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Nicola unpacks how things went so wrong for Lottery.com and how damaging it can be for a company to go public before it's ready. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.