Buckley Commentary & Analysis

"Nickel and diming access to court records: The National Veterans Legal Services Program decision and PACER fees" by Elizabeth R. Bailey

For years, remote access to most federal court records has been locked behind a government paywall. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may have pulled the first brick out of that wall, though, in an...

"When the government wants to cut and run, but a judge won’t be a rubber stamp" by Nadav Ariel

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia turned political and judicial heads by refusing to immediately rubber stamp the government’s decision to drop the prosecution of Michael Flynn after it had already obtained a guilty plea. However, he is not the first...

"Confusion surrounding the Privacy Shield rollback" by Amanda R. Lawrence, Elizabeth E. McGinn, and Magda Gathani

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last month invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, which over 5,000 companies have relied on as a legal mechanism of transferring data from the EU to the United States.

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) did not provide a grace...

"Supreme Court decision upholds but limits SEC’s disgorgement authority" by Olivia A. Rauh

A recent Supreme Court decision allows the Securities and Exchange Commission to continue pursuing disgorgement in its enforcement actions, but with significant limitations that will curb disgorgement’s scope and could complicate the SEC’s future efforts to seek it.

Whether the SEC has...

"Videoconferences are weak alternatives to in-person client meetings" by Nancy H. Turner

A century ago, the Spanish Flu ravaged the globe and impacted the legal industry in ways not dissimilar to what we are seeing today. Trials could not be held as attorneys and judges contracted the virus, courts —...

"Price-gouging a priority as pandemic persists" by Michael N. Morrill

One of the federal government’s most immediate responses to the coronavirus crisis was a highly visible campaign against profiteering. While the absence of an overarching federal anti-price gouging statute has forced prosecutors to improvise and legislators to contemplate new laws in order to...

"When the court orders a Brady violation" by Ian Acker

What happens when prosecutors fail to make constitutionally required disclosures of evidence because the court ordered them not to? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit weighed in on this issue recently,...

"SEC flexes regulatory and enforcement muscles in pandemic markets" by Thomas A. Sporkin and Timothy J. Coley

The Securities and Exchange Commission is sticking to its three-fold mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair and orderly markets, and encouraging capital formation as it responds to the Covid-19 pandemic by issuing regulatory guidance on crisis-relevant market and capital issues,...

"Attorney-client privilege should not stop at the prison gate" by Elizabeth R. Bailey

U.S. law respects the confidentiality of a prisoner’s communications with counsel, including phone calls and visits, but with one critical exception that goes unnoticed by many attorneys: The government routinely monitors — and then uses in court — emails between federal prisoners and their...

"Double Jeopardy in cross-border investigations" by Nadav Ariel

The growth in cross-border criminal investigations has intensified the risk of overlapping prosecutions by multiple countries, potentially resulting in duplicative prison sentences and/or fines. Some countries recognize that multiple punishments for the same conduct are unjust and have taken...