For third-year students Henry Lu and Joseph Saoud, taking part in the First Amendment Clinic offered that chance to get courtroom experience and much more.

“I personally really wanted to get that hands-on experience. I was told before starting that clinic gives students the opportunity to kind of lead their own cases, something that a lot of junior associates won’t be able to get,” Lu said. “We were given that opportunity. We had pretty significant leeway in terms of being able to navigate through the case, and I think that that was a really valuable experience.”

Lu and Saoud were assigned a defamation case involving rival politicians. After their political campaign against each other, one of the politicians filed suit claiming statements from the other politician were defamatory. The First Amendment Clinic pair joined the case in the early stages and worked on a motion to dismiss some or all of the claims as not defamatory as a matter of law.

Both students came to the clinic with a passion for the First Amendment and were excited to tackle a case like this, putting what they’ve studied so diligently in class to practice in a real-life setting. At times the case felt imposing, between the weight of filing documents in court for the first time and working for older professionals while still a student. Saoud described it as a “different kind of pressure.”

“There’s something about the stakes being so much higher when you know that this is a consequential piece of paper I’m working on right now and if I don’t give it my all this can have really big implications for someone’s life,” he added. “I think that pushed us to produce our best work when maybe in class we would have been just tired and not wanting to put in more work. But it was great. I feel so much more confident now.”

After their day in court, Lu and Saoud were able to get four-and-a-half of the 12 statements in the suit dismissed for their client, a result both felt proud to have accomplished. Saoud summed it up by saying, “If success is all the learning that we did, absolutely it was successful.”

Though helping their client was the most important thing, Lu and Saoud agreed the work was important for them personally. The experience writing briefs and learning administrative parts of the job, such as tracking hours, will be greatly beneficial in the very near future after the duo graduate and begin their careers. For all those reasons, the First Amendment clinic experience is one they would recommend to any student.

“I think the First Amendment Clinic was one of the most valuable experiences of my law school journey,” Lu said. “You spend so much time in the classroom in law school, and you never actually get to participate in the practice of law, which is what you go to law school for in the first place. Joseph and I talked about this a lot, but we always recommend our friends to apply for the First Amendment Clinic and we tell them about our experience. I think a lot of people would definitely benefit from it.”

Learn more about the First Amendment Clinic at Illinois.

Listen to the episode.

With AI rapidly being deployed in health care, a “move fast and break things” mentality has permeated the industry, raising complex questions about the role of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in regulating these technologies, says Sara Gerke, the Richard W. & Marie L. Corman Scholar at the College of Law.

“The big issue here is the relationship between state and federal law, which we’re seeing in Utah, where the state has become a testing ground for so-called AI sandboxes that companies can use to experiment,” said Gerke, also a professor at the European Union Center at Illinois. “The idea behind it is to test these AI medical tools before they are completely developed. But even that is legally questionable. The existence of mitigation agreements and waivers under state law doesn’t automatically render the use of unproven medical technology lawful at the federal level.”

Read more at news.illinois.edu.

Professor and tax law expert Richard Kaplan says that the president’s remarks about Medicare, in particular, rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the program is financed.

“Medicare is almost entirely funded by the federal government through payroll taxes paid by almost all employees, the great majority of self-employed persons, and most employers; premiums paid by program enrollees; and general federal funds,” Kaplan said. “States have no role of any consequence.”

Read the full article at nysun.com.

“When responding to records requests, there is a strong presumption of openness and liberal access to public records,” wrote the judge.  “[T]he DOJ has not met its burden to show that this is an ‘exceptional case’ warranting nondisclosure.”  The judge concluded that DOJ’s denial “was not the product of a genuine, case-by-case balancing analysis, but rather a habitual denial based on [its] past inability to garner compliance from local agencies.”

The suit was brought by The Badger Project and Invisible Institute.  The media organizations are represented by the Wisconsin Transparency Project and the University of Illinois College of Law First Amendment Clinic.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan journalism nonprofit that focuses on and investigates government, politics, and related matters in Wisconsin. Invisible Institute is a nonprofit public accountability journalism organization based in Chicago.  Both organizations have litigated cases seeking police records and written extensively about law enforcement issues, particularly the problem of “wandering officers” who jump agencies to avoid discipline.

The Badger Project and Invisible Institute asked for officers’ names, birth years or ages, zip code, and work history.  Most states release this information, but have not experienced any significant problems caused by making the information public.  The request did not ask for home addresses.

Both organizations have reported on the lawsuit:

Wisconsin Is in the Minority of States Shielding Police Data.  We’re Suing to Change that

‘Wisconsin does not, and should not, have secret police’ – The Badger Project sues state DOJ for full list of law enforcement officers

“Courts have ruled time and time again that speculative fears of harm do not justify withholding government records from the public,” said Tom Kamenick, president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project.  “Government officials must do more than merely claim that, hypothetically, something bad might happen if the records are released.  Rather, they must show that harm is likely to occur and is sufficiently serious to overcome the presumption of access to government records.  DOJ could not do that here.”

“We are incredibly proud to have represented the Invisible Institute in this critical fight for accountability,” said Lena Shapiro, Director of the First Amendment Clinic. “Securing this victory took three years of sustained effort, with nine students and two fellows from the First Amendment Clinic pouring their energy into this matter to ensure that the public’s right to know prevailed over blanket government secrecy.”

The Clinic students handled discovery, including resolving disputes and taking depositions, and briefed the successful motion for summary judgment, which was ultimately argued in January by advanced student Gabriela De La Llana.For a copy of the complaint, contact the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Illinois College of Law at law-firstamend@illinois.edu.

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Professor and bankruptcy expert Bob Lawless, who has written a paper on arbitration and bankruptcy, says that unless amended or repealed, courts should follow both statutes.

Speaking to Bloomberg, he said, “You’ve got to look and say, ‘For this matter in this arbitration agreement, is this subject to arbitration, and does the arbitral demand conflict with a command in the bankruptcy code?’”

Read the full story in Bloomberg.