Jewish groups and Gibson Dunn launch campus antisemitism helpline, ex-clients sue US law firm, 2nd school to settle financial aid case, and more ⬇

📞 Jewish groups, major US law firm launch campus antisemitism helpline

U.S. law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher said it has teamed up with a group of Jewish organizations to launch a legal helpline for college students and teachers who experience antisemitism on campus.

The Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL) is led by volunteers from 1,800-lawyer Gibson Dunn, the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel International and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.

Tensions at some U.S. college campuses have boiled over as students take sides and have hosted dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past month. The Anti-Defamation League last month reported a nearly 400% spike in U.S. antisemitic incidents overall since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Students, teachers and faculty members can report instances of antisemitism, including intimidation and harassment, on CALL's website — legal-protection.org — or text "CALLhelp" to 51555. The helpline launched on Nov. 6, and it is already receiving reports, Orin Snyder, a Gibson Dunn partner and one of the helpline's leaders said. He also said he hopes it will be a deterrent against antisemitism.

🏢 Ex-clients sue law firm Winston & Strawn over oil and gas deal

Two U.S. energy companies said in a new lawsuit that their former law firm botched their planned purchase of oil and gas wells in 2021, costing them millions of dollars in damages.

Lawyers from Chicago-based Winston & Strawn allegedly inserted "critical drafting errors" in contracts that plaintiffs Bridgeland Resources and Zargon Acquisition signed with a well operator as part of their plan to acquire about 325 wells in Southern California, according to the lawsuit filed in Harris County, Texas, District Court.

The lawsuit said Winston's negligence led to litigation among the parties to the deal and a confidential settlement, costing Bridgeland and Zargon "tens of millions of dollars, with the fallout still being felt to this day." The plaintiffs are asking for "no more than $175 million" in damages and to recover fees they paid to Winston.

💰 Vanderbilt to settle financial aid antitrust case, 2nd school to reach deal

Nashville's Vanderbilt University has agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing it and more than a dozen other prominent U.S. schools of conspiring to restrict financial aid to students, marking the second deal in a case claiming billions of dollars in damages. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

Vanderbilt was among 17 elite schools sued last year in a prospective class action alleging that hundreds of thousands of students overpaid for college tuition amid a conspiracy to reduce how much financial aid is awarded. The schools have all denied wrongdoing.

The other defendants include Brown University, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Duke University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago last year refused to dismiss the case.

The University of Chicago was the first school in the case to reach a settlement. Without admitting any wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $13.5 million and to cooperate with the plaintiffs' efforts to collect documents and other evidence, according to court papers.

⚖️ US Supreme Court mulls legality of domestic-violence gun curbs

The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on the legality of a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns in the latest major case to test the willingness of its conservative majority to further expand gun rights.

The justices are hearing an appeal by President Joe Biden's administration of a lower court's ruling striking down the law - intended to protect victims of domestic abuse - as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the measure failed a stringent test set by the Supreme Court in a 2022 ruling that required gun laws to be "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation" in order to survive a Second Amendment challenge.

The case involves Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man who pleaded guilty to illegally possessing guns in violation of the law at issue on Tuesday while he was subject to a restraining order for assaulting his girlfriend in a parking lot and later threatening to shoot her. Police found the guns while searching his residence in connection with at least five shootings.

Biden's administration has said the law should survive because of the long tradition in the United States of taking guns from people deemed dangerous.

Read more:

US Supreme Court to decide legality of federal ban on gun 'bump stocks'

US appeals court keeps California assault weapons ban in force

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