THIS ISN’T US -  The U.S. Supreme Court voiding almost 50 years of constitutional protections for women is not just causing alarm in this country. As Law.com International’s Anne Bagamery reports, the day after SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, lawmakers in France, where abortion has been legal since 1975, proposed a law to enshrine the right in the French constitution. “What happens elsewhere cannot happen in France,” a co-sponsor of the bill, Marie-Pierre Rixain, tweeted in French. The June 24 decision in Dobbs was an “electroshock” whose reverberations are being felt around the world, lawyers told Bagamery. Even though Dobbs and Roe applied only to U.S. law on U.S. soil, the decisions have led almost immediately to a global call to strengthen legal protections for reproductive rights, as well as heightened fears for the knock-on effects on civil rights, privacy rights, women’s health, and even local law. Dobbs “quite understandably has troubled many on this side of the pond in relation to women’s rights and choices,” said Lincoln Tsang, a partner and head of Ropes & Gray’s European life sciences practice in London.

WHAT YOU SAID

“Time and again, the biggest impediment among my attorney clients to obtaining the help they deserve and need is the fear imposed by billable hours requirements.”

— Emily Harter Hershenson, a psychotherapist and Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker based in Washington, DC., on how billable hour credits can help improve mental health and wellness in Big Law.