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Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: Achiana Cremeric became famous at the age of nine with

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Speaker 1: an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show showcasing her paintings.

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Speaker 1: Our next guest is already earning twenty five dollars for

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Speaker 1: her work, and she's only nine. We discovered Achiana Cromaric

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Speaker 1: in a small town in Idaho. Today she's completed forty paintings.

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Speaker 1: You're obviously gifted, right. Where does this come from? It

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Speaker 1: hast from God. It comes from God. That was back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three, and Cremaric's painting of a green

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Speaker 1: eyed Jesus Prince of Peace remains one of the most

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Speaker 1: recognized depictions of Jesus around the globe. For more than

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Speaker 1: a decade, Cromeric's art has been mass marketed by Carol Cornelius,

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Speaker 1: in whose Christian Aren't Business served as Cremaric's licensing arm

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Speaker 1: until of falling out. Last year, Cromaric filed a lawsuit

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Speaker 1: claiming that Cornelius and hid sales, skimped on royalty payments,

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Speaker 1: and sold unauthorized, low quality ver versions of her work.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is roy Strom Bloomberg Law reporter Roy tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit about Achaiana so Achiana Cromeric was

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Speaker 1: a child prodigy artist. She painted a portrait of Jesus

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Speaker 1: as an eight year old. It's called Prince of Peace.

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Speaker 1: And she appeared on Oprah Winfrey when she was nine

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Speaker 1: with a series of paintings that for a nine year

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Speaker 1: old during eight year old, which just blew you away.

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Speaker 1: And she told Oprah that her talent comes from God.

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Speaker 1: And she rose to fame and sort of the Christian

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Speaker 1: art world scene, and there's been movies based on stories

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Speaker 1: that parallel her career, and she has a fairly prominent

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Speaker 1: social media following and online presence, YouTube and Facebook, things

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Speaker 1: like that. She decided, or her family decided at that

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Speaker 1: point to partner with a Christian art business to sell

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Speaker 1: her work. Tell us what you know about that partnership.

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Speaker 1: The Crimeric got into business with a woman named Carol

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Speaker 1: Cornelius In who had some experience in licensing. She had

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Speaker 1: worked with bookstores selling products licensed by Disney. She made

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Speaker 1: a business starting in two thousand and six that was

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Speaker 1: sort of along with similar line, selling products that were

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Speaker 1: licensed with images from Cremeric's work, Bookmarks, coffee, mugs, things

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Speaker 1: like that. She sold reprints of the portraits through an

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Speaker 1: online website and business that she set up and built

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Speaker 1: to have over seven hundred thousand Facebook followers, called Art

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Speaker 1: and Soul Works, and the relationship lasted over a decade

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Speaker 1: I think, up until a sort of falling out early

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Speaker 1: in so after all these years of working with Cornelius

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Speaker 1: in what caused the falling out. It's a little bit

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Speaker 1: hard to say exactly. What happened was a letter was

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Speaker 1: sent from the Cremeric camp to the Cornelius in in

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Speaker 1: early January. It's an eight page letter. It's very grateful

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Speaker 1: for the relationship that the two had, but ultimately it's

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Speaker 1: making the point that the Cremeric are going to have

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Speaker 1: to split up with Art and Soul Works because the

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Speaker 1: artists Acciana was it seems like, taking more control of

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Speaker 1: her business and ultimately didn't feel like she wanted Art

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Speaker 1: and Soul Works involved anymore in the licensing of her artwork,

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Speaker 1: and so that's what ultimately lead to a dispute between

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Speaker 1: the two. Art and Soul Works felt like the cutoff

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Speaker 1: was abrupt. They were also concerned with the fact that

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Speaker 1: they had purchased some of her products and wanted time

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Speaker 1: to be able to sell that inventory, so they weren't

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Speaker 1: just stuck with it with their licensing agreement having run out,

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Speaker 1: and so the two sides tried to negotiate a sort

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Speaker 1: of wind down period where art and soul works would

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Speaker 1: have more time to sell this inventory. Ultimately, those negotiations

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Speaker 1: and weren't successful, and the copyrights infringement lawsuit was filed

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Speaker 1: in May twenty nineteen in Chicago federal courts. So why

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Speaker 1: did the litigation finance firm Legalist decide to give Cramaric

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Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars to fund her litigation? So Legalists

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Speaker 1: is focused on investing up to a million dollars in lawsuits,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of the smaller end of corporate litigation finance.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these bigger firms will try to put

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Speaker 1: a lot more money than that into a single case.

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Speaker 1: But Legalists says that this case was the type of

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Speaker 1: plaintiffs that in the industry they often referred to as

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Speaker 1: a David first Goliath. The Cramarics are family supporting an

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Speaker 1: artist whose work she fields has been basically stolen and

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Speaker 1: her copyrights infringed, and without money from Legalists, and it

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Speaker 1: would be very hard for the family to pursue a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit through to trial, which is very expensive in United States.

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Speaker 1: But Corneliusen says she's the David in this fight, not Fromeric.

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Speaker 1: So Cornelius Since says that her business has basically been

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Speaker 1: devastated by the lack of a relationship with the main

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Speaker 1: artists whose works she was licensing. She says her revenue

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Speaker 1: has fallen nine since this licensing agreement ended, and her

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Speaker 1: lawyer says that she doesn't have the money to fund

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Speaker 1: even at two million dollar settlement, which obviously there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of money in the context of litigation funding. I

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Speaker 1: think when people talk about David versus Goliath cases a

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Speaker 1: lot of times the goliath they have in mind are

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Speaker 1: sort of flu chips companies or other major corporate defendants,

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Speaker 1: the likes of which the US Chamber of Commerce has

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Speaker 1: oftentimes come to the aid of and said that litigation

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Speaker 1: finance should have rules set around it, or at least

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Speaker 1: these major defendants should know when they're facing a plaintiff

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Speaker 1: who has backing by litigation finance firm. So, yeah, that

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Speaker 1: cornelius In defendant in this case doesn't really fit that profile.

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Speaker 1: It's that profile the judge in the case said that

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Speaker 1: the party's inability to negotiating good faith is perhaps the

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Speaker 1: only remarkable thing about this case. What's the litigation been

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Speaker 1: like so far? It's been very litigious. There's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of fighting over discovery, and the judge has balked

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Speaker 1: at some of the behavior of the attorneys in the case.

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Speaker 1: At one point, the judge reference the filing that Premiers

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Speaker 1: Lawyers submitted that included more than four hundred forty pages

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Speaker 1: related to what the judge called a quote mundane issue.

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Speaker 1: The lawyer, though, says that the majority of those four

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty pages were sort of things that he

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Speaker 1: had to file. But the defense attorney has said that

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Speaker 1: she feels the litigation has sort of been protracted and

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Speaker 1: dragged out, and that litigation funding could be a part

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Speaker 1: of the reason why. Of course, the Planets Lawyers says

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Speaker 1: that's not true at all, that litigation funding the enable

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Speaker 1: the artists to fight on an even playing field. How

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Speaker 1: much of any recovery would legalists get here. Mitigation funders

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Speaker 1: will typically base their return off of a duration that

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Speaker 1: the money is lent out to say, for instance, if

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Speaker 1: they lend in this case five hundred thousand dollars stay

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Speaker 1: for a year, they might expect two times return or

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Speaker 1: three times return after a certain amount of time. A

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Speaker 1: lot of times these funders are looking to make double

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Speaker 1: or triple the amount that they invest and they will

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Speaker 1: be the first ones to be paid out. Usually so,

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Speaker 1: in a case where five hundred thousand dollars is invested,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the funder would

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Speaker 1: receive as much as the first one and a half

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Speaker 1: million dollars. Thanks Roy. That's Roy Strom, Bloomberg Law reporter.

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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court is expected to be a key issue

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Speaker 1: this November. Was six of Americans saying it will be

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Speaker 1: a very important consideration in their decei and about whom

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Speaker 1: to vote for. That's according to a Pew Research survey.

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Speaker 1: And President Trump is attempting to draw attention to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court as November approaches, adding twenty more potential Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court justices to his so called short list, which is

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Speaker 1: not so short anymore. His new potential nominees all Conservatives,

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Speaker 1: include Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Josh Holly, to

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Speaker 1: former Solicitor Generals Paul Clement and Noel Francisco. And several

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Speaker 1: Appellate Court judges joining me as Carl Tobias, a professor

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Speaker 1: at the University of Richmond School of Law. Some names

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Speaker 1: actually stood out for most Americans on this list because

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Speaker 1: they're well known Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Holly.

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Speaker 1: Why are they on that list? They're not known as

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Speaker 1: great legal scholars. Well, I think that they're on the

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Speaker 1: list partly because they've been very supportive in the Senate

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Speaker 1: on the Kind of Judiciary Committee, and they've been very

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Speaker 1: supportive of President Trump and President Trump's nominees. So it's

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Speaker 1: a nod in that direction. And it is prestigious even

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Speaker 1: to be mentioned for the Supreme Court, as though it

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Speaker 1: took Senator Holly about two seconds to disurvow any interest

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Speaker 1: in being on the Supreme Court. So that was interesting.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think Senator Cruz wants the consolation prize

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Speaker 1: because I think he would like to be president. So

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Speaker 1: that means we don't have very many viable choices from

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Speaker 1: the Senate. So of course people like Hugo Black or

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Speaker 1: named from the Senate, but that hasn't happened in quite

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Speaker 1: some time. By choosing these senators, for example, Cotton tweeted

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Speaker 1: it's time for Roe V. Wade to go after he

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Speaker 1: was named to the list. Is the president choosing them

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Speaker 1: for political reasons solidifying his base? Perhaps? Sure. I think

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Speaker 1: many people on that list were included for exactly that reason.

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Speaker 1: Believe principally for that reason. There are numbers well who

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Speaker 1: are from what are considered to the battleground or swing states.

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Speaker 1: A couple from Florida and nominee from Arizona trying to

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Speaker 1: help the senators there in some situations like Arizona in

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Speaker 1: a close race and trying to help themselves Trump to

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Speaker 1: win the presidency. And so you see reasons of that

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Speaker 1: sort for a number of nominees. The names on the list,

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Speaker 1: the prior list were chosen in large part by the

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Speaker 1: Federalist Society. Do you know if the Federalist Society took

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Speaker 1: part in forming this list as well. I'm virtually positive

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Speaker 1: that Leonard Leo was instrumental in helping assemble this list,

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Speaker 1: and I think Heritage Foundation, again, which was a participant

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Speaker 1: in many others. I believe White House consul was intimately involved,

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Speaker 1: as was Mark Meadows, chief of staff, and I think

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Speaker 1: they were the prime movers. And of course you see

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Speaker 1: many people who Trump has appointed to the appeals courts.

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Speaker 1: A whole number of them are on this list, so

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Speaker 1: that's not surprising. Is it surprising that the Federalist Society

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Speaker 1: would choose the senators on the list who are not

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Speaker 1: known for legal scholarship. No, but it may be that

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Speaker 1: Trump had some picks he wanted for political purposes and

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Speaker 1: then also relied on Federalist Society, heritage and other people

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Speaker 1: for input. And a number of the people are very

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Speaker 1: high profile. I mean, Paul Clement is considered to be

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Speaker 1: one of the pre eminent Supreme Court litigators, and then

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Speaker 1: a number of people from his own administration, from OLC

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Speaker 1: Solicitor General Noel Francisco who just stepped down. So it's

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Speaker 1: easy to explain I think most of the people and

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Speaker 1: how they are came to be on the Are they

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Speaker 1: all conservative or are they all super conservative? Is there

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Speaker 1: some characteristic that unites everyone on the list? Well, I

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Speaker 1: think most of them are ideologically very conservative. A few

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Speaker 1: may be less so, and some of them, for example,

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Speaker 1: Appeals Court appointees of Trump may not even have been

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Speaker 1: on the courts long enough to really know where they

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Speaker 1: might be on a particular issue. But certainly the vast

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Speaker 1: majority are, but a few are not. The nine Circuit

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Speaker 1: person who was a magistrate judge, for example, maybe relatively

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Speaker 1: moderate or mainstream, and a few others perhaps, but probably

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Speaker 1: not very many. Most have records and have litigated for

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Speaker 1: conservative interests, for example, or issued conservative opinions, and so

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Speaker 1: um we have some sense of their track records. According

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Speaker 1: to a lot of legal experts, the top contenders are

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Speaker 1: still the same, and they're the ones that we've been

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Speaker 1: familiar with. Amy Coney, Barrett Thomas Hardeman, and William pryor

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Speaker 1: a few of those Trump even brought in to talk

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Speaker 1: to the last time around when he ended up choosing Kavanaugh. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's correct, and and they may well be positioned uh

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Speaker 1: in that way for the next opening, if there is one.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he's disavowed those uh people you just named,

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Speaker 1: and they may well be at the top of any

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Speaker 1: uh new list that is considered were there to be

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Speaker 1: a vacancy. I think that's probably accurate. Now. If Trump

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Speaker 1: were to win another term, you'd have Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Speaker 1: and Stephen Bryer in their eighties, Clarence Thomas and Samuel

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Speaker 1: Alito in their seventies, which puts Trump in a position

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Speaker 1: then of appointing one or two or three more justices,

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Speaker 1: maybe even four. Has any president before Trump appointed a

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Speaker 1: majority of the court. That would have been Franklin Delano

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt between nineteen thirty seven and nineteen forty three, he

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Speaker 1: appointed to four six eight justices. It's considerable turnover. Then

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower appointed four, but that's not a majority. Reagan appointed three.

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Speaker 1: Trump has been pressuring Biden to release his own list.

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Speaker 1: What are the downsides to a presidential candidate releasing a

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Speaker 1: list and saying I'm only going to choose someone from

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Speaker 1: this list. Well, to some extent um, the person would

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Speaker 1: be restricting himself or herself in that situation. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know that there's any necessity to do that. And

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Speaker 1: I think people have a pretty good sense of from

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Speaker 1: um Biden's long record as Judiciary Chair and his active

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Speaker 1: involvement in judicial selection for nearly four decades as Vice

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Speaker 1: president and chair of Judiciary and longstanding member of the committee.

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Speaker 1: So I don't think people have any many doubts about

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Speaker 1: the type of nominees he might propose, And so um,

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Speaker 1: why restricted all options until the time comes? But it

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Speaker 1: might get people some comfort. I don't know. I think

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Speaker 1: Truck did it the first time because he wanted to

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Speaker 1: assuage the Republicans who couldn't be sure exactly what he

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Speaker 1: would do, and I think it had that effect. It

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Speaker 1: made them more comfortable with his prospects if he were president.

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Speaker 1: But I don't think Biden is similarly situated today. Biden

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Speaker 1: hasn't named anyone, but he has a vowed to nominate

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Speaker 1: a black woman to the Court. Is it advisable to

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Speaker 1: promise that other than to just say I'm going to

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Speaker 1: appoint the most qualified people around. Well, I think there's

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Speaker 1: some tension there, but I think most people who observe

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Speaker 1: the Court believe that uh and the federal courts generally,

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Speaker 1: and I certainly have said then, I think diversity is

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Speaker 1: very important along a number of different variables, in terms

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Speaker 1: of experience, in terms of gender, in terms of ethnicity,

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Speaker 1: um and Many presidents have appointed people because the courts

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Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court ought to reflect the people of

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Speaker 1: the United States, um and Butter. It is intentioned with

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Speaker 1: our notion about merit and and those kinds of of issues,

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Speaker 1: but it is done. Member President Reagan did that, and

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Speaker 1: when he said, I promised to appoint a woman, and

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Speaker 1: the appointed Santa Dale O'Connor want and so I think

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Speaker 1: it's it's accepted. But there, you know, there's some tension

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Speaker 1: there to some extent. According to a recent Pew study,

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Speaker 1: six or four percent of Americans say the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: will be a very important consideration in who they vote for.

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Speaker 1: And yet in his acceptance speech at the Virtual Democratic Convention,

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Speaker 1: Biden didn't even mention the Supreme Court. And there's been

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Speaker 1: little mention of the Supreme Court by Biden. I think

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Speaker 1: that he is a good issue to talk about it,

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Speaker 1: and it's a good issue for Democrats, and certainly Democratic

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Speaker 1: nominees for the Senate are talking about that because of

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Speaker 1: what we've talked about for the the last four years in

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Speaker 1: terms of how this President Trump has gone on about

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Speaker 1: nominating confirming people. And I think Biden would do that

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Speaker 1: very differently, in a much more positive way that honors

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Speaker 1: the practices, rules and traditions does the Senate in a country.

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Speaker 1: So I think that would be a real advance. And

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Speaker 1: so it makes sense because I seek it's a positive

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Speaker 1: for by to stress that and people care about it,

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Speaker 1: and so we may see more and that certainly his

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Speaker 1: surrogus will be talking about that, and I imagine in

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Speaker 1: the debate I remitted there are there will be um

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Speaker 1: discussions of that as well, So we'll see. And certainly

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Speaker 1: his experience as Vice president and helping in nominations and

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Speaker 1: confirmations as well as on Judiciary Committee in his long

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Speaker 1: Senate career are all positive. Let's turn out to the

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Speaker 1: judicial confirmation process. So the Senate has been going ahead

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Speaker 1: with more confirmations of Trump appointees. Absolutely um. As we

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Speaker 1: said before, the only vacancies are on the district courts,

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Speaker 1: and uh, there were seventy when the Senate returned last

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Speaker 1: week they confirmed five, and this week are scheduled to

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Speaker 1: confirm eight, which would then make the number of vacancies

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Speaker 1: fifty seven, where it hasn't been for quite some time,

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Speaker 1: not in Trump's administration, to be sure, it has been

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Speaker 1: as high as a hundred and fifties. So that's an

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Speaker 1: accomplishment and valuable. And all of them this week are

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Speaker 1: from states represented by two Democrats, Blue states, which is

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Speaker 1: another criticism that I and many others have launched against

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Speaker 1: this administration. Therefore, for Illinois, uh, and for for California,

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Speaker 1: and there are seventeen emergency vacancies in California. So California

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Speaker 1: really needs to have judges confirmed, and so that will

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Speaker 1: happen this week. The first one will have a culture

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Speaker 1: both this afternoon. I just want to turn to the

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Speaker 1: appellate courts, which are full up now. Republican appointees constitute

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Speaker 1: a majority on seven of the real appeals courts. If

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Speaker 1: Trump is elected to a second term, is it possible

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Speaker 1: that he could flip all the others in four years.

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Speaker 1: I haven't done all the math, but he would certainly

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Speaker 1: be able to flip at least several more and maybe

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Speaker 1: all of them. It will depend really on who assumes

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Speaker 1: senior status or retires or dies. And I think there's

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Speaker 1: some general feeling that some appellate court appointees of Democratic

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Speaker 1: presidents have been waiting to see what happens in this

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Speaker 1: election when they are eligible to senior status, and they

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Speaker 1: may if a Democrats elected and Democrats have a majority

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Speaker 1: of Senate, then choose to assume state senior status or retire.

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Speaker 1: Right now, there are no vacancies. Thanks Carl. That's Carl

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Speaker 1: Tobias at the University of Richmond Law School. I'm June Grosso.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, and please tune into The

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Show every week night at ten pm Eastern

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. DA Kidney Dating attended, Attending, Ding the

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Speaker 1: d