Maine Interest Program Survives Firm’s Compelled Speech Appeal

A law firm and one of its clients failed to revive their First Amendment challenge to a Maine program that pools interest from lawyers’ trust accounts and then distributes the cash to legal advocacy groups.

Russell Johnson Beaupain and its client, E. David Wescott, failed to plausibly allege their claims challenging Maine’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts program, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said Thursday.

The complaint’s allegations don’t support an inference that they reasonably expected Wescott’s funds not to generate interest when they deposited the cash into an IOLTA account, Chief Judge David J. ...