When an institution like Penn State faces a scandal, how it redresses wrongdoing is crucial to its legal and public standing. A key question for the school is “What are you doing to reach out to the family members and the sexual abuse victims?” says a plaintiffs attorney who brought claims against the Catholic Church.

A federal judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit filed against Womble Carlyle by a former client, a Catholic broadcasting and educational programming nonprofit, which had accused the firm of making costly errors.

An official of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been charged with failing to protect children by shuffling accused “sexual predators” to new parish assignments.

An Oklahoma woman who alleged that a Catholic bishop subjected her to “severe and pervasive” gender and age discrimination at work is not entitled to protection by federal employment laws, the 10th Circuit has ruled, making it the latest court to weigh in on the issue of the “ministerial exception.” The circuit concluded that the plaintiff’s duties were not just administrative but also spiritual, therefore granting the church immunity from her suit.

It was no surprise that Amanda Cohen Leiter missed the first few phone calls from her former boss, Justice John Paul Stevens, this summer. Leiter, a 2003-2004 Stevens clerk and now a professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, is on maternity leave with her baby daughter. But Stevens and Leiter finally connected, and he made her a surprising offer: a chance to make her first oral argument before the Supreme Court.