Basketball

* Justice Scalia criticized law schools. Here come the butthurt law schools. [Legal Times] * Cass Sunstein on Rand Paul’s real father — Richard Epstein. [New Republic via PrawfsBlawg] * Irony alert: Rick Santorum endorsed the judge who just legalized gay marriage in Pennsylvania. [Slate] * What do you know? Donald Sterling is a dick. [Los Angeles Times] * A follow-up on a previous item: does this look like a law student kneed so hard he lost a testicle? [Barstool Sports] * In a development that should shock no one, it turns out the Chinese hackers may have been turning their attention to infiltrating law firms “which hold valuable intellectual property for their clients but often lack the security defenses of a larger corporation.” [Bits / New York Times] * Model suing hair salon for $1.5 million for ruining her career. That sounds funny, but the story is actually kind of horrifying. [New York Post] * Are we looking at an M&A boom in 2014? Frank Aquila of S&C thinks so. After the jump… [Mimesis Law]

* Partners from Patton Boggs and Squire Sanders may vote on their merger sometime this week. Get ready to say hello to Squire Patton, House of Boggs, Hodorific of Its Name. [Reuters]

* “[E]xcuse me, sir, you may not be here in five years.” Biglaw firms are becoming more “egalitarian” about office space because attorneys have expiration dates. [National Law Journal]

* After a flat year in 2013, and much to Biglaw’s chagrin, “[i]t is going to be harder to sustain year-over-year profitability gains.” Oh joy, time to power up the layoff machine. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Tech giants Apple and Google have called a ceasefire in their dueling patent suits in a quest to reform patent law — and so Apple can concentrate all of its efforts on suing the sh*t out of Samsung. [Bloomberg]

* GM’s in-house legal department is being heavily scrutinized in the wake of the car maker’s ignition switch lawsuit extravaganza. You see, friends, people die when lawyers don’t even bother to lie. [New York Times]

* Donald Sterling found a lawyer willing to represent him, an antitrust maven who thinks the NBA should take its ball and go home because “no punishment was warranted” in his client’s case. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Wal-Mart adds lawyer offices. No, this article isn’t about Infilaw. [ABA Journal] * Now we are! The faculty of Charleston Law is pleading with anyone who will listen to stop Infilaw. [Pro Bono Populi (Charleston School of Law Alumni Association)] * Has the college applications process become a monopoly? There’s an antitrust lawsuit contending it is. Maybe somebody will make the same sort of claim about the law school applications process with all its major security concerns. [Reuters] * The latest traffic stats for blogs edited by law professors. It’s good to see Brian Leiter wasn’t just wrong about being more popular than ATL — he was really, really wrong. [TaxProf Blog] * Goldieblox paid the Beastie Boys (or technically charity) $1 million over using their song for 10 days in an effort to promote smart toys for girls. Good job bringing the lyrics to life, Boys! [Hypebot] * Speaking of intellectual property suits, the University of Alabama sued a company for using a houndstooth pattern because Bear Bryant used to wear hats with a houndstooth pattern that some other company developed. They’ve settled. [SF Gate] * Judge Claudia Wilken has denied the NCAA’s latest effort to delay the Ed O’Bannon trial. At least the NCAA is nearing a settlement on a concussion suit. I wonder if that’ll end up favoring the players? [Associated Press] * Litigation financing meets intra-disciplinary disputes as philosophy professors chip in to help a student sue a Yale philosophy professor for sexual harassment. [Chronicle of Higher Education] * Porsche sued for building cars that are too fast and too furious. [ABC News]

* Due to the extreme polarization of SCOTUS, with its near constant 5-4 opinion line-ups, “it becomes increasingly difficult to contend … that justices are not merely politicians clad in fine robes.” Yep. [The Upshot / New York Times]

* Tim Wu, the Columbia Law professor who first introduced the term “net neutrality” to the world, had two of his clerkships (Posner; Breyer) “arranged” by Professor Lawrence Lessig. If only we could all be so lucky. [New York Times]

* We’re getting the sinking feeling that the lack of diversity in law school is one of those problems that everyone and their mother claims to be trying to fix, but the lack of momentum keeps it from ever truly improving. [National Law Journal]

* When contemplating what law schools would have to do to get a bailout, this law professor has three ideas, and they involve changing her colleagues’ lives in uncomfortable ways. Well played. [Boston Globe]

* Cole Leonard is struggling to decide between going to law school and going to Mars. Well, he’s more likely to have a job doing anything on Mars than here on Earth as a lawyer. HTH. [Dallas Morning News]

* The L.A. Clippers have a new CEO, for the time being. Say hello to Dick Parsons, the former chairman of Patterson Belknap, a man who the world hopes is not quite as racist as his predecessor. [Am Law Daily]

* This guy used a cellphone jammer in his car to keep his commute interruption free. Guessing he’s not a lawyer. [Slate] * Let’s lay off Justice Scalia for his latest screw up. Because Justice Stevens screwed up once too. Oh, well, that settles it then. I think the real point is Scalia completely whiffed trying to make a hugely bitchy argument, but we’ll let the Scalia lovers have their moment. [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * Not for the faint of heart. Audio of a guy killing two unarmed teens. Obviously they were breaking into his house, but his wingnut psyche is laid bare in his rambling justification for shooting first and never asking questions. He’s charged with first degree murder because the grand jury just wasn’t buying his story. [Gawker] * Meanwhile, the guys who really need guns can’t find where they left them. [Legal Juice] * The long-running “Commentgate” story from New Orleans — where federal prosecutors allegedly used anonymous comments to sway public opinion on their cases — has ended with the prosecutors agreeing to a ban from federal court. [Times-Picayune] * Did anybody know Donald Sterling’s son was suspected of shooting a guy in an argument? And the D.A. that the elder Sterling ran fundraisers for decided not to prosecute? Yeah, I’d missed that. [Bessette Pitney] * Martin Scorsese’s nephew is basically a bit player in one of his crime movies. [New York Daily News]

My father had a theory. Like most of his theories, he freely admitted that he had probably heard or read it somewhere else. At any rate, the theory involved the scrubs who sat at the end of NBA benches and how a subtle and acceptable racism dictated that those guys who would never see the […]

* The Senate confirmed nine judges this week, the highest one-week total since the current session of Congress began. They even managed to confirm a “controversial” nominee. Congrats! [Legal Times]

* If you need a reason for your merger-product firm’s poor financial performance, don’t use the verein structure as a scapegoat. Maybe your firms weren’t profitable to begin. Burnnnnn. [The Economist]

* Skadden lawyers await the day they’re called upon to provide the NBA’s defense against a potential suit filed by Don Sterling. They’ll be ready, because Skadden’s the best brand in the world, yay! [Am Law Daily]

* Mayer Brown is pulling out of the “comfort women” case, a decision one of its clients says is “totally crazy.” We suppose the firm was getting tired of being dragged through the mud. [Los Angeles Daily News]

* A suspect is being held by police in the fatal hit-and-run of Judge Dean Pregerson’s son. He’s been charged with vehicular manslaughter, and is expected to be arraigned on Monday. [Los Angeles Times]

* Fifty-five schools are being investigated for alleged violations of federal law in the mishandling of sexual assault and harassment cases. One professional school is on the list. Sup Harvard Law? [Huffington Post]

* Boies Schiller announced it will be working with Hausfeld LLP for the limited purpose of creating a new practice group that will allow the firms to co-represent professional athletes. (Sorry, college athletes, you don’t count yet.) [Bloomberg]

* It’s highly likely that departing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler will return to her former stomping grounds at Latham & Watkins. Imagine how many pairs of shoes she’ll be able to buy with her Biglaw money. [Washington Post]

* Governor Andrew Cuomo is so desperate to keep the Buffalo Bills in Western New York that he recently inked a $350K deal with Foley & Lardner to convince the team’s future owners to stay put. [Buffalo News]

* The Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings are virtually ungameable, but Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency proposes a novel way deans can try: by lowering tuition. GASP! [Law.com (reg. req.)]

* Marc Randazza, one of the preeminent lawyers on First Amendment rights (who happens to represent us from time to time), thinks what happened to Don Sterling was “morally wrong.” Interesting theory. [CNN]

* Donald Sterling may be banned from the NBA, but the recording that placed him on the outside looking in was captured illegally per California law. [The Legal Blitz] * If the NBA owners agree — as expected — to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, it could cost his heirs over $100 million. Let’s feel sorry that megamillionaires might be slightly less megamillionaires. [Slate] * The inimitable Charles P. Pierce with more on the horrifically botched execution in Oklahoma last night. Overlooked in the horror was the constitutional crisis that preceded it — where the very authority of the state supreme court was called into question. [Esquire] * After getting his client acquitted of molesting a child while drunk, a lawyer managed to get arrested for DWI, hours after the verdict. Amazing. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] * The conservative argument for copyright reform. Seriously, at this point there’s no political philosophy in favor of lengthy copyright terms, so why can’t we change this? Oh, right. Media companies have tons and tons of money. [R Street] * UVA Law funds the first jobs of a bunch of its grads. David Lat weighs in. [C-Ville] * This story could just as easily be entitled “I’m a young Biglaw associate who lives in Williamsburg.” [McSweeneys]

* For the third year in a row, Skadden has topped the list of the Biglaw firms GCs love to pay, the firms with the best brands. Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins rounded out the top three. Congratulations! [PRWeb]

* A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law yesterday, noting that it “only tenuously serve[d] the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud.” Ouch. Sorry about that, Scott Walker. [Bloomberg]

* Hot on the heels of the release of the second annual ATL Law School Rankings, we’ve got a list of the law schools where graduates reportedly have the least amount of debt. We’ll have more on this news later today. [The Short List / U.S. News & World Report]

* It was kind of like the night of the living dead in Oklahoma last night, where an execution was botched so badly the defendant attempted to rise up off the table. That must have been horrific. [New York Times]

* Here’s an eligible bachelor alert: After being suspended from practice for six months for filming “upskirt” videos of women in public, this in-house lawyer has been reinstated. [Legal Intelligencer (reg. req.)]

* Poor Justice Lori Douglas. Not only are her kinky S&M pictures floating around somewhere online, but the man who took them — her husband, Jack King — just died. RIP, good sir. [CTV Winnipeg News]

* NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, a former Cravath lawyer, fouled L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling out of the league, but people are questioning whether his punishment was legal. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

Embattled billionaire Donald Sterling and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver are both lawyers; let's look at their professional pedigrees.

* Michelle Friedland, a Munger Tolles partner, has been confirmed to the Ninth Circuit. Congratulations! This marks the first time in years that the court has had a full slate of 29 judges, which is also pretty cool for law nerds. [Legal Times]

* L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling is probably going to be flopping around just like LeBron now that the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, a former Cravath attorney, has launched a full court press against him. [Am Law Daily]

* This is something completely new and different. The United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit against North Carolina over its ban on gay marriage saying it restricts its clergy’s religious freedom. [New York Times]

* Dear Low Grades, High Hopes: You don’t need an addendum to your law school application. You’ll get in everywhere you apply — they’re desperate to fill their seats. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Singer-songwriter Paul Simon was arrested yesterday alongside his wife after she “picked a fight” with him. Given how “disorderly” things were, perhaps all he wanted to hear was the sound of silence. [CNN]

* People are shocked — shocked! — to learn that L.A. Clippers owner and Southwestern Law grad Donald Sterling may just be racist. Where were all you people the last 30 years he’s been in the limelight? I guess this is what happens when the Lakers stop being good. At least they’re in good company, the NAACP didn’t seem to pay attention to the red flags either. [Business Insider] * Bringing “blame the victim” to sickening new levels. A playwright is suing actress Valerie Harper for $2 million for having the audacity not to mention her cancer. [NY Daily News] * Oh, no, wait. This is bringing “blame the victim” to sickening new levels. [Huffington Post] * Liquid Natural Gas exports are tied down in the FERC approval process. Pesky lawyers. [Breaking Energy] * Louis Althusser’s On The Reproduction Of Capitalism argues that “all law is by essence, in the last instance, inegalitarian and bourgeois.” And he doesn’t even know about the cruise ship we rented out for a partner meeting to discuss our offices in that “country” of Africa [Critical-Theory] * Keeping your cool is a lot easier from your computer than out in the field. [Katz Justice] * The Supreme Court may have decided not to rule on whether juries can be non-unanimous, but they will spend their time figuring out if fish are “informational items.” Good job. [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

Just how bad are law school deans and law professors at playing basketball? Comically so.

* Allegations that a prison told a death row inmate to “put on a show” while getting a lethal injection. Just when you thought the death penalty couldn't manifest itself as more cruel and unusual... [NBC News] * A discussion of how early voting is bad. Apparently, after an electoral dialogue that usually lasts a year or more, we’re all lemmings swayed by the events of the last day of campaigning so there’s no justification for allowing voters to show up three days before the finish line. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * Kentucky legend Richie Farmer’s basketball jersey may be retired, but the Bureau of Prisons decided to give Farmer, now a political figure heading to prison for abusing his office, his old number back as an inmate number. Thanks? [Legal Juice] * In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama came out strong for patent law reform. Exactly the issue he needed to rally voters for the midterms! [Patently-O] * And while it didn’t make the address itself, Attorney General Eric Holder is signaling a new administrative interest in reforming the out of whack sentencing laws. [Sentencing Law and Policy] * On February 12, our own David Lat will be speaking at Georgetown at an ABA Journal sponsored talk on “#21stCenturyLaw.” Let’s see that hash tag start trending. [ABA Journal] * Joshua Gilliland of The Legal Geeks reacts to the revelation that the new costuming for next season’s Doctor Who will ditch Gilliland’s beloved bow tie. Our hearts go out to you in your pain. Video embedded below… [The Legal Geeks]

* Harvard Law’s Langdell Library hosts a bevy of legal treasures. Including the personal lunchbox of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. [The Harvard Crimson]

* Per a new survey, watching the Kardashians makes one twice as likely to want an aggressive lawyer. When I have to watch the Kardashians I become an aggressive lawyer. [Avvo]

* The Supreme Court spent Cyber Monday denying review to two cases challenging the imposition of sales taxes on Internet purchases. [The Blog of the Legal Times]

* New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman cracked down on fake Yelp reviewers. Apparently, reviewers who gave a pet groomer 4 stars are a bigger priority than the reviewers who gave subprime-backed securities AAA ratings. [Corporate Counsel]

* Not exactly breaking news, but Philly has caught on that law firms are merging because the market is so terrible with a new piece on the merger craze. Specifically, they’re looking at the planned merger of BakerHostetler and Philly’s own Woodcock Washburn L.L.P. we mentioned last week. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Lakers guard Steve Nash’s ex-wife is battling him for child custody. She’s hired a Phoenix law firm whose most famous attorney is jacked up NFL ref Ed Hochuli. For now Hochuli isn’t working on the case directly. For now. [TMZ Sports]

* Congratulations to Kobre & Kim on being named Law Firm of the Year by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. [Newsday]

* Who says Civil Procedure isn’t sexy? Some UNLV Law students take to YouTube to bring (Civ Pro) SexyBack. [You Tube]

With partial class certification, which side came out better?

* If you thought the Redskins were offensive, I bring you the Coachella Valley High Arabs. Complete with video of their mascot! [Yahoo! Sports] * With states increasingly losing access to tried and true execution drugs, the wardens are now experimenting on their own. This sounds (a) incredibly cruel and unusual, and (b) likely to result in creating a supervillian. [Vocativ] * Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott fought hard for a voter ID law. And on Tuesday, he failed to meet the standards of the law he championed. Derp. [Opposing Views] * We frequently link to the fun poetic stylings of Poetic Justice. Now you can enter a contest to win a free copy of the book! [Poetic Justice] * In a horrific turn, a father called the cops to teach his son a lesson. Then the cops killed the son. [Gawker] * Fear Roatti the White Tiger, Esq. Fear him mightily. [Deadspin] * This is perhaps the weirdest law firm video ever. Video embedded after the jump… [Legal Cheek]

* A look at how one expert witness helped Mark Cuban win in the insider trading case. The government should have hired the Spurs -- they figure out how to beat Mark Cuban constantly. [The Expert Institute] * This guy forgot to book a wedding venue and rather than admit it, called in a bomb threat. How mean would his bride-to-be have to be for him to commit a crime rather than disappoint? So anyway, he's going to jail now. [Associated Press] * Man arrested for punching a police horse. I mean, Mr. Ed shouldn't have mouthed off like that. [Slate] * The chief of FERC will be joining a top law firm in Portland. Someone send Jon Wellinghoff a complete box set of Portlandia so he knows what he's getting into. [Breaking Energy] * After yesterday's scathing attack on law reviews brought out some defenders, this post brings the snark to the whole affair. [Law Prof Blawg] * Ms. JD is handing out awards at its annual conference. Send in your nominations by December 15. [Ms. JD] * The ironic webpage for the Delaware State Bar's "Access to Justice" program. Image after the jump...

This seems too ridiculous to be true, but we've got her on film admitting to it!