Department of Justice

Morning Docket: 01.15.13

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* When it comes to medical marijuana prosecutions, the government is supposed to have “bigger fish to fry,” but it looks like even the Department of Justice couldn’t resist reeling in one last big catch. [New York Times]

* According to the results of this study, if you want to do well in law school, you should probably stop being so damn awkward, scale back your antisocial habits, and consider joining a study group. [National Law Journal]

* “[U]nder American law, anyone interesting is a felon.” This Columbia Law professor argues that the legal system failed Aaron Swartz because he was treated like a criminal instead of a deviant genius. [New Yorker]

* Porn stars in Los Angeles are challenging the constitutionality of being forced to wear condoms during filming — because the transfer of STDs is “constitutionally protected expression.” [Courthouse News Service]

* So, it looks like Lindsay Lohan fired her best gal pal in the world: her lawyer. But sometimes you have to fire people when you allegedly owe them oodles of money to the tune of $300K and you don’t have any. [Daily Mail]

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Morning Docket: 01.04.13

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DaNae Couch

* The Department of Justice has reached yet another settlement in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill case, this time with Transocean Ltd. for $1.4 billion in civil and criminal penalties and fines. [National Law Journal]

* “[W]ith success comes regulatory scrutiny.” Google convinced the FTC to close its ongoing antitrust probe by promising to change its allegedly shady patent usage and purportedly skewed search terms. [Bloomberg]

* According to Littler Mendelson, federal contractors might want to consider sending out sequestration-related layoff notices to employees in order to comply with the WARN Act. America, f**k yeah! [Government Executive]

* Governor Andrew Cuomo will have a major impact on the New York Court of Appeals when appointing new judges. It could be a partisan decision, but his father, former Governor Mario Cuomo, insists his son will leave politics at home. [Capital New York]

* When you write in defense of the value proposition of law school, you wind up in the op-ed pages of the NYT. When you tell the truth about it, you wind up in the opinion pages of the WSJ. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Remember Danae Couch, the Texas Tech law student who was crowned as Miss Texas? She’ll compete for the Miss America title next weekend. If you’d like to help her become a finalist, you can vote for her here! [KFYO]

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Morning Docket: 01.03.13

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* Dewey know how much money this failed firm has run up on its tab for legal advisers since May? It’s quite the pretty penny — $14.8 million — and that amount actually includes some pretty ridiculous fees and charges, like $21,843 for photocopies. [Am Law Daily]

* Everyone’s glad that we didn’t nosedive over the fiscal cliff, but the people who are the most excited about it seem to be Biglaw partners. This wasn’t the best bill, and more uncertainty means more work, which means more money. [National Law Journal]

* It looks like we’re never going to find out what the Justice Department’s legal justification was for the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, because a federal judge upheld the validity of its secret memo. [New York Times]

* Everyone flipped out over Instagram’s money filter, but they’re keeping relatively quiet about this mandatory arbitration provision. Quick, post some pseudo-legalese on your Facebook wall. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Good news, everyone! Thanks to this ruling, in Virginia, you can be as nasty and negative as you want to be on Yelp without fear that your voice will be censored… kind of like the Above the Law comments. [All Things D]

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Morning Docket: 01.02.13

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* While Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts made a plea to keep funding for the federal judiciary intact, we learned that student loan default cases have fallen since 2011. You really gotta love that income-based repayment. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Introducing the Asia 50, a list of the largest firms in the Asia-Pacific region. When it comes to the firms with the biggest footprints, only one American Biglaw shop made the cut. Go ahead and take a wild guess on which one it was. [Asian Lawyer]

* Congratulations are in order, because after almost a year of stalling, Arnold & Porter partner William Baer was finally confirmed by the Senate as the chief of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. [Bloomberg]

* Our elected officials might not have allowed the country to fall off the fiscal cliff, but the American Invents Act was put on hold, so if you’re a patent nerd, you can still be mad about something. [National Law Journal]

* Remember when Rutgers-Camden Law said “many top students” were making bank after graduation? Yeah, about that: Law School Transparency just filed an ABA complaint. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Here are some law school trends to look out for in 2013. FYI, the applicant pool is smaller because no one wants to foolishly gamble on their careers anymore. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* In the latest NYC subway shoving death, a woman was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, and allegedly bragged about other hate crimes she’s committed to police. Lovely. [New York Times]

* Next time you’re trapped on a plane that’s literally filled with other people’s crap for 11 hours, don’t bother suing over your hellish experience — you’re going to be preempted by federal law. [New York Law Journal]

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Morning Docket: 12.17.12

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* “To do nothing in the face of pending disaster is to be complicit. It’s time to act. It’s time to vote.” What a convenient time to discover that the Department of Justice tabled new gun control proposals in favor of an upcoming election campaign. [New York Times]

* Rumor has it that the president will nominate Senator John Kerry to be secretary of state for his second term. Upon hearing the news, Hillary Clinton updated her Tumblr page before she caught a case of the vapors, fainted, and got herself all concussed. [CNN]

* “If you don’t know, then you have to plan for the worst.” Everyone’s pissed off about the possibility of being pushed off the fiscal cliff, but on the bright side, it’s creating a mountain of billables. [National Law Journal]

* Remember the judge who resigned after he accidentally showed a colleague a picture of the “judicial penis”? He was removed from office by a judicial ethics panel. How very effective. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

* And for the talent portion of the competition, Alicia Guastaferro, the pageant princess who was picked up for prostitution after getting caught with an attorney, will have her hooking charges dropped. [Huffington Post]

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Morning Docket: 12.04.12

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* “Maybe in the future you could let us know when something as definite as that comes [at the last minute.]” It would appear Chief Justice John Roberts has yet again been angered terribly by a lawyer from the Department of Justice over policy changes. [CNN]

* G’day, mate! Perhaps Peter Kalis was telling the truth about his firm, because everything really is great at K&L Gates after last night’s announcement. Partners at the Biglaw firm just approved a merger with Australian firm Middletons. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The commission overseeing the revisions to Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code will focus their energies on labor and benefits. Aww, how nice of them to think of the little people. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The suit over job stats against Thomas Jefferson School of Law lives to fight another day. The school was “disappointed,” but probably not as disappointed as the students it allegedly duped. [National Law Journal]

* And speaking of disappointment, people are still pissed off about Case Western Law Dean Lawrence Mitchell’s defense of going to law school, aka “a full-throated defense of the indefensible.” [New York Times]

* If you’ve made a mistake on your law school application, fret not, because there’s a way to correct it. (Note: some would say the real mistake was applying in the first place.) [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Another day, another lawsuit filed against the much-sued and oft-creepy Dov Charney. This time, an ex-store manager alleges the American Apparel CEO choked him out and tried to rub dirt in his face. [Huffington Post]

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Congratulations to the 2013 Bristow Fellows

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This Thanksgiving, five brilliant young lawyers will have something special to give thanks for. Earlier this month, they learned of their selection as the 2013 Bristow Fellows.

Bristow Fellowships, one-year fellowships in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office, go to recent law school graduates with outstanding academic records and top clerkships. They are generally regarded as second only to Supreme Court clerkships in prestige — and often lead to SCOTUS clerkships as well. You can read more about the Bristow Fellowship, including the job responsibilities and application process, on the Justice Department website.

One of the newest Bristow Fellows is an Above the Law celebrity, whom many of you will recognize. Yes, that’s right — you can appear in the pages of ATL and go on to enjoy great career success in the law….

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Non-Sequiturs: 11.14.12

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* George Washington University has been stripped of its U.S. News college ranking. The law school appears safe. [Tax Prof Blog]

* Now students can get in trouble for bullying their teachers. Teachers, people! TEACHERS CAN’T STAND UP TO THE MEAN SCHOOL KIDS WITHOUT A LAWSUIT. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Just to be clear, Antonin Scalia would not be on the side of the secessionists. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* So the accuser of Kevin Clash, voice of Elmo, recanted and said that he was a consenting adult when he was with Clash. It’s great to know that Elmo is getting barely legal ass. [Huffington Post]

* FCPA! Guidance! This is WAY MORE INTERESTING than Petraeus and the Kelley sisters. [WSJ Law Blog]

* For those of you who saw Capturing the Friedmans, here’s an update on the ongoing proceedings. [WiseLawNY]

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Spyfall: We’re Making A Federal Case Out Of An Affair, Again

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The spoils of war aren’t what they used to be.

This weekend, a top spy had an affair with some woman named Broadchest… err “Broadwell”… and it was a top-grossing distraction from the fiscal cliff.

We’re going to talk about David Petraeus because on this Veterans Day we learned that you can’t be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency while also getting some action on the side. Drone strikes didn’t take Petraeus down. The Benghazi attacks didn’t take Patraeus down (although he’s not done with that yet). Paula Broadwell and her emails took down a four-star general covered in glory.

Before we go on, can we get a list of things you cannot be while also cheating on your wife? More importantly, can we get a list of positions that will not cause the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate your extramarital predilections?

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The Greatest Single Election Quote Ever

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I’m sure there will be other contenders for the honor teased in the title, but I’m having a hard time thinking of one. Last night, voters went to the polls throughout the country and made their voices heard through the time-honored practice of waiting six hours in line until 1:30 a.m. As the results trickled in, candidates, elected officials, and pundits tossed out a number of pithy reactions, but one takes the cake.

Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado responded to the state’s passage of a ballot measure legalizing marijuana with this gem:

Don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.

Now I think Hickenlooper is criminally underselling Bugles, but this is pretty amazing. That’s a sitting United States governor tossing out a rejected line from a Cheech and Chong movie. I love modernity.

But why does Hickenlooper think we should hold on to our munchies?

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