Morning Docket

* Get ready professional responsibility nerds, because the Supreme Court is hearing argument on the scope of attorney-client privilege on Monday. [ABA Journal]

* Twitter hires Perkins Coie despite Elon Musk’s history of bashing the firm for its work on behalf of Democrats. I’m starting to think this guy doesn’t have a firm grasp on management. [Reuters]

* On this anniversary, a new wrongful death lawsuit targets Trump over January 6 riot. [MSNBC]

* Pharmacies plan to offer morning after pills in states where it’s still legal. [NY Times]

* Speaking of commercial pharmacies, a Walgreens executive finally admitted that all those shoplifting losses that the company claimed would run them out of business were totally exaggerated. [CNBC]

* Prosecutors win right to use the word “bribe” in a case about Fox executives accused of, well, bribing people. [Law360]

* The Biden administration’s defense of its student loan relief programs arrived. It mostly revolves around the plaintiffs’ lack of standing, which has the benefit of being completely correct and the drawback of a majority of justices who don’t care. [Reuters]

* After yesterday’s southeastern merger news, now Maynard and Nexsen are merging to build a 550-attorney firm. [Daily Report Online]

* Coinbase will have to pay $100M in real people money for anti-money laundering compliance failures. [Law360]

* S&C takes overall deal value crown for 2022, shedding a bit of light on those Kirkland cutbacks we’ve been hearing about [American Lawyer]

* Preparing for a cyber threat is one thing. Getting lawyers to actually comply with your policies is another. [Legaltech News]

* Another story about facial recognition software, race, and mistaken identity. This time a man claims he was falsely arrested because of the software. [Gizmodo]

* In other news, I was on the most recent episode of WGN’s Legal Face-Off discussing a wide range of legal issues from bonuses to the Supreme Court. [WGN]

* Class action lawsuit filed against Southwest Airlines over holiday travel meltdown right on schedule… unlike Southwest. [Corporate Counsel]

* Sam Bankman-Fried trial set for October. [New York Law Journal]

* Kasowitz suing Glenn Agre over fees. Glenn Agre partners worked on the matter at Kasowitz before founding Glenn Agre and bringing the work with them. Now that the matter is closed, Glenn Agre earned a success fee and Kasowitz wants a chunk of that. Does Kasowitz pay pro rated bonuses to associates who lateral to other firms mid-year? Because that’s the firm’s logic. [American Lawyer]

* Biden renominates pending judgeship appointments. These nominations may have languished in the last Congress, but there’s now a chance they can get confirmed before the next Speaker. [Reuters]

* DoNotPay, the AI speeding ticket system, is set to defend its first matter in court. [New Scientist]

* Welcome to 2023! We’re getting a new USNWR ranking system in response to the quasi-boycott. Among the changes, the magazine says it will no longer consider student debt, which critics claimed incentivized admitting rich students. Weird that we call them the 1% for a reason but they’re just coming out of the woodwork when law schools want cover for high tuition. [NY Times]

* Alan Dershowitz argues that he shouldn’t be sanctioned in the Kari Lake suit because when his name ended up on the court filings he had only meant to opine on a limited legal issue that wasn’t cited in the sanctions order. It seems to me that the right conclusion is that he’s got a claim against the other lawyers if they really put his name on it without his consent… but not a claim to be shielded from sanctions. [Arizona Capitol Times]

* Lawsuits continue pursuing insurance payouts for lost business during COVID. Even with policies that had no protection against pandemics, courts have so far taken the stance that the only “business losses” protected against COVID are the risk of insurers losing revenue. [Reuters]

* New Hogan Lovells spinoff seeks more rate flexibility. That possibly adds some color to this rumored Shearman merger. [Law.com]

* Did you know that all crimes against opossums were legal for the last five days in North Carolina? [NC Rabbithole]

* Associated Press wants you to know that legalizing marijuana has led to a spike in kids accidentally eating edibles. Weird that “guns” remain the leading cause of death among children but we’re not hearing the same moral panic as when a kid turns off Paw Patrol to zone out to Phish. [AP]

* First razor blades in chocolate, now this?! [Reuters]

* The Department of Transportation is tripping over Southwest’s refund policies. [Slate]

* Ding Dong! The taxes are in! I’m sure this won’t prove a bunch of illegal activity! [NBC Philadelphia]

* Forget Bitcoin, FTX customers want mum to be the word. [Reuters]

* Biden’s work to diversify the judiciary is leaving quite the legacy. Thanks, Obama. [AP News]

* Proskauer sues its former COO claiming trade secret theft. I guess he stole the magical “real law” that the firm offers its clients. [American Lawyer]

* Bed Bath & Beyond brings in new chief legal officer who likely looks nice out of the box but will inexplicably stop working in six months. [Corporate Counsel]

* CNN profiles “little-known lawyer” and it’s Doug Letter. Apparently CNN’s new management assumes its audience doesn’t get out much. [CNN]

* Prosecutors seek 6 year sentence for Varsity Blues ringleader. But if it comes time to pick a prison, he has an in with the crew team at FCI Fort Dix so he should be fine. [Reuters]

* Another law school student group wants the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people citing its deeply held religious convictions as… a loose confederation of “Judeo-Christian” members calling themselves the Free Exercise Coalition. There have been more blatantly manufactured lawsuits in history, but this is up there. [NHPR]

* Oh look! The majority of the Supreme Court is once again shifting their interpretation of the law in order to support right-wing political objectives! In a 5-4 decision the Court held Title 42 must be kept in effect during the appeal of a lower court’s decision to end the use of the public health law to quickly expel migrants that arrived to the United States amid the COVID-19 crisis. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the dissent writing, “And it is hardly obvious why we should rush in to review a ruling on a motion to intervene in a case concerning emergency decrees that have outlived their shelf life.” [Law360]

* More law schools are kicking USNWR rankings to the curb. We’re now at 10 percent of law schools that say they will not participate in the ranking process. [Law.com]

* Kari Lake, the Republican that ran — and lost — for the Arizona governorship, may have avoided sanctions for using the courts to avoid accepting the election results, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be paying money. A Maricopa County Superior Court found Lake was responsible for the ~$33,000 in expert witness fees AZ Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs incurred. [Huffington Post]

* There may not be a ton Congress can do about Republican George Santos’s lies that won him his seat, but there are some suspicious campaign campaign finance disclosures… [Slate]

* 2022 was the year that Constitutional Law dramatically shifted (to the right). [ABA Journal]

* One of Donald Trump’s lawyers says the January 6 Committee’s criminal referrals against the former president are “pretty much worthless.” Suppose we’ll soon see what the Justice Department thinks about that. [The Hill]

* Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas and his election-denier wife Ginni Thomas got off scot-free in the January 6 Committee’s investigation of the insurrection. Why? Because “[w]hen you’re a justice, they let you do it.” [Slate via How Appealing]

* The reported merger between Hogan Lovells and Shearman & Sterling is in such “early” stages that Shearman partners are already heading for the exits with news of a “weighted” equity vote. [American Lawyer]

* A nice win before SCOTUS kills affirmative action: According to the ABA, this year’s class of entering law students is the most diverse in history, with about 37% of first-years identifying as racial or ethnic minorities. [Reuters]

* A jury convicted rapper Tory Lanez of three felonies in the shooting of hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion. He’s facing more than 20 years in prison thanks to the guilty verdict. [Associated Press]

* Have you done literally anything in your life? You may be entitled to compensation. Personal injury attorneys have taken over our televisions, and CNN has an interesting piece on how exactly that happened over the years. [CNN]

* January 6th Committee released its final report last night. Enjoy some light 800+ page reading! [NPR]

* A law firm paid off the total school lunch balance at a local junior high,  which is both a nice gesture and a horrifying reminder that this country routinely runs junior high kids into debt. [KSL]

* A deep dive into the world of election conspiracy lawyer Stefanie Lambert (no stranger to these pages) as she faces possible disbarment. [Reuters]

* Conservatives LOVE the Western District of Louisiana and while it might be the gumbo, it’s probably the deeply right-wing judge roster with the power to halt national policies. Which brings us too… [ABA Journal]

* … Rep. Mondaire Jones introducing the Injunction Reform Act to limit the power of federal judges to issue national injunctions to the D.C. District and Circuit and Supreme Court. [Huffington Post]

* Andrew Cuomo spent years empowering conservatives on NY’s high court with disastrous results for NY Democrats. Having learned exactly nothing from the experience, Kathy Hochul wants to give that same strategy a whirl! [Slate]

* Federal prosecutors announce that two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s closest allies have pleaded guilty to fraud charges, just as SBF departed the Bahamas after agreeing to be extradited back to the U.S. Man, don’t you hate it when you come back from vacation and it’s all bad news? [Reuters]

* That’s the thing when you go soft on criminals… they just end up committing more crimes! And, yes, this is a story about the people Trump pardoned. [ABC News]

* Sixth Circuit strikes down county’s 10-foot buffer zone around preventing women from being harassed as they enter an abortion clinic, citing Supreme Court ruling that any limit beyond the property line itself is a First Amendment violation. As a reminder, Supreme Court officials and Republican lawmakers went absolutely berserk at the prospect of peaceful protests outside justices’ houses. [National Law Journal]

* Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli’s former Lawyer Bro Evan Greebel just filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to shield his 401(k) funds from the restitution order. Look, a convict’s gotta retire! How else do we keep Florida populated? [Law.com]

* When Congress passed a law to stop people bombarding your inbox, it didn’t apply to Facebook birthday messages. That falls under the well-established “aw, that’s sweet!” canon of construction. [Law360]

* In some “dog bites man” news, dozens of complaints lodged against Twitter by its former employees. [Reuters]

* Berkeley Law School provides a good case study in how “campus free speech,” addressing both the complexity the issue can raise when politics and identity become intertwined, and how the whole concept has boiled down to a cudgel to harass left-leaning students. [NY Times]

* Everyone talks about layoffs, but the other major outcome of economic worry is a run on small law firm acquisitions. And it’s already starting. [New Jersey Law Journal]

* The UK government suggests that sharing Netflix passwords may be a criminal copyright violation. So while you might think intellectual property law is broken in the United States, trust that it’s worse over there. [BBC News]

* Eastern Oregon is trying to join Idaho again. In case you’re wondering what the January 6 mentality is up to next. [Courthouse News Service]

* Chief Justice Roberts issued a stay to prevent the executive branch from lifting a COVID outbreak-related executive order since we don’t have lockdowns any more. As unprecedented power grabs go, this is an impressive one. But since it’s about hurting immigrants seeking legal asylum, the “Don’t Tread on Me” folks seem unconcerned. [Law360]

* After 60 Minutes ran a bit on litigation funding, the Chamber of Commerce blasted out a press release about the grave danger of ordinary people being financially able to pursue valid claims against companies. They’ve gone so far as to call it a national security issue. It’s not. [Bloomberg Law]

* Inflation is ticking back down as supply chain disruptions ease, but that isn’t stopping the Federal Reserve from trying to start a recession just to prove they can. At least bankruptcy practices are happy. [American Lawyer]

* Amber Heard has dropped the appeal in the defamation case against Johnny Depp. [Courthouse News Service]

* Salesforce must face trial in sex trafficking case alleging that the software publisher aided Backpage in growing an illegal operation. Seriously though, what does Word Perfect do these days? You can’t convince me they aren’t running underground goat fighting rings. [Texas Lawyer]

* Scholars are increasingly worried about the Supreme Court’s shift toward lawless Star Chamber. Alternate headline: “New York Times Readers Learning What Savvy, Smart, And Undeniably More Attractive Above The Law Readers Have Known For Years. [NY Times]

* A deep-dive into how Donald Trump manages his post-presidency the same way he managed his presidency, which is terrifying on a lot of levels. [Washington Post]

* Elon Musk asked Twitter users in a poll if he should step down. He lost decisively. No one really expects him to abide by this in any serious way, but if you’re a Tesla shareholder… aren’t you at least starting to draft a complaint about how these antics have eroded share value? [Reuters]

* ABA finds 4 law schools out of compliance. Hofstra is out of compliance with the faculty diversity standard and the other three flunked the bar passage rate standard. In a shock to absolutely no one, the law school funded by bad pizza and inquisitional zealotry couldn’t swing a passing grade. [Law.com]

* What will in-house counsel do when law firms raise rates? This article has a roadmap for law departments to get around the price hikes, but to be honest, they’ll just end up paying the higher rates. [Bloomberg Law]

* South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh — the subject of one of the most horrifically bizarre sagas in my entire career covering this space — is now charged with tax evasion on top of the murder and embezzlement. [The Guardian]

* DC disciplinary panel recommends disbarring Rudy Giuliani. Don’t think of it as the end of a career… think of forced retirement as having all the time in the world. [NBC News]

* Elon Musk kicked off a purge of journalists covering his disastrous Twitter management claiming that they doxxed him for reporting that someone else had been banned for linking to public flight data. He’s deciding whether to lift the suspension via poll and it’s… not going well for him. In any event, if I were to join another social media outlet I’d be “joepatrice.” Do with this information what you will. [CNN]

* NLRB looking to pursue charges over labor violations regarding college athletes. One would imagine the school would have a strong defense, but it’s USC so… [ESPN]

* Weil and Covington released its report on abuse in women’s soccer. Surprising no one, it’s been an absolute mess for years. [American Lawyer]

* Appeals court rules that Yeshiva must recognize an LGBTQ club despite the school’s claimed religious objections… because you can’t have your “we’re secular for various funding reasons” cake and eat it too [Reuters]

* SEC votes to move ahead with major stock market reforms that could save $1.5B annually. That would buy a lot of Gamestop. [Reuters]

* Not a shocker, but Paul Pelosi’s assailant going on trial for attempted murder. Well, not a shocker for those of us based in reality… there are still some incredibly stupid people out there. [Courthouse News Service]

* Elon Musk is threatening legal action against a user for tweeting out publicly available information. See, this is what happens when you fire all the lawyers who understand how law works. [BBC News]

* Tech community files suit to halt California tech law requiring companies to vet online offerings for age appropriateness. Another instance of using “won’t someone think of the children?” to gloss over a host of workability problems. [Washington Post]

* On the lighter side, a profile of Lyle Denniston, who is still writing about the Court at 91. [E&E News]

* Elon Musk has reportedly ousted Quinn Emanuel’s Alex Spiro as Twitter’s top — if not official — legal counsel. That makes sense, because Spiro is a noted litigator and, having looked at Tesla’s stock price, what Musk really needs these days is some bankruptcy counsel. [NY Times]

* Milbank adds 40 lawyers in London, which is a lot even in the metric system. [American Lawyer]

* Ron DeSantis asks for a grand jury to investigate COVID “crimes” like “trying to save people” and other science-based heresies. [Law360]

* Biden signed the same-sex marriage bill in a landmark achievement that will last just as long as it takes to get to the Supreme Court. [Guardian]

* Lawyers on both sides argue that federal judge can’t hire a historian to gauge the validity of originalism arguments. Because history is critical to constitutional law… but only when strung together from cherry-picked news clippings by lawyers. [CNN]

* If you’re keeping track, yes, the Bahamas has an extradition treaty with the United States. [Washington Post]

* Ohio Supreme Court rules that “business interruption insurance” isn’t so much “insurance” for “business interruptions.” It turns out the coverage you bought was just the friends you made along the way. [Law.com]

* Prosecutors seek 18 to 24 months for former Pryor Cashman attorney who aided in Molotov Cocktail matter. [Law360]

* Supreme Court will return to announcing opinions live from the bench… but won’t livestream them even though they already livestream oral argument. Hey, someone has to protect the SCOTUSBlog liveblogging operation from competition! [Bloomberg Law]

* Virginia becomes final T14 school to announce its intentions with the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The school will join the boycott. [Law.com]

* Chief Judge William Pryor launched the Federalist Society’s annual convention with a bunch of sneering jabs at Mark Joseph Stern (and Above the Law for that matter), so Stern called him up for an interview. Scattered among all the denialism, Pryor states that he doesn’t think the organization has made clerks any more radical… a bold claim when you remember who clerks for him. [Slate]

* Judge allows lawyer to see Jerry Seinfeld over Madison Square Garden effort to bar all lawyers involved in lawsuits against the venue, which actually sounds like a plot Larry David might write. [I Love the Upper West Side]

* Man accused of killing his wife’s divorce lawyer and setting the office on fire. A tragic reminder that family law attorneys are often targeted with violence. [The Guardian]

* Politico asks if Adrian Vermeule’s “Common Good Constitutionalism” is set to unseat originalism as a dominant right-wing legal theory. The answer is no because even conservatives think Vermeule is bonkers. [Politico]

* Repeat after me: DO NOT USE CONFUSE CLIENT MONEY FOR LOTTERY WINNINGS. [KSAT]

* Stop Woke isn’t just a Florida thing — it is a biglaw thing too. [Law.com]

* Rutgers Law is offering a certificate in hopes of combating the legacy of the War on Drugs. [Philly Voice]

* Harvard graduates are giving lip over LIPP. [The Crimson]

* Enrollment in Amy Wax’s classes is dropping. Haha Bozo. [The DP] * What? Companies may have to actually moderate the content they host? [Yahoo!] * Considering a state job? You might not be as able to keep up on those new dancing trends… [CBS News] * The Swiftie to Sherman Act enforcer pipeline is […]