Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:00 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* “Justice Hillary Clinton?” Next up in this traffic-whoring Daily Beast series: “Supreme Court Justice Palin?” [Daily Beast]
* Faegre & Benson partner Robert Matthews and his brother died in a small plane crash over the weekend. Matthews had a mid-air collision while piloting a Cirrus SR20 plane, also killing the other pilot. [Denver Business Journal via ABA Journal]
* NYU grad sues the university for revoking his MBA. [New York Post]
* Why do people pass along Internet links? The NYT says “awe.” Judging from our traffic patterns, we’d add shock-and-awe as a secondary reason. [New York Times]
* Keeping the John Edwards sex tape on lockdown. [Raleigh News & Observer]
* The class-action lawsuit headed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon against the NCAA can proceed. College athletes are one step closer to compensation for the use of their images and likenesses in television advertisements, video games and on apparel. [New York Times]
* On Larry Lessig, copyrights, and remixing, to the tune of Lisztomania…. [Julian Sanchez]
* Which is not our favorite Phoenix song. Our favorite after the jump…
Continue reading "Morning Docket 02.09.10"
Monday, February 8, 2010 8:43 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred was not a fan of the Focus on the Family anti-abortion Super Bowl ad. [Orlando Sentinel]
* ABA President Carolyn Lamm is making big efforts to improve loan assistance for law students — and is making no effort to follow sports. “I don’t even know who’s playing,” she said on Saturday of the Super Bowl. Who dat? [ABA Journal]
* Oops, did we just say “Super Bowl”? We meant to say “Big Game.” [New York Times]
* California law to release inmates early to ease prison overcrowding causes mayhem (among lawmakers). [Associated Press]
* Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who will decide the constitutionality of Proposition 8, has been officially outed, though his sexuality has never been under wraps. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Race and gender matter. [ABA Journal]
Friday, February 5, 2010 9:05 AM - By David Lat
* Unemployment falls to a five-month low of 9.7 percent. [Reuters]
* Ten Americans have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy after trying to take 33 Haitian kids out of Haiti without government permission. [New York Times]
* The legal battle over a John Edwards sex tape, which allegedly shows the disgraced politician and trial lawyer having sex with a pregnant Rielle Hunter (ick), arrives in a North Carolina courtroom today. [CNN]
Continue reading "Morning Docket: 02.05.10"
Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:06 AM - By Elie Mystal
* “Lady Al Qaeda” was found guilty. Her reaction: “This is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America.” [New York Times]
* And just to be clear, Attorney General Holder is a huge fan of civilian trials. [Courthouse News Service]
* Congressional Democrats try to figure how to protect themselves from corporate “speech.” [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]
* Toyota is doing its best to end the legal recession by itself. [National Law Journal]
* Shareholder lawsuits, welcome back. We’ve missed you. [The Recorder]
* South Carolina lawyer shot to death, apparently by an angry husband. [ABA Journal]
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:13 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* A Seattle lawyer is suing Sallie Mae for harassment for “dozens of unwanted calls” on his cell phone, a.k.a. “pay off your law school loans” calls. [Puget Sound Business Journal via ABA Journal]
* After a successful class action suit against department store Windsor Fashions, the plaintiff’s attorney received a payout of $125,000… in $10 gift card increments, thanks to a grandstanding judge. [Los Angeles News]
* Washington, D.C. may make the switch to elected attorneys general, after Mayor Fenty appointee Peter Nickles rubbed the City Council the wrong way. [Washington Post]
* When “Amy” was a little girl, her uncle made her a star in the child pornography world. Now she wants $3.4 million in damages from those who downloaded her photos. [New York Times]
* John Grisham is The Innocent Man in a libel case against him. [Courthouse News Service]
* The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law is getting serious scrutiny. The Pentagon has appointed a military officer and a civilian to conduct a review of the policy: Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon’s top legal counsel, formerly of Paul Weiss, and Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of the United States Army in Europe. [New York Times]
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 8:32 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Kelley Drye has been hit with an age discrimination suit for forcing its partners to de-equitize at 70, raising the question once again of whether law firms that force retirement on their partners are breaking the law. [Chicago Tribune]
* Big pay day for J&J. Boston Scientific will pay Johnson & Johnson $1.73 billion to settle stent patent dispute. [Wall Street Journal]
* UC San Diego and California Western School of Law are getting ideas from Massachusetts. They’re in talks to establish a public law school. [San Diego Business Journal]
* The SEC sued Stephen Czarnik, a partner at Cohen and Czarnik LLP, yesterday for allegedly writing bogus opinion letters to help promote “penny” stocks. [Dow Jones]
* On white collar crime defense fees. [Dealbook/New York Times]
* Steven Tyler will sue if Aerosmith replaces him. [Rolling Stone]
Monday, February 1, 2010 8:11 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Part of Yolanda Young’s discrimination suit against Covington & Burling will move forward. [BLT]
* Controversial New Orleans lawyer Ashton O’Dwyer is back in the news. He’s gone from cursing out judges to threatening their lives. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
* The Third Circuit has taken an interest in at least one claim in the Boring lawsuit against Google Street View. [Business Week]
* The National Conference of Bar Examiners must accommodate the testing needs of a blind UCLA law grad, even if it does potentially expose the bar questions to “hackers and thieves.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Massachusetts decides this week whether Southern New England School of Law can merge with the University of Massachusetts to create the state’s first public law school. Many are opposed including three private competitors. Rep. John Quinn says those three law schools should be investigated for potential antitrust issues. [ABA Journal]
* A mini-controversy in Virginia. Should the attorney general , Ken Cuccinelli II, have tried a private case? [Washington Post]
* Blackwater to get more attention from the Justice Department. [New York Times]
Friday, January 29, 2010 9:06 AM - By Elie Mystal
* The Department of Justice is looking for places outside New York City to hold the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed terror circus/trial. Mayor Michael Bloomberg allowed facts to change his mind; that’s how we roll in the 2-1-2. [Newark Star Ledger]
* Kelley Drye allegedly hates old people. [New York Law Journal]
* Dear Toyota, you are so about to get sued. [ABA Journal]
* New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, is getting a lot of support from the real estate industry for his run for Governor. [New York Times]
* Eliot Spitzer talks about love. You should read it, it’s what happens when irony takes performance enhancing drugs. [New York Post]
* It’s Elie, it’s Morning Docket, it’s Friday. You know what that means? Let me express through music what I’d like to happen now that Ben Bernanke has secured a second term. [Wall Street Journal]
Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:30 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* As we noted last night, Supreme Court bashing in a State of the Union address is a rare thing. Though Obama is following in Roosevelt’s footsteps once again. [BLT]
* Linda Greenhouse’s take on Justice Alito’s reaction to the SotU. [New York Times]
* Florida Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein pleaded guilty yesterday. He finds out how much time he’ll be spending in prison in May. [Miami Herald]
* Do not copy Kaplan DVDs and sell them on eBay. [Wired]
* Nationwide Dissolution Watch: John Edwards and Elizabeth Edwards. [ABC News]
* Brittany Murphy’s husband plans to file a wrongful death suit against Warner Brothers. [Daily Beast]
* Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t want to host a terror trial. [City Room/New York Times]
* R.I.P., Louis Auchincloss. [Washington Post and WSJ Law Blog]
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 8:56 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* AP image-appropriating artist Shepard Fairey is under criminal investigation. If convicted, perhaps he can ‘Hope’ for a pardon from Obama. [ABC News]
* Gays and lesbians settle in their relationship with eHarmony. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Balloon boy parents don’t want to pay their fines. [Washington Post]
* Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein is expected to plead guilty today. [Sun Sentinel]
* Judge David Hittner orders insurance company to pay Allen Stanford’s criminal attorneys. [Houston Chronicle]
* Irony! [ABC News]
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 8:23 AM - By David Lat
* Obama will propose a government spending freeze in tomorrow night’s State of the Union address. [Washington Post]
* The Justice Department gives the green light to the Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger (subject to conditions). [Main Justice]
* This Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case sounds like it might make a good movie. [WSJ Law Blog]
* A closer look at the disastrous Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village real estate deal, which just ended with Tishman Speyer handing over the keys to the complex (plus a defense of Tishman Speyer from Fried Frank’s Jonathan Mechanic). [Am Law Daily; New York Times]
* Judge Jack Weinstein (E.D.N.Y.) rails against Wall Street’s “culture of corruption.” [New York Law Journal]
* Is Justice Stevens singing his swan song? Adam Liptak wonders. [New York Times]
* Elie isn’t the only opponent of a new U. Mass law school. Former MA attorney general Thomas F. Reilly thinks it’s a bad idea too. [Boston Globe]
* University of Iowa College of Law gets a new dean. [University of Iowa]
* A successful defense of a Twitter defamation suit argues that almost half of tweets are just “pointless babble.” [National Law Journal]
Monday, January 25, 2010 8:50 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* President Obama is just like us. He skips out on jury duty… [Associated Press]
* … and he Googles. [Washington Post]
* Manhattan has become the unofficial capital of Joe-to-Jane legal proceedings, thanks in part to Biglaw pro bono lawyers. [New York Times]
* The Sundance movie no lawyer should see. [Reuters]
* Governor Patterson welcomes over 800 new lawyers to New York with a stand-up routine. One of his jokes: “What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 80? Your honor.” [Times Union]
* Glenn Close says she’s more complex than evil as a lawyer on Damages. [Philadelphia Daily News]
* Looks like Jerry O’Connell is being deferred. [Entertainment Weekly]
Friday, January 22, 2010 8:20 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Justice John Paul Stevens read an impassioned dissent on Citizens United. But was it a last hurrah for the 89-year-old justice? [USA Today]
* John Michael Farren, the former Bush lawyer charged with the attempted murder of his Skadden counsel wife, pleads not guilty. [Washington Post]
* Mike Leach’s lawsuit against Texas Tech is being taken off the field. [Campus Rivalry/USA Today]
* Not another pretty face. [Chicago Tribune]
* Child cruelty and animal cruelty all wrapped up in one disgusting package. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
* A whole bunch of fake lawyers could be laid off soon. [Zap2it; ABC News]
* You can carry as much marijuana as you want with a doctor’s note in California. [Courthouse News Service]
* R.I.P., Daniel J. Freed. [New York Times]
Thursday, January 21, 2010 8:29 AM - By David Lat
* Duane Morris partner Daniel Winslow, chief legal counsel to Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown, discusses Brown’s path to victory. [National Law Journal]
* Meanwhile, a former U.S. senator — the famous trial lawyer and one-time VP candidate, John Edwards — has admitted he’s the father of his ex-mistress’s 2-year-old daughter. [The Lede / New York Times]
* NBC and Conan O’Brien (finally) make a deal. [Associated Press]
* Does the SEC need a more effective system for handling whistleblower complaints? [Washington Post]
* The Supreme Court is not so great at predicting the future…. [New York TImes]
* …. but it was able to trigger a mistrial in Dallas. [Politico]
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 8:59 AM - By Elie Mystal
* So Democrats, what do you have to show for your one (and only) year in total control of the government? [Fox News]
* Have you sent in a clerkship application? Do you wonder if the judge even looked at it? [ABA Journal]
* Judge distinguishes alleged David Letterman blackmailer from alleged Tiger Woods concubine. [New York Post]
* Major Foreign Corrupt Practices sting operation. Feels like James Bond should be involved with this somehow. [National Law Journal]
* Child porn viewers are getting reprieves from long prison sentences. [WSJ Law Blog]
* People realize that Avatar is just a movie, right? [New York Times]
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:00 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Wall Street’s main lobbying arm is lawyering up to fight President Obama’s proposed bank tax. Appellate star Carter G. Phillips of Sidley Austin, a former clerk to Warren Burger, is on the case, though he may try to fight this one out at the Capitol rather than in a courtroom. [Bloomberg]
* The FBI has been breaking the law for years, making up terrorism concerns to justify the investigation of phone records after the fact. [Washington Post]
* A Ropes & Gray-bound lawyer answers questions about opting for the public service deferral. It sounds like Fordham Law grad Chris Reid has already spent more time in court than most fifth-year associates. [City Room/New York Times]
* What does Agent Zero’s guilty plea mean for his contract with the Washington Wizards? [Yahoo Sports]
* There are only three good reasons to go to law school. [Concurring Opinions]
Monday, January 18, 2010 11:02 AM - By David Lat
* The Obama administration extends temporary protected status to Haitian immigrants (a possibility that we discussed here). [New York Times]
* The Massachusetts Senate race between two lawyers, state attorney general Martha Coakley (B.U. Law) and state senator Scott Brown (B.C. Law.), is too close to call; Obama takes the stump for Coakley. [Boston Globe; Associated Press]
* A young lawyer at Stroock is selected by Governor Paterson as the executive director of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. [New York Times]
* A federal judge puts the kibosh on one (but not all) of the websites a disgruntled attorney is using to criticize the law firm he used to work for. [NJ.com]
* Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas pleads guilty to illegal possession of an unlicensed handgun. [CNN]
* A law providing veterans’ benefits to Filipino World War II vets who served under U.S. command comes too late for some. [Associated Press]
Friday, January 15, 2010 9:07 AM - By Elie Mystal
* First, Dominic Carter lost his job as political anchor for New York 1. Now, he’s been sentenced to one month in jail. The lesson: don’t beat your wife. [Daily News]
* Gilbert Arenas, the Washington Wizards guard, has been charged with felony gun possession. [Washington Post]
* In other basketball-related legal news, Shaquille O’Neal wants people to stop appropriating one of his nicknames, The Big Shaqtus. [Courthouse News Service]
* Debt collection law firm closes. Aww. So sad. [ABA Journal]
* Law firm salaries are in retreat. I-banker salaries? Not so much. [Washington Business Journal]
* So it kind of makes sense that law firms plan to raise rates in 2010. [Law.com]
Thursday, January 14, 2010 8:43 AM - By David Lat
* Taxing banks for fun and profit — remember McCulloch v. Maryland? Obama will propose a tax on big banks, to recoup taxpayer losses from the Wall Street bailout. [New York Times]
* Josh Levin and Dahlia Lithwick discuss yesterday’s Supreme Court argument in the American Needle case, regarding the application of antitrust laws to the NFL. Conclusion: the justices should just stick to baseball. [Slate]
* Meanwhile, on remand from the SCOTUS, the “fleeting expletives” case was argued before the Second f**king Circuit. [How Appealing]
* The feds decide not to go for trial #5 against John A. “Junior” Gotti (pictured). [CNN]
* “Zoolander” meets “Legally Blonde”? Male model goes to Yale Law School. [Yale Daily News]
* A profile of executive pay czar Ken Feinberg. “Where there is death and suffering, or merely bankruptcy and financial ruin, there, oddly enough, is Kenneth R. Feinberg.” [Washington Post]
* Haiti relief efforts continue. If you’d like to contribute, it’s as easy as texting “Haiti” to the number 90999. [Bits / New York Times]
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:08 AM - By Elie Mystal
* General Counsels make bank. [Corporate Counsel]
* Southerners trying to carpetbag New York’s U.S. Senate seat need to get on board with gay marriage. [New York Times]
* Google v. China. [Wall Street Journal]
* in case you haven’t seen it, Conan O’Brien’s letter to Earth is brilliant. But notice how many times he mentions how important the time slot is to the essential character of the Tonight Show? That’s good lawyering. Expect to see the same argument coming to a courthouse near you. [Huffington Post]
* I’m Haitian, through my father. Thankfully, all of my close relatives have been accounted for. Having been to that country I can tell you that Americans don’t generally know how lucky they are to have strong, sensible zoning laws. [CNN]
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