Recent Headlines from Above the Law

  • Morning Docket: 09.10.19
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.10.19

    * Redaction comedy: filings in the Roger Stone case inadvertently gave out Trump’s phone number. [National Law Review]

    * Law firm growth has slowed but we’re going to pretend that’s not a troubling sign. [American Lawyer]

    * California’s going to war with the NCAA and they stand a better chance than this year’s UCLA team. [KTLA]

    * Former Penn State GC faces discipline hearing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. [Law.com]

    * Insider trading trial begins with argument that banker didn’t intend to go in on an insider trading scheme with his dad. [Law360]

    * FDA sends warning letter to Juul over its claims to be “safer than cigarettes” being potentially false as opposed to its claims to “not make you look like a douche” which are demonstrably false. [Corporate Counsel]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 07.07.17
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 07.07.17

    * Indiana Jones v. Hobby Lobby. JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the court. [Held] As applied to closely held corporations, regulations prohibiting the purchase of stolen antiquities violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which clearly states the Christian companies like Hobby Lobby can indirectly fund ISIS should the black market or stolen artifacts have relevance to their deeply held beliefs. Petitioners’ claim that it belongs in a museum is denied. [NBC News]

    * The Supreme Court lifted the injunction against Wisconsin’s “cocaine mom” law, which allows the state to send expectant mothers to jail because it claims jurisdiction over the unborn fetus. It just goes to show that it’s better to be unborn in Wisconsin than actually having to live there. [ABA Journal]

    * States are suing because Betsy DeVos is delaying Obama regulations designed to protect students from for profit colleges. Given that the head of one of these “universities” is now the President of the United States, I do wonder what good a few regulations are going to do. The fox is already in the hen house, do I really care if he opens the gate for the rest of his friends? At this point, I blame the dumb ass chickens for being such easy prey anyway. [U.S. News]

    * Man arrested for assaulting his roommate during an argument about Star Wars vs. Star Trek. We don’t know what side he was on, but I’d like to point out that the alleged assailant is black. Dear everybody who called me “oreo” in middle school: this brother here was willing to go to jail over Trek v. Wars. He grabbed the blade end of a knife with his bare hands. Please, go tell him he’s not black enough because he has a deeply held opinion about science fiction. Report back how that goes for you. [The Root]

    * Penn State football is being counter-sued by a coach who claims that there were “intolerable” working conditions. I know nothing about the veracity of the coach’s claims, but I’m pretty sure they could have forced him to diagram plays in his own blood and that wouldn’t make the top ten “intolerable things that have happened in the Penn State locker room.” [Deadspin]

    * Obviously, the big Alt-Right story this week was the CNN blackmail letter. The Alt-Right pot caught the kettle being black as night with CNN’s veiled doxxing threat. The thing that’s weird about the Alt-Right’s obsession with CNN is: they seem to be the only ones watching the network. Like, this story details CNN’s recent ratings struggles, but who is really surprised by that? CNN is not a #resistance network, and it’s not a white supremacist network. Running a network for “moderates who like to be screamed at by partisans from both sides,” seems like a good idea to who? CNN is not balanced: it just gives equal airtime to both extremes, creating a dystopian false equivalency that venerates Don Lemon’s ability to make every thoughtful person on the planet hate his guts. If CNN is the great scalp the Alt-Right wants to take, they can have it. Wake me up when they come for the NewsHour. [Breitbart]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 06.02.17
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 06.02.17

    * Michael Bloomberg has offered to pay the United States’ share to the United Nations as part of the Paris climate agreement that Trump is trying to stop. It’s a nice gesture, but it also feels like how Old World oligarchs used to pay people to look the other way instead of overthrowing the incompetent king. [Forbes]

    * Former Penn State officials, including former president Graham B. Spanier, have been sentenced to jail time in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. [New York Times]

    * Evergreen State remains on lockdown due to threats related to its “Day of Absence.” Massa don’t like it much when you lock him out. [KIRO 7]

    * Thief stole a backpack off one of the dying heroes in the Portland attack. Looks like they caught him. [Gizmodo]

    * You’re still not allowed to protest at the Supreme Court. [Courthouse News Service]

    * Wasn’t there a Law and Order about a fertility specialist who used his own sperm instead of the donor sperm people thought they were getting? [Slate]

    * Time for some promos: If you are interested in Loving, there’s a great event centered around it at the WNYC Green Space on Monday, June 12th. [Greene Space]

    * If, on the other hand, you happen to be in San Francisco, join us on June 13th for Better Know A Circuit. We’ll be discussing the Ninth Circuit… which has been in the news recently, for some reason. [Above the Law]

    * Now for our weekly check-in with White Pride media. … Oh God, they’re still on the Kathy Griffin story. When it comes to having a persecution complex, right-wing media makes Jesus on the Cross look like a brother crying over a splinter. [Breitbart]

  • Morning Docket: 06.24.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.24.16

    * On the subject of raises, yesterday we heard — a mixed bag of news — from Linklaters (technically the night before), Barack Ferrazzano, Chadbourne & Parke, Pryor Cashman, Tensegrity, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, and Reed Smith. [Above the Law / 2016 Salary Increase]

    * If you’re an associate serving in your firm’s London office, I sure as hell hope you’re getting paid in dollars. [BBC]

    * UK legal experts explain why this vote isn’t legally binding. [Legal Cheek]

    * On the other hand, could this be a boon for lawyers? [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

    * Who’s on first in front of Second. [Law360]

    * Dentons global government sector co-chair leaves for boutique. As you’re statutorily obligated to say to every Biglaw lawyer moving to a small firm: “you’re not going to have the same support services… are you ready for that?” [The Am Law Daily]

    * Penn State’s former general counsel testified that at least he understood that the school needed to report Jerry Sandusky back in 2001 and told the school as much. Which is impressive, since he told the New York Times in 2011 that he’d never even heard of any allegations against Sandusky. [Fox News]

    * Former law firm executive sentenced to prison. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

    * A deep look at the horrific side of criminal justice: a long-form account of four months as a private prison guard. Think of it as “Orange Is The New Black” without having to listen to Piper prattle on. [Mother Jones]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 05.06.16
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 05.06.16

    * Are vacancies on the federal judiciary causing a crisis in North Carolina? It does have the longest-running hole on the federal bench. [Raleigh News Observer]

    * Jodi Arias is planning a wedding from prison. I don’t know you guys, I think those crazy kids might just make it. [Law and More]

    * If racism and the death penalty can never be separated, is the only just move to eliminate the death penalty? [Slate]

    * More revelations in the stomach-turning Sandusky case. Who at Penn State knew what when? [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

    * An analysis of cases where federal clemency has been granted that identifies trends in President Obama’s decisions. [LinkedIn]

  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 08.06.15

    * A reminder to stay safe when you watch the GOP debates tonight — drinking games can seriously jeopardize your health. [Raw Story]

    * The Washington NFL team has filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit over their canceled trademark registrations as they move their failure off the field and into the courts. [Bloomberg BNA]

    * Penn State unveils a new logo. Critics call it a “hypnotized dog looking at cupcakes,” but it actually looks more like the vacant stare of someone who has seen something but refuses to tell authorities about it. [TaxProf Blog]

    * How to take good notes. Apparently, “actually take notes” is the first step. Good to know. [Survive Law]

    * Congrats to occasional Legal Cheek blogger Amy Woolfson on her Harvard Law scholarship. Welcome to our side of the pond. [Legal Cheek]

    * Dumb people can get ripped off on Craigslist. And not just when you take a “JD required” job as a catsitter. [Lowering the Bar]

    * Understand the tax implications of your student loan forgiveness program. [Lawyerist]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.27.15

    * Brooklyn Law’s dean thinks “too much power rests with the [NCBE],” and that we need a new way to license lawyers. Brooklyn Law’s July 2014 bar passage rate was ~10 percent lower than the year prior, so perhaps he doesn’t like how those grapes taste. [National Law Journal]

    * A man on trial for a bank robbery committed in 2013 pooped his pants while on the stand, removed some of said poop from his pants, and started eating it because the Virgin Mary told him to do it. If you couldn’t tell, he’s got an insanity defense. [Inquisitr]

    * A new Citigroup report says Biglaw firms are at “high risk for cyberintrusions,” but so few will admit that they’ve been hacked it’s impossible to tell if the problem is growing. Don’t worry, clients, your confidential files might be safe. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * People may think “this is a crappy, for-profit school that didn’t make it. But it could have been a great law school.” Charleston Law’s founding dean wrote a damning blog post about his colleagues for their attempts to sell the school to InfiLaw. [Post and Courier]

    * “[B]eing well-dressed and having a law school diploma” isn’t enough to ensure that you’ll get a job anymore. Quick, take some advice from the career services dean at a school where 47.2 percent of recent grads are working full-time as lawyers. [Huffington Post]

  • American Bar Association / ABA, Biglaw, Crime, Intellectual Property, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Native Americans, Paralegals, Rankings, Sports, Trademarks, Vault rankings

    Morning Docket: 06.19.14

    * The latest Vault 100 rankings are out, and it’s time to find out which Biglaw firm is the most prestigious in all the land. Is it Wachtell? Is it Cravath? We’ll have the answer for you, and much more analysis, later today. [Vault]

    * An former office manager at Vedder Price has been accused in a $7M embezzlement scandal. She allegedly used the money to buy “lavish homes, numerous vacations” — it’s as if she were trying to live like a partner. [ABA Journal]

    * Since the Redskins’ trademark was canceled by the Patent and Trademark Office, sports fans are wondering whose offensive team name is next. The Cleveland Indians might get scalped. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * According to ALM Legal Intelligence, paralegal pay is on the rise, and it’s almost $80/hr in top roles. Why should new attorneys care about this? Because they’ll probably have to work as paralegals. [ALM]

    * Double the deanships, double the fun: Penn State Law’s campuses have been approved by the ABA to become separately accredited locations. We’ll take bets on which one closes first. [StateCollege.com]

  • 9th Circuit, Basketball, Biglaw, Deaths, Federal Judges, Gender, Jay Bybee, Lateral Moves, Law Schools, Media and Journalism, Morning Docket, Women's Issues

    Morning Docket: 06.02.14

    * Federal judges still have financial allegiances to their former firms that are reported on their mandatory annual disclosures. At least one appellate judge — Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit — made a killing after confirmation. [National Law Journal]

    * After “a challenging 2013,” Bingham McCutchen is leaking lawyers like a sieve. Fourteen attorneys, including nine partners, recently decided to leave the firm, and they’re all headed to different Biglaw locales. [WSJ Law Blog via Reuters]

    * Just one day after Donald Sterling was declared “mentally incapacitated,” he filed a lawsuit against the NBA, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. Skadden lawyers are stripping off their warm-up suits to take it to the court. [USA Today]

    * This Am Law 200 firm thinks it figured out a way to help women combine their careers and home lives — by hiring a role model/mentor with an almost six-figure salary. Good idea or bad? [Dallas Morning News]

    * We’ve got some breaking news for our readers from the “no sh*t” department: Law schools are competing to cut costs based on a shrinking applicant pool, but tuition is still quite unaffordable. [Houston Chronicle]

    * Lewis Katz, co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and alumnus of Dickinson Law, RIP. [Onward State]

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