Recent Headlines from Above the Law

  • Morning Docket: 03.20.19
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.20.19

    * “It’ll never happen. I guarantee it won’t happen for six years.” Contrary to what Democratic presidential candidates are suggesting, President Trump doesn’t want anything to do with expanding the size of the Supreme Court. [Reuters]

    * As it turns out, special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating Michael Cohen much sooner than he originally led on, and the Cohen probe was handed off to the S.D.N.Y. long before campaign-finance violations were even discovered. [Wall Street Journal]

    * Thanks to a record-setting $10.5 million gift, Georgetown Law is expanding its campus. The school recently purchased a 130,000-square-foot building for $70 million and plans to use the new space as a home for all of its clinical progams. [National Law Journal]

    * Congratulations to Michèle Alexandre, who was recently appointed as dean of Stetson University College of Law. She will be the school’s first black dean in history. [Philadelphia Tribune]

    * Patriots owner Robert Kraft has been offered a pre-trial diversion deal on his solicitation charge. All he has to do is admit he would’ve been found guilty, do 100 hours of community service, and attend a class on the dangers of prostitution. [AP News]

  • Morning Docket: 05.02.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.02.16

    * Arizona Law’s plans to scrap the LSAT in favor of the GRE has angered the Law School Admission Council terribly. In fact, LSAC’s general counsel says the school’s new policy may violate the organization’s bylaws, so it may boot Arizona Law from its membership, thereby cutting the school out of its applications and admissions clearinghouse. We’ll have more on this news later today. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

    * Tom Brady of the New England Patriots hasn’t filed an appeal of the Second Circuit’s reinstatement of his four-game suspension yet, but you can bet your ass that it’s coming soon, because the quarterback just made the ultimate Hail Mary legal hire by adding Ted Olson to his team of lawyers. Sports fans can look forward to a bid for an en banc Second Circuit hearing, or even a possible flea flicker to the Supreme Court. [NBC Sports]

    * “Republicans haven’t been satisfied to simply hobble the court’s ability to function. In recent weeks, they have gone to remarkable lengths to impugn the integrity of the justices and thus the legitimacy of the court.” The New York Times Editorial Board has a piece that essentially begs Republicans to stop their shenanigans, give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, and “rescue the Supreme Court from limbo.” [New York Times]

    * Law firm merger mania is already in full bloom this spring, but which Biglaw firm was one of the first to bite the bullet? It looks like it’s Husch Blackwell, which is merging with Milwaukee-based Whyte Hirschboek Dudek, effective July 1. The combined firm will have more than 700 attorneys, 19 offices, and it will likely be among the country’s 100 top-grossing law firms. We hope redundancy layoffs won’t follow. [Journal-Sentinel]

    * “We respect other professors’ point of view, but it’s less than (8 percent) of the academic faculty.” Some professors are outraged over Mason Law being renamed after the late Justice Antonin Scalia, but the university isn’t budging, and plans to stick with its new name since administrators “believe that the Antonin Scalia Law School, once it’s approved, will be one of the top law schools in the country.” [Big Law Business]

    * Law students, you make think you know what a gunner is, but you haven’t met this prodigy yet. Eighteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed will be the first student to attend the University of Southern Florida College of Medicine and the Stetson University College of Law at the same time. If you hurry, you may be able to convince this genius to join your study group. You’ll surely be the envy of all of your new friends. [ABC Action News]

  • Gay Marriage, Military / Military Law, Non-Sequiturs, Rankings, SCOTUS, State Judges, Supreme Court, United Kingdom / Great Britain, War on Terror

    Non-Sequiturs: 04.22.14

    * Ready for the ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings? They will be revealed next week on the next episode of Kaplan’s The 180 — Live. [The 180 -- Live / Kaplan] * Georgia is now the 31st state with an active marriage equality lawsuit. Justice Scalia now really wants a revolt. [Associated Press via ABC News] * Stetson boasted the best bar passage rate in Florida. See how that’s a better fact to tout than “5th out of 11“? [Ocala Star Banner] * A key member of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s defense team is leaving the Army because they were going to force him to leave the defense to attend a graduate course in Virginia. The kneejerk, liberal reaction is that this is a conspiracy to derail his defense. I highly doubt it. From my experience, the Army’s counterproductive decisions are staunchly arbitrary. [Huffington Post] * Derek Khanna takes on the Aereo case before the Supreme Court ruins it for all of us. [Politix] * Britain’s just like a cute little America. They have conservative politicians trying to win votes through nonsensical religious exclusion too. [What About Clients] * Last time we checked in on Judge Carlos Cortez, he was defending himself against charges that he strangled and threatened to kill a girlfriend. Apparently things have gotten much, much darker down there in Texas. [Dallas Morning News]
  • American Bar Association / ABA, Cardozo Law School, Law Schools

    Breaking: Thomas Jefferson School of Law's Motion to Dismiss DENIED -- And Twenty More Law Schools to Be Sued

    Today, the lawyers leading the law school litigation squad announced that they are planning to target 20 more law schools for class action lawsuits over their allegedly deceptive post-graduation employment statistics. This time around, you may be surprised by some of the law schools that appear on their list....