Sports

  • Basketball, Biglaw, Clerkships, Law Professors, Law Schools, Minority Issues, Morning Docket, Politics, SCOTUS, Sports, Supreme Court

    Morning Docket: 05.12.14

    * Due to the extreme polarization of SCOTUS, with its near constant 5-4 opinion line-ups, “it becomes increasingly difficult to contend … that justices are not merely politicians clad in fine robes.” Yep. [The Upshot / New York Times]

    * Tim Wu, the Columbia Law professor who first introduced the term “net neutrality” to the world, had two of his clerkships (Posner; Breyer) “arranged” by Professor Lawrence Lessig. If only we could all be so lucky. [New York Times]

    * We’re getting the sinking feeling that the lack of diversity in law school is one of those problems that everyone and their mother claims to be trying to fix, but the lack of momentum keeps it from ever truly improving. [National Law Journal]

    * When contemplating what law schools would have to do to get a bailout, this law professor has three ideas, and they involve changing her colleagues’ lives in uncomfortable ways. Well played. [Boston Globe]

    * Cole Leonard is struggling to decide between going to law school and going to Mars. Well, he’s more likely to have a job doing anything on Mars than here on Earth as a lawyer. HTH. [Dallas Morning News]

    * The L.A. Clippers have a new CEO, for the time being. Say hello to Dick Parsons, the former chairman of Patterson Belknap, a man who the world hopes is not quite as racist as his predecessor. [Am Law Daily]

  • Basketball, Biglaw, Confirmations, Federal Judges, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Sexual Harassment, Sports

    Morning Docket: 05.02.14

    * The Senate confirmed nine judges this week, the highest one-week total since the current session of Congress began. They even managed to confirm a “controversial” nominee. Congrats! [Legal Times]

    * If you need a reason for your merger-product firm’s poor financial performance, don’t use the verein structure as a scapegoat. Maybe your firms weren’t profitable to begin. Burnnnnn. [The Economist]

    * Skadden lawyers await the day they’re called upon to provide the NBA’s defense against a potential suit filed by Don Sterling. They’ll be ready, because Skadden’s the best brand in the world, yay! [Am Law Daily]

    * Mayer Brown is pulling out of the “comfort women” case, a decision one of its clients says is “totally crazy.” We suppose the firm was getting tired of being dragged through the mud. [Los Angeles Daily News]

    * A suspect is being held by police in the fatal hit-and-run of Judge Dean Pregerson’s son. He’s been charged with vehicular manslaughter, and is expected to be arraigned on Monday. [Los Angeles Times]

    * Fifty-five schools are being investigated for alleged violations of federal law in the mishandling of sexual assault and harassment cases. One professional school is on the list. Sup Harvard Law? [Huffington Post]

  • Andrew Cuomo, Basketball, Biglaw, Football, Free Speech, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Rankings, Sports, White House Counsel

    Morning Docket: 05.01.14

    * Boies Schiller announced it will be working with Hausfeld LLP for the limited purpose of creating a new practice group that will allow the firms to co-represent professional athletes. (Sorry, college athletes, you don’t count yet.) [Bloomberg]

    * It’s highly likely that departing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler will return to her former stomping grounds at Latham & Watkins. Imagine how many pairs of shoes she’ll be able to buy with her Biglaw money. [Washington Post]

    * Governor Andrew Cuomo is so desperate to keep the Buffalo Bills in Western New York that he recently inked a $350K deal with Foley & Lardner to convince the team’s future owners to stay put. [Buffalo News]

    * The Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings are virtually ungameable, but Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency proposes a novel way deans can try: by lowering tuition. GASP! [Law.com (reg. req.)]

    * Marc Randazza, one of the preeminent lawyers on First Amendment rights (who happens to represent us from time to time), thinks what happened to Don Sterling was “morally wrong.” Interesting theory. [CNN]

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  • Basketball, Copyright, Death Penalty, DUI / DWI, Intellectual Property, Non-Sequiturs, Sports

    Non-Sequiturs: 04.30.14

    * Donald Sterling may be banned from the NBA, but the recording that placed him on the outside looking in was captured illegally per California law. [The Legal Blitz] * If the NBA owners agree — as expected — to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, it could cost his heirs over $100 million. Let’s feel sorry that megamillionaires might be slightly less megamillionaires. [Slate] * The inimitable Charles P. Pierce with more on the horrifically botched execution in Oklahoma last night. Overlooked in the horror was the constitutional crisis that preceded it — where the very authority of the state supreme court was called into question. [Esquire] * After getting his client acquitted of molesting a child while drunk, a lawyer managed to get arrested for DWI, hours after the verdict. Amazing. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] * The conservative argument for copyright reform. Seriously, at this point there’s no political philosophy in favor of lengthy copyright terms, so why can’t we change this? Oh, right. Media companies have tons and tons of money. [R Street] * UVA Law funds the first jobs of a bunch of its grads. David Lat weighs in. [C-Ville] * This story could just as easily be entitled “I’m a young Biglaw associate who lives in Williamsburg.” [McSweeneys]
  • Attorney Misconduct, Basketball, Biglaw, Canada, Death Penalty, Election Law, Federal Judges, In-House Counsel, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, Sports, Student Loans

    Morning Docket: 04.30.14

    * For the third year in a row, Skadden has topped the list of the Biglaw firms GCs love to pay, the firms with the best brands. Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins rounded out the top three. Congratulations! [PRWeb]

    * A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law yesterday, noting that it “only tenuously serve[d] the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud.” Ouch. Sorry about that, Scott Walker. [Bloomberg]

    * Hot on the heels of the release of the second annual ATL Law School Rankings, we’ve got a list of the law schools where graduates reportedly have the least amount of debt. We’ll have more on this news later today. [The Short List / U.S. News & World Report]

    * It was kind of like the night of the living dead in Oklahoma last night, where an execution was botched so badly the defendant attempted to rise up off the table. That must have been horrific. [New York Times]

    * Here’s an eligible bachelor alert: After being suspended from practice for six months for filming “upskirt” videos of women in public, this in-house lawyer has been reinstated. [Legal Intelligencer (reg. req.)]

    * Poor Justice Lori Douglas. Not only are her kinky S&M pictures floating around somewhere online, but the man who took them — her husband, Jack King — just died. RIP, good sir. [CTV Winnipeg News]

    * NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, a former Cravath lawyer, fouled L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling out of the league, but people are questioning whether his punishment was legal. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

  • 9th Circuit, Basketball, Confirmations, Constitutional Law, Gay Marriage, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Racism, Religion, Sports

    Morning Docket: 04.29.14

    * Michelle Friedland, a Munger Tolles partner, has been confirmed to the Ninth Circuit. Congratulations! This marks the first time in years that the court has had a full slate of 29 judges, which is also pretty cool for law nerds. [Legal Times]

    * L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling is probably going to be flopping around just like LeBron now that the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, a former Cravath attorney, has launched a full court press against him. [Am Law Daily]

    * This is something completely new and different. The United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit against North Carolina over its ban on gay marriage saying it restricts its clergy’s religious freedom. [New York Times]

    * Dear Low Grades, High Hopes: You don’t need an addendum to your law school application. You’ll get in everywhere you apply — they’re desperate to fill their seats. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

    * Singer-songwriter Paul Simon was arrested yesterday alongside his wife after she “picked a fight” with him. Given how “disorderly” things were, perhaps all he wanted to hear was the sound of silence. [CNN]

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