ABA

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 02.24.20

* The American Bar Association has won a lawsuit establishing that ABA employees qualify for public service loan forgiveness. It would have been kind of embarrassing if a group of lawyers lost this case... [Forbes] * Joe Biden is receiving some flak for wrongly stating that his late son was the Attorney General of the United States. [Fox News] * A number of Republican state attorneys general are trying to block the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. [ABC News] * A $14 million settlement has been proposed in a class action concerning inmates masturbating in front of Cook County public defenders. [Chicago Sun Times] * Justice Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissent on Friday criticizing the government for allegedly abusing the emergency application process at the Supreme Court. [Bloomberg] * A minor league baseball team has revoked the tickets of a law firm that filed a case against the franchise on behalf of a client. This seems kind of petty. [The Athletic]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 12.19.19

* An attorney who put price tags for cheaper items on more expensive products at Walmart has just received a one-year stayed suspension from practice. [Bloomberg Law] * A plaintiffs lawyer involved in litigation against Monsanto has been charged with extortion for offering to cease legal action against a large company in exchange for a $200 million consulting fee. Hasn't Michael Avenatti taught this lawyer anything? [CBS News] * Boeing has been hit with another lawsuit involving its 737 Max jets. [CNN] * The first African-American Attorney General in the history of Kentucky was sworn in this week. [NBC News] * An attorney has been suspended for among other things submitting fake expense receipts for an ABA conference. [Bloomberg Law]. * It's been a while since Above the Law published a "Lawyerly Lairs" segment, but check out famed "Making a Murderer" attorney Kathleen Zellner's pad, which just hit the market. [Chicago Tribune]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.30.19

* Elon musk has joined the list of celebrities who have behaved poorly at depositions. [Business Insider] * A Texas lawyer has been convicted of scamming Colombian drug dealers out of $1.5M. Guess there is no honor among theives. [Dallas Morning News] * Lawyers have sought a delay of the trial involving former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's alleged agreement to pay hush money to a former student. [NBC Chicago] * A California court has found that a municipality's requirement that city attorneys graduate from an ABA-approved law school is constitutional. This seems like a pretty basic requirement. [The Recorder] * A copyright lawsuit about Taylor Swift's song "Shake It Off" has been revived. I'm not going to make the same lazy joke about this story that pretty much every news source has already made... [USA Today] * Two California law firms have settled a suit alleging that they engaged in a civil RICO conspiracy by filing ADA claims and forcing defendants to fork over quick settlements to avoid costly litigation. [ABA Journal] * The first lawsuit against a fertility doctor accused of substituting his own sperm for that of an anonymous donor has been filed. This story sounds like a bad version of that Vince Vaughn flick. Delivery Man [CBS Denver]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 01.29.19

* Roger Stone's heading to court today. That should be a scene, man. [National Law Journal] * Corrupt legislatures... not just for U.S. Congress anymore! The ABA House of Delegates bails out for-profit law schools again. [Law.com] * The New Yorker has a deep dive into Plessy v. Ferguson as "The Case That Enshrined White Supremacy." Dude, let me introduce you to Shelby County. [New Yorker] * Texas is pretending thousands of "illegal" immigrants have voted over the years. The methodology is basically "they were once not citizens... then years later they voted!" I only highlight this story because in 6 months when it gets unceremoniously dropped by ACTUAL CRIMINAL DEFENDANT Texas AG Ken Paxton it's worth remembering how completely insane this all is. [Courthouse News Service] * Fugitive ex-Hunton attorney gets 7 years... or over 61,000 billable hours. [Law360] * Not to defend Harvey Weinstein, but should we really be using a human trafficking law here? [Time] * Now they want to make animal cruelty a federal felony. Could we maybe start with making a federal case out of "shooting unarmed kids in the back"? [WECT]

By Joe Patrice
Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 10.14.18

* Adam Feldman examines the historical record to look at how Justice Brett Kavanaugh's brutal confirmation process could affect his jurisprudence. [Empirical SCOTUS] * And Joel Cohen looks at how Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation fight might affect his judging of the accused. [Law and Crime] * Meanwhile, David Oscar Markus argues that criminal defendants in federal court get treated much worse than Justice Kavanaugh. [The Hill] * Jemele Hill points out the support and sympathy for Justice Kavanaugh from a possibly surprising quarter: African-American men. [The Atlantic] * Packing the Supreme Court? There ought to be a constitutional amendment about that, Jim Lindgren says. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason] * In fact, is it time for progressives to fight against, rather than within, the courts? Howard Wasserman offers thoughts on the recent Slate debate between Daniel Hemel and Christopher Jon Sprigman. [PrawfsBlawg] * Patrick Gregory reports on the latest controversy in the world of lower-court nominations: the ABA's "not qualified" rating of Eighth Circuit nominee Jonathan Kobes. [Big Law Business] * Edmund Zagorski has multiple legal challenges to his execution (which is now on hold); former federal defender Stephen Cooper looks at the one based on the method of execution. [Tennessean] * Congratulations to Pedro Hernandez on the dismissal of his case -- and to his counsel, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, on the great result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2YPLmtwkug

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.07.18

* Update from the Paul Manafort trial: Rick Gates admitted... everything in testimony yesterday. He admitted he helped Manafort under-report income, create fake loans, and hide foreign accounts. Oh, and he says he did it all "at the direction of Mr Manafort." [CNN] * HSBC to pay $765 million to end the Department of Justice's investigation into its mortgage securities business that was initiated after the financial collapse.[Law360] * In a bid to combat its financial woes, the ABA is decreasing the cost of membership. They hope this will encourage more attorneys to become members. The organization has seen a 4 percent drop in membership in 2018 from 2017. [Law.com] * Jeff Sessions has committed the DOJ to fighting U.S. District Court Judge John Bates's order that the government reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. [Slate] * New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood is going after the Department of Labor for not responding to her FOIA requests. [New York Law Journal] * The campaign of Georgia Democratic congressional candidate Steven Foster has hit a bit of a snag -- the former emergency room doctor has been convicted of driving under the influence. [Law and Crime]

By Kathryn Rubino
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 06.19.18

* Florida Coastal seeks restraining order against ABA requirement that the school to let students know that they'll probably not be passing the bar exam. [Daily Business Review] * Kris Kobach lost his effort to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters based on a series of rank fabrications... but the best part is the judge ordered him to attend CLE as punishment for his cluelessness throughout the trial. [Courthouse News Service] * Cadwalader Cabinet functions as the "Bloomberg Terminal for financial regulation." [American Lawyer] * ... And then promptly loses its financial services co-chair to Debevoise. So it's an up and down kind of day down there. [American Lawyer] * MillerCoors and Pabst locked in bitter legal battle. Why do mommy and daddy have to fight like this? [CNBC] * Conversations with minority partners. [Law360] * A call for Silicon Valley to get behind a privacy law. [Politico]

By Joe Patrice