Affordable Care Act

* Student suspended for “terroristic threat” because he brought Sauron’s ring to school. If we outlaw magic rings, only outlaws will have magic rings. [Lowering the Bar]

* Jami Tillotson, the public defender arrested for defending the public, will not be charged with anything, which is for the best since she didn’t do anything wrong. [SF Weekly]

* Elizabeth Wurtzel is getting a boob job. Oh, and she has cancer. But her essay makes it clear that she’s way more focused about moving to a D cup. [Vice]

* Remember when Eric Holder ended the scheme that let federal and local law enforcement divvy up forfeiture proceeds? Well, not so fast my friend. [LFC360]

* Federal judges investigating an extramarital affair between a prosecutor and an ATF agent. Because the only one who’s supposed to get rogered in the criminal justice system is the defendant. [The Florida Times-Union]

* A freelance lawyer focusing on legal ethics raises ethical concerns. How meta. [Legal Research and Writing Pro]

* Guess who didn’t file an amicus brief in King v. Burwell? Does the Chamber of Commerce think this argument is just too dumb to stake their reputation? [Constitutional Accountability Center]

* Watch out for some light spoilers in this review of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [Legal Underground]

* Law school grad wants to pay someone to actually teach him or her how to practice law. Because obviously the last $150K+ didn’t do it. Since this may get taken down, we’ve got a screenshot of the post on the next page. [Craigslist]

* D.C. Circuit upholds FTC decision that Pom Wonderful deceived consumers with disease-fighting claims. Next thing you know they’re going to say Red Bull doesn’t really give you wings. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* Macklemore is looking for an intern. Probably going to find a lawsuit instead. [LXBN]

* Now that the Super Bowl is over, Glendale can get back to focusing on how they’re going broke because of that stadium. Once again, publicly funded stadiums are a terrible idea on par with running a quick slant instead of running the best back in football up the gut for one yard. [Americans For Tax Reform]

* In case you were interested, Sheldon Silver’s former employer makes serious bank. [Page Six / New York Post]

* A quick and easy summary of amici briefs filed in King v. Burwell. [Balkinization]

* Dean Chemerinsky in a wide-ranging interview about the Supreme Court and its failings. As you’d expect from the author of The Case Against the Supreme Court (affiliate link). [Concurring Opinions]

* Richard Hsu talks to Kelly Perdew, who won the Apprentice back when the show was about finding competent businesspeople instead of helping Jose Canseco squeeze out 15 more minutes of fame. [Hsu Untied]

* Dumb person suing the NFL over its entirely correct (though the rule is pretty stupid) no-catch call in the Cowboys/Packers game. For $88 billion. Oh, because Dez is number 88. I get it. To read the whole hand-written complaint, head to the next page…. [Sports Illustrated]

* The feds charge a bumbling Russian bank employee with trying to spy on America. Viewed in light of the details of the Anna Chapman ring, I think maybe Russia should just give up trying to spy. [Huffington Post]

* “Judge Feels That Chris Brown’s Tour Doesn’t Count as Community Service.” Well then. [Defamer]

* More of how the LSAT is supremely important to getting into law school. [Law and More]

* College suspends a student for selling video of a campus brawl. School says the sale was a code of conduct violation… though it can’t explain how. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* The government’s brief in King v. Burwell tries desperately to show that conservatives themselves understood the plain meaning of the Affordable Care Act and anticipated states opting out of creating exchanges. Thankfully, the conservative justices obliged by writing exactly that in their NFIB v. Sebelius dissent. Between this and the marriage equality cases, Justice Scalia is just getting torched by his own dissents. [Talking Points Memo]

https://www.scribd.com/doc/253504322/Terry-Hendrix-NFL-Lawsuit

* Today’s NS is all about stupid stuff you shouldn’t do. A woman poured hot bacon grease on an ex-boyfriend “because it was time for him to go.” She’s going to spend a couple of years thinking about whether that was the best way of telling him. [The Seattle Times]

* If you’re the kind of guy to skip hearings in felony narcotics cases, maybe don’t tattoo Tom Brady’s helmet on your skull. [The Smoking Gun]

* Stonewalling federal judicial nominees. Not cool. [The Tennessean]

* What the hell? Bigamy hearing for congressman’s wife delayed for emergency breast implant surgery. [The Big Story / Associated Press]

* It’s another compilation of “crazy laws” from around the country. Whole bunches of stupid stuff you can’t do. [Slate]

* Republicans swear up and down that the Affordable Care Act only provided subsidies for states that create exchanges. But if that’s the plan, they shouldn’t have left a paper trail of explicitly saying the opposite for years. [The New Republic]

* Bob McDonnell, former governor of Virginia, guilty of 11 counts of corruption. Maureen McDonnell guilty of 8. If only they’d gotten that severance motion. [Wonkette] * The best way to catch drunk drivers is to give them something to crash into. [Legal Juice] * Chaumtoli Huq, a former general counsel to the New York […]

What do liberal critics of Obamacare challengers get wrong?

Conservative columnist Tamara Tabo offers her reflections on the Supreme Court's ruling in Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby and the gangsta life of Justice Alito.

* After forcing Solicitor General Donald Verrilli to acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act could force for-profit corporations to pay for employees’ abortions, Chief Justice John Roberts seemed rather pleased with himself. [New York Times]

* Sidley Austin just hired a major M&A heavy hitter away from General Electric’s legal department. Congratulations to Chris Barbuto. We suppose he can make it rain as outside counsel now. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Because there’s no time too soon for an ambulance airplane chaser, the beginnings of the first lawsuit lodged against Malaysian Air after Flight 370′s probable crash was filed in court yesterday. [Bloomberg]

* UC Hastings and Iowa are the latest law schools to offer 3+3 accelerated degree programs. What a great recruiting tool for Iowa, which recently saw enrollment levels plunge by 40 percent. [National Law Journal]

* One month after the internet exploded with rumors of Gwyneth Paltrow having an affair with entertainment lawyer Kevin Yorn, the star announced her split from her husband. Coincidence? [New York Daily News]

Have you ever seen an amicus brief that's this entertaining?

* Judge Brian Cogan has ruled that a group of New York Catholic institutions doesn’t have to provide health insurance plans that include birth control coverage to its employees because… insurance policies with provisions that other people may or may not ever invoke is a religious thing. Too bad no one told the Catholic Church in New York, which already pays for insurance that provides birth control coverage and has for years. [Jezebel] * Judge Richard Leon’s decision ruling the NSA metadata gathering program unconstitutional makes a lot of good points, but perhaps the best is that even if you think there’s a compelling counter-terrorism concern that trumps constitutional safeguards, the NSA just can’t point to it. Of course we’ll all be singing another tune when the Moldovans take over. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * Here’s a tale of dealing with a Biglaw bully. I don’t get the concept — being locked in a locker is way better than spending the whole night conforming edits. [Big Law Rebel] * Elie appeared on the Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast to discuss drones. [Lawyer 2 Lawyer] * Eyewitness testimony is often disastrously wrong. Suddenly that “Eyewitness News” title your awful local news channel uses seems really appropriate. [Slate] * A guide for tech startups and software developers dealing with contracts. I’m looking in your direction, Winklevoss twins. [Alleywatch] * An IP lawyer makes a rap video. His record may affirm that he knows IP, but I don’t think Death Row is going to be calling any time soon. Video embedded below…

The results of our reader survey on law firm health insurance plans.

* President Obama defends Obamacare (aka the Affordable Care Act), saying that the dysfunctional HealthCare.gov website will get fixed. [Washington Post]

* “Calling All Unemployed Law Grads: Greenberg Traurig Is Hiring.” But there’s a catch. We’ll have more on this later today. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case regarding how to determine mental disability in death-penalty cases. [National Law Journal]

* If you’re thinking of selling legal services over Groupon, proceed with care. [ABA via WSJ Law Blog]

* Want to get out of jury duty? Try flipping the bird at the defendant. [ABA Journal]

* Chris Geidner takes a closer look at Chris Christie’s decision not to keep fighting marriage equality in New Jersey. Is it all about 2016? [BuzzFeed]

* More details on the circumstances surrounding a Reed Smith partner’s profane and ill-advised tweet. Expect Steven Regan to be sent back to “Tweet School.” [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

Take our reader survey on post-Recession changes to law firm health insurance costs.

Conservative columnist Tamara Tabo defends Republican efforts to defund Obamacare.

* Since summer’s start, Patton Boggs has been leaking lawyers like a sieve. Thus far, 22 partners and 11 associates have defected from the firm to Holland & Knight, Jackson Lewis, Arent Fox, and WilmerHale. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Considering the deadly force choke American health care reform legislation has supposedly put on employers, perhaps more lawyers ought to consider becoming Jedi masters of the Affordable Care Act. [Daily Business Review]

* The new normal for the ivory tower: Law schools are tackling falling applications by “voluntarily” decreasing their class sizes, or by “voluntarily” offering faculty and staff buyouts. [Wall Street Journal]

* But look on the bright side, professors, the ABA wants to amend its accreditation standards to save your jobs and offer greater protections. Too bad its unwilling to do the same for students. [ABA Journal]

* If you’ve been swindling clients for long enough, the law school you donated money to will try to scrub your name off its walls. That is what’s happening now at IU-McKinney Law. [National Law Journal]

* If you want to go to law school, you should base your ultimate decision on your financial future and job prospects. You may be very sorry if you don’t. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Judge Tom Greenwell, the Texas jurist found dead in his chambers, RIP. [Corpus Christi Caller-Times]

* The role of lawyers in America’s Syrian policy. Everyone always tries to throw the lawyers under the bus. [Lawfare] * Pippa Middleton has some lawyers trying to crack down on a parody Twitter account. Thankfully, the law exists to protect wealthy socialites from being mocked. [IT-Lex] * GCs are not happy with the rates charged by outside counsel. I, for one, am shocked that GCs don’t like paying upwards of $1000/hour for “further work.” [Consero] * Honestly, we should have seen this coming: a Zimmerman juror already signed a book deal. This is the juror who assumed black people had rioted over the shooting and called Trayvon a “boy of color,” so you can tell the prosecution was doing a bang-up job with its jury selection procedures. [AlterNet] * Conservatives rejoice after several unions complain about Obamacare. Oh, the irony! Except the unions’ complaint is not that Obamacare is bad, but that it doesn’t go far enough in providing incentives to non-profit insurance plans and penalizing companies that are cutting back on hours to avoid the law. [The Volokh Conspiracy] * The Top 50 Legal Innovators, Techies, Visionaries, and Leaders. And we at ATL were snubbed again. [FastCase via TaxProf Blog] * After the jump, a short video about . I understand that people are miffed that the most recent film version of Superman takes a laissez-faire view of saving lives, but Superman’s always been a dick…

* You’ve seen Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg give Justice Antonin Scalia the finger in prose, but now you can hear what it would sound like in operatic form as composed by a recent law school graduate. [NPR]

* The Fourth Circuit upheld Obamacare’s employer mandate against Liberty University, calling it a constitutional tax, just like the individual mandate. Now’s a perfect time for a sip of Campari. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The Fried Frank toner bandit was sent to the slammer, but alas, it’s unlikely that the firm will be able to recover any of its losses. Too bad, it could use the cash after its 2012 performance. [Am Law Daily]

* Crisis? What crisis? The dean of UC Davis Law refuses to trim class size, but that doesn’t really matter — the application cycle is handling the situation quite nicely. [Sacramento Business Journal]

* Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane won’t defend the state against a lawsuit seeking to overturn its ban on same-sex marriage. She’s choosing the people over politics. [New York Times]

* With his trial quickly drawing to a close, George Zimmerman is growing increasingly worried about his future. Let’s face it, even if he’s acquitted, living in hiding isn’t a very good look for him. [ABC News]

* The Obama administration has decided to delay the employer health care mandate until 2015. What does that mean for you? Well, since you’re not a business, you still have to purchase health insurance by 2014. Yay. [Economix / New York Times]

* Untying the knot is harder than it looks: Gay couples stuck in loveless marriages they’ve been unable to dissolve due to changing state residency may be able to find new hope in the Supreme Court’s recent DOMA decision. [New York Times]

* Clinical professors are pushing the ABA to amend its accreditation standards to require practical skills coursework. Amid faculty purges, they’re committed to do whatever it takes for additional job security. [National Law Journal]

* If you’re heading to a law school recruitment forum and want to get ahead in the applications process, make your mark by acting professionally, not by dressing like a d-bag. [U.S. News & World Report]

* “As a parent we’re not always proud of everything they do.” Of course there’s a prosecution inquiry being made into the Don West ice cream cone picture that ended up on Instagram. [Orlando Sentinel]

* Lawyerly lothario Zenas Zelotes has been suspended from practicing law for five months. He should take his own advice, find an ethics attorney, and make her his girlfriend. [Connecticut Law Journal]

* When you’re arguing about a video game — online or anywhere — you should probably leave talk of murdering children out of the conversation. You could wind up in jail for months like this guy. [CNN]

* John Tiley, one of the United Kingdom’s most preeminent tax law professors, RIP. [The Telegraph]

* Now that Republicans have some actual issues to concern themselves with, they’re going to… vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act again? My God, they’re dumb. [New York Times] * Sonia Sotomayor has the highest name recognition on the Court. Kennedy is the most liked. Clarence Thomas has lower favorability among African-Americans than he […]