Alex Kozinski

* Roy Moore threatens to sue Showtime because he’s one of the few people left on the planet that can’t recognize Sacha Baron Cohen. [Variety]

* Apparently, the court frowns upon handjobs in their conference rooms. [Columbus Dispatch]

* The Daily Journal published some thoughts on Justice Kennedy’s retirement from Alex Kozinski, reminding everyone again about that Kozinski-Kavanaugh connection. [Slate]

* Law firm leaders are optimistic that they’re about to see some growth in demand despite years and years of evidence to the contrary. [American Lawyer]

* Opioid dealers incensed that they may have to pay some sort of penalty for all that “human misery.” [New York Law Journal]

* Washington’s AG announces agreement ending fast food non-compete policies for their workers. Yes… fast food restaurants have “non-compete” agreements. [Seattle Times]

* Hackers are selling access to law firms for $3500 which isn’t a new phenomenon. [CNBC]

* Are you paying too much in mutual-fund fees? If you’re paying more than zero, then yes — or so argue Professors William Birdthistle and Daniel Hemel in this interesting and persuasive op-ed. [Wall Street Journal]

* James Comey, FBI director turned author (affiliate link), responds to the criticisms of him in the Inspector General’s report. [Althouse]

* It’s complicated — but just how complicated? Adam Feldman uses word counts and citations to measure opinion complexity during the current Term of the Supreme Court. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Judge Alex Kozinski (Ret.) pays tribute to the memory of his late colleague on the Ninth Circuit, Judge Stephen Reinhardt. [Concurring Opinions]

* If you’re confused by why the latest Obamacare litigation over the individual mandate matters, since the mandate was rendered toothless by the recent tax reform, Professor Ilya Somin can help. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* Ethics expert Steven Lubet reviews Ryan Holiday’s book (affiliate link) about the Hulk Hogan/Gawker case — and argues that Peter Thiel’s financing of the litigation might have violated legal ethics. [American Prospect via PrawfsBlawg]

* Thomson Reuters, a leader in applying artificial intelligence in the law — we’re partnering with them on our Law2020 series, exploring how AI is affecting the legal profession — also utilizes machine learning to help people trade cryptocurrencies (among many other use cases). [Artificial Lawyer]

* When USA Gymnastics agreed not to go after McKayla Maroney for violating an NDA to report a serial sex abuser it sounded like a dog-bites-man tale of an entity fully aware that sticking to the letter of its NDA would be irresponsible and immoral. But, according to Maroney’s attorney, Gymnastics fully intended to pursue damages against Maroney until others came forward and volunteered to help cover her fine. Um… everyone over there needs to be fired. [USA Today]

* Ninth Circuit pumps the brakes on legalized prostitution. Seems like they had a judge out there pretty recently who might have dissented. [The Recorder]

* Speaking of former judges on the Ninth Circuit, Wilson Sonsini’s Katherine Ku discusses her decision to come forward as a former Kozinski clerk. [Litigation Daily]

* Rod Blagojevich always seemed, from afar, to be railroaded. Nominating someone to fill a Senate seat actually is a “f**king valuable thing” and it’s not like he was seeking a bribe for it, he was trying to make political deals. Now someone has leaked more tapes that the prosecutors kept out of the trial that further confirm Blagojevich’s defense that he was mostly trying to use the seat to get infrastructure and health care deals passed. [Chicago Sun-Times]

* The Supreme Court’s only put out one opinion so far, and some are wondering why they’re asleep at the switch. [National Law Journal]

* DOJ looking to undermine Escobar and go after companies for violations that the government still finds worthy of reimbursement. [Law360] LGBTQ, Religion,

* Gay couple says they received religious damnation flyers from Vistaprint instead of photos. This message brought to you by HP, reminding you that it’s not expensive to just buy your own photo printer. [Boston Globe]

* Luke Skywalker’s legal duty to save the galaxy. (Spoilers for The Last Jedi.) [The Legal Geeks]

* Will the class-action lawsuits against Apple for throttling older phones lead to a resurgence in class-actions? [Law and More]

* The latest episode of the Amicus podcast explores how to combat a history of harassment in the judiciary in the wake of the Alex Kozinski scandal. [Slate]

* Tracking the use of the phrase “help me” by Supreme Court justices in oral arguments… which is to track the passive-aggressive stylings of the Court. [Empirical SCOTUS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWP6Qki8mWc

* Yup, this is how the President of the United States used his Twitter account in 2017. [The Hill]

* Speaking of the President, he teases a Constitutional crisis in an impromptu interview. [Huffington Post]

* Could a feminist perspective change the tax code? [TaxProf Blog]

* The Kozinski retirement raises the important question — where does a clerk go to report misconduct (a question raised in this Lithwick column)? There’s now pressure on Chief Justice Roberts to work out a solution. [The Recorder]

* Speaking of sexual harassment, the wave of misconduct revelations has lawyers seriously questioning NDAs (something we’ve written about before here at ATL). [Reuters]

* Wondering who the next potential Trump SCOTUS nominee would be? Breaking down the numbers it would seem to be… [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Crain’s has a list of the 100 Leading Women Lawyers in New York City. [Crain’s]

* Law enforcement requests for Facebook data are up big time. This is why we can’t have nice things. [CNET]

* What do general counsel want for the holidays? The same thing they want every year: more service for less money. [American Lawyer]

* New suit goes after Blue Apron for its stock price drop. As if they’re responsible for Jeff Bezos gutting their market share in Brooklyn. [Law360]

* President Donald Trump claims he has no plans to fire special counsel Robert Mueller — which, according to past precedent in the Trump administration, means Mueller’s days as special counsel may be numbered. [Washington Post]

* By order of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, the Second Circuit will be handling the formal inquiry into Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski’s alleged harassment of women who once served as his clerks and externs. [The Recorder]

* Like father-in-law, like son-in-law: a law firm is suing Jared Kushner’s real estate company for failure to pay any of its legal fees for work performed from December 2014 to May 2015. [New York Daily News]

* Uh oh… In other Kushner-related news, word on the street that’s since been confirmed by Abbe Lowell is that the first son-in-law’s legal team is trying to find a crisis public relations firm to handle inquiries into their client’s role in the Trump-Russia investigation. [Washington Post]

* According to recently released Standard 509 reports, law school enrollment was essentially flat between 2016 and 2017, with a negligible 0.7 percent decrease in law students. What’s more interesting is the fact that for the first time ever, law schools’ bar passage rates weren’t included in the reports. That information will be out next March, when it’s less helpful for prospective students. [ABA Journal]

* The “20th Century Disney” deal helped make this a very happy holiday season for a bunch of Biglaw firms. [American Lawyer]

* “Did Alabama just violate federal voting law?” I’m going to go ahead and assume the answer is “yes” until proven otherwise. Now there’s an idea! We could have some sort of statute that presupposes changes to voting laws in places like Alabama are bad until proven otherwise. A law that requires that they get, I don’t know, “preclearance” for election law changes. [Slate]

* The Net Neutrality law suits are piling up and throttling the FCC’s plan to move forward at full speed. [National Law Journal]

* Remember when Nate Newton was arrested for having 213 pounds of marijuana in his car? Well this arrested Georgia football player is, like, the complete opposite of that. [Slate]

* Vivia Chen discusses Heidi Bond, focusing on how systematic abuse has the power to make people with all the objective markers of success feel incompetent. [The Careerist]

* WSJ declares that it’s cool to go to law school again. There’s no way this leads to another bubble. [Wall Street Journal]

* There are a lot of reasons why Sedgwick is going out of business but one of them has to be partners who had enough spare time to build stuff like this. [The Recorder]

* Federal judicial nominee has no idea what a motion in limine is. EVERYTHING’S FINE!!!! [National Law Journal]

* “If law firm merger talks are the equivalent of dating, then firm leaders are playing the field.” Yeah… you’re gonna get an STD dude. [New York Law Journal]

* Dahlia Lithwick recounts her Koziniski story. [Slate]

* So Taylor Swift, an elephant, and a funeral home walk into a bar… [Legaltech News]

* Ole Miss needs a general counsel. Must be comfortable with hookers and racism! [Corporate Counsel]

* Whoa. “Career ending”? What the hell is going on? [Law360]