Allen & Overy

* “Everyone in America counts in the census, and today’s decision means we all will.” The Justice Department has officially confirmed that in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, a citizenship question will not be added to the 2020 Census. [Washington Post]

* Has Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg handed off the high court’s liberal torch to Justice Elena Kagan? Based on the fact that the Notorious RBG assigned the dissent in the partisan gerrymandering case, it sure looks like it. [NPR]

* Dozens of prominent Republicans plan to submit an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a “common sense, textualist” ruling that the Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace. [New York Times]

* Allen & Overy and O’Melveny & Myers are still in merger talks, but this has been going on for more than a year now and it seems like it’s taking forever for anything to happen. [American Lawyer]

* Michael Avenatti, the Lawyer of the Year accused of bank fraud and embezzlement, is refusing to give up his desktop, iPhone, and iPad passwords to federal prosecutors in New York. [Big Law Business]

* If you thought demand for legal services couldn’t get worse… [Corporate Counsel]

* We just talked about the best cities for lawyers. One area that’s not on that list is Silicon Valley and basically here’s why. [The Recorder]

* We’re in the midst of a Biglaw salary war… just not in the U.S. [Legal Cheek]

* Facebook examined its cadre of counsel and crowned this firm the tops in diversity. The prize was some sticky video showing pictures of Zuckerberg and firm attorneys over some warmed over pablum about the power of friendship. [American Lawyer]

* Speaking of Facebook, the Cambridge Analytica bankruptcy has officially let Schulte Roth off the hook. [Law360]

* Sidney Powell wants security clearance so she can rant about classified documents that have nothing to do with the case against her client. [NY Times]

* Strength in numbers we can get it right/One time/We are a part of the Biglaw nation. [Los Angeles Times]

* Robert Bowers, the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead and six wounded, has been charged with 29 federal criminal counts including hate crimes and using a firearm to commit murder and 36 state criminal counts including homicide and ethnic intimidation. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of those who lost their lives this weekend. [New York Times]

* According to the criminal complaint filed against Cesar Sayoc, the pipe bomb he allegedly tried to mail to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was addressed to his office at a “certain law firm” — a certain law firm that’s better known as Covington & Burling. Good thing the package never made it there. [National Law Journal]

* When asked to reflect on the misconduct allegations against Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld, alumni from the school are not the least bit shocked. “It was not a surprise to basically any woman in my class that this investigation is going on,” said one 2015 graduate. Will the school take appropriate action? [Yale Daily News]

* Partners from Allen & Overy and O’Melveny & Myers are cozying up to each other as merger talks between the two firms continue, but there may be trouble in paradise. “There is some opposition in London,” said a former A&O partner, “but it’s fairly disorganised—there’s a lot of moaning but nobody leading a charge.” [International]

* In case you missed it, after the involuntary revocation of its accreditation, Arizona Summit Law School will eventually close its doors. But first, the school must finalize a teach-out plan for its remaining students, and when it’s all over, “that would be the life of the school.” What a sad little life. Farewell to AZ Summit Law. [Arizona Republic]

* You might not have known it, but the Michigan State University College of Law has been operating as a private school for all these years. Soon, the school will be fully integrated into the university, and you know what that means: in-state tuition costs will be coming to the MSU Law. Congratulations! [Lansing State Journal]

* RBG is my Patronus, and a course on Harry Potter and the Law is coming to a law school near you — if you live in India, that is. The National University of Juridical Sciences will be teaching the class, and muggles students are “expected [to] have already read all the books at least twice, if not more.” [The Guardian]

* In case you missed it, Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh refused to condemn President Donald Trump’s attacks on the judiciary (specifically, his insults of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), refused to say whether he believed same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, and once again denied discussing the Mueller probe with anyone at Kasowitz Benson. What will happen today? [Washington Post]

* President Donald Trump has reportedly called Attorney General Jeff Sessions “a dumb Southerner” and an “idiot” without an Ivy League law degree who “couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.” This Alabama Law professor wonders what’s so bad about a degree from Alabama Law. [New York Times]

* Per a new study from the American Bar Association, the sky is blue and women and minorities continue to face racial and gender bias within the legal profession. But, here are some tools to fight these problems. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Allen & Overy has published its 2018 gender pay gap figures, and it’s the first U.K. firm to include data from its “overwhelmingly male” partners in its disclosures. A&O’s median gender pay gap is 39 percent, a slight improvement. [Financial Times]

* It seems that the Justice Department no longer thinks that employers should be forced to consider job applicants with criminal histories, going against Obama-era guidance that the EEOC has been following since 2012. [National Law Journal]

* In an historic opinion, India’s Supreme Court ruled that gay sex between adults is not a crime, casting aside an “irrational, arbitrary, and incomprehensible” colonial-era law that made the act a punishable offense within the country. [Times of India]

* Fire alarms sounded at Miami Law as smoke poured through vents into a student lounge, and some students evacuated their classrooms, but others ran back in to save their laptops. Well, obviously — they’re law students, after all. [Miami Hurricane]

* Jeff Sessions assures people that the Justice Department won’t be intimidated by the administration. Trump responds with intimidation effort, blasting Justice for not doing enough about the “other side” and then just lists a bunch of Republicans he doesn’t like. [CNN]

* The White House is crowing over an unsealed Starr investigation report that “fully exonerates” Brett Kavanaugh… as a media leak. The collective delusion over there that being a leak is the worst possible sin, and not, you know sexual harassment issues, continues to astound. [National Law Journal]

* The Trump administration continues its efforts to raise taxes on Americans who didn’t vote for him. [Law360]

* After Debevoise offered a comically cozy report to help Ohio State keep winning football games, it’s worth remembering the school still has another internal investigation going on into sexual abuse claims against the wrestling staff. [Corporate Counsel]

* The Texas lateral market is making a whole lot of money. [Texas Lawyer]

* K&L Gates gets the go ahead on Singapore merger. [International]

* Ady Barkan, an ALS patient who has become an activist for patients, announced a campaign to raise money for Susan Collins’s next opponent if she supports the Kavanaugh nomination. Over the course of 3 days, he’s raised over $130K. [Crowdpac]

* RelativityOne announces Allen & Overy to its list of clients. [PR Newswire]

* Michael Cohen resigns his RNC position in an email sharply criticizing the administration’s child separation policy. So now we’ve reached the point where Michael Cohen is a sympathetic figure. [CNBC]

* Supreme Court justice arrested on 22 criminal counts and faces 395 years in prison. Obviously it’s a state supreme court, but try to guess which state! [Courthouse News Service]

* Former Dewey & LeBoeuf CFO Joel Sanders was disbarred yesterday. Dewey know who needs a new career? [Law360]

* Forcibly administering drugs to children is bad and the only downside of the royal whupping these jackboot thugs will eventually receive in the courts is that we’ll here another decade of false comparisons from the anti-Vaxxer crowd. [HuffPost]

* Allen & Overy partners fly to America for their annual meeting where they are definitely not talking about merging with O’Melveny because they’ve all denied that and law firms wouldn’t lie to us. [International]

* Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer closing in on a settlement in the long-running $214 million malpractice suit against them.

* Europe pondering a law that would screw up the Internet. Obviously. [WIRED]

* Michael Cohen has until 2 p.m. this afternoon to produce the names of his clients with proof of their relationship, lest his attorneys’ temporary restraining order over the alleged privilege of the “thousands, if not millions of documents” that were taken in the FBI raid upon his office get tossed. [New York Law Journal]

* In other news, President Trump wants to review all of the material that was seized by the FBI from his lawyer Michael Cohen before federal investigators are able to take a look at it — after all, as the president says, attorney-client privilege “is dead.” [Washington Post]

* Many partners at Allen & Overy are “dead against” the firm’s reportedly proposed merger with O’Melveny & Myers, which is probably just fine, considering the fact that O’Melveny “[has] no plans to merge [with A&O] and never [has].” [Legal Week]

* Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is supposed to make his debut at the Supreme Court later this month on April 23 to argue a case regarding sentencing guildelines on behalf of the United States government. We’ll see how things go if he’s already been fired by President Trump by the time oral arguments roll around. [CNN]

* According to Senate Republican Cory Gardner of Colorado, now that he’s struck a deal with President Trump that will undercut Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recission of the Cole memo, he’ll be happy to puff-puff-pass votes on all of the Department of Justice nominees he’s been holding up. [Washington Post]

* “[T]op tier firms [must] take a more ‘people-centric’ approach, and break the tyranny of the billable unit as the overriding priority.” This managing partner says that work/life balance and mental health for lawyers will never improve unless the legal profession addresses “onerous billable hour targets.” [Lawyers Weekly]