American Bar Association / ABA

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.22.16

* "You're going to make a federal case out of this - a dispute between two sorority sisters?" A fight between two sorority sisters recently landed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, but it turns out the suit was dropped quicker than a misbehaving pledge. We'll have more on this later today. [Philadelphia Inquirer] * "Generally, it is God who decides whether presidents get Supreme Court appointments." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may be the oldest member of SCOTUS, but that doesn't mean she's preparing to step down, even if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. She's already hired clerks for the October 2017 term. [Washington Post] * The Eastern District of Michigan has ruled that in cases of employment discrimination, religious rights trump transgender rights. The ACLU says this case has set a "dangerous precedent," in that it has "exempted [a business that was "not a particularly religious operation"] from civil rights law with regard to transgender people." [WSJ Law Blog] * The ABA has closed a probe regarding allegations of religious discrimination (i.e., expulsion of students who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and bans of sexual activity between students of the same sex) that were said to have occurred at BYU Law School. The school is said to have changed its honor code. [ABA Journal] * Infamous Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has lucked out thanks to some actions taken by the Sixth Circuit. A new state law removed the names of clerks from marriage licenses, thus enabling the appeals court to refuse her claims, allowing a judge to toss a suit she was facing over her unwillingness to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. [WSAZ]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.19.16

* "Donald Ducks," the DNC's mascot that's being used to taunt Donald Trump for his undisclosed tax returns, bears a striking resemblance to Disney's Donald Duck, and people are starting to wonder: "Is Donald Ducks waddling over Disney's intellectual property rights?" [WSJ Law Blog] * The Third Circuit declined to re-seal excerpts of depositions in the Bill Cosby case where he admitted to giving women Quaaludes, but included in its opinion an interesting footnote calling out the district court judge's decision to unseal the records in the first place, saying its "public moralist rational" had "no basis in our jurisprudence," and that the term itself was "vague and undefined." [THR, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter] * This fall, Indiana Tech Law will welcome its largest class ever, with 55 students set to begin their legal studies next week. With only 15 students in its inaugural class, this huge jump in enrollment could possibly be due to the fact that the ABA gave the school a provisional rubber stamp (as it's wont to do) back in March. [Indiana Lawyer] * "There is a disconnect between what banks are doing and what consumers want," and what they want is the ability to sue. More and more big banks -- 72 percent of them, in fact -- are using mandatory binding arbitration clauses in their contracts to prevent customers from filing suit. Read the find print, people. [DealBook / New York Times] * "What if somebody gets injured on somebody else's property? Trip on a rock or get bitten by the neighbor's dog? There would be a whole host of responsible parties." A New York firm already filed a class-action suit against the company behind Pokemon Go, but this lawyer thinks there's a minefield of tort actions available to sue over. [Mlive.com]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.18.16

* A Brazilian judge ordered that Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen surrender their passports and remain in Rio until investigators can determine whether they filed a false police report of being robbed at gunpoint. There's one problem: Lochte is back in America. Jeah! [USA Today] * As we mentioned yesterday, according to NALP, law school graduates in the class of 2015 landed fewer jobs in private practice than any other class in the past 20 years. There is a bright side, though: Biglaw firms are hiring in droves and the median starting salary for new lawyers has risen to $100,000, which is 5 percent higher than it was for the class of 2014. [DealBook / New York Times] * Graduates who sued Widener Law in 2012 over the school's allegedly deceptive employment statistics lost a federal appeal to overturn a denial of class certification. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit -- one which included Donald Trump's sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry -- rejected a class-wide theory of damages. [Law.com] * Legal ethics professor Ronald Rotunda of Chapman Law wrote an op-ed striking out against the ABA's adoption of a new professional misconduct rule which seeks to combat discrimination and bias in the law. He refers to the new rule as a misguided "foray into political correctness," and thinks the ABA overstepped its bounds. [WSJ Law Blog] * "At best he was doing something profundity stupid with the hopes of meeting someone he will never get to meet in his lifetime." A lawyer for Stephen Rogata, the teen who scaled Trump Tower, says her client should receive psychiatric treatment instead of jail time. He's being held on $10,000 bail bond or $5,000 cash. [New York Daily News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.12.16

* I climbed the Republican presidential nominee's building using suction cups and all I got were these lousy handcuffs: Stephen Rogata, the Virginia teenager who attempted to scale Trump Tower earlier this week, has been criminally charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing. [New York Times] * "We adopt policy that will be beneficial to all lawyers -- we don't adopt things just to be politically correct." Many attorneys are up in arms about the new ABA professional conduct rule which prohibits discriminating against and harassing colleagues during the practice of law, but it was something that needed to happen. [Big Law Business] * Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has predicted "with some degree of credibility" that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will nominate Judge Merrick Garland if she wins the White House this fall. He doesn't think Clinton will "rock the boat" with a new pick for Donald Trump's "minions" to block. [Associated Press] * Given the fact that 36.4 percent of lawyers surveyed qualified themselves as problem drinkers, attorney-counselor Patrick Krill has opened a consulting firm that will cater specifically to law firms, providing assistance for lawyers dealing with addiction and mental health issues. If you need help, please seek it out. [Law.com via ABA Journal] * Who are 11 of the most successful graduates of Stanford Law School? Two are SCOTUS justices, one is a former Ninth Circuit judge, one is the executive director of the ACLU, four are business executives (one of whom invented "revenge litigation finance" to sue Gawker into bankruptcy), and the rest are public figures in politics. [Business Insider]

By Staci Zaretsky
Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 08.10.16

* "NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Dem Senate candidate and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland: Scalia's death 'happened at a good time.'" [Instapundit] * A Skull and Bones society for top NYC law firms? Professor Rick Swedloff discusses a secretive group whose membership includes some of Biglaw's biggest names. [SSRN] * A notable new petition (filed by Professor Orin Kerr and Marcia Hofmann) in a high-profile appeal about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. [Volokh Conspiracy] * Donald Trump's infamous "Second Amendment" quip is protected by the First Amendment -- but just barely, according to Professor Noah Feldman. [Bloomberg View via How Appealing] * Jury consultant Roy Futterman of DOAR wonders: is concern about prejudicing jurors actually driving them to using the internet for decision-making? [Big Law Business] * Could the ABA someday lose its power to accredit law schools? Steven J. Harper thinks its day of reckoning is coming closer. [The Belly of the Beast]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.10.16

* "If the LSAC is willing to include GRE scores in the [credential assembly services], then this may be an easy way for the LSAC to continue to certify the accuracy of standardized test scores reported to law schools." In response to the tantrum LSAC threw over the future certification of LSAT scores, Educational Testing Service, the organization that administers the GRE, has offered to share its exam results with LSAC. [ABA Journal] * "It is time for the ABA to catch up." The hotly contested rule proposed by the American Bar Association that would make behavior "[a] lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination" a form of professional misconduct was "resoundingly adopted" by the House of Delegates earlier this week. Well done, ABA. [WSJ Law Blog] * Sorry, investment advisers, you make think it's "unfair," but according to a recent decision from a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, the Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial in-house courts are constitutionally sound because the agency's ALJs don't make "final" decisions on behalf of the SEC. [Big Law Business] * Husch Blackwell, which completed a combination with Whyte Hirschboeck in the middle of last month, now not only has bragging rights on finalizing the largest law firm merger of 2016, but it can also claim to have one of the largest real estate practices in the entire country. Congratulations on all of your success! [Midwest Real Estate News] * Who are eight of the most impressive graduates of Columbia Law School? Would you be surprised to learn that the list includes two former presidents, two Supreme Court justices (one of whom has a law school named after him), a U.S. Attorney General, and various political figures? If you're interested, check out the list here. [Business Insider]

By Staci Zaretsky