American Bar Association / ABA

* A Republican-appointed federal judge has ordered that families separated at the border be reunited within 30 days, and if children are younger than 5, they must be reunified within 14 days of her order. [USA Today]

* Immigration attorney Andrea Martinez claims that an ICE officer broke her foot and detained her in a room while she was covered in blood as she attempted to drop off a 3-year-old boy to be reunited with his pregnant mother before they were deported to Honduras. [Daily Beast]

* “Did Justice Anthony Kennedy Just Signal His Retirement? The depressing defeatism of Kennedy’s work this term indicates his time on the court could be coming to an end.” Given the fact that Justice Kennedy’s recent opinions have seemed a bit phoned-in… Rick Hasen might just be right. [Slate]

* In case you missed it amid all of the fanfare of Biglaw’s 2018 associate salary raise, the public interest pay gap is now even larger. Public interest salaries have been stagnant for way too long. In fact, according to NALP’s Public Service Attorney Salary Survey, the median entry-level salary is just $48,000. [Big Law Business]

* Sedgwick, the dearly departed Biglaw firm that suddenly closed its doors in January, is now facing a $450,000+ default judgment in a landlord/tenant lawsuit, which includes $31,982 in “failure to vacate” fees. Oopsie. [American Lawyer]

* Even though Florida Coastal has filed suit against the ABA, the law school accreditor has decided to extend a little olive branch to the school. It won’t have to reveal its weak first-time bar exam pass rate record to current students. [Daily Business Review]

* Even the mainstream media is covering Biglaw’s new salary scale, but dare we say, our coverage is much better. Check it out here while you cross your fingers and pray that your firm follows the latest in associate compensation trends. [New York Post]

* “We don’t create or adjudicate under secret law or procedure.” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has filed suit against the Department of Justice, alleging that the DOJ has repeatedly refused to turn over any documents or identify any policy or procedures that were relied upon when firing him. [Associated Press]

* There’s no vacancy on the Supreme Court right now, but Demand Justice, a liberal nonprofit group, has already spent a hefty sum on digital attack ads against some of the judges on President Trump’s short list. Thus far, Judges Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit, Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit, and Amul Thapar of the Sixth Circuit have been treated to campaign coverage. [BuzzFeed]

* In case you somehow missed it, over the government’s antitrust objections, a federal judge has approved AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner following a six-week trial. They hope to close the deal by or before June 20. Have hope, everyone, maybe Time Warner Cable will actually function sometime soon. [USA Today]

* The ABA’s president has asked members of the House to oppose the part of the PROSPER Act that would end Public Service Loan Forgiveness, because “[w]ithout PSLF, the organizations that provide life- and livelihood-sustaining services will be even farther away from being able to meet these important challenges.” Plus, many law school graduates wouldn’t be able to survive. [ABA Journal]

'It's about damned time,' said one of the school's graduates.

* Guess which law school is on the verge of losing its accreditation? We’ll have more on this unsurprising news later today. [Arizona Republic]

* When it comes to Milbank’s new $190K salary scale for associates, some general counsel and in-house leaders don’t seem to really care, and others are none too thrilled about it, but absolutely NONE of them want to pay for it. [Corporate Counsel]

* How much does President Donald Trump detest AG Jeff Sessions? This much! The president says he’ll probably support legislation protecting marijuana activities in states where the drug has been legalized. [NBC News]

* Pointing out numerous dueling injunctions in a Friday night filing, the Trump administration’s Justice Department is paving the way for a SCOTUS showdown over DACA — possibly as soon as sometime this summer. [BuzzFeed]

* If you’re planning to someday become a Supreme Court clerk, you better make sure that your law school is following the new law clerk hiring plan. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is now the fourth justice to offer her support, following in the footsteps of Justices Kagan, Ginsburg, and Breyer. [National Law Journal]

* Simpson Thacher isn’t increasing associate salaries to the $190K scale (yet), but it is partnering with Columbia Business School to launch a new associate training program. We bet your incoming associates are “STBReady” … for higher salaries. Click here to see all the firms that have raised salaries thus far . [New York Law Journal]

* President Trump is appealing the decision that says he can’t block people on Twitter based on their political views to the Second Circuit (because of course he is). He already had to unblock the seven plaintiffs in the case, and he likely wasn’t very happy about it because of glorious follow-up tweets like this. [BuzzFeed]

* After reportedly being rejected by several candidates for the associate attorney general position — one that would oversee the Mueller investigation if Rod Rosenstein were to suddenly depart — the Trump Administration is giving up on trying to fill the job for the moment, and focusing on other vacancies. [Wall Street Journal]

* In the wake of allegations of sexual harassment against former Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, the federal judiciary’s working group on sexual harassment has released 24 recommendations, specifying three areas that need change to make circuit courts an “exemplary workplace.” [Big Law Business]

* The American Bar Association wants out of this whistleblower suit, ASAP. ABA officials claim that former Charlotte Law professor Barbara Bernier only added the law school regulatory group to her suit against the defunct law school and its owner, InfiLaw, as a “last-ditch effort” to keep her action kicking in court. [Law.com]

The school's only good argument is that the ABA is bad at its job.

* No collusion! Michael Cohen’s shell company — the same one used to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels — received more than $1 million in payments from a company that’s been linked to a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. The same oligarch was sanctioned by the Trump administration for election interference. Special counsel Robert Mueller is on it. [New York Times; CNN]

* If President Trump does sit down for an interview with the special counsel, he could make history if he decides to plead the Fifth Amendment. No American president has ever used the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination while still in office. [TIME]

* Is your law school following the new law clerk hiring plan? It better be, if your graduates want a chance to clerk with Justice Elena Kagan. The former law school dean says she’ll “take into account” in her own clerkship hiring whether law schools and lower court judges have complied with the plan. [National Law Journal]

* A former professor and an alumnus from Charlotte Law School have added the American Bar Association to their suit against the defunct for-profit school, claiming in an amended complaint that the ABA negligently certified the school and “failed to act as a reasonable accreditor” — which makes sense. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* A 15-member panel comprised of Florida State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni want the name of their law school building to be changed. It’s currently named after former Florida Chief Justice B.K. Roberts, who worked to keep the University of Florida’s law school segregated. [News 4 JAX]

* Sorry, Tommy and Kiko, but you’re going to have to stay in your cages. The New York Court of Appeals refused to hear a habeus appeal on behalf of the chimpanzees, allowing a ruling that they are not legal persons and therefore have no legal rights to stand. At least the concurring opinion was a little less dour. [Reuters]

* Barbara Jones, a former federal judge who now serves as a partner at Bracewell (a firm where Rudy Giuliani was once a name partner), has been appointed as a special master in Michael Cohen’s case to decide which materials that were seized from his office are protected by attorney-client privilege and which materials can be reviewed by prosecutors. [New York Post]

* This just got really interesting: The anonymous Proskauer partner who is suing the firm in a $50 million gender bias case has come forward and revealed her name. Jane Doe is better known as Connie Bertram, head of the firm’s labor and employment practice in D.C. and co-head of the firm’s whistleblowing and retaliation group. [American Lawyer]

* Veteran Supreme Court advocate Lisa Blatt of Arnold & Porter received a rare honor at the high court earlier this week during oral arguments in Trump v. Hawaii when Justice Stephen Breyer mentioned her as the author of an amicus brief. This almost never happens. Congratulations on a job well done! [National Law Journal]

* The Stanford Law Class of 1998 has the special sauce for producing female deans at top law schools. Kimberly Yuracko of Northwestern, Kerry Abrams of Duke, and Gillian Lester of Columbia all graduated in the same year. [The Recorder]

* Cooley Law School is back in compliance with ABA accreditation standards. Apparently the school is now admitting candidates who appear capable of finishing law school and gaining admission to a state bar (even though recent bar exam pass-rate statistics seem to strongly disagree with that assessment). [ABA Journal]

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