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* Hooray, this study says it’s a great time to be a lawyer! According to career website Glassdoor, lawyers are the second-highest paid professionals in the country, with a median base salary of $144,500. See, everybody, you’ll be able to pay off your six-figure law school debt in no time! You’re probably rich! [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* John Oliver of “Last Week Tonight” trademarked the word “Drumpf” ahead of the humorous segment on his show, and he turned to Kenyon & Kenyon to get the job done. The comedian was apparently trying to keep it in the “Daily Show” family with his choice of legal representation — as we’ve noted before, Kenyon’s managing partner is Stephen Colbert’s older brother. [Am Law Daily]

* Here’s a ranking that’ll be useful for prospective law students and legal professionals who love being boastful: Which law schools have the highest percentage of graduates who pass the bar exam on the first try? You may legitimately be surprised by the placement of some of the law schools on this list. We’ll have more on this later. [AL.com]

* “The tone of the brief reads like an indictment.” The Justice Department filed a pretty feisty response to Apple in its legal battle over the encryption of an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple’s GC says the DOJ lawyers are now “so desperate” to get what they want that they’ve “thrown all decorum to the wind.” [CNBC]

* U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York will have to face a lawsuit filed by David Ganek of Level Global Investors, once a $4 billion hedge fund, over allegations that the federal prosecutor’s office filed a misleading affidavit and fabricated evidence as part of an insider trading probe that resulted in the fund failing. [Newsday]

* Senior White House adviser Brian Deese has assembled a crack team to help President Obama choose a Supreme Court nominee who will be able to win confirmation before an angry Senate to replace Justice Scalia. Let’s see which way the 2009 Yale Law School graduate steers this important project. [Reuters]

* Australian law firm Slater & Gordon is feeling the pain of being the world’s first publicly traded law firm after a $958.3 million first-half loss. The firm, which is now being referred to as a “corporate catastrophe,” hopes to lay out a restructuring plan in the next few months amid the likelihood of multiple shareholder suits. [Herald Sun]

* Texas State District Judge Julie Kocurek returned to court this week after a shooter opened fire on her in November 2015 in what police are now calling an assassination attempt. She lost a finger during the shooting, but says she feels “very lucky that is all [she] lost.” Welcome back to the bench, Your Honor! [Austin American-Statesman]

* Sorry, FBI, but a judge has ruled that Apple doesn’t have to help the security service unlock an alleged New York drug dealer’s iPhone. This isn’t binding precedent for the tech company’s San Bernardino case, but you can bet your ass its legal team will try to convince the judge handling the order at issue that it should be considered. [NBC News]

* If you’ve been waitlisted at the lowest-ranked law school you applied to this admissions cycle, it doesn’t mean you’ll be rejected from every other school you applied to this admissions cycle — it just means you may have to work a little bit harder on all of your letters of continued interest. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Law firms aren’t the only businesses that go through break-ups; the communications firms that represent these elite firms apparently have rocky relationships, too. Spencer Baretz and Cari Brunelle of Hellerman Baretz Communications have split to found their own firm, and they took the entire HBC team with them when they left. [Business Wire]

* Given the unusually “circus-like atmosphere” surrounding the Supreme Court confirmation process, anyone who is nominated to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat must “have the backbone to take the risk of being out there in front of the recalcitrant Senate.” Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval apparently didn’t have the testicular fortitude necessary for the challenging endeavor. [WSJ Law Blog]

* President Obama nominated Judge Lucy Koh (N.D. Cal.), the queen of Silicon Valley tech-industry and patent litigation, to the Ninth Circuit. Consider what’s likely to be her difficult confirmation a preview to the politically divisive process of getting Justice Scalia’s replacement a meeting before the Senate. [San Jose Mercury News]

* Of the current justices, Elena Kagan is the only one who has experienced the fallout of an eight-member Supreme Court. She clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall when there was an almost eight-month vacancy on the Court, and may have learned how to avoid 4-4 decisions from Chief Justice William Rehnquist. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* Apple wants to vacate an order compelling the tech giant to help the FBI unlock one of the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhones, noting “[i]f this order is permitted to stand, it will only be a matter of days before some other prosecutor, in some other important case, before some other judge, seeks a similar order using this case as precedent.” [The Hill]

* Johnson & Johnson may have suffered a $72 million blow in its loss in a case alleging links between talcum powder and ovarian cancer, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that other plaintiffs will come away from their talc-cancer cases with windfalls quite as large. They’ll still have to convince a jury that J&J’s products caused their illness. [Reuters]

* Bill Cosby may be trying to avoid a criminal trial, but even his $$$ may not be able to stop it. [Jezebel]

* Apple is taking on the FBI and it should matter to everyone. [Gizmodo]

* You know how Justice Scalia died on a hunting trip? Yeah, it was a free trip provided by someone who got a favorable Supreme Court result last year. Move along, nothing to see here. [Washington Post]

* No, you didn’t learn it in law school, but negotiation is an essential skill to lawyering. [The Anxious Lawyer]

* Quails — yup, the birds Justice Scalia was hunting when he died — react to Justice Scalia’s passing. [Medium]

* The Fair Labor Standards Act won’t be of any help to NCAA athletes trying to get paid. [USA Today]

* Are Scalia bobbleheads going up in value in the wake of the Justice’s passing? [Ebay]

* The lawsuit the Bernie Sanders campaign filed against the Democratic National Committee is far from over. Will a “full investigation from top to bottom” reveal that the DNC was trying to burn the Bern in the polls? [Yahoo!]

* It seems like the whole two-year law school gambit isn’t working out as planned, but maybe that’s because it hasn’t been properly executed yet. Sorry, Northwestern, but we’re really not sorry for saying that. [DealBook / New York Times]

* DraftKings and FanDuel threw the challenge flag after Illinois AG Lisa Madigan declared that daily fantasy sports betting was illegal in her state. Gibson Dunn and Boies Schiller hope review of the play won’t result in another “Fail Mary.” [Chicago Tribune]

* “I thought I was the only person who felt that way.” Feeling left out at law school? USC Law is trying to make legal education a little less intimidating for students who are the first in their family to attend institutions of higher education. [Los Angeles Times]

* iDamages: If you thought Apple liked gouging its customers, then you should see what it does to its adversaries. Samsung just paid the company more than $548 million in patent infringement damages, but Apple wants about $180 million more. [Reuters]

* In September, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner sued Hasbro over a toy hamster named Harris Faulker, claiming it violated her likeness rights. Hasbro has moved to dismiss the suit by providing a judge with side-by-side photos and a snark-filled filing. [THR, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

* Per Gawker’s GC Heather Dietrick, it’s “more likely than not” that the media empire will lose in Hulk Hogan’s case over the release of his sex tape. She doesn’t think it’s likely, however, that the wrestler will get the $100 million in damages he’s seeking. [POLITICO]

* It’s time for a ride at the regulatory rodeo, because for the first time in more than 20 years, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a new operating license for a nuclear power plant. Say hello to Watts Bar Unit 2 in Spring City, Tennessee. [The Verge]

* We mentioned previously that when Apple refused to unlock a defendant’s iPhone for the DOJ, a federal judge wasn’t sure if he had the legal authority to order Apple to do so. As it turns out, Apple’s EULA gives the government the perfect loophole. [Simple Justice]

* In case you missed it last week (we did), LegalZoom has settled its $10.5 million antitrust lawsuit against the North Carolina State Bar. The online legal documentation company will now vet all of its documents with lawyers from North Carolina. [ABA Journal]

* Breaking Media Editor at Large Elie Mystal appeared on The Docket to defend sex offenders’ civil rights on Halloween. His Darth Vader costume is worth seeing. [MSNBC]

* The Cincinnati Bengals reached a $255K settlement with their cheerleaders in a wage-and-hour suit. Each Ben-Gal stands to receive at least $2,500. Hmm, maybe they needed better lawyers who could BE AGGRESSIVE! B-E AGGRESSIVE! B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E! [CBS News]

* Biglaw leaders think that first-year associates are likely to be replaced by robots within 10 years. Some even think that second- and third-year associates could be replaced by artificial intelligence. Damn, no wonder NY to $190 is still a pipedream. [Ars Technica via Am Law Daily]

* “What you’re asking them to do is do work for you.” Despite the fact that the cellphone was seized in an investigation, this federal magistrate judge says that he isn’t quite sure if he has the legal authority to compel Apple to access data on a locked iPhone. [Reuters]

* Justice waits for no one, except this defendant who allegedly murdered her 19-month-old daughter in 2010. After her trial was rescheduled for the 18th time, a judge finally decided he’d had enough: “Anything following this will be a trial or dismissal.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* If you’re trying to get into to law school, there’s no need to wait for your fall semester grades before you send off your applications. A pulse and the ability to sign federal loan documents are all that you’ll need. [Law School Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Is Apple Music an antitrust violation, a second-rate streaming music provider, or both. Probably both. [Dorf on Law]

* Former Goldman employee Sergey Aleynikov acquitted… again. Who would have thought Cyrus Vance’s trumped up show trial would fail so thoroughly? [Dealbreaker]

* Landmark cases reimagined as movie posters. [Res Ipsa Law Poster]

* If you missed it, here’s the New York Times Editorial about the “Activist Roberts Court” that everyone was talking about over the weekend. [New York Times]

* In her defense, Sarah Palin may not be the dumbest person from Wasilla. [Legal Juice]

* In the wake of Obergefell, will some holdout religious schools lose their tax-exempt status? [Tax Prof Blog]

* Susman Godfrey’s Steve Susman chats with Richard Hsu about distance cycling. [Hsu Untied]