Bill De Blasio

Sick burn, Mr. Mayor.

* An Apple lawyer tasked with preventing insider trading has been charged with insider trading.  The good news is he probably knows a lot about the law of insider trading. [CNBC]

* Law firm rents in most parts of New York City are on the rise.  Hasn’t anyone heard of WeWork? They’ve been in the news a lot lately… [New York Law Journal]

* Attorney General Barr’s review of the Russian probe has now turned into a criminal investigation. [Wall Street Journal]

* A small law firm has removed a Halloween display that featured black jack-o-lanterns after facing complaints.  Apparently, they bought the jack-o-lanterns from Bed Bath and Beyond, definitely in the beyond aisle. [News 12 Westchester]

* Brendan Dassey’s lawyers used the help of 250 experts to support his request for clemency. [Post Crescent]

* Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD confirm that they would charge President Trump if he actually shot someone on Fifth Avenue. We live in interesting times… [The Hill]

* Paul Manafort loses evidence motion. He should embrace that feeling of loss. [Courthouse News Service]

* CNBC criticizes the Cohen case Special Master, Judge Barbara Jones, for charging $330K for document review. This is, of course, an entirely reasonable fee for a case of this import but CNBC has clearly let their bias flag fly. [CNBC]

* While America focuses, fairly, on children suffering institutional child abuse, please take a second to remember that cops straight up killed a teenager running from a traffic stop. One could say, “why was he running?” but I’ve seen the video of Philando Castile’s death — staying peacefully in a car isn’t necessarily safe anymore. [CBS News]

* The new awareness of widespread sexual harassment in the workplace may have another positive side effect: women are advancing to partnership faster than before. [American Lawyer]

* Dumb people are up in arms that the ACLU might shift its resources away from random Nazis toward other projects that don’t have hordes of self-styled rebel lawyers and downright crypto-fascist attorneys ready to defend them pro bono. This video, however, is exactly why the ACLU is right to reorient itself to focus on more pressing challenges. [io9]

* Trump proposes merging the Education Department with the Department of Labor. Do you know how hard he had to work to make this not his dumbest idea of the week? We’re going to have to build the Starship Trump just so America doesn’t focus on this nonsense. [NPR]

* NY’s Mayor is doing more to protect unfairly targeted immigrants than almost anyone in America and his policy has a glaring, awful hole in its provision of legal aid. [NY Daily News]

Sanctuary cities, explained in one case.

Voting for Democrats doesn't seem to help black people in New York either.

Burn it all down.

Unisex bathrooms are a thing of the future. Also the present.

* Color me surprised: Amal Clooney is redefining the power suit. [Huffington Post]

* If you haven’t watched Mike Huckabee’s take on the instant Adele classic, “Hello,” you really should. If for no other reason than to see the former governor weigh in on whether he thinks Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen. [Mother Jones]

* Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout is running for Congress. You’ll remember the politically minded professor previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor. [New York Daily News]

* An adorably old 102-year-old British lawyer became the oldest to have his master’s conferred by Cambridge. [Legal Cheek]

* It is easy to get mad when things are unfair, but like momma used to say, “life isn’t fair,” and there is a lesson to be learned there. [Katz Justice]

* Has NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio lived up to his campaign promises? A detailed look. [City and State]

* Yes, even lawyers — heck, especially lawyers — need to be responsible for their own marketing. [Reboot Your Law Practice]

It's not more regulation, but more money that will keep pedestrians safe.

Instead of just pushing the mentally ill into corners and hoping to never see them again, Mayor Bill de Blasio's tackling the issue head on.

Intellectual property really isn't that hard to understand...

I guess Judges, not Mayors, know what should go in a landfill.

* Michael Jordan was present during jury selection for his case against defunct supermarket Dominick’s, but potential jurors didn’t seem the least bit fazed. In fact, just a single one of them considered the basketball star their “personal hero or idol.” Ouch. [Chicago Tribune]

* Maryland Law will be offering a very topical “Law and ______” class this semester, entitled “Freddie Gray’s Baltimore: Past, Present and Moving Forward.” Students enrolled in the course will be asked to create fixes for social problems. This’ll be interesting. [WSJ Law Blog]

* According to the GC of Fannie Mae, Biglaw’s profit structure is broken, but the solution he proposes to the problem may not sit well with associates who are slaves to the billable hour — but only if they care about their hourly rates. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Unlike most of his colleagues, Larry Sonsini of Wilson Sonsini didn’t immediately join a brand name Biglaw firm after he graduated from law school. Instead, he created his own brand name Biglaw firm, so that worked out well. Your own mileage may vary. [Forbes]

* It seems that New York City’s Responsible Banking Act is unconstitutional because it conflicts with existing state and federal banking laws. To be fair, between dueling mayoral policies, this law was completely FUBARed from the get go. [DealBook / New York Times]

* The Phoenix Coyotes plan to change their name to the Arizona Coyotes. They probably should have looked into whether or not someone had trademarked “Arizona Coyotes.” I don’t care about their name as long as they go back to their awesome original sweaters. [The Legal Blitz] * As expected, Mayor Bill De Blasio has dropped New York City's appeal of the stop-and-frisk case. [New York Times] * As we discussed this morning, Eric Holder had to make a decision on whether or not to pursue the death penalty in the Boston Bomber case. Well, he made it. [CNN] * No, getting mocked on late night TV is not the same as torture or the mass extermination of human beings. [Popehat] * What happens when 16 children’s book characters are sent to court? [Visual.ly] * Here are 5 quick tips to employ when preparing for the bar exam. [BigLaw Rebel] * Prosecutors aren’t all out to get your client. You need to read the signals to figure out when they’re willing to help. [Katz Justice] * Unlocking your phone is still a crime. It’s almost as though Congress was deliberately obstructionist on every issue for a whole year. Weird. [Politix] * Ever wonder how to make the transition from law school to journalist? Here’s one answer from across the pond. [Legal Cheek]

* Florida State QB Jameis Winston was not charged with sexual assault after a nearly year-long investigation (well, it happened a year ago… it sounds like no one did much investigating at that time). What comes next? I mean aside from FSU demolishing their next two opponents. [Sports Illustrated] * Sadly, former South African president and civil rights leader Nelson Mandela has passed away. University of Maryland Law School, go ahead and let the world know... [CNN] * America’s probably unstable, definitely troubled sweetheart Amanda Bynes is coming closer and closer to a plea deal over her infamous bong toss. [New York Post] * A lawyer-turned-candidate provides the optimist's guide to running for office. For the pessimist's guide see John McCain's, "Jesus, I Picked Who?" [Huffington Post] * Next week, the Court will hear argument on EPA v. EME Homer City Generation. This is why you should care. [Constitutional Accountability Center] * People are super mad about the NYPD’s new “Stop and Kiss” program. The program only exists in The Onion, but that doesn’t stop most people from making unsolicited, snap decisions that no one asked them to make. At press, the Second Circuit had already preemptively barred Judge Shira Scheindlin from hearing any case on the fictional program. [Gawker] * Speaking of the NYPD, Mayor-Elect Bill De Blasio, who ran on a platform of reforming the NYPD, has named a new police commissioner and selected… one of Giuliani’s old police commissioners. Way to go, champ! Seriously, there are law enforcement professionals out there capable of running the NYPD beyond the last couple guys who ran it. This is like buying a marquee NFL team and saying, “I hear Norv Turner is available.” [Salon] * Professor David E. Bernstein contributed an essay on the Lochner decision to the new book Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism during the Progressive Era (affiliate link). [The Volokh Conspiracy] * An interview with this Yale Law beatboxer. Did we mention he’s a bald Jewish kid? Well, he is. [JTA] * David and Elie talked to Bloomberg about bonuses. Video embedded after the jump…

* The Supreme Court might have dismissed the Oklahoma abortion case as improvidently granted, but not to worry, because the high court may yet get the chance to abort a woman’s right to choose in this new case from Texas. [New York Times]

* Wherein Justice Scalia seems highly concerned about toupees: yesterday, Supreme Court justices put their fashion sense to the test when trying to determine what ought to count as clothing under the Fair Labor Standards Act. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* The Senate is forging ahead with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but the bill will likely fail in the House because discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is still cool with John Boehner. [CBS News]

* Wherefore art thou, ladness? According to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, profits per partner at top firms in the U.K. are behind profits per partner in the U.S. America, f**k yeah! [Businessweek]

* Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate in the NYC mayoral race, apparently has “deep ties” to Gibson Dunn, the firm behind Citizens United. Gather round, conspiracy theorists. [International Business Times]

* An InfiLaw school is changing its name to Arizona Summit Law. How kind to tip law students off to the fact that even if they climb all the way to the top, there’s nowhere to go but down. [National Law Journal]