Billable Hours

* The Supreme Court’s sports gambling ruling guts “core business” of mobsters. So now we know how The Soprano’s really ended. [NY Post]

* More women join the gender bias suit against Ogletree. Not to belabor the point, but how does an employer defend a suit like this when they can’t hire Ogletree? [American Lawyer]

* Good news for Missouri Governor Eric Greitens! Prosecutors have dropped the invasion of privacy charge against him. Now he only faces… all the other reasons you can’t take nude pictures of people without their knowledge and use those to blackmail them. [Courthouse News Service]

* Court rules that a group of NRA-affiliated teenagers challenging gun control laws can’t do so anonymously. Fox focuses on the high risk of ‘harassment’ the students now face because people might criticize them. Fox isn’t even hiding its snowflake leanings anymore. [Fox News]

* The NY Giants have settled with the guy who said they were involved in a conspiracy to fake game-worn memorabilia (and, perhaps more importantly, an intellectual property dispute over some technology the guy patented). Line up now for game-worn tokens from the upcoming 4-12 campaign! [Law360]

* For Iowa’s six-week abortion law, the life of its hefty litigation price tag began at signing. [Des Moines Register]

* Michigan lawyer billed 3600 hours last year. That’s nothing. Wake me when he’s pulled off the elusive 29-hour day. [American Lawyer]

* It looks like Department of Justice will try to have his cake and eat it too. The DOJ is sending Solicitor General Noel Francisco to argue on behalf of the religious freedom of bakers to discriminate against gay people while the government simultaneously argues how imperative it is to keep Muslims out of America. [National Law Journal]

* Former Fried Frank associate faces charges over alleged sexual relationship with 14-year-old girl. [The Recorder]

* Aetna settled a number of class actions over violating the privacy of HIV patients by distributing checks to the class in envelopes with glassine windows indicating “hey, about your HIV…” The attorneys are up in arms because they don’t seem to appreciate performative irony. [New Jersey Law Journal]

* Law firms ripped for cybersecurity failures. Again. [LegalTech News]

* Groups from across the political spectrum unite to oppose AT&T-Time Warner merger. So expect the DOJ to swiftly approve it anyway. [Law360]

* After being slapped with a sexual harassment suit yesterday, legal recruiting firm Wegman Partners announces it’s parted ways with the recruiter named in the suit. [New York Law Journal]

* In case you’re wondering where Biglaw makes its money, here’s a roundup of publicly reported legal bills from a variety of industries. [American Lawyer]

* Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, which took place last night in Las Vegas, Nevada. [New York Times]

* “There’s only one prediction that’s entirely safe about the upcoming term. It will be momentous.” The Supreme Court’s October Term 2017 begins today, and it will be Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first full term. The docket features issues like voting rights, religion and discrimination, workers’ rights, and digital privacy, and Trump’s DOJ has radically flipped its position from that of prior administrations in many of the cases, which hasn’t happened in decades. [New York Times]

* Jeffrey Toobin wonders, “How badly is Neil Gorsuch annoying the other Supreme Court justices?” Based on the junior justice’s behavior thus far — from his seemingly politicized appearances to his domination of oral arguments to his dissenting jab at Justice Kennedy — the answer could very well be PRETTY BADLY. [New Yorker]

* You may have grown up, but you’re still a Toys “R” Us kid at heart, so you’ll want to know how much these Biglaw firms are charging Geoffrey the Giraffe for their representation in the toy store’s bankruptcy. Partners and of counsel are billing up to $1,745 per hour, and associates are billing up to $1,015 per hour. [Am Law Daily]

* Biglaw salary wars are heating up across the pond, with Clifford Chance having recently decided to boost pay for newly qualified associates to £87,300 (~$116,933.99) a year in total compensation. Other firms like Freshfields and Linklaters have also instituted salary hikes, while Slaughter & May has frozen associate pay. [Law.com]

* “This, all of this, allows me to prove my story is useful.” Reginald Dwayne Betts, the Yale Law School graduate whose dreams of being able to practice law after passing the bar exam were deferred thanks to a decades-old felony carjacking conviction, was finally admitted to the Connecticut bar. Congratulations! [Hartford Courant]