Blue Slips

* President Trump claims that the FBI and the DOJ will be investigating the Jussie Smollett case because it’s an “absolute embarrassment to our country.” Meanwhile, in more realistic news, Chicago wants the Empire actor to pay $130,000 to cover the costs of the officers who worked on the case. [Wall Street Journal]

* According to Diane Feinstein, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, “the blue slip is essentially dead.” May the century-old tradition rest in peace. [Big Law Business]

* Jessie Liu, Trump’s pick for third-in-command at the Justice Department upon the recommendation of Attorney General William Barr, has withdrawn from consideration after facing conservative opposition for her association with the National Association of Women Lawyers, an organization she once led. [Reuters]

* C. Allen Parker, the former Cravath presiding partner who brought Biglaw the $180K salary scale and left the firm to become general counsel at Wells Fargo, will now serve as interim CEO and president at the troubled bank. Best of luck… [Corporate Counsel]

* In case you missed it, the NRA is planning to oppose renewal of the Violence Against Women Act due to provisions that would prevent people who have committed domestic abuse from obtaining firearms. That’s just swell. [The Hill]

* Roberta Kaplan, the founding partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink who represented Edith Windsor in the landmark Supreme Court case that obliterated the Defense of Marriage Act and co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, will be speaking at Harvard Law’s 2019 Class Day Ceremony. Congratulations! [Harvard Law Today]

* Several weeks after its release, Over My Dead Body, Wondery’s new podcast exploring the Dan Markel case, continues to top the podcast charts — and creators Matthew Shaer and Eric Benson have some thoughts on why the case has seized the public imagination. [Inside Edition]

* The Keith Tharpe case, far from representing an isolated injustice, reflects and embodies the racist roots of the death penalty in America, according to Stephen Cooper. [CounterPunch]

* The fight against racism in the justice system has been going on (and will continue) for many years — and as Texas lawyer John Browning has discovered, trailblazing African American attorneys were fighting to integrate the bar of the Lone Star State as early as the 1800s. [Texas Lawyer]

* I’ve previously argued against treating blue slips as senatorial vetoes of judicial nominees, based on their consequences for the federal judiciary — and as Thomas Jipping points out, history supports treating blue slips as a senatorial courtesy, nothing more. [Bench Memos / National Review]

* Don’t be fooled by the high level of unanimity in the Supreme Court’s first few decisions of the Term; greater disagreement lurks in the “shadow docket,” as Adam Feldman explains. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* The compromise appropriations bill that saved us from another government shutdown could also advance the Trump Administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers from Central America — which Stewart Baker believes “may offer a better solution to the immigration crisis than the construction of a few miles of new wall.” [Lawfare via Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* Actor James Woods is out of the woods in a defamation lawsuit arising out of an erroneous tweet of his, thanks to this interesting ruling by the Sixth Circuit. [How Appealing]

* Jean O’Grady is excited about Panoramic, the latest offering from Thomson Reuters, which transforms “the ambitious idea of merging workflow and billing into an actual product.” [Dewey B Strategic]

* Remember how Trump promised that he’d “fight for” the transgender community while he was campaigning? Perhaps he meant that he’d fight to erase them. The Trump administration is reportedly considering defining sex under Title IX “based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” [New York Times]

* Democratic senators in Washington are refusing to return their blue slips for Perkins Coie partner Eric Miller, a Ninth Circuit nominee, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is pissed. Slow your roll, Chuck. I thought we didn’t care about blue slips anymore? [The Recorder]

* About half of lawyers in the United Kingdom say they’re not ready to deal with Brexit. That’s okay. The United Kingdom isn’t ready to deal with Brexit either — and 40 percent of lawyers think their Biglaw firms will try to escape the UK because of it. [Am Law International]

* In case you missed it, Paul Manafort showed up at the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday afternoon in a wheelchair, citing health concerns as his attorney requested an expedited sentencing date. Manafort seems to have gotten what he wanted, and will be sentenced there on February 8. [National Law Journal]

* During his inauguration speech, the University of Virginia’s new president, James Ryan — a UVA Law graduate who once worked as a UVA law professor — pledged that tuition would be free for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year. We wonder if that applies to law school tuition as well. [WTTF Fox 5]

* An interesting (although depressing) factoid, courtesy of Ed Whelan: this former SCOTUS clerk and prominent Florida litigator has been nominated to the federal bench by three different presidents, but has yet to serve as a judge. [Bench Memos / National Review]

* If you’re an older lawyer and “in transition,” you need to get yourself a “temporary identity,” as Jane Genova explains. [Law and More]

* If you’re interested in the intersection of artificial intelligence and the law, Complex/vLex Canada’s CEO, Colin Lachance, provides a framework for understanding the world of legal AI. [3 Geeks and a Law Blog]

* Jonathan Bernstein offers a rebuttal to my recent New York Times op-ed celebrating the demise of blue slips. [Bloomberg]

* When can creators depict real people without risking liability? The ambiguity of the law on this question poses significant problems, according to Jennifer Rothman, author of a new book (affiliate link) about the right of publicity. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* Noted media lawyer Charles Glasser wonders: when it comes to covering President Trump, are news editors “confusing the public interest with what is merely of interest to the public”? [Daily Caller]

* Thomson Reuters gets in on the blockchain action, bringing a blockchain-based legal arbitration platform, Kleros, into its Incubator Labs start-up program. [Artificial Lawyer]

* Final reminder: please support the Jersey City Free Public Library — and enjoy some delicious Filipino food by celebrity chef Dale Talde — by joining me on Thursday, May 17, for what should be a great evening! [Jersey City Free Public Library]

* Yes, it’s true: Jeff Sessions came thisclose to resigning as attorney general, after Donald Trump berated him following the appointment of special counsel Bob Mueller in the Russia probe. [New York Times]

* Bye-bye to blue slips? It wouldn’t exactly be “nuclear,” since their treatment has varied greatly over the years. [BuzzFeed]

* The State Bar of California tries to cut down the arguments in favor of a lower cut score on the bar exam. [ABA Journal]

* Technology platforms are driving an increase in transparency that’s having profound consequences for the employer/employee relationship (as I recently discussed on the podcast of Akerman employment-law partner Matt Steinberg). [Akerman]

* Embattled Equifax has turned to Phyllis Sumner and King & Spalding for much-needed legal help in the wake of its massive data breach. [Law.com]

* Statutory interpretation question: can you be both the victim and the perpetrator in a child pornography case? [How Appealing]

* The ranks of nonequity partners continue to grow; has this trend gone too far? [Big Law Business]

* Prosecution of individuals in cases of corporate wrongdoing (aka the Yates Memo), and Justice Department policy on enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states where it has been decriminalized — both are “under review” at the DOJ, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. [Law.com]

* Time to nerd out! We’ll start with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) firing a shot across on the bow on blue slips. [Politico via How Appealing]

* Speaking of judicial nominees, Professor Stephanos Bibas, nominated to the Third Circuit, has a long, long paper trail — including not just lots of law review articles, but letters to the editor from when he was a college kid. [CA3blog]

* Who knew that singer John Legend was a legal nerd? He’s all about “the challenge and the opportunity of federalism,” as Chris Geidner reports. [BuzzFeed News]

* It’s time for the courts to recognize that the Lemon test “is really and truly dead,” according to Daniel Blomberg of Becket. [Bench Memos / National Review]

* Meanwhile, Professor Orin Kerr identifies “an interesting question worth flagging for the Fourth Amendment nerds” out there. [Washington Post]

* Finally, Fifth Circuit guru David Coale has found something even wonkier than the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. [600 Camp]

* The Russia investigation now turns to President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — proud holder of a law degree from NYU (and a really great set of abs). [Washington Post]

* Former Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), currently senior counsel at Kasowitz Benson, has withdrawn from consideration as FBI Director (as my colleague Staci Zaretsky predicted, after Marc Kasowitz got hired by President Trump to represent him in the Russia probe). [New York Times]

* Congratulations to Judge Amul Thapar, President Trump’s first lower-court nominee, on his confirmation to the Sixth Circuit — although it’s disappointing that no Democrats voted in favor of this eminently qualified (and diverse) candidate. [How Appealing]

* Despite allegedly roughing up a reporter (for which he’s apologized), Republican Greg Gianforte won the race for Montana’s sole seat in the House of Representatives (as my colleague Joe Patrice predicted he would). [New York Times]

* How did Michelle Obama react when Barack Obama declined to pursue a coveted Supreme Court clerkship? Tony Mauro tells the tale. [Law.com]

* The ABA continues to fight the good (or not so good?) fight in defense of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. [ABA Journal]

* It seems that some folks on Capitol Hill like my proposed solution to the use of “blue slips” in the judicial confirmation process. [Washington Post via How Appealing]

* The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office concludes that a slew of murder convictions based on dubious evidence from embattled detective Louis Scarcella must be thrown out — and yet Scarcella engaged in no wrongdoing. [New York Times]

* Biglaw firms are suffering from an oversupply of lawyers, and a quarter of respondents to a recent survey said their associates don’t have enough work — which might explain why at least one firm has turned to laying off first-year associates. Yikes. [ABA Journal]

* Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the nation’s first female Muslim judge and the first African-American woman to serve on New York’s highest court, was found dead in the Hudson River. We’ll have more on this later. [New York Daily News]

* The Ukraine-related activities of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are under legal scrutiny — and one of his daughters, lawyer Andrea Manafort, described some of her father’s actions as “legally questionable.” [New York Times]

* Hawaii says “aloha” to the Ninth Circuit in its challenge to Trump Travel Ban 2.0 — and seeks initial en banc review, bypassing a three-judge panel. [ABA Journal]

* So the filibuster is now dead for SCOTUS nominees; are blue slips for lower-court nominees next? [Roll Call via How Appealing]

* Melania Trump settles her defamation litigation with the Daily Mail, getting an apology, a retraction, coverage of her legal fees, and what her lawyer Charles Harder describes as “millions of dollars in damages.” [New York Law Journal]

* Biglaw firms aren’t the only workplaces with gender pay gaps; it’s an issue for in-house legal departments too, including Google’s. [Corporate Counsel]

* Seriously, North Carolina? After its half-hearted repeal of the “bathroom bill,” three lawmakers in the state want to ban gay marriage. [WNCN]

* Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit seems to be a fan of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s views on Chevron deference. [Law.com]

* And Justice Elena Kagan will be throwing a party to welcome Justice Gorsuch to the Court. [Washington Post via How Appealing]