Books

* Not going anywhere for a while? Try a Snickers. Just don’t try to write it off as a business expense. [TaxProf Blog]

* Toilet cameras involve moral turpitude. This is an opinion that needed to be written. [Legal Profession Blog]

* Police decline to charge Dwight Howard with child abuse. He’d allegedly punished his child with his belt, which is nowhere near as bad as letting them walk outside alone (if you listen to Elie’s rants). [ESPN]

* There’s no bar exam too small for his analysis: North Dakota’s February results. [Bar Exam Stats]

* A look back at the Lincoln assassination 150 years later. Something like this would never happen today — probably because Lincoln would still be on the waiting list for Book of Mormon. [Constitutional Accountability Center]

* I knew SeaWorld was in trouble when I saw a glossy commercial during primetime television explaining how great they are. And my instincts were right — they’ve been hit with three salacious lawsuits in a month. [The Dodo]

* Oh, the things you learn from lawsuits! Find out exactly how the WWE feels about your city. Getting dissed by Vince McMahon must sting. [411Mania]

* If you’re in Chicago or Los Angeles, you should come out to see David discuss his new book, Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [Supreme Ambitions]

* The law prof who sent anal-bead porn to her students is making headlines beyond the legal media. [Inside Higher Ed; Total Frat Move]

* You’ve been served — via Facebook. How do you “Like” them apples? [New York Daily News]

* Making a federal — or at least state — case out of teaching yoga to schoolchildren. [ATL Redline]

* Bad idea: taking someone’s identity and accepting money on their behalf. (Or: the dangers of launching a startup without legal advice.) [Associate’s Mind]

* Also a bad idea (if the allegations are true, that is): a men-only golf retreat at a large law firm. [ABA Journal]

* “Sperm Donor Scandal Lawsuit: How One Man with Schizophrenia Allegedly Fathered 36 Children.” [People]

* Getting revenge on a revenge-porn magnate: an 18-year sentence for Kevin Christopher Bollaert. [Los Angeles Times]

* How can healthcare startups protect their intellectual property? [MedCity News]

* Debt-saddled law students love free stuff — so how about free membership in the ABA? [American Bar Association]

* In addition to our April 23 reception, I’ll also be doing an event on April 25 for Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), to which you are all most cordially invited. [Seminary Co-Op Bookstore; Facebook]

* A look at the ethical issues that arise when Saul takes a detour into “elder law.” [The Legal Ethics of Better Call Saul]

* Guess the law firm whose D.C. managing partner just said, “You would be hard-pressed to find another law firm of almost 200 lawyers that gets less name recognition than we do.” [National Law Journal]

* Everything is bigger in Texas — including the number of lawyers (300!) behind the effort to overturn the one-year suspension of prominent capital defense lawyer David Dow. [Slate]

* Linda Greenhouse on the Supreme Court’s “identity crisis” on voting rights. [New York Times]

* In defense of Pace Law’s “fire sale” for prospective students with strong GPAs and LSAT scores. [Jane Genova]

* Congrats to Professor Will Baude on landing a regular gig for the New York Times! [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Several members of the Philippine American Bar Association (PABA) took to television to discuss Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), as well as PABA’s great work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMak8hayBOs

* An Arkansas judge was mauled by his father’s pet zebra. We hope the judge recovers, but what we’d really, really like to know is how the hell one comes to own a pet zebra in Arkansas. [KARK]

* Pregnant women on poles may officially be sexy under color of law. [EPLI Risk]

* If your law firm is trying to make you complete a marketing project in order to get your year-end bonuses — like Quinn Emanuel — here are some ideas for you to try. [Hellerman Baretz Communications]

* According to Robert Durst’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, people mutter triple murder admissions under their breath on hot mics all the time, and it’s usually not that big of deal. [Gawker]

* You’re invited to an event hosted by Judge Kozinski at the Ninth Circuit courthouse, featuring discussion of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [Supreme Ambitions]

* “A senior Queens judge allowed a bawdy Viagra-themed light-switch cover to remain in his courtroom for at least a year — even after a female lawyer complained that it was inappropriate for court.” Obviously, there will be a contingent trying to write this off as “just a joke” and asking everyone to “relax,” but seriously, how is ANY joke lightswitch cover appropriate in a courtroom? Let alone a penis switch. [NY Post]

* Teen burglars started sniffing the powder they stole thinking it was cocaine. Instead, it was cremated ashes. It’s part Cocaine Cowboys and part Six Feet Under. [The Smoking Gun]

* No one can predict how much tuition will rise over the next several years. But this offers the next best thing: an interactive tool to chart how much each school’s tuition has changed over the last few years. [Bar Exam Stats]

* We’ve featured some of Richard Hsu’s interviews in this space. The Recorder sat down with the Shearman & Sterling partner to discuss his podcast. [The Recorder]

* Elie went on HuffPo today to discuss the phenomenon of law schools dropping the LSAT. [HuffPo Live]

* Former Wilmer litigator and 10th Circuit clerk John Ford has a new book out called The Cipher (affiliate link). It’s about the NSA harassing an innocent American citizen. Or as the rest of us call it, “a Tuesday.” [Amazon]

* In sad news, Dave Frohnmayer, former Oregon Attorney General, dean of Oregon Law School, and President of the University of Oregon passed away at 74. On a personal note, he was extremely supportive when I resuscitated the South Eugene debate program (where his daughters had earlier debated) before I went off to law school. Rest in peace. [The Oregonian]

* Have you ever wondered about litigation finance and thought, “if only someone would make a cartoon to explain it all to me” then you’re in luck. [LFC360]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrQklMvyuOM

* I guess 15 minutes of fame can really mess with you. The “cute mugshot girl” who took the Internet by storm a while back managed to get arrested again. Negative attention is still attention. [Gawker]

* The DOJ is about to file corruption charges against Senator Robert Menendez. Corruption in New Jersey? [CNN]

* With the assistance of the pro bono legal teams at WilmerHale and Polsinelli, 303 conservatives filed a historic amicus brief in support of marriage equality. [WilmerHale]

* A nice review of “A Conversation on Clerking” moderated by U.S. Supreme Court reporter Anthony Mauro of the National Law Journal, with panelists including our own David Lat; Judge Patricia Millett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; and Lucas Townsend, an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. [American Bar Association]

* Looking for an extra $1,000 this year? Enter this legal fiction writing contest. Maybe you’ll write the next Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [The Expert Institute]

* You betta work… on those C&D letters! The viral picture of Cindy Crawford’s “unretouched” midsection is allegedly fake, and a lawyer for the photographer who took the original picture is threatening publishers with legal action if the supposedly doctored photos aren’t taken down immediately. [CBS News]

* You know that law school graduates from the Lost Generation are screwed when the first vignette from an article about the sad state of financial affairs for “recession millennials” is about a 2011 law grad who’s drowning in law school debt. [FiveThirtyEight]

* Folks are going crazy over King v. Burwell, so it’s a great time to run the odds on which justices will give ACA the axe. FYI, Justice Alito is “more likely to be struck by lightning while committing in-person voter fraud” than uphold Obamacare. [ThinkProgress]

* If you’re going to be in Washington, D.C., next weekend, why not stop by the Politics & Prose Bookstore to see David Lat have a chat with Adam Liptak of the New York Times? OMG, you can even get your copy of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) signed. [Facebook]

* With oral arguments in the King v. Burwell case slated to be heard on Wednesday, the Supreme Court is going to have a busy week — but most Americans won’t know about it. Below is a new TV ad pushing SCOTUS to allow cameras in the courtroom. [Fix the Court]

http://youtu.be/jA8B80fy0OM

* Mary Jo White’s sizable net worth is causing sizable headaches over at the SEC. [DealBook / New York Times]

* If you work at a law firm and take way too long to perform simple tasks in Microsoft Word or Excel, shape up: a new test, developed by former in-house lawyer Casey Flaherty, could expose your weaknesses — and lead to your work being discounted. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* More from Howard Bashman about the misadventures of Howard Shipley, the Foley & Lardner partner who might get spanked by SCOTUS for a bizarre filing. [How Appealing]

* An S.D.N.Y. jury held the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization liable for supporting six terrorist attacks and issued a verdict of $218.5 million — an award that will under the law get tripled (collected remains to be seen). [WSJ Law Blog]

* Wall Street banks and their law firms are getting serious about cybersecurity. [New York Times]

* Thanks to Emily Kelchen for her review of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), which she calls “a true legal thriller.” [Wisconsin Lawyer]

* Could it be? Did Justice Clarence Thomas ask a question during oral arguments at SCOTUS? No, but he did ask a question at Yale Law during a presentation, noting that he doesn’t ask “irrelevant, useless questions” at the high court. [Legal Times]

* Per NALP, gains were made by women and minorities in law firms for the first time in years, but be careful, because Jim Leipold is watching you: “Individual law firms should not be allowed to hide behind the national figures.” [National Law Journal]

* Meet Judge Robert C. Brack of the District Court of New Mexico, who recently earned quite the accolade. Judge Brack has sentenced more defendants than any other federal judge in the past five years. He won’t be celebrating his achievement. [WSJ Law Blog]

* This Georgetown Law professor, who happens to be the cofounder of one of the country’s largest litigation finance firms, wants to see a law firm IPO, but others wonder if lawyers would be able to ethically practice while reporting to shareholders. [Washington Post]

* A Chadbourne & Park employee has been banned from ever working for another law firm again following his theft of $15,360 from C&P’s coffers. Not to worry, no client money was pilfered from the firm — the cash was taken from an open office account. [Am Law Daily]

* If you haven’t heard, David Lat wrote a book called Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), and “[w]riting the novel was almost therapeutic for [him] in a way” — he’s “kind of over” the fact that his résumé doesn’t include a SCOTUS clerkship. [Chicago Daily Law Bulletin]

* Martha Africa, name partner of Major Lindsey & Africa, RIP. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* The Supreme Court is going to strike down bans on marriage equality folks. And the tea leaves aren’t that hard to read. [Slate]

* Even if the Court proclaims marriage equality the law of the land, discrimination will march on. On that note, can American law schools like Liberty continue to follow Canada’s controversial Trinity Western in functionally barring homosexuality? [Tax Prof Blog]

* Law students f**king love Atticus Finch. Um, you know he lost right? Start looking up to winners, like Dan Fielding or something. [Slate]

* Who else is jumping from the hulk that was once Patton Boggs? [Legal Times (sub. req.)]

* Our old friend George Mason Assistant Dean Richard Kelsey, who we last saw Tweeting about black people and the lack of reason, is back explaining that abortion is genocide… because it leads to immigrants coming to America. Or something. [CNS News]

* Meanwhile, there’s a new casebook out covering reproductive rights law that challenges the conventional classification of the subject as a subset of women’s issues. [RH Reality Check]

* Harvard Law 3L, soon-to-be Clifford Chance associate, rapper. [J.KO]

* SWAT team called in to break up a poker game between a bunch of rich people. The militarization of the police seems like it’s going great. [Washington Post]

* The SPLC is lodging an ethics complaint against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore after he explained that he intends to defy federal law. He’s such a delight. [WAAY TV]

* Rutgers-Camden’s student evaluation controversy unfortunately fits right into the grand scheme of legal industry misogyny. [Salon]

* South Carolina has finally vacated the convictions of the Friendship Nine — protesters busted for sitting at the diner counter who pioneered the “jail, no bail” strategy that dominated the 60s civil rights movement. It only took 54 years. [Huffington Post]

* Another day, another embarrassing development for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell. This time it’s former Senator Ben Nelson who Obamacare challengers cite for their claim that the Senate never intended subsidies to go to states without their own exchanges. Well, Senator Nelson wrote his own brief blowing this theory out of the water. This is basically SCOTUS’s version of the Marshall McLuhan scene. [Washington Post]

* A list of upcoming books about the Supreme Court. [SCOTUSBlog]

* An enterprising law office discovered that the courts in Oklahoma publish social security numbers all the time. [Wirth Law Office]

* D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett talks clerking diversity. [National Law Journal]

* UC Hastings Law student Hali Ford is competing on the 30th season of Survivor. Her interview video is below. [TV Grapevine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ydBekmEOw

* From the “Why the hell didn’t you settle this?” file: Now that Alexandra Marchuk’s case against Faruqi & Faruqi and Juan Monteverde has gone to trial, it seems the firm is getting all sorts of publicity — mostly negative. [New York Post]

* Supreme Court justices are really just like us… they show up late to work, too. Because Justice Antonin Scalia was stuck in traffic this morning, Chief Justice John Roberts had to summarize two of Scalia’s opinions from the bench. Oops! [NPR]

* Speaking of Justice Scalia, the Supreme jurist managed to sneak in a citation to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in his opinion in Whitfield v. United States to show the common usage of the word “accompany.” [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* Remember Dennis Doyle, the lawyer who lost his job and dropped $25K to see every single Knicks game this season? He said this of his tragic endeavor: “I can’t shut it down. I’m in too deep. … I’ll see it through—if it doesn’t kill me first.” [Bleacher Report]

* An Idaho prosecutor is having regrets over the fact that he chose to issue an arrest warrant for a 9-year-old boy on gum-stealing charges, calling it “a mistake under the circumstances.” That kid must be the coolest on the playground. [ABA Journal]

* “Trying to suppress [the value of parody] with violence is a fool’s errand.” In the wake of the horror of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, it’s worth recognizing that here in the U.S., we owe much to rappers who have capitalized on free speech. [LinkedIn]

* This editorial must have been so much fun to write. Local newspaper tees off on petty local politician who threatened to sue them for using his name without his permission. Like, in a story about him. Welcome to First Amendment 101, dude. Professor Volokh has some fun commentary. [The Frederick News-Post]

* A new Congress gets down to business today, and they begin by proposing a solution to the biggest issue in America by floating a national abortion ban. Well, they have to talk about something now that Obama’s got the Dow around 18,000. [ThinkProgress]

* Not really legal, but Archer’s back. Holly Anderson talks to the executive producer about this season. [Grantland]

* Harold Hamm’s ex-wife rejected a $974 million check. I just want to know what purchase she wants to make that has her saying, “Eh, I’ve got to pass on that $974 million.” [The Oklahoman]

* Keeping politics out of King v. Burwell is like making a Fast & Furious movie without Vin Diesel. Sure you can do it, but it’s gonna suck. [The New Republic]

* What the future holds for “just-in-time” workers like Alex Rich. [Law and More]

* The minds behind the Notorious R.B.G. meme have a book deal! And it’s a Justice Ginsburg biography. Bring it on. [New York Magazine]

* David keeps on touring America talking about Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) — and also much, much more (including revelations about his personal life). This time it’s an interview with WHYY in Philly. [WHYY]

https://soundcloud.com/whyy-public-media/david-lats-supreme-ambitions-legal-blogs-and-the-supreme-court

* Governor Chris Christie was worried America didn’t realize he has no respect for his constituents and is a complete fake, so he’s publicly rooting for the Dallas Cowboys over any of the three teams real New Jersey residents root for. He’s also possibly violating ethics rules. [The Legal Blitz / ATL Redline]

* Screech is going to trial. [Associated Press / Yahoo! News]

* New dean at USC. Who is it? [USC Gould School of Law]

* As the Supreme Court stares down the barrel of some highly political cases, will Chief Justice Roberts live up to his promise of non-partisanship? [Chicago Sun-Times]

* Judge Richard Kopf reviews our own Mark Hermann’s book, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law (affiliate link). The verdict? It’s curmudgeon-y. [Hercules and the Umpire]

* David appeared on MSNBC’s The Docket today to discuss Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [MSNBC]

* The GOP is very, very against using the popular vote to elect a president which they characterize as an effort to “steal the presidency.” Seriously. [Concurring Opinions]