Class Actions

  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 05.28.15

    * Nebraska banned the death penalty. Does this signal a new conservative opposition to the practice? Well, is there a way this can make private prison lobbyists more money? Because then, yes. [FiveThirtyEight]

    * The best way to sway a Supreme Court justice? Represent clients that the justices have financial stakes in. [Fix the Court]

    * Pharmaceutical companies are peeved that lawyers are using Facebook to identify class action plaintiffs. Why aren’t people content to suffer grievous injury for the sake of profits anymore? [Bloomberg Business]

    * Now you can know for sure if your job will be replaced by a robot. Good news, lawyers! Unfortunately, I don’t think this thing’s taking into account document reviewers. [Postgrad Problems]

    * Jawbone is accusing Fitbit of poaching workers to steal its technology. Ten points to the tipster for the line: “Think this will all work out?” [Slate]

    * Two Biglaw partners from rival firms have joined forces on a new challenge Native American adoption rules. It helps that they’re married to each other. [National Law Journal]

    * An interesting perspective: “innovation” is more than technology, and it starts with debt relief. [Rawr]

    * A former state senate candidate charged with witness tampering. At least he’s got experience with the system — his dad’s political career ended in a hail of guilty pleas too. [Nashoba Publishing]

    * Brace yourselves for a shocker, but Biglaw is failing women. [The American Lawyer]

    * David Gans on the upcoming “one person, one vote” claim. The proposition at issue, that representation is based on “voters” not “persons,” is so laughably unconstitutional the Court is clearly just trolling us at this point. I mean, putting aside the horrible racism, isn’t the 3/5ths compromise pretty compelling evidence that the Founders meant to count people who didn’t vote? [Constitutional Accountability Center]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.06.15

    * “It’s unconscionable, and I believe they have breached the fiduciary duty to the law school, to the students and to the public.” Appalachian Law is struggling, and some believe its trustees are preventing the school from saving itself. Will this be the first school to fold? [Inside Higher Ed]

    * “We were all running this ATM machine called big law firms.” Before 2008, it was easier for large law firms to make money, but now, there’s an “insurmountable gap” in revenue between the industry’s heavy hitters and the rest of the pack. [Wall Street Journal]

    * You’ll pry their job security from their cold, dead hands: William Mitchell Law professors know that layoffs may be coming thanks to the school’s planned merger with Hamline Law, and have filed suit to protect the Tenure Code. [Minnesota Public Radio News]

    * Bonus season isn’t the only thing that Davis Polk has cornered the market on. According to the latest Bloomberg M&A rankings, the firm came out on top during the first quarter of 2015 when it came to advising on major deals. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * “Whatever happened to The New York Times’ fact-checker?” Here’s yet another harsh critique of Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon’s cringeworthy defense of law schools, and this time it’s from a fellow law professor. Ouch. [The Belly of the Beast via Am Law Daily]

    * Jay Edelson of Edelson PC may be the “most hated person in Silicon Valley,” but he probably doesn’t care about being Liked — after all, he recently filed suit against Facebook over the social networking company’s face recognition software. [New York Times]

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