Consumer Protection
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California
California AG’s Legal Battle With Ashford University Rages On
The attorneys for both sides recently told a San Diego judge a lot of litigation remains. -
Finance
Comcast Is Basically Just A Lawsuit Factory At This Point
Maybe Comcast ripping you off is the great uniting force we all need in 2019. - Sponsored
Are Small Firms Going Big On Legal Tech?
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 10.25.17
* Fresh off his six-month stint as White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus will be returning to Am Law 200 firm Michael Best and Friedrich, where he’ll serve as president and chief strategist. He’ll lead the firm’s government affairs practice group, and he plans to help clients with their Trump problems. Best of luck, those clients might need it. [POLITICO]
* Sorry, consumers, but the Senate had to call in VP Mike Pence in the middle of the night to kill the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule banning mandatory arbitration clauses in credit card and checking account agreements. Damn all those “frivolous lawsuits by special interest trial lawyers”! [The Two-Way / NPR]
* Author John Grisham was inspired to write his latest novel, The Rooster Bar (affiliate link), after reading an article in The Atlantic by Paul Campos about for-profit law schools and the student loan crisis. Well, at least someone is going to make some money after learning about a for-profit law school. [CBS News]
* Biglaw firms are trying to reduce the amount of their leased square footage. According to the CBRE Group, on average between the first quarter of 2016 and the second quarter of 2017, firms in 26 markets were able to shrink their office space by about 27 percent. But did their headcount shrink along with it? [Wall Street Journal]
* Major lateral hire alert: Paul Basta left Kirkland & Ellis this summer, and now he’s landed at Paul Weiss, where he’ll be working as the co-chair of the firm’s corporate restructuring practice. Alan Kornberg, the practice group’s current chair, called Basta’s arrival at the firm “sort of a dream come true in a way.” [Big Law Business]
* According to a study conducted by Professor Carlos Berdejó of Loyola Law School, prosecutors tend to give white defendants better plea deals than black defendants. We needed a study to confirm that some prosecutors discriminate based on race? [Slate]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 09.07.16
* Bill Cosby will face trial in June for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania woman, and now his lawyers claim her attorney, Gloria Allred, trampled upon his civil rights in a “campaign … buil[t] on racial bias and prejudice that can pollute the court of public opinion.” [NBC News]
* As we mentioned yesterday, Peter Kalis — the man who’s served as chair of K&L Gates for about two decades — will not seek re-election to his post, and everyone is wondering who will succeed him. According to a recently departed partner, “[t]hey don’t have enough groomed for top-level management.” Uh oh! We’ll have more on this. [Law.com]
* Yet another Biglaw firm is losing a longtime managing partner. Mark Silow of Fox Rothschild will step down from his position in April 2017, after 13 years in leadership. He’ll be replaced by Mark Morris as managing partner, but will transition to becoming the firm’s chair, retaining a seat on its executive committee. [Big Law Business]
* Sullivan & Cromwell is stepping up its digital security practice with a major hire. Earlier this week, the firm announced that Nicole Friedlander, who previously worked as co-chief of the complex frauds and online crime unit for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, would join the firm as special counsel. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Not only is New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman breathing antitrust accusations down EpiPen-maker Mylan Pharmaceutical’s neck, but now a proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company with allegations that its “unconscionable … price gouging” violated Ohio’s consumer protection laws. [Reuters]
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American Bar Association / ABA, Law Schools
The Fall Of Systemic Deception At Law Schools
We long ago declared victory for law school transparency. Here's why. -
Airplanes / Aviation, Bar Exams, Clerkships, Department of Justice, Divorce Train Wrecks, Job Searches, Law Schools, Mergers and Acquisitions, Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 08.13.13
* The DOJ and a number of state attorneys general are suing to block the merger of American Airlines and US Airways. American and US Airways weren’t phased because they expected lengthy delays. [Courthouse News Service] * Following up on yesterday’s tale of divorcing law professors — which may as well have been Jarndyce v. Jarndyce — here’s a post collecting some other entertaining divorce battles. [Lowering the Bar] * The Consumer Product Safety Commission is going after a CEO individually. Craig Zucker, the CEO of the company that makes the office toy BuckyBalls, has really gotten under the CPSC’s skin in resisting their efforts to get BuckyBalls off the market. First they came for the BuckyBalls and I said nothing, then they came for the drinking bird and there was no one left to speak for it. [Overlawyered] * Here’s a look at law school applications for top schools charted over time. Spoiler alert: if these schools are playing a Ponzi scheme, they’re failing. [Associate's Mind] * More Americans fled overseas to avoid taxes this year. If we make it so the traitorous ninnies can’t come back, this sounds awesome. [Wall Street Journal] * Judicial Clerk Review asks how Shon Hopwood disclosed that whole “convicted bank robber” thing in his application. [Judicial Clerk Review] * Professor Robert Anderson has a new bar passage calculator. Take it for a spin to figure out whether or you much you should be freaking out. [Witnesseth] * Is this the worst job listing ever? Perhaps not. Definitely the most honest in being a bad job listing though. Check it out after the jump (click to enlarge), via the University of Houston Law Center… -
Biglaw, California, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Facebook, Football, Law Professors, Law Schools, Money, Morning Docket, Prostitution, Reality TV, Social Networking Websites, Television, Trials
Morning Docket: 06.13.12
* Dewey even care if we spent money like it was going out of print? A new D&L bankruptcy court filing states that the failed firm used $43M of secured lenders’ funds in less than a month in an attempt to save the ship from sinking. [Bloomberg]
* The Jerry Sandusky trial continues: Mike McQueary’s testimony in the former football coach’s case was pretty disgusting, but then again, most things are going to be pretty disgusting when you’re dealing with an alleged child predator. [Daily Item]
* A few ways you can tell this isn’t England: 1) our dental hygiene is generally better; 2) our royalty is entirely made up of reality TV stars; and 3) you still can’t serve people via social networking sites like Facebook. [paidContent]
* Foul ball(s)! Remember Clark Calvin Griffith, the former William Mitchell adjunct sports law professor who was accused of unsportsmanlike penile conduct? He pleaded guilty to indecent exposure. [Pioneer Press]
* “Do I have to read the whole settlement?” Yup! UC Irvine Law’s consumer protection clinic will work to see if banks are keeping their end of the bargain in a $25B foreclosure-abuse settlement. [Los Angeles Times]
* Anna Gristina, the accused “Millionaire Madam,” claims in a motion to dismiss that police tried to make her name her johns, one of whom is apparently “a prominent Manhattan lawyer.” But which one? [New York Post]
* CBS claims that ABC’s “Glass House” is a rip off of “Big Brother,” and the network is trying to block the show from airing. OMG, please let it air so we can see this law school dropout in action. [Celebrity Justice / FindLaw]