Discrimination
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.08.19
* Jones Day partner Don McGahn sued for failing to comply with House subpoena. [National Law Journal]
* Short seller argues that Burford is out of money in move that pits highly sophisticated calculated gamblers against highly sophisticated calculated gamblers. [American Lawyer]
* A reminder that the Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could allow employers to fire women for not acting feminine enough. [Vice]
* ICE deported a guy to Iraq who had never lived there, didn’t speak Arabic, and who subsequently died unable to secure insulin. [Slate]
* Biglaw is making the diversity officer role more senior and more powerful. [American Lawyer]
* MGM complaining that federal government gives tribes “monopoly” over casinos. That’s… that’s not how this works. [Courthouse News Service]
* National Review is arguing for “red flag laws” in an editorial that it will deny ever publishing once the GOP quietly kills this issue. [National Review]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 06.18.19
* A survey of what mental health initiatives look like across the legal industry. It may not be great, but it’s better than the mental health initiatives of a decade ago which amounted to, “we’re comping your dinner, quit your whining.” [Law.com]
* Porn star Ella Hughes (don’t worry, these links are safe for work) has completed her law degree — but not after having to face a lot of abuse from classmates. [Legal Cheek]
* Alex Jones is not having a great week — what with all the child porn and the threatening lawyers stuff. [The Wrap]
* Speaking of conspiracy theory-spinning talk show hosts, Brett Kavanaugh’s now quoting Dennis Prager in SCOTUS opinions. Cool cool. [Alternet]
* The Wendy Moore gender discrimination suit against Jones Day appears to be over. Until the next one. [The Recorder]
* Texas just killed a law that would have banned guns in airports because if you’re going to strap yourself into a tin can at 30K feet, you may as well feel sheer terror on the ground too. [Texas Tribune]
* Judge threatens Shearman with ethics charges. [Law360]
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Courts
Right-Wing Judicial Nominee Scuttled For 'Being An Actual Lawyer'
Understanding the law used to be a positive.
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 06.11.19
* Another attorney opts into the Jones Day sex discrimination suit. [Law360]
* Bill introduced to legalize sex work in New York. Eliot Spitzer wondering, “where were you when I needed you?” [NBC New York]
* Supreme Court balks at lawsuit seeking to expand constitutional protection for silencers. Remember, the only thing that can stop a bad guy performing an assassination in East Berlin is a good guy performing an assassination in East Berlin. [Reuters]
* John Dean stopped by Congress to give a history lesson since no one else is honoring their subpoenas. [Courthouse News Service]
* Pepper Hamilton more or less kept tight control of its investigation into the Baylor sexual assault case, but now it could face sanctions for potentially withholding records requested in a civil suit arising from the matter. [Texas Lawyer]
* Trump’s team takes its “legitimate legislative purpose” argument to the D.C. Circuit. Shouldn’t some wizened Republican be stepping up and putting a stop to this argument before Trump inadvertently guts the Congress that the party has worked so hard to gerrymander of any real authority? [National Law Journal]
* Student launches crowdfunding campaign to pay for legal education. But this is Britain so he only needs about $80K to go to Cambridge instead of $200K+ to go to a TTT. [Legal Cheek]
* The proposed extradition law that could allow China to nab people in Hong Kong could undermine foreign involvement in the semi-autonomous region. And that means a lot of big law firms. [CNN]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 06.10.19
* The end of the Supreme Court’s current term is drawing near, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says that dark times may be ahead in terms of “sharp divisions” for some of the “most watched cases” with decisions yet to be announced. Uh-oh… [Associated Press]
* Who is the real Attorney General Bill Barr? In this interesting profile, opinions vary wildly, with some calling him “closest thing [the Trump administration has] to Dick Cheney” and others referring to him as a “real danger.” [New York Times]
* George Conway of Wachtell, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, has once again taken to Twitter to call out President Trump: “You would have been fired from any other job by now.” [The Hill]
* Sedgwick wants its money back: After partners fled the firm prior to its demise, the bankruptcy estate is now hoping for $1.6 million clawback settlement to make things right. [Big Law Business]
* Even though the lead plaintiff has dropped out in favor of arbitration, tech giant Google can’t seem to shake the lawsuit claiming the company is biased against conservatives, men, white people. [Mercury News]
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 05.12.19
* With an economic hit on the horizon, it’s time to talk about “weak ties.” [Law and More]
* The makers of Guns ‘N’ Rosé beer must have an appetite for destruction because that feels like a trademark loss waiting to happen. [Lowering the Bar]
* Some more analysis of the ABA jobs data we’ve been talking about all week. [Tax Prof Blog]
* The liberal wing of the Supreme Court may not have the votes, but they’ve been taking more control of cases anyway. [Empirical SCOTUS]
* Speaking of the Supreme Court, will LGBTQ rights prevail? A compelling argument that a pair of conservative justices may well defect. [Workplace Prof Blog]
* Lawyers breaking down Avengers Endgame. We’ll go ahead and throw a spoilers warning on this, though one would have to be pretty dense not to have predicted that. [The Legal Geeks]
* Alyssa Milano’s sex strike is… dumb. [Law & Crime]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.30.19
* Rod Rosenstein is heading to the job market. I’m available to consult if Rod needs some résumé polishing tips. [National Law Journal]
* Legal employment numbers are up! That’s… not actually great news. [Law.com]
* If you were trying to draw up the most glaring gender bias suit, you’d probably pass on “female general counsel asked to serve the men cake” as too far-fetched and yet here we are. [Law360]
* If you’re looking for more insight into the Am Law 100 numbers, the folks you brought them to you will be having an in-depth discussion on the topic all day today. [American Lawyer]
* Trump’s suing to block congressional subpoenas of his banks because he really, really, doesn’t want people to know he’s not a billionaire. [Huffington Post]
* The Seventh Circuit says death by autoerotic asphyxiation isn’t accidental. In case, you know, you were planning something in Chicago. [Courthouse News Service]
* Tech giants are trying to gut California’s privacy law. [WIRED]
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Biglaw
Paul Weiss Launches Supreme Court Practice As Press Spotlight Returns To Partnership Diversity
The arrival of a partner of color refocuses the discussion on what firms need to do to address diversity. - Sponsored
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Law Schools
Law School Faces Transgender Discrimination Lawsuit
The law student who filed it claims she faced 'rampant discrimination' from classmates, staff members, professors, and even a dean. -
Legal Ethics
Did D.C. Bar Course Tell Attorneys It's Totally Cool To Discriminate If That's What The Client Wants?
Does ethics compel discrimination? No, probably not. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 12.11.18
* Supreme Court rules pose obstacles to crowdfunded amici briefs. The Court’s rules seek to limit influence purchased by shadowy, unknowable big donors. Let’s see how the Citizens United faithful react when this problem comes knocking on their door. [National Law Journal]
* Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers looking to get their client out on bail as she awaits extradition to the United States on charges of being a convenient pawn in Trump’s trade war. [NY Times]
* Ropes & Gray hammers the nails into USA Gymnastics’ well-deserved coffin. [American Lawyer]
* Litigation finance is still establishing credibility among in-house counsel. [Corporate Counsel]
* Vivia Chen interviews the four white men fighting affirmative action in colleges. [American Lawyer]
* Arizona now owes millions in fees over its ill-conceived political stunt to deny drivers licenses to Dreamers. [Arizona Capitol Times]
* You can secretly record government officials in Massachusetts now. Bill Belichick over here saying, “see, nobody complains when they do it.” [Mass Live]
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Biglaw
Probably Not How You Should Talk To Pregnant Associates: A Biglaw Play In Four Acts
What are they teaching associates these days? -
Labor / Employment, On The Job
Hair On Fire, Heart Attacks, And … A Female Santa Claus?
Are we to assume that Santa is 'authentic' and, therefore, a woman cannot be Santa?
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Biglaw
Biglaw Practice Leader Encourages Women To Tell Him If They Plan On Becoming Pregnant... For 'Budgetary Reasons'
Random discrimination against women in a large meeting is so 2018. -
Women's Issues
Water Is Wet, The Sky Is Blue, And Women And Minorities Continue To Face Bias In The Legal Profession
This bias and discrimination against women and minorities in our profession has to end. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 07.03.18
* Michael Cohen’s lawyers are doubling down on their effort to get a gag order against Michael Avenatti. Meanwhile, Cohen gave an interview to Good Morning America, an irony not lost on Avenatti. [Courthouse News Service]
* After the Supreme Court gutted public sector unions, the cheerleaders of Alito’s judicial activism may end up getting more than they bargained for. Some believe that, stripped of funds to negotiate a contract at the table, unions may increasingly jump right to the picket line. [National Law Journal]
* The sad tale of Stan Lee’s finances apparently has folks lawyering up. [USA Today]
* Jones Day’s gender discrimination suit puts a new spotlight on its notorious black box compensation model. Will the firm come clean about how it pays people, or will it be dragged into discovery? [American Lawyer]
* The top appellate attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an entity devoted to whittling down the rights of consumers to pursue meaningful legal action against businesses, has left the group to join a plaintiffs’ side firm. Ahahahahahahahaha. [National Law Journal]
* Michigan State is fighting hard to keep the advice of its in-house attorneys privileged. The state has some concern that potential criminal activity could’ve been shielded by having a lawyer in the room, which given the scope of the cover-up revealed so far is not entirely unreasonable. [Corporate Counsel]
* We’ve given the NLJ 500 a lot of flack over the years, but the ranking does give us insight into which markets are in growth mode. This year, that’s Portland, Oregon. Tell that to Perkins Coie. [Law.com]
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Law Schools
Law School Settles With Female Law Professors For $2.6 Million
Dismissing claims of gender discrimination has cost this school big time. -
Law Schools
It Ain’t Random If It Happens 50 Percent Of The Time, TSA
Why is this law professor being continuously profiled and screened at the airport? -
Litigators
Should Employers Be Allowed To Discriminate Over Hair?
New group seeks to change discrimination laws to protect hair status. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.28.18
* Is the Supreme Court about to take a right turn? With lengthy delays in issuing opinions and apparent infighting that’s leaked onto the bench during oral arguments, pundits think that the high court may soon become as “politically fractured as the rest of Washington.” [CNN]
* Speaking of SCOTUS, the justices spent an hour debating whether they should abandon the longstanding rule in Marks, which guides whose holding controls when the decision is split. [National Law Journal]
* New York, California, and several other states will sue to prevent the U.S. government from asking about citizenship status in the 2020 census whether people are citizens, contending that such a question could stop immigrants from participating and skew the makeup of Congress. [Reuters]
* Uber will pay $10 million to settle a discrimination class-action that was brought on behalf of hundreds of women and minority software engineers. [The Recorder]
* Remember the little boy who was decapitated while riding the world’s tallest water slide in 2016? The co-owner of the waterpark where it happened was arrested earlier this week and charged with second-degree murder. [New York Times]