Elena Kagan

Because what are the "freedoms" and "liberties" he rails about if not the right of government officials to tell people how to manage their love lives.

* More concrete rumors are swirling that President Obama will teach at Columbia Law School once his term is up, with Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger seemingly confirming Obama would have some role at the school in 2017. [Quartz]

* We told you Amal Clooney just lost a big case, but did the AP lose even more when they tweeted about the case referring to the human rights lawyer as an “actor’s wife”? [Legal Cheek]

* Everyone knows the legal profession has a… problem when it comes to substance abuse. But do lawyers overshare their issues? Or does an open attitude about these problems create a culture where more are willing to seek help? [Law and More]

* Yes, that clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, is still refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Maybe we should blame her lawyers. [Slate]

* If you want to be the best, learn from the best — writing tips from none other than Justice Kagan. [Business Insider]

* Some tough words for lawyers that want the easy life: you shouldn’t get the clients. [It’s Not About The Lawyers, Teacups]

* How do we go about changing the public defense system, which serves ~80% of all defendants? [Fulling the Promise]

* “When it’s convenient, we’re alumni; when it’s not convenient, we are not alumni.” Grads of Texas Wesleyan Law — which is now known as Texas A&M Law — are suing because the school won’t grant them new degrees or recognize them as alumni. Harsh, y’all. [Houston Chronicle]

* The ABA Journal wants to know who you think the smartest judge in the U.S. is. Let’s hear it for the wonderful women of the Supreme Court: Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. [ABA Journal]

* Now that same-sex marriage is legal across the country, it only seems logical that bans on adoptions by same-sex couples should be overturned. Mississippi will have Roberta Kaplan of Windsor fame to thank when its ban is struck down. [New York Times]

* Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane has claimed innocence with regard to the criminal charges she recently racked up. She blames the entire ordeal on blowback from the state’s “Porngate” scandal. AG Kane has got one hell of a moneyshot. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Did you know that there’s such a thing as barbecue law? Further, did you know that a Biglaw attorney who serves as counsel at Norton Rose Fulbright who’s never handled a barbecue case has cornered the market on BBQ law books (affiliate link)? [Legal Times]

Federal judge lays into state judge for completely blowing off jury summons... and then hiring a hyper-aggressive lawyer to threaten the Chief Judge.

Summer is here, so Legal Eagle Wedding Watch is back in full force!

Bookmark this post because now you know the proper Bluebooking for a comic book.

Whom would you cast to play our current Supreme Court justices? Arts columnist Harry Graff makes his nominations.

* You down with R.B.G.? Yeah, you know me! Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wants SCOTUS Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan to be impeached for having performed same-sex marriage ceremonies. Haters gonna hate. [Huffington Post]

* Here’s a jury duty chart of those you’ll be forced to sit next to, from the “idiot who treats the Jury Foreman selection like a presidential campaign” to the “elderly woman who compares everything to an episode of ‘Matlock’ she once saw.” [Mandatory]

* It turns out that the state trooper who failed to do anything about Josh Duggar’s criminal sexual activity with a minor and allowed the statute of limitations to run had a penchant for child porn. According to court records, this guy is… pretty damn disgusting. [Jezebel]

* “May I please have some of that money you’ve got under the counter there, miss?” Are you really robbing a bank if you acted like a Boy Scout, asked nicely for money, and then received it — to the tune of $28,000? Kevin Underhill doesn’t think so. [Lowering the Bar]

* If you’ve never seen a Dealbreaker dramatic reading before, then here’s your sneak peek. Watch “the greatest intern Wall Street has ever seen” invite everyone and their mother to a party via company email, and then fail in the most epic sense of the word. [Dealbreaker]

This profile makes the case for Elena Kagan to be your new favorite Justice. (Don’t worry RBG, you’ll always be first in Staci’s heart.) [American Prospect]

* The lateral partner wheel of fortune has taken another spin; Cozen O’Conner has added 8 lawyers from Dickstein Shapiro’s state Attorneys General practice group, that’s almost the entirety of the group. [National Law Journal]

* Speaking of lateral partner moves, are they worth it when clients get fed up with the disruption and potential conflicts that these moves cause? [Law360]

* After the scathing DOJ report detailing injustice, the City of Ferguson needs some quality lawyering. They got it in Winston & Strawn chairperson, Dan Webb, but it won’t come cheap. [American Lawyer]

* After egregious discovery delays caused a district judge to enter a default judgment as to liability against the defendant, a French drone maker, a jury awarded $7.8 million in damages in a patent infringement case. [Legal Intelligencer]

* Loretta Lynch makes her first official trip as Attorney General, to Baltimore to meet with community leaders, police, and the family of Freddie Gray. [NPR]

Which law firms are on a roll when it comes to producing SCOTUS clerks?

Custom LEGOs of the women who've served on the Supreme Court are awesome and we want them.

Check out Justice Kagan's colorful quotation in the "is a fish a tangible object" case just decided by the Supreme Court.

* Lindsay Lohan and her mom are suing Fox News with claims the TV network defamed them by saying “Lindsay Lohan’s mom is doing cocaine with her.” Legal experts are of the opinion the Lohans must be doing lines if they think they’ll win. [U.S. News & World Report]

* A prospective juror in the Colorado movie theater massacre case was released after telling a judge she brought her unvaccinated grandchild to court and ripping her hair out. Well, that’s one way to get out of jury duty. [Aurora Sentinel]

* Justice Elena Kagan says that if she hadn’t left her Harvard Law deanship to become solicitor general, she “[doesn’t] think [she] would be doing law, quite honestly.” The Supreme jurist says that “[i]t shows you how weird life can be.” [Supreme Court Brief]

* Lawyers in New York are worried that if the state adopts the Uniform Bar Exam, the “gold standard” of having passed the tougher version of the New York exam will be devalued. Aww, sorry about your butthurt. Get well soon. [New York Law Journal]

* Fresh off an 18-month tour of racking up insider trading convictions as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Richard Tarlowe will join Paul Weiss to focus on white-collar criminal defense. Best of luck. [DealBook / New York Times]

* You know that televised Supreme Court oral arguments are a technological advance that is far away from happening when even Elena Kagan, the youngest justice on the high court, is “very conflicted” about the idea. [Legal Times]

* “Legal jujitsu. Lethal jujitsu.” Meet William “Hale” Kelly. He’s a second-year law student at Florida A&M by day, and an MMA fighter by night (i.e., he was punched in the head so many times he thought law school was a good idea). [Orlando Sentinel]

* For the fourth year in a row, Skadden snagged the top spot in the Acritas Biglaw brand index. The firm’s competition — Jones Day, Baker & McKenzie, Kirkland & Ellis, and DLA Piper — is getting closer to overthrowing the ranking’s leader. [Am Law Daily]

* Justice in the United States costs a pretty penny, and it’s obvious from the Department of Justice’s proposed 2016 budget of $28.7 billion. It’s too bad the White House set the DOJ’s budget at about $13.7 billion lower than that. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “At none of these top law schools do Black enrollments reach 9 percent.” Diversity may be lacking at some of the nation’s top law schools, but minority students who are interested in law may find welcoming homes at lower-ranked schools. [U.S. News]

* At the annual Association of American Law Schools meeting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg handed out a delightful piece of marriage advice that she sometimes uses when dealing with her colleagues on the Supreme Court: “It helps to sometimes be a little deaf.” [National Law Journal]

* Thomas Gilbert Jr., the man accused of killing his father — who just so happened to be the founder of the Wainscott Capital hedge fund — allegedly shot him to death over a $200 cut in his monthly allowance. This is why rich people can’t have nicer things. [New York Post]

* Litigants on both sides of a First Amendment issue headed to SCOTUS are using a law review article penned by none other than Justice Elena Kagan in an attempt to influence all of the justices. See, people do read law review articles. [New York Times]

* Musical chairs, dean-poaching edition: Fordham Law just named Matthew Diller as its new dean, but he’s still going to remain as dean at Cardozo until the end of the year. Let’s see how he tackles the school’s enrollment decline. [New York Law Journal]

* Per a study conducted by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, law school graduates who participated in a practice-ready program fared better as attorneys than those who did not. Whoa, nice going. [WSJ Law Blog]

Be vewwy vewwy quiet… We’re hunting for owiginal intent!

What happens when Supreme Court justices exercise their Second Amendment rights?

Quack, quack, quack!

* White & Case just named its youngest partner ever — in fact, he’s the youngest partner out of every international Biglaw firm in London. Joshua Siaw is just 30 years old, and he’ll be rolling around in money with the best of them. [Forbes]

* OMG, you guys, due to precipitous drops in applications, it’s a buyers market out there for law students, and the New York Times is ON IT! Thanks for shedding light on this new info no one’s heard about before. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Quack quack: Justices Antonin Scalia and Elena Kagan are heading to the Mississippi delta to exercise their Second Amendment rights and go duck hunting. They’ll also be making a stop at Ole Miss Law to discuss constitutional issues. [National Law Journal]

* Concordia School of Law will not be accredited by the American Bar Association before its first class graduates, meaning that no one in the class of 2015 will be able to take the bar exam this summer. Gah, what a gigantic waste of money. [KIVI FOX9]

* If you go to law school, you may be able to start a career in government when you graduate. You can look forward to all sorts of exciting experiences, from a smaller paycheck than your classmates to no paycheck at all. [U.S. News & World Report]

After a little hiatus, Legal Eagle Wedding Watch is back -- with a vengeance....