Florida

* Led Zeppelin doesn’t want drug or alcohol evidence coming into the upcoming “Stairway to Heaven” suit. Good luck… it’s not possible to talk about that song without drugs. [National Law Journal]

* A lot of small and solo lawyers are shy about big bills. They shouldn’t be. [Business of Law Blog / LexisNexis]

* “10 Supreme Court Novels to Get Your Mind Off the Nomination Battle.” Great, now we’ve got to wait until Senator Grassley gets through all of these before he sets up a hearing. [ABA Journal]

* Speaking of Judge Garland, Fix the Court sees this nomination as an opportunity to generate some momentum around the concept of Supreme Court term limits. [Fix the Court]

* Apparently the key to getting good grades from narcissistic professors is to be a narcissist yourself. That seems odd because you’d expect narcissists to chafe at someone striving to steal the spotlight but “game recognize game,” I guess. [TaxProf Blog]

* Remember when we said that the Florida bar exam results were bad? They were really bad. [Bar Exam Stats]

* A Rutgers Law professor is in hot water over allegedly mishandled funds. [Legal Profession Blog]

* BarBri Law Preview has a $10k scholarship for a lucky 1L this coming year. If you want it to be you (or someone you know), then act fast because the deadline is Friday. [BarBri Law Preview]

February results are never pretty, but only one of these schools really hit it out of the park.

Three legal superstars agree to end their legal battle.

The fight over $75 with a country club goes to court.

* “Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime.” New York Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich dismissed part of singer Kesha’s claims against producer Dr. Luke because the pop star’s allegations of rape and abuse were time barred and happened outside the state. Tick tock on the clock for a similar suit she filed in California. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has scheduled an appointment to meet with Judge Merrick Garland for breakfast next Tuesday, despite his opposition to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. Senator Grassley’s courteous refusal to perform his job presumably pairs well with eggs and bacon. [Quad-City Times]

* The Department of Justice has filed suit against Halliburton and Baker Hughes, seeking to block the oil-field services companies’ pending merger. According to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, completion of the deal would “eliminate vital competition, skew energy markets, and harm American consumers.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* Panama papers law firm Mossack Fonseca seems to have pulled off the perfect magic trick. Shortly after the firm’s exploits in hiding client assets in offshore accounts were revealed via hack, its U.S. operations all but disappeared. The firm’s website has now been scrubbed completely clean of any connection to its Miami office. [USA Today]

* Bart Williams, a top partner at Munger Tolles — a firm that’s been likened to the Wachtell of the West — will be leaving the place where he’s called home for 21 years to become the co-chair of Proskauer Rose’s Los Angeles litigation department. This is a real coup for Proskauer, since partners rarely leave Munger. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

Waiting and watching until the new Amendment 2 passes is fine, but, if you’re really serious about getting out ahead, you can do a lot right now in order to prepare yourself.

* Kimberly Kitchen, the woman who was parading around and pretending to be a lawyer for a decade before she was caught in the act, was recently convicted of forgery, unauthorized practice of law, and felony records tampering. On the bright side, at least she doesn’t have six figures worth of law school debt to worry about right now. [WSJ Law Blog]

* President Obama published an op-ed in praise of SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland on AL.com, pleading with Alabamians to let their senators know that it’s their duty to give Scalia’s would-be replacement a hearing and a vote, lest we “jeopardize our system of justice, hurt our democracy, and betray the vision of our founding.” [AL.com]

* Who is the real Merrick Garland? Not only does he have a “résumé that makes you want to cry,” but he’s also a pretty endearing gent. He used to want to be a doctor, he loves singing show tunes, and he was once so nervous when officiating a wedding that he began the ceremony before the bride even walked down the aisle. [New York Times]

* “We are heartened by this development and look forward to the Committee making this request directly … as is standard practice.” Republicans may be willing to accept Merrick Garland’s nominee questionnaire, but the White House has yet to receive one from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley or Senator Patrick Leahy. [BuzzFeed]

* Judge Pamela A.M. Campbell, who presided over Hulk Hogan v. Gawker, has had more decisions reversed on appeal than any other judge in her county, but “a judge who’s not afraid to make a decision and a not afraid to be reversed, is quite naturally going to be reversed more, and that doesn’t mean the judge is not a good judge.” [Tampa Bay Times]

* A judge has ruled that Ropes & Gray, the firm that once represented ex-New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez, must turn over the murder convict’s cellphone to his new attorneys so they can analyze it for his defense in the double murder case he’s being prosecuted for by the Suffolk County DA’s Office in Massachusetts. [Boston Herald]

* Within North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ bill, they also eliminated the wrongful discharge cause of action for discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics. This just gets better and better. [Lexology]

* Kansas senator Jerry Moran is the latest Republican saying that Merrick Garland deserves a hearing on his nomination. Given his strong conservative credentials, this is a real victory for the Dem’s messaging. [Huffington Post]

* Some advice for lawyers looking to end the cycle of addiction. [Law and More]

* Hey! There’s good news out of Florida! Governor Rick Scott signed into law a bill to test the backlog of rape kits. [Slate]

* If you want to talk about traditions, then you should support a hearing on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. [Trib Talk]

* On conquering anxiety. [Forbes]

* The video you didn’t even know you needed. RuPaul’s Drag Race takes on the Supreme Court. [YouTube]

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

* Just because you showed up drunk for jury duty, it doesn’t mean you should have to go to jail for it — at least according to the Florida Supreme Court. [Daily Business Review]

* George Will on why Republicans may wind up wishing they’d confirmed Chief Judge Merrick Garland when they had the chance. [Washington Post]

* Amal Clooney, speaking at a government communications summit in the United Arab Emirates, urges governments to be vocal, consistent, principled, expedient, and transparent when dealing with human rights issues. [Yahoo News]

* High academic achievement now linked to… failure in the workplace? Well, that’s simultaneously depressing and comforting. [Law and More]

* A former U.S. State Department employee faces up to 8 years in jail for a massive phishing scheme aimed at getting young women to share nude photos. [CS Monitor]

* Check out The Merrick Garland Project by NYU Law Review. It’s a curation of select opinions written by Chief Judge Garland, organized by topic. [The Merrick Garland Project]

* The obstructed Supreme Court nomination process gets a children’s book treatment. [Slate]

* NYU Law’s Ricky Revesz writes about the tragic flaw in the Clean Air Act and its deadly consequences. [Not Your Grandfather’s Coal Plant]

* Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley said some incredibly offensive sh*t in college that she now says she’s grown out of. [Gawker]

* Way harsh: Florida paper refuses to endorse any Republican for president saying, “[T]he kind of person who should be running is not in the race.” [Sun-Sentinel]

* Some concrete suggestions to improve the transparency of courts. The article is geared towards Maryland’s court system, but is a useful read for anyone who cares about justice. [Baltimore Sun]

* Justice Scalia’s death is the end of the conservative era of the Supreme Court. [Slate]

* A putative class action has been filed over the water crisis in Flint. You can’t say that was unexpected. [The Hill]

To say this guy's gotten a crash course in the criminal justice system is an understatement.

Florida tries to help kids grow up. They shouldn't try.

A Florida lawyer faces charges that he systematically forged the signatures of judges on court orders.

* After being called to court by the judge on his bankruptcy case for flaunting cash on Instagram, 50 Cent posted a photo of himself in a room filled with money. When reached for comment, the allegedly bankrupt rapper had this to say: “I don’t know what you heard about me, but this judge will write a benchslap about me.” [New York Daily News]

* Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have said that they will refuse to hold any hearings on a Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia until the next President is sworn in on January 20, 2017. In fact, they won’t even give President Obama’s future appointee the courtesy of a meeting. Lovely. [WSJ Law Blog; New York Times]

* According to a letter from Justice Scalia’s doctor, the late jurist suffered from a number of ailments that could have contributed to his sudden death, like coronary artery disease, obesity, and diabetes, just to name a few. Coupled with the fact that he was a smoker, all of his conditions were “quite dangerous.” Rest in peace, Your Honor. [Associated Press]

* “If you look at the women-of-color research, the numbers are abysmal.” Minority women are disappearing from Biglaw firms, and research has shown that it may be due to the fact that they receive less compensation than men and white women, they’re denied access to assignments, and they receive fewer promotions. [ABA Journal]

* Good riddance to bad rubbish: Robert Hosch Jr., the founder and former managing partner of Butler & Hosch — the large, Florida-based firm that seemingly collapsed overnight, leaving hundreds of legal professionals jobless and 60,000 foreclosure cases in limbo — has surrendered his license to practice law in Florida. [Orlando Sentinel]

* Demand for corporate work may be down, but that’s not stopping senior Biglaw partners from ramping up their hourly billing rates. Partners at some firms have rates that exceed $1,400 per hour. They’re not making it rain, they’re making it monsoon! [WSJ Law Blog]

* No law license, no pretty huge problem: Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s license to practice law is still suspended, so the state Senate has scheduled a historic vote for her removal. For her part, Kane, of course, thinks this is “unwarranted and unconstitutional.” [PennLive.com]

* Herbert Sudfeld Jr., an ex-partner at Fox Rothschild, was convicted of insider trading. He’d apparently eavesdropped on discussions related to a firm merger client and purchased stock based on what he’d overheard. [Legal Intelligencer via ABA Journal]

* Washington & Lee Law settled a suit filed by a former student who claimed he was dismissed as a result of a campus judicial proceeding because he was accused in a sexual assault case. The terms of the deal won’t be disclosed. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

* When your firm’s founding partners have been disciplined by the state Supreme Court a few times too many, you should probably hurry up and change the firm’s name to something kooky like LawyerASAP to distract your existing clients. [Orlando Sentinel]

The hype that surrounded Amendment 2 feels like it has waned, but can we expect the same political and legal tumult that faced Amendment 2 the first time around?

Allegations of jailhouse sex shenanigans earn a lawyer some unwelcome attention.

* If you were a Biglaw partner at a troubled firm who managed to escape before the sh*t really hit the fan, and you now feel bad for those you left behind, don’t worry. We know you might not be familiar with emotions, but “[i]t’s a legitimate human feeling.” [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Just when you thought Ted Cruz was eligible to run for president, some renowned legal scholars have crawled out of the woodwork to state the complete opposite — and some have even published law review articles about it. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Those contract attorneys who sued for overtime pay at their doc review jobs made an impact, but it might not have been the kind they were hoping for. Many law firms and staffing agencies have stopped offering overtime work at all. [New York Law Journal]

* Florida’s death row inmates are stuck in legal limbo now that SCOTUS invalidated the state’s capital punishment sentencing regime as unconstitutional. Maybe the state where people go to die should consider repealing its death penalty altogether. [Reuters]

* Oh my God (but not his): An atheist lawyer is suing to remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from all U.S. currency because he says it violates the separation between church and state. He’s filed God-related lawsuits in the past, and lost them all. [Cleveland.com]

Here's another constitutional argument against the death penalty.

Which office will be closing, and will there be any layoffs?