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Why do Americans grieving for Paris have such a hard time caring about victims in other countries?

* “[F]irms have increasingly turned to mergers in hopes that rubbing two coins together might create a third.” Per the chairman of Seyfarth Shaw, Biglaw firms that are facing stagnant growth must change ASAP or suffer the consequences. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Given the recent terror attacks in Paris, many U.S. governors have threatened to stop accepting Syrian refugees within their states’ borders — whether they have the legal authority to actually refuse them, however, is another question entirely. [ABC News]

* The Department of Homeland Security will publish rules governing privacy protections concerning the use of drones. The world can’t wait to see the “best practices” the government recommends for spying on citizens without a warrant. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Mississippi College School of Law has decided to freeze its tuition for students entering in the fall of 2016. Incoming students will get to pay the low, low price of $32,040 (seriously, that’s low for tuition at a private school) for all three years. [National Jurist]

* If you want to put together a compelling admissions package when applying to law school, then during your college summers, you should work at a law-related internship instead of drinking all day and having fun. Sorry! [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

His firm describes the 26-year-old victim as "a talented lawyer, extremely well liked, and a wonderful personality in the office."

* If you’re having girl problems, he feels bad for you son, he’s got 99 problems, but an aggravated pimping charge ain’t one. Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was acquitted on his latest sex scandal charges by a French court. [Bloomberg Business]

* “Justice may be blind, but she still sees it our way 88.4% of the time.” Humblebrag? Quinn Emanuel may kick ass at winning trials, but its percentage of “wins” advertised on airport signage has gone down by 3.9% since 2008. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Which Biglaw firms had the greatest percent changes in headcount in the first half of 2015? With a 29.2 percent drop, McKenna Long & Aldridge is leaking lawyers like a sieve. Irella is in second place, with attorney headcount down by 22.8 percent. [Am Law Daily]

* Say hello to the National Cannabis Bar Association, an organization that’ll help you get some higher education as you navigate through the haze of marijuana laws. If you want to learn more, then come to our marijuana law event next week in Denver. [ABA Journal]

* If you’d like to strengthen your law school application, then you may want to consider getting to know some current professors and alumni from the school of your choice. That way, you can suck up while you’re sucking up. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* The Biglaw firm that Chris Christie hired to investigate Chris Christie and the Bridgegate scandal has concluded that Chris Christie did nothing wrong. Phew, Chris Christie couldn’t haven seen that one coming. [BuzzFeed] * If you were an attorney on the D.C. Circuit case where counsel received an unexpected benchslap for their use of excessive acronyms, would you have said OMG WTF, or LOL NBD? Choose wisely, unless you DGAF. [Legal Writing Pro] * BTW, the D.C. Circuit doesn’t so much forbid the use of uncommon acronyms so much as it requires that a glossary be used to define them. Too bad iPads have killed glossaries. [Maryland Appellate Blog] * An American failed chef in Paris: One of Lat’s friends from back in the day when he was at Wachtell took a very circuitous route to becoming the first American partner at a top French firm. [The Deal Pipeline] * If you care at all about how well women and minority law students are represented on law reviews, then you’ll want to come to this important event. I’ll be there, and hope to see you there, too! [Ms. JD] * It’s getting hot in herre, but please keep on your clothes. Students from Penn Law REALLY want you to know about this weekend’s boxing event. Nelly will be at the after party. [Wharton vs. Law: Fight Night]

* Watch out, Biglaw, the tax man is coming for you. If this bill goes through, it could put a hurting on partners’ pocketbooks at law firms with more than $10 million in gross receipts. [Blog of Legal Times]

* International firms are just discovering Africa, and are moving quickly to set up shops there. Before opening up your firm, take a quick lesson from DLA Piper: Africa is a continent, not a country. [Am Law Daily]

* Juan Monteverde, one of our Lawyer of the Year nominees, received a very public spanking from Chancellor Leo Strine of the Delaware Court of Chancery over outsized attorneys’ fees in a “dubious” shareholder suit. Ouch, that’s really gotta sting. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Oh mon dieu, BU Law set up an exchange program between a law school and a foreign management school. Students might not get jobs out of it, but at least they’ll get to go to Paris. [National Law Journal]

* Politico has put together a fun little list of the ten journalists to watch in 2014, and a few lawyers made the cut, including Glenn Greenwald, Ronan Farrow, and Megyn Kelly. Congratulations, everyone! [Politico]

* This IRS scandal is really like a Republican’s wet dream. Obama needs to start firing people. [Washington Post] * The Department of Justice also looks pretty shady. See, it’s not the “size” of government we should worry about. It’s the power of government that leads to problems. Obama needs to start firing people! [Associated […]

* Oh mon dieu, Justice Breyer was inducted as one of just 12 foreign members of France’s Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. C’est très chouette pour un Américain, non? [New York Times]

* Man, for a four-seeded firm that got knocked out of our March Madness competition after the Sweet Sixteen, Davis Polk is looking great in 2013′s first quarter as far as legal advising in M&A deals goes. [Am Law Daily]

* Brown Rudnick picked up a California boutique, and it’ll be doubled in size through lateral hiring. No layoffs are currently expected, but no one really advertises that as a merger selling point. [National Law Journal]

* The New York Times: bringing you last month’s news, today! South Dakota is offering a subsidy for law school tuition to keep lawyers in the state. Here’s our post from two weeks ago. [New York Times]

* Pace Law School’s “low bono” residency program was praised by New York’s Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, but if you’ve got other job offers, Dear Lord, take one of them. [New York Law Journal]

* AIG wants to prevent Hank Greenberg from suing in its name, probably because it’d prefer not to be known as “the poster company for corporate ingratitude and chutzpah.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* “[D]o I cover this really important story and maybe go to jail?” That’s the choice Jana Winter is facing after reporting on James Holmes’s massacre notebook and refusing to reveal her sources. [CNN]

* Twitter ordered to out anti-Semitic users by a French court. France wants to know the names of the anti-Semites so they can surrender to them. [Thomson Reuters News & Insights] * How are you feeling, Vermont Law School? Right now, you don’t look so good. [Constitutional Daily] * Now you too can see why AIG decided to not sue the government that bailed them out. [Dealbreaker] * Seems like these Catholic hospitals aren’t so strident about when life begins when there’s a malpractice lawsuit on the line. [Raw Story] * Though, according to some Republicans, fetuses might still be evidence — evidence that rape victims should not be allowed to “tamper” with (what a wonderful little party the GOP has going there). [Gawker] * Orly Taitz: Still Bats**t crazy. [Huffington Post] * The Maryland State Police have to turn over racial profiling complaints to the NAACP. Man, wouldn’t that have made a good season of The Wire? “The Staties.” Carcetti would be Governor. McNulty would be getting away from it all by tending bar in the D.C. area, only to get sucked back in when he passes a state trooper arresting Bubs for driving while black through Takoma Park. [Baltimore Sun]

Kate MIddleton wins a French court ruling protecting the privacy of those topless sunbathing photos.

* Apparently spring bonuses don’t make the Biglaw world go ’round after all. The annual Am Law midlevel survey is out, and satisfaction levels are up across the board. Maybe they’re happy to still be employed. [American Lawyer]

* When Dewey get to retire this used up, old D&L pun? Probably around the same time as that Howrey joke — never. Oh, and the firm asked a bankruptcy judge to approve its $70M partner “clawback” plan. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Oh mon dieu, it’s time for some law firm merger mania! DLA Piper, the second-largest Biglaw behemoth, proposed to French firm Frieh Bouhenic, and of course, the corporate boutique said “oui.” [Legal Week]

* Judicial efficiency: Judge Robert Hinkle says he’ll block Florida’s regulations on voter registration groups just as soon as an appeals court boots the state’s arguments. [Bloomberg]

* Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. will step down as judge in the George Zimmerman case after using “disparaging” language in a bail order. Zimmerman’s probably hoping that the third judge will be the charm for him. [CNN]

* Kim Kardashian settled her suit against The Gap over the company’s use of a look-alike actress in an Old Navy commercial. Sigh. She’ll keep getting paid, no matter what we do. [Hollywood, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

* Dewey know how deep in the red D&L’s international operations were? Enough to make you shout bloody hell and sacré bleu: the U.K. and Paris offices had liabilities of at least $175M. [Financial Times (reg. req.)]

* “To the extent that we the estate have claims, we would like to settle those claims sooner rather than later.” The joke’s on you if you thought you’d be able to keep your Dewey defector money. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* According to the allegations in former Cravath associate Ellen Pao’s sex discrimination suit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, the “Mad Men” culture seems to be alive and well in Silicon Valley. [New York Times]

* Who will be the first to puff, puff, pass the vote — Obama or Romney? It looks like the path to the White House in Election 2012 might depend upon the legalization of marijuana in key states like Colorado. [Reuters]

* Apparently you can’t take the “duh” out of “Flori-duh” when it comes to voting laws without a fight in the courts. A federal judge has blocked portions of the Sunshine State’s “onerous” voter registration law. [Bloomberg]

* “People want to go to our school, and why should we say no?” Because they can’t get jobs? Northwestern Law is considering shrinking its class sizes; John Marshall Law, not so much. [Crain’s Chicago Business]

* Stop crying about coming in second in the U.S. News rankings, Harvard, because you can still brag about beating Yale in having the most-cited law review articles of all time… for now. [National Law Journal (reg. req.)]

* Gloria Allred is representing one of the Miami “zombie’s” girlfriends for reasons unknown. Maybe the zombie apocalypse is truly upon is and she saw an opportunity to stand up for undead women’s rights. [CBS Miami]

A judge ruled on Dominique Strauss-Kahn's plea for diplomatic immunity. What was the ruling?

DSK’s most recent charge raises an important issue: What is aggravated pimping? And if pimpin ain't easy, isn’t all pimping “aggravated pimping?”

* Was the Obamacare case brought prematurely? Did the Supreme Court’s judicial intervention come too soon? Yesterday’s arguments before SCOTUS can be summed up in four simple words: “That’s what she said.” [New York Times]

* Howrey going to get out of this one? The defunct firm’s bankruptcy trustee, Allan Diamond, is trying to decide whether he’ll be bringing adversary claims against the dissolution committee and its members. [Am Law Daily]

* U.S. News is doing what the American Bar Association refuses to do: make law schools its b*tch. Listen up, administrators, because your next “reporting error” could cost you your ranking. [National Law Journal]

* Armed with a treasure trove of new evidence, Facebook has moved to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s lawsuit. What does his lawyer from Milberg have to say? A hacker planted all of the evidence, duh. [Wall Street Journal]

* Apparently Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s got hos in different area codes. He’s been keeping his pimp hand strong — so strong, that he’s been charged with aggravated procurement of prostitutes. [Bloomberg]

* Broke your nose trying to walk through a glass wall at the Apple store and now you’re suing for $1M? That’s an app for that! It’s called common sense, and for a limited time only, it’s being offered free of charge. [Forbes]

* Members of the Occupy Wall Street brigade were allowed to continue to be dirty hippies living in a park without toilets this morning. So fresh and so clean! OMG, yippee! [Wall Street Journal] * French prosecutors have dropped another yet another rape charge lodged against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Seriously? It looks like nothing sticks to […]

Apparently the French aren't such great lovers anymore. A 2010 poll found that 76% of people surveyed were having relationship problems due to a poor sex life. And it seems that a poor sex life was what brought about a divorce between Jean-Louis B. and Monique, a middle-aged French couple. But after enduring 21 years of a near sexless marriage, a divorce was simply not enough. Mrs. B. wanted to be compensated for the lack of sexual rendezvous with her ex-husband, so she sued him for it....

* From one “evil” and “pathetic” woman to another: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is leaving the U.S., but he’ll say bonjour to another rape complaint when he returns to France. [Bloomberg] * Casey Anthony is probably going to owe Florida law enforcement agencies more than a quarter of a million dollars, but even porn companies won’t touch […]

* I’m sure the soon-to-be first-year associates out there could use this guide on who to bill their hours to. [Going Concern] * Everybody has advice for when lawyers should step back and remain calm. When is the appropriate time for lawyers to freak out, start screaming and pounding things, and run around saying “we’re […]