General Motors

* Do you attend the T.C. Williams School of Law? Not anymore! [WRIC]

* Tired of pretending to know what gerrymandering or redistricting is? Here’s a legal primer. [Cornell Sun]

* Pursuant to a California law, the word “Squaw” — which contextually can be a slur — won’t be in place names anymore. Squad! [LA Times]

* Car start yodeling at you when you start the engine? This law may prevent that happening with as much frequency. [Car And Driver]

* GM and Hyundai accused of having crappy airbag inflators. Better to find that out like this instead of first hand experience on the freeway. [Law.com]

Their clients can also expect an onslaught.

Sometimes you need to require some real, dramatic improvement, a demonstrated willingness to change, before you volunteer to help someone stop being a train wreck.

* What are expert advocates’ secrets to cert success? Adam Feldman’s very interesting analysis suggests that using certain buzzwords in a petition might help. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Ilya Somin points out this fun depressing fact: one of the plants that General Motors will be closing sits on land seized in a controversial taking that forcibly displaced more than 4,000 people. [Reason / Volokh Conspiracy]

* The Third Circuit is poised to become the first (but probably not the last) circuit court to “flip” flip from a majority of Democratic appointees at the outset of the Trump administration to a majority of Republican appointees, as Ed Whelan notes. [National Review / Bench Memos]

* A June 3 trial date has been set for Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine Magbanua in the Dan Markel case — almost five long years after Professor Markel’s murder. [Tallahassee Democrat]

* In the wake of a recent tragedy, Neha Sampat offers some reflections on impostor syndrome in the legal profession. [ABA Journal]

* If you’re a conservative or libertarian law student, you should consider attending the Federalist Society’s 2019 National Student Symposium, with “The Resurgence of Economic Liberty” as its theme. [Federalist Society]

* Can the Supreme Court save our democracy? David Pozen opines (and he’s not optimistic).

* Chris Christie argued passionately about national security with Rand Paul, noting that he was appointed a U.S. Attorney the very day before 9/11. Except, you know, he wasn’t and is completely lying. [Empty Wheel]

* The Simpson Thacher and Mayer Brown epic screw-ups: where are the individual lawyers now? [The Am Law Daily]

* Choose the right firm for you… with the help of these Legos. [The Careerist / The American Lawyer]

* A bipartisan bill hopes to replace loan default rates with a repayment metric. [Insider Higher Ed]

* The most predictable prison escape ever. [Lowering the Bar]

* John McAfee’s new security update includes a handgun — which he was arrested for carrying while high on Xanax after a “shootout” with police. He explains the whole thing on Facebook. [Gawker]

* Liberty Law has a new dean. [News & Advance]

* Pretty sure Key & Peele read the Elonis decision. [Key & Peele / Comedy Central]

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* Her dad’s the ringleader, he calls the shots; she’s like a firecracker, she makes it hot: Since “everything is working perfectly” under pop star Britney Spears’s conservatorship — which has been in effect for the past seven years — it’ll likely stay that way indefinitely. [Us Weekly]

* Well, that was fun while it lasted. The ABA did away with its year-old LSAT exemption rule in record time. Law schools will only have until 2017 to lard up classes with students who haven’t taken the exam. Good luck and Godspeed. [National Law Journal via TaxProf Blog]

* Simpson Thacher isn’t the only Biglaw firm that allegedly blew it when it came to turning hundreds of General Motors’ secured creditors into unsecured creditors. Mayer Brown is also facing twin class-action suits for this $1.5 billion boo-boo. [Crain’s Chicago Business]

* Good news, everyone! The ABA approved a merger between Rutgers Law-Camden and Rutgers Law-Newark, and we’re going to look at this in a positive light because theoretically speaking, there’s now one less law school out there. [MyCentralJersey.com]

* “Are Law Schools Skewing Job Placement Numbers?” In a word, yes. Not to be a complete pessimist realist, but come on, you know most school-funded positions exist solely to prop up any given law school’s less-than-pleasing job statistics. [Bloomberg]

* When you’ve taken the lives of so many, no one cares about your sad life story. A Colorado jury inched closer to inflicting the death penalty upon convicted movie theater shooter James Holmes in the second phase of his trial’s penalty portion. [New York Times]

Check out this tale of how an unwary paralegal ends up costing a bank millions.

* A Minnesota court ruled that it is not a crime to encourage people to commit suicide. So… keep commenting assholes, just know that you’ll feel really bad if I do it. [Gawker] * I might be in the market for a used car, and I’m hoping to get a really good deal on one of these “recalled” GMs. I hope the DOJ doesn’t screw up my plans. [Reuters Legal] * Speaking of cars, Alan Dershowitz calls for vigorous prosecution of reckless drivers. I call for vigorous prosecution of any box-blocking suburbanite who drives around Manhattan on a Saturday like they’re cruising to the country fair. [ABA Journal] * Alabama thinks that people over 70 should be excused from jury duty. YES, they deserve to be excused and I hope they burn in Hell! [WSJ Law Blog] * Narc is the new tattletale. [Simple Justice] * Are you an IP lawyer, especially a patent litigator? Here’s a symposium you should consider attending (featuring ATL columnist Gaston Kroub). [Markman Advisors] * Speaking of conferences, who wants to hang out with Lat in Las Vegas? Read on for details (plus video)…. Lat will be speaking next month at Avvo’s big Lawyernomics conference in Vegas. Here’s the agenda, here’s the registration from, and here’s Lat’s speaker spotlight video:

So should Weil Gotshal associates be rooting against a government bailout of GM and the other big automakers? GM bankruptcy –> more fees for Weil –> bigger bonuses (which WGM has not yet announced)? UPDATE (1:00 AM): As of now, it looks like the auto industry bailout talks have failed. This makes a GM bankruptcy […]