Harvard Law School

* While it’s taken most justices about three to five years to get adjusted to life on the Supreme Court, it seems as if Justice Neil Gorsuch has already hit his stride over the course of just a few months. This gunner wrote one majority opinion, three dissents, three concurrences, and one statement during his first two months on the bench. [New York Times]

* DLA Piper — the first Biglaw firm to fall to a cyberattack — has finally restored its email service after five days of going without it thanks to being the victim of the worldwide Petya ransomware attack. The firm still claims no client data was compromised by the hackers who gained access to their systems. [ABC News]

* Ty Cobb of Hogan Lovells will reportedly be brought on to attend to Russia-related issues within the Office of White House Counsel. Cobb met with Trump last week, but wouldn’t offer any comment on his prospective role except to say that he was on vacation. Enjoy your time off while it lasts — working on Russia-related matters at the White House will certainly be no vacation. [Reuters]

* Harvard Law School has established an endowed professorship to honor the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who graduated from the school in 1960. According to outgoing Dean Martha Minow, the professorship is “especially meaningful” because the justice “had a great love of learning.” [Harvard Law Today]

* Overworked and underpaid never paid? Public defenders working as independent contractors in Massachusetts aren’t being paid in a remotely timely fashion. They sometimes go up to two months without receiving paychecks, and say that this has been going on for at least five years. [WWLP 22News]

* Harvard law students go all out in everything they do — and lying is no exception. [New Yorker]

* If you’re looking to purchase ancillary legal services (e.g., business or litigation support), check out the Buying Legal Guide, just launched today by the Buying Legal Council and Legal.io. [Buying Legal Guide]

* Joshua Matz explains how and when the Supreme Court might review the Trump travel ban (aka “Muslim ban”). [Take Care via How Appealing]

* Speaking of the courts, here’s Professor Carl Tobias’s advice to President Donald Trump on how to fill those 100+ vacancies in the federal judiciary. [Washington and Lee Law Review Online]

* Why is flying such a miserable experience? Blame not just the lawyers but also the index funds, as Matt Levine explains. [Bloomberg View]

* A prominent professor sues Columbia Law School, alleging age discrimination. [TaxProf Blog]

* Professor Eugene Volokh explains the First Amendment to government officials: “no, the government may not deny permits for speech because it views the speech as promoting ‘bigotry or hatred.'” [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* Additional thoughts on what TC Heartland means for venue in patent cases, from IP columnist Gaston Kroub. [On the Docket / George Washington Law Review]

* Harvard Law wants students to defer admission. Tuition deferral program still a no go apparently. [New York Times / Dealbook]

* Trump signing executive order to let the IRS choose when to enforce the Johnson amendment. I’m old enough to remember when conservatives had a meltdown over exaggerated allegations of IRS selective enforcement. Now it’s actually going to be legal and I doubt I’ll hear anything about it. [CBS News]

* Want to know how much a Sullivan & Cromwell partner takes home? Thankfully Donald Trump can tell us. [National Law Journal]

* Alabama enacts law allowing adoption agencies to reject gay couples. Alabama has one of the worst economies in America, but this was the issue that they really needed to address. Roll Tide. [Alabama]

* ABA President Linda Klein testifies on behalf of Legal Services Corporation. funding. Question: Is the ABA President job more or less difficult today? One could say “more” because she has to devote considerable energy to fighting a hostile government. Or you could say “less” because the most difficult argument she has to make is, “please don’t be monsters.” [ABA Journal]

* FAMU fired its dean. [Orlando Sentinel]

* New trend in litigation finance: buying portfolios of cases instead of investing in individual matters. We’ve reached the fund stage people! [Law.com]

* Former Guinea mining minister convicted of taking bribes. How did they know? Perhaps they thought he was a Dickensian throwback when he kept saying “Guinea” all the time. [Law360]

* Guess who gets to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s new tax plan? Lawyers and their law firms — which are largely organized as pass-through entities — will likely benefit greatly, as they’ll be able to reduce their tax rate from 39.6 percent to 15 percent. [ABA Journal]

* The Charlotte School of Law may be on the brink of collapse, but the school is heading to court to try to shake off three of the four federal class-action lawsuits that were filed by current students and recent graduates with motions to dismiss. We’ll have more on this later today. [Law.com]

* The Trump administration didn’t seem to fare very well during oral arguments in an immigration case yesterday. Chief Justice John Roberts certainly wasn’t impressed, and Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed even less so, dropping this benchslap: “It seems to me that your argument is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship.” [Reuters]

* Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will propose a rollback of the Obama-era net-neutrality rule that regulated broadband internet providers as common carriers. Critics aren’t pleased: “It makes no sense. We cannot keep the promise of net neutrality openness and freedom without the rules that ensure it.” [Big Law Business]

* Four third-year students at Harvard Law have demanded that the administration provide clarification as to how it assesses applicants who have been accused or convicted of sexual assault. “We put forth a call for transparency and affirmative efforts demonstrating the school takes sexual assault seriously.” [Harvard Crimson]

* Settlements have been reached between Berkeley Law, the school’s former dean, and the dean’s former assistant. If you recall, then dean Sujit Chaudry was accused of sexually harassing his assistant, and as part of the settlement, he’ll have to pay $100K in fees and charitable donations, but will be considered to be on “sabbatical” until May 2018, keeping all of his benefits. Hmm, do we think this is fair? [Mercury News]

* “We have not livestreamed before, but that’s not to say that won’t happen in this case.” The Fourth Circuit is considering livestreaming oral arguments for travel ban 2.0, much like what the Ninth Circuit did with oral arguments for Trump’s first travel ban. Maybe you’ll be able to do some “professional development” billing… [National Law Journal]

* “Arkansas does not intend to torture plaintiffs to death.” Judge Kristine G. Baker (E.D. Ark.) has halted a whirlwind series of eight executions — the state’s first executions scheduled since 2005 — citing a “threat of irreparable harm” if the drug midazolam is used as part of the lethal injection drug protocol and somehow fails. [New York Times]

* More and more out-of-state Biglaw firms are flocking to Houston, Texas, to open their own offices, which has inspired many lawyers to leave their current firms for greener pastures — in terms of both money and opportunities. But is there enough legal work to go around with all of the new competition? Only time will tell. [Houston Chronicle]

* Ten Harvard Law student affinity groups are gunning for Professor David B. Wilkins to become the next dean of the school after Martha Minow steps down at the end of the year. They’ve written a letter to the university president, imploring him to take their advice and select their dean candidate for the position. Check it out. [Harvard Crimson]

* “You have been very much able to avoid any specificity like no one I have seen before. And maybe that’s a virtue, I don’t know. But for us on this side, knowing where you stand on major questions of the day is really important to a vote.” Despite hours of questioning, Senate Democrats were unable to get Judge Neil Gorsuch to commit to any response beyond researched generalities. At this point, his confirmation seems inevitable. [New York Times]

* Sure, Biglaw associates want their firms to be more progressive when it comes to flexible working arrangements, but that doesn’t mean they feel comfortable taking advantage of the programs being offered. Per a survey conducted by the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, only 8.8 percent of lawyers at firms with reduced hours policies actually work reduced hours. We’ll have more on this later today. [Big Law Business]

* Is this the end of the Swiss verein? While the legal structure has been adopted in almost every major cross-border law firm merger in recent memory, both of the last two transatlantic Biglaw tie-ups opted to use an entity called the company limited by guarantee (CLG). Apparently this legal structure is being favored for new law firm combinations because there are still questions about vereins’ proper use. [Am Law Daily]

* Dean Alex Acosta of Florida International University School of Law, a man who is better known these days as Trump’s nominee to be the Secretary of Labor, not only says the fiduciary rule requiring retirement investment advisers to put their clients’ interest first goes too far, but indicated that he may decline to defend a rule doubling the salary ceiling under which employees would be eligible for overtime pay. Ouch. [Reuters]

* Now that Harvard Law has decided to accept applicants’ GRE scores in lieu of their LSAT scores for admissions purposes, other law schools have decided to try the alternative exam on for size. Suffolk Law, for example, launched a study last week and offered students $100 to take the GRE. Suffolk’s dean says that “the mad dash for the GRE is not being driven by declines in applications.” Bless your heart. [Boston Globe]

* Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it… especially when it’s rumored that you were the inspiration for seminal 80s character Ferris Bueller and you’re now under consideration to be Preet Bharara’s replacement as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Edward McNally works for Kasowitz Benson now, but he’s reportedly a leading contender for the job. [Wall Street Journal]

* Preet Bharara, on the other hand, is now considering taking up teaching at a prestigious law school — like Columbia, Harvard, or NYU — or going into private practice at a prestigious Biglaw firm — like Gibson Dunn or WilmerHale. Who knew being fired after refusing to resign could work out so well? [Wall Street Journal]

* Sources claim that President Trump will nominate Makan Delrahim to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Currently employed as a deputy in the Office of White House Counsel, Delrahim previously served in the DOJ antitrust division from 2003 to 2005 as deputy assistant attorney general under President Bush. [Big Law Business]

* “The noise about lawyers is much more positive right now. Before, it was just negative noise.” Law schools may be thanking our president for something that’s being referred to as the “Trump bump.” Some speculate that applications will surge thanks to the legal profession’s prominence in the turbulent early days of his reign. [National Law Journal]

* “They say a woman’s place is in the house. I say it’s in the courthouse.” The lawyers at New York firm Meyer-Kessler & Shulevitz refer to themselves “double trouble,” claim they represent the “new feminism,” and they wear bright pink designer outfits every time they go to court. We may have more on this dynamic duo later. [New York Daily News]

* Prosecutors raid Jones Day. This is not a joke. [Am Law Daily]

* Jim Harbaugh’s gonna be pissed. [ABA Journal]

* Harvard Law grad sentenced in kidnapping case. [SF Gate]

* Judge Gorsuch doesn’t really buy legislative history because sticking your fingers in your ears and going, “na, na, na, I’m not listening” is always solid jurisprudence. [Corporate Counsel]

* Should privilege cover PR flacks? [Law360]

* Lawyers may hate numbers, but clients don’t. [Legaltech News]

* Florida wants to bolster its stand your ground law, because there’s never been any problems with it. [Washington Post]