Harvard Law School

* According to Harry Reid, Obama should have a Supreme Court nominee within the next three weeks. As everyone knows, the senior Senator from Las Vegas sets the official line on these things. [Huffington Post]

* Cravath people bitching about their jobs is now the leading cause of insider trading. [Law360]

* Students using the moniker of “Reclaim Harvard Law School” have occupied the student center to protest the school’s continued use of the family crest of a slave trader and the lack of faculty diversity. I’d be sympathetic, but it was Harvard’s terrible diversity policy that brought some of my favorite professors to NYU Law so it worked out pretty well for me. [Daily Princetonian]

* Sir Nigel Knowles is stepping down as the global co-chair of DLA Piper. I would say it’s time to relax and take a cruise, but that sounds like work for DLA Piper people. [Am Law Daily]

* The ABA has pulled out of its joint venture with Rocket Lawyer to provide a cheap initial consult service. [Am Law Daily]

* Hey, hey, hey. Lawyer claims that Bill Cosby comes off as a bully for suing his accuser. [Associated Press via Trib Live]

* The ACLU is challenging a Kansas voter suppression law requiring proof of citizenship. Seems like now is a good time to bring that case. [New York Times]

* How low can you go? For the first time in years, enrollment is up at Cooley Law — by three students. That’s the only thing the school will be able to brag about, because the average GPA and LSAT scores of its most recent entering class are the lowest the school has seen in at least a decade. Yikes. [Lansing State Journal]

* President Obama has to make quite the decision when it comes to choosing who will be his next SCOTUS appointment. He already faces an uphill battle, so if he were to pick any these five candidates (even the one who was recently confirmed 97-0), it’d likely make things even harder than they already are. [The Fix / Washington Post]

* “I’ll stay as long as necessary.” Activists from Reclaim Harvard Law are occupying a lounge to create a safe space for minorities, and they plan to remain there indefinitely. Armed with blow-up mattresses and blankets, they mean business. [Harvard Crimson]

* Charlotte Law launched a compliance certificate program, and anyone who can pay can receive training. Since compliance is booming right now, as InfiLaw graduates, they’re better equipped than most for jobs that don’t require a law degree. [Charlotte Observer]

* A New York judge who prosecuted drunk driving cases earlier in her career was arrested for allegedly driving drunk… while on the way to work to handle arraignments. It’s unlikely that she’ll return to the bench any time soon. [Democrat and Chronicle]

* Uh-oh! Martin Shkreli may have gotten more than he bargained for when he bought the one and only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” An artist whose work appears on the album’s packaging has filed a copyright infringement suit against the smug pharma bro. [WSJ Law Blog]

* A Texas ADA was arrested this weekend for DWI after crashing into a parked car. According to police, it appeared as if she was trying to leave the scene. She’s been a prosecutor for almost a year, and hasn’t been put on a leave of absence for her alleged transgressions (yet). [FOX 7 Austin]

* “I don’t understand why donors should not donate money to the Law School because some moron, some racist decided to put black tape on some portraits.” Some alumni (not this guy) are uncertain if they’ll continue to donate to Harvard Law. [Harvard Crimson]

* President Obama has proposed a cybersecurity plan that’ll cost $19+ billion. Americans will learn how to better secure their accounts to prevent illegal hacks. That’s a lot of cash to teach people not to use “123456” as their password. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* Have your birthday cake and eat it too, because the terms of Warner Music Group’s “Happy Birthday to You” settlement have been disclosed, and up to $14 million is up for grabs for those who’ve had to pay licensing fees to use it. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]

* Listen, I support people leaving the law to take a job that is more fulfilling, but Emily Boutard quit her job to make tiny furniture. I just hope the paycheck isn’t correspondingly small. [deMilked]

* Law professor Alafair Burke uses her real life experiences in the law to write her novels. [Female First]

* Alan Dershowitz reflects on his work on the O.J. Simpson trial. [Business Insider]

* This week in Black History includes a notable first for Harvard Law. [LA Sentinel]

* Can you imagine getting censured at your job for a paper you wrote in law school? That might happen to Ben Lindy, who is running for an Ohio House seat. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Best practices for law firms when dealing with cloud security. [LCCA]

* Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig is now depending on a future President Trump to enact the campaign finance reforms he built his failed presidential bid upon. He’ll be waiting for a while. [The Crimson]

* Ted Cruz has pretty much always been a douche. [Funny or Die]

* The People v. O.J. Simpson explores racism, sexism, and more — all through costume. [Fashionista]

* U.S. Senators: They’re just like us! Claire McCaskill live-tweets her jury duty experience. [The Slot]

* How can you avoid burnout as a lawyer? [Associate’s Mind]

* Why are embattled public defender offices actually excited about the lawsuits against them? [Christian Science Monitor]

* Practical advice for taking advantage of the opportunities that are staring you right in the face. [Guile is Good]

* Get the inside scoop on why Rudy Giuliani jumped ship to Greenberg Traurig. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dso0lnNsoRA&feature=youtu.be

* Martin Shkreli’s hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been rescheduled due to this weekend’s blizzard. This will give the reviled pharma bro even more time to brush up on constitutional law. [CBS News]

* Uh-oh! Thanks to some “cash flow issues” — like partners not being paid on time — King & Wood Mallesons is currently in the process of raising capital and will be conducting a review of its overall financial structure. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* Cert denied! The justices of the Supreme Court may have bought these lawyers’ arguments and struck down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case, but they’re certainly not buying their request for $2 million in legal fees. [Reuters]

* A hate crime without a resolution? Police are closing their investigation into the defacement of black professors’ portraits at Harvard Law without having found a perp. Maybe they decided to take Elie Mystal’s advice not to feed the trolls. [Boston.com]

* Florida State settled a lawsuit filed by Erica Kinsman, a former student who claimed Jameis Winston raped her, for $900K, but the school claims $700K of that amount will go to her legal team. Her lawyers, however, would politely beg to differ. [USA Today]

* Martha Coakley joins BU Law faculty. A job she will somehow manage to lose in a landslide to an unqualified Republican. [Boston Globe] * You’ve heard all about the Ted Cruz birther controversy, but maybe Cruz is just being trolled for being such a tremendous dick while at Harvard Law School. [Needs Further Review] * […]

* Has the dearth of law school applicants finally pinched Harvard Law? [Bloomberg Business]

* Meanwhile, New York Law School is doing just fine… thanks to its savvy real estate moves. [Crain’s New York Business]

* Amal Clooney sighting in D.C. [Washington Post]

* For those keeping score, only Scalia, Thomas, and Alito skipped the State of the Union last night, which was not really surprising. [CBS News]

* Former Cravath attorney Robert Miranne talks about the movie “Joy,” chronicling the life and times of his mother, Joy Mangano. [The Am Law Daily]

* In July, China arrested Wang Yu, a top women’s rights lawyer for creating a disturbance. They got around to notifying her mother of this… on Monday. In fairness, they’ve really been swamped over there with the sabotaging the global economy thing. [Reuters]

* FLSA class actions expected to hit record high this year. “I keep waiting — because I’ve been studying it for 15 years — for the number of wage-and-hour lawsuits to crest or go down” said Seyfarth’s Gerald Maatman Jr. And I keep waiting for companies to dutifully pay employees the money they actually owe them, yet here we are. [Law 360]

* It seems that Dentons didn’t have its fill after fattening itself up with a Luxembourg firm over Thanksgiving, so now the megafirm is considering feasting upon two Latin American firms — Cárdenas & Cárdenas and López Velarde Heftye y Soria — for its dessert. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Election 2016 is a year away, but it’s easy to see the makeup of the Supreme Court will continue to be an issue for presidential candidates, especially since both parties know “[w]e are one justice away” from a liberal or conservative majority. [MSNBC]

* Dean Martha Minow says Harvard Law will create a committee to investigate whether the school’s shield should be changed due to its ties to a cruel slaveowner. Send your comments, questions, and complaints to royall@law.harvard.edu. [Harvard Law Today]

* Robert Lewis Dear, the alleged gunman behind the Colorado Planned Parenthood shootings, is expected to be charged with first-degree murder next week. It’s not yet been disclosed whether he’ll be charged with federal domestic terrorism. [Los Angeles Times]

* This turkey won’t be pardoned: The Thanksgiving Day White House fence-jumper who draped an American flag over the fence while gripping a U.S. Constitution pocket guide in his teeth was criminally charged after ruining the Obamas holiday. [WSJ Law Blog]

* While you were feasting upon turkey this Thanksgiving, Dentons — otherwise known as the largest Biglaw behemoth in the world — was busy gobbling up yet another law firm. The megafirm will combine with 33-lawyer OPF Partners out of Luxembourg. [WSJ Law Blog]

* According to a survey from AlixPartners, over the past 12 months, GCs have reported more “bet the company” lawsuits compared to last year. Don’t get too excited, though, because growth in litigation spend hasn’t quite caught up yet. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* You really can do anything with a law degree — including things that have absolutely nothing to do with the law! Patrick Hobbs, dean emeritus of Seton Hall Law, has been tapped to become the athletics director at Rutgers University. [NJ Advance Media]

* What would happen if one of the largest publicly traded plaintiffs firms in the world went under? Ever since its stock price plummeted by 52 percent, industry analysts have started to wonder whether Slater & Gordon is on the verge of collapse. [ABC News]

* In the wake of the defacement of black faculty portraits and the administration’s apparent “ongoing failure” to address racism on campus, Harvard Law alumni are being asked to stop making donations to the school until changes are made. [Boston Globe]

* One of 92-year-old Sumner Redstone’s exes filed a probate suit questioning his mental competence and ability to run Viacom and CBS. His attorney from entertainment law powerhouse Loeb & Loeb essentially called her client’s ex a gold digger. [CNBC]

* That was fast! When Howard Bashman (of our sister site How Appealing) talks, the U.S. Supreme Court listens. [How Appealing]

* She doesn’t mention it much on the campaign trail, but Carly Fiorina is the daughter of Article III aristocracy — the late Judge Joseph T. Sneed III, a prominent conservative on the Ninth Circuit. [New York Times]

* Is the supposed “hate crime” at Harvard Law School, involving the placement of black tape on the portraits of African-American law professors, actually a hoax? [Powerline via TaxProf Blog]

* Elsewhere in academia, Professor Glenn Reynolds wonders: “If a cabal of Evil Conservatives set out to destroy academia from within, what, exactly, would it be doing differently?” [Instapundit]

* Star Wars fans, discuss: “The Law is a Sith,” according to Professor Adam Kolber. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Can states bar Syrian refugees? Professor Ilya Somin thinks not (at least under current Supreme Court precedent). [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Thoughts from Professor Ronald K.L. Collins on Hines v. Alldredge, the occupational speech case previously discussed by Tamara Tabo. [Concurring Opinions]

* What can be done about problematic prosecutors? [New York Times via How Appealing]

Ed. note: We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. As we mentioned before Thanksgiving, we’ll be on a reduced publication schedule today.

* Randall Kennedy, one of the African-American Harvard Law School professors whose portraits got marked with black tape, shares HLS alum Elie Mystal’s reaction to the incident: he is unimpressed. [New York Times]

* In other Harvard Law news, an HLS librarian got arrested after police claim he tried to arrange a sexual meet-up with a deputy posing as an underage girl in Colorado (site of a librarians’ conference). [Boston Globe]

* Former Supreme Court clerk Brianne Gorod argues that SCOTUS can and should decide Texas’s challenge to President Obama’s executive action on immigration this Term (i.e., before the 2016 election). [Constitutional Accountability Center via How Appealing]

* Ohio State law student Madison Gesiotto is not happy with how administrators responded when one of her conservative columns prompted a threat from a fellow student. [Washington Times]

* The SEC just dropped its civil insider trading case against former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager Michael Steinberg. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Let’s rank the top 10 women Supreme Court justices! Oh wait, there are only four…. [National Law Journal]

* Linda Greenhouse offers her reflections on “Sex After 50” (at SCOTUS). [New York Times via How Appealing]

* The father of Paul Walker is suing Porsche for negligence and wrongful death over the 2013 car crash that killed Walker, of “Fast and Furious” fame. [AP via WSJ Law Blog]

* Will it ever be easier to meet the challenge of proving you’ve got an undue hardship so you can discharge your law school student loan debts in bankruptcy? Your fate may rest in the hands of this indebted Florida Coastal Law grad and his petition for certiorari at the Supreme Court. [US Law Week Blog / Bloomberg]

* Hate crimes still happen, even at this prestigious law school: Amid increased racial turbulence on campus, the Harvard University Police Department is now investigating the defacing of black law professors’ portraits as a hate crime. [ABC News]

* UVA Law recently joined the minority of law schools that have women serving as dean. Pop your collars with pride, because legal historian Risa Goluboff will take over as the school’s first female dean this July. Congratulations! [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

* Gordon Rees has settled its lawsuit against Alex Rodriguez over the baseball player’s outstanding legal bills, totaling more than $380,000. The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but we have a feeling that the firm hit it out of the park. [NBC New York]

* Try before you buy or a bid to increase tourism? Alaska is making bold moves now that it’s legalized marijuana for recreational use. It’ll be the first state to allow the social use of the drug “in public,” i.e., inside pot dispensaries that have yet to open. [Cannabist]

* Stingrays — no, not the kind that killed the Crocodile Hunter, but the kind that are used to determine cell phone locations and intercept messages — have been deemed by a judge as too powerful for law enforcement to use without safeguards. [Ars Technica]

* On the ethics of misrepresentations in negotiations. [Associate’s Mind]

* You shouldn’t have to feel bad about billing 2,000 hours — even if everyone around you is billing 2,500. [Bashful Buffalo Marketing]

* The latest buzz from the world of family law: judge rules a divorced couple’s frozen embryos should be destroyed. [LA Times]

* The controversy surrounding the new documentary The Hunting Ground about sexual assault on campus features an incident at Harvard Law School. [Slate]