Hate Crimes

* Applying for law school and worried you can’t rely on mom and dad for good Bluebooking advice? You aren’t as alone as you might think. [U.S. News]

* Massachusetts is looking to update its hate crime laws after 30 years. [Boston Globe]

* The “Remember the Alamo” state is about to spend $15M to make sure kids don’t learn about the unimportant stuff. Like slavery. [Yahoo]

* The first steps on the “Momnibus” bill hope to make it safer to birth while Black. [The Lily]

* New Jersey’s Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck is making it easier to record officers and more difficult to obtain “No-Knock” warrants. [RLS Media]

* Robert Bowers, the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead and six wounded, has been charged with 29 federal criminal counts including hate crimes and using a firearm to commit murder and 36 state criminal counts including homicide and ethnic intimidation. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of those who lost their lives this weekend. [New York Times]

* According to the criminal complaint filed against Cesar Sayoc, the pipe bomb he allegedly tried to mail to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was addressed to his office at a “certain law firm” — a certain law firm that’s better known as Covington & Burling. Good thing the package never made it there. [National Law Journal]

* When asked to reflect on the misconduct allegations against Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld, alumni from the school are not the least bit shocked. “It was not a surprise to basically any woman in my class that this investigation is going on,” said one 2015 graduate. Will the school take appropriate action? [Yale Daily News]

* Partners from Allen & Overy and O’Melveny & Myers are cozying up to each other as merger talks between the two firms continue, but there may be trouble in paradise. “There is some opposition in London,” said a former A&O partner, “but it’s fairly disorganised—there’s a lot of moaning but nobody leading a charge.” [International]

* In case you missed it, after the involuntary revocation of its accreditation, Arizona Summit Law School will eventually close its doors. But first, the school must finalize a teach-out plan for its remaining students, and when it’s all over, “that would be the life of the school.” What a sad little life. Farewell to AZ Summit Law. [Arizona Republic]

* You might not have known it, but the Michigan State University College of Law has been operating as a private school for all these years. Soon, the school will be fully integrated into the university, and you know what that means: in-state tuition costs will be coming to the MSU Law. Congratulations! [Lansing State Journal]

* RBG is my Patronus, and a course on Harry Potter and the Law is coming to a law school near you — if you live in India, that is. The National University of Juridical Sciences will be teaching the class, and muggles students are “expected [to] have already read all the books at least twice, if not more.” [The Guardian]

* According to recently released tax records, a mystery donor gave more than $28 million to the Wellspring Committee to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat in Republican hands and help get Neil Gorsuch confirmed. How awesome would it be if that mystery donor were the president himself? [Law Newz]

* The DOJ says Trump can appoint the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Federal Vacancies Act, but the Dodd-Frank Act says the deputy director will head the agency in the absence of a permanent director. Now we have two dueling CFPB directors, AND there’s a lawsuit. Yay! [The Hill; CNN]

* FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is so against Chairman Ajit Pai’s “lousy plan” to do away with net neutrality that she wrote an op-ed to plead for help: “I’m on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality.” She encourages us to “make a ruckus” about this — and we really, really should. [Los Angeles Times]

* The layoffs are coming! The layoffs are coming! Along with Sedgwick’s announcement that the faltering firm intends to close its doors in early 2018 comes the news that it will shutter its back office operations center. Up to 75 people are expected to lose their jobs. It’ll be a not-so happy New Year. [American Lawyer]

* Start placing your bets: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in New Jersey’s sports betting case next week, and is expected to issue a ruling in June. What’s the over/under on the high court overturning the federal ban on sports betting? Come on, SCOTUS, make Atlantic City great again! [NJ.com]

* Representative John Conyers Jr. will be stepping down from his platoon as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee during an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed his former aides. Even though a settlement was made in 2015, Conyers continues to deny the allegations. [New York Times]

* The InfiLaw System has been lowering the bar for minority law students for years and years and dooming them to hundreds of thousands of dollars of nondischargeable loan debt, and the man who started it all seems relatively disappointed with what’s happened and the awful outcomes students have seen. [Wall Street Journal]

* “I think when it’s all said and done, what you’re gonna see is there was nothing racial that motivated this.” The lawyer representing the white University of Hartford student who smeared period blood all over her black roommate’s things to get her to move out doesn’t think his client should be charged with a hate crime. [Hartford Courant]

* Which celebrity court appearances were the very best? [Jezebel]

* What’s in a name? The legal battle over the trademark for “Charlotte.” [The Fashion Law]

* Going crazy waiting for bar exam results? Some tips to get through the waiting game. [Excellence in Law School]

* A law prof asks: Should I retire? [TaxProf Blog]

* ICYMI, here’s a recap of yesterday’s #LegalCareerChat on Twitter, with our very own David Lat. [ABA Legal Career Central]

* The crimes in Charlottesville could be prosecuted as hate crimes. They won’t, but they could. [The Hill]

* The role of income inequality in criminal justice reform. [Harvard Magazine]

* A look at voting rights litigation under President Trump. [Take Care]

* In the wake of the surprise announcement that Whittier Law School will be closing, the administrations at other schools may feel as though they’ve finally been granted permission to do the same thing. According to Professor Paul Campos, we may see as many as ten more law school close within the next five years. But which ones? [Big Law Business]

* “Their indifference to us as a student body is unacceptable.” Angry Whittier Law students gathered last week to protest their school’s impending closure, demanding answers from the board of trustees as to why the powers that be decided to throw in the towel on their education. We’ll have more on this later today. [Whittier Daily News]

* Two Harvard researchers have found a second parchment manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence in a records office in England. The only other parchment copy is housed in the National Archives, in Washington, D.C. They speculate that the copy was originally commissioned by James Wilson, who helped draft the Constitution and served as one of the first Supreme Court justices. Awesome find! [Boston Globe]

* The number of transfer students may have dropped from 1,979 to 1,749 between 2015 and 2016, but it’s still a great market for first-year students who are interested in switching schools. After all, high-achieving 1Ls can “easily move to a higher-ranked school, or stay put and get bigger tuition discounts.” So, which law schools accepted the greatest number of transfers? We’ll delve into the details later today. [ABA Journal]

* Charges were dropped against two Maryland teens who were accused of committing a hate crime after allegedly lighting a Trump campaign sign on fire “with discrimination or malice toward a particular group, or someone’s belief.” David Rocah of the Maryland ACLU said the charges were “beyond absurd” and reflected “a profound misunderstanding of what the Maryland hate-crime statute says.” [Baltimore Sun]

* Big picture: Does it matter if Dems can block Neil Gorsuch? [Rewire]

* Pressure is mounting on Donald Trump to create a hate crimes task force. [Huffington Post]

* “It’s dismaying and surprising.” Tell us what you really think about Jeff Sessions’s latest. [Slate]

* Don’t worry — it gets worse. [Salon]

* New business in NDAs. [Law and More]

* Can you really wear that to work? [Corporette]

* Uh-oh! What’s going on at Kirkland & Ellis? Sources say that the firm recently changed its framework for allocating equity partner profits, making deep cuts to some partners’ shares. Litigation partners were reportedly hit so hard by these changes that multiple sources called the situation a “bloodbath.” We’ll have more on this later. [Am Law Daily]

* Talk about a money shot: Attorneys Paul Hansmeier and John Steele, formerly of Prenda Law, have been charged in a “massive extortion scheme” after allegedly uploading porn videos they produced themselves to file-sharing websites so they could then sue those who downloaded the films for copyright violations. [NBC News]

* Kerrie Campbell, the Chadbourne & Parke partner who sued her firm for $100 million over allegations of gender discrimination, has asked a court to dismiss C & P’s counterclaim, referring to the claims therein as “in terrorem tactic” to silence other women at the firm and elsewhere who have similar bias claims. [Big Law Business]

* Here’s a question that far too many law school deans were faced with this fall: “What’s the best way to share a school’s bad bar exam results?” Some chose to be blunt and others chose to be empathetic, but at the end of the day, the news is devastating to recent graduates, so there’s only so much one can really do to soften the blow. [ABA Journal]

* Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof was convicted on federal hate crime charges and is now awaiting the punishment phase of his trial. In case you didn’t know, he’s also waiting to stand trial on state murder charges, which means he’s the first person in the modern era to face the possibility of federal and state death penalty sentences. [Reuters]

* Sorry to ruin your childhood, but a Pennsylvania judge found that there is enough evidence for Bill Cosby to stand trial for his felony assault charge in the Andrea Constand case. Cosby has waived his right to a formal arraignment, and could face up to 10 years in prison if he’s convicted. Cosby has been free on $1 million bail since December. [Associated Press]

* “You need to have order in a courtroom. And there needs to be proper decorum with attorneys.” A Las Vegas Justice of the Peace ordered that a deputy public defender be handcuffed for interrupting him as she tried to represent a client. A tipster has referred to this judge as “demented.” We may have more on this. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

* According to inside sources, Hunton & Williams is in advanced merger talks with Addelshaw Goddard, a London-based firm. These talks have reportedly been going on for months, and Addelshaw partners supposedly met last night to discuss the tie-up. If successful, the combined firm would have more than 1,300 lawyers. [Big Law Business]

* Silicon Valley staple Fenwick & West is opening up an office outpost in New York City. The firm’s clients in Manhattan include BuzzFeed, FanDuel, Blackrock, Citi, and JPMorgan. Associates will be working around the clock in the city that never sleeps — with a roster like that, they won’t be getting shuteye anytime soon. [WSJ Law Blog]

* AG Loretta Lynch announced yesterday afternoon that the Justice Department would be seeking the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the suspect alleged to have gone on a shooting spree in a Charleston church last summer, killing nine and wounding numerous others. It’s said Roof hoped to incite a race war as a result of the massacre. [USA Today]

* Carl Buchholz, managing partner of DLA Piper’s Philadelphia office, RIP. [Philadelphia Business Journal]

* 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]

* You knew it was inevitable. The St. Louis Cardinals have lawyered up and are conducting their own internal investigation into allegations employees hacked Houston Astros databases. [Am Law Daily]

* Real quick before you tweet that out — New York has updated its ethical guidelines regarding social media. Are you familiar with the best practices? [New York Law Journal]

* Norway has said goodbye to the old boys network — at least when it comes to women’s representation on corporate boards. The top down approach that was successful in Norway may not be politically palatable in the United States, but it certainly provides food for thought. [American Lawyer]

* Recently released documents (thank you FOIA) reveal a years-long legal battle between the federal government and UnitedHealth Group over Medicare overbilling. [NPR]

* If it walks like a tax hike and swims like a tax hike and quacks like a tax hike, it’s probably a tax hike — no matter what double talk Governor Sam Brownback tries to sell you. Seriously, what is the matter with Kansas? [Talking Points Memo]

* Nine people are dead after a gunman attacked a historic black church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Among the dead is State Senator Clementa Pinckney. The gunman is still at large. Our heart goes out to the families of the victims. [New York Times]