Hate Crimes

* While Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts made a plea to keep funding for the federal judiciary intact, we learned that student loan default cases have fallen since 2011. You really gotta love that income-based repayment. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Introducing the Asia 50, a list of the largest firms in the Asia-Pacific region. When it comes to the firms with the biggest footprints, only one American Biglaw shop made the cut. Go ahead and take a wild guess on which one it was. [Asian Lawyer]

* Congratulations are in order, because after almost a year of stalling, Arnold & Porter partner William Baer was finally confirmed by the Senate as the chief of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. [Bloomberg]

* Our elected officials might not have allowed the country to fall off the fiscal cliff, but the American Invents Act was put on hold, so if you’re a patent nerd, you can still be mad about something. [National Law Journal]

* Remember when Rutgers-Camden Law said “many top students” were making bank after graduation? Yeah, about that: Law School Transparency just filed an ABA complaint. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Here are some law school trends to look out for in 2013. FYI, the applicant pool is smaller because no one wants to foolishly gamble on their careers anymore. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* In the latest NYC subway shoving death, a woman was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, and allegedly bragged about other hate crimes she’s committed to police. Lovely. [New York Times]

* Next time you’re trapped on a plane that’s literally filled with other people’s crap for 11 hours, don’t bother suing over your hellish experience — you’re going to be preempted by federal law. [New York Law Journal]

Alleged hate crime takes place at Florida's Levin College of Law, and the dean comes out strong...

* Man brings knife to a gun fight with NYPD. I think we all know how that ended. [Huffington Post] * The House has brought a civil compliant against Eric Holder. In other news, it’s an election year! [Blog of the Legal Times] * Ah, the never-ending quest for the perfect suit for the female attorney. All of the jokes I have right now are sexist. So I won’t make one. But I’m thinking it. [Corporette] * Golf, even mini-golf, remains an excellent way to network. [Asbury Park Press] * It looks like the Oak Creek shootings are going to go down as a hate crime. I care less about why the shooter did it and more that he’s punished. [CNN] * Stop-and-Frisk doesn’t so much work. [DNAinfo] * Don’t forget to submit your awesome office for our Lawyerly Lairs contest. [Above the Law]

* The Sixth Circuit delved into the question of law professors’ tenure in a recent decision, noting that it doesn’t guarantee a job for life. But seriously, why on earth would you want to have a lifetime career at Cooley Law anyway? [National Law Journal]

* Was the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting a hate crime? Well, the shooter was in a racist skinhead band and purchased supplies from a neo-Nazi group, if that gives you a clue. [Reuters]

* Bet nobody saw this kind of douchebaggery happening: Jackson Lewis has been tapped to represent a member of Penn State’s board of trustees to appeal the NCAA’s unappealable sanctions, and he’s recruiting fellow trustees to join him. [Am Law Daily]

* No more “no comment” for this former reporter: Bruce Brown, a partner at Baker Hostetler, was appointed as the new executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. [Blog of Legal Times]

* As expected, Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty in the Arizona shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others. He’ll likely receive several life sentences as opposed to the death penalty. [Wall Street Journal]

* “This sh*t ain’t no joke yo, I’m serious, people are gonna die like Aurora.” Twitter, please cooperate so the police don’t have to subpoena you when a user threatens to commit a massacre in NYC. [NBC New York]

Dharun Ravi just got sentenced. What did he get?

Bill Keller of the New York Times hates on hate crime laws...

Members of the University of Illinois College of Law community received sad and disturbing news yesterday when they learned that a faculty member at the law school was the victim of an apparent hate crime. The law professor (who remains anonymous at the request of the University) was found on the second floor of the […]

I’m on record as being somewhat uncomfortable with hate crimes legislation. I’m just not wild about the government punishing people for what’s in their thoughts. But I do see why society might want to make racial animus an aggravating factor in crimes. It’s complicated, and that makes me think that prosecutors should show some flex […]

I’m on record as being generally uncomfortable with hate crime designations. I’m not against hate crime laws across the board. You show me a guy with a demonstrable history of bigotry who then goes around beating people of some particular group, and I’m all for enhanced punishment. But in general I don’t think the state […]

Prosecutors looking into Tyler Clementi suicide indicated yesterday that they might not be able to charge Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei with a hate crime. Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan told the Newark Star-Ledger that his office was trying to see if they could charge Ravi and Wei with a second degree bias crime, but […]