Hillary Clinton

* Apparently, Justice Brett Kavanaugh introduced really bad pizza to the Supreme Court cafeteria. Maybe Sbarro is the justice’s favorite New York pizza joint… [Washington Post]

* Hillary Clinton’s lawyer finally accepted service of Tulsi Gabbard’s defamation lawsuit, allowing the case to move forward. [Fox News]

* Nancy Pelosi has suggested that President Trump’s lawyers should face discipline over their handling of the impeachment trial. [Hill]

* Undocumented “Dreamers” can now become attorneys in Utah. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* Several state attorneys general have sued for recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment. [USA Today]

* John Bolton’s lawyer disputes allegations from the National Security Council that Bolton’s new book contains confidential information. [Hill]

* The criminal trial of Michael Avenatti has begun, and the allegations are pretty juicy. [New York Post]

* A Syracuse man has decided to sack his court-appointed attorney and boycott his own trial. Seems like this self-represented defendant may have a fool for a client… [Syracuse.com]

* A lawyer saved a hawk who flew into a building in Brooklyn occupied by the U.S. Attorney’s office. This lawyer kind of gives new meaning to the term “legal eagle.” [New York Daily News]

* Hillary Clinton has so far been able to successfully duck process servers trying to serve her with papers related to the defamation lawsuit filed by Tulsi Gabbard. [New York Post]

* Facebook has agreed to a $550 Million settlement of a facial recognition class action lawsuit. How do we get in on that money?? [USA Today]

* A University of North Texas lawyer has resigned after using the N-word during a free speech panel at the school. This attorney just learned a valuable lesson in free speech. [New York Post]

* A lawyer set to argue an important case about DACA in front of the Supreme Court is a Dreamer himself. [CNN}

* Hundreds have signed a petition in opposition to Scott Brown’s appointment as president of New England Law. [Boston Globe]

* An attorney from Roswell, New Mexico, is running against President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary. His chances of winning are out of this world… [KOAT Action News]

* Lawyers for Representative Tulsi Gabbard are demanding that Hillary Clinton retract allegedly defamatory comments about Gabbard’s relationship with Russia. [Hill]

* Johnny Depp has settled a lawsuit against his former attorney who allegedly bilked him out of millions. In other words: Jack Sparrow has bested another pirate. [Bloomberg]

* Hillary Clinton told an audience at Georgetown Law yesterday that she played a pivotal role in the selection of RBG to the Supreme Court. Maybe she’ll play herself in the next RBG movie. [CNN]

* Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has been charged with unlawfully touching a third woman. [Yahoo Entertainment]

* Attorneys handling the Equifax data breach class action are asking for $77M in fees. I’m still waiting for the money AOC promised me! [Daily Report]

* The Second Circuit has upheld the conviction of Martin Shkreli’s lawyer for his role in helping Shkreli defraud investors. [Reuters]

* R. Kelly skipped a hearing relating to his federal charges because he allegedly had an infected toenail. This excuse is even worse than saying he had to wash his hair. [People]

* President Trump pardoned two turkeys yesterday with a stern warning that “House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas,” and that he couldn’t “guarantee that [their] pardons won’t be enjoined by the Ninth Circuit” since it “[a]lways happens.” [NBC News]

* In case you missed it, and we’re pretty sure that’s exactly what was intended here given the timing, President Trump submitted written answers to special counsel Robert Mueller’s questions regarding Russian interference with the 2016 election. [Washington Post]

* That’s our Trumpy! He also wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, and reportedly only backed down when he heard he could be impeached. [New York Times]

* Biglaw partners are leaving their firms to become judges, and it’s because ex-White House counsel Don McGahn picked people just like him — “traditional, conservative, blue-ribbon, white-shoe law firm lawyers” — to fill vacancies. [American Lawyer]

* Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, a staunch defender of LGBT rights who helped keep a woman’s right to choose legal, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer next month. Congratulations, Your Honor! [American Lawyer]

* Seattle University School of Law has suspended its externship program with ICE after students signed a petition stating that the agency goes against the school’s mission to “empower[] leaders for a just and humane world.” [Seattle Times]

* Fun fact of the day: According to David Brock, a onetime member of “Kavanaugh’s cabal,” the D.C. Circuit judge has an “unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary.” He urges senators to vote no on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. [NBC News]

* After repeatedly denying that he had an affair with Stormy Daniels, President Donald Trump now says he he “will not bring any action, proceeding, or claim” against her for speaking out despite her nondisclosure agreement. All she has to do is give back the $130,000 hush-money payment she received from Michael Cohen. [Washington Post]

* The Democratic Coalition has lodged a perjury complaint against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh with the Justicec Department, and will soon file an ethics complaint with the D.C. Circuit. Oh, the irony that the grievance will be reviewed by SCOTUS nominee in waiting, Chief Judge Merrick Garland. [Mediaite

* President Trump will provide sworn answers to written questions in the defamation suit filed by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos. Considering Marc Kasowitz thinks his client is “immune” from this suit, things could get interesting. [Reuters]

* The U.S. legal sector has lost jobs for the second month in a row, and legal employment is now slightly down year-over-year. Hopefully these job numbers rebound, because law schools have started accepting record class sizes again. [American Lawyer]

* Former President Barack Obama has been called for jury duty in November, and unlike most Americans, he’s not looking for a way to get out of serving. [ABC Chicago]

* The pivot you’re looking for is in another castle: Now that a grand jury’s approved the first charges in the Russian collusion investigation and someone’s about to be taken into custody, President Trump took to Twitter to demand that Hillary Clinton be investigated. [New York Times]

* Paul Manafort is turning himself in. Surprise! (Is this really a surprise?) [CNN]

* Like it or not, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is planning to be around for the long haul. Don’t count on this “flaming feminist litigator” retiring any time soon. [The Hill]

* Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s Tweeter Laureate, hasn’t tweeted a single time since he was nominated to the Fifth Circuit. How long will this god-awful silence from everyone’s favorite Twitter judge last? [Texas Lawyer]

* So long, borrower-defense rule? Betsy DeVos is thinking about only partially forgiving loans for students who were defrauded by for-profit schools. [AP]

* Two-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will travel to Wales next weekend to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Swansea University, but that’s not the only honor she’ll receive while there. Swansea’s law school is being renamed, and will soon be known as the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law. Congratulations! [Wales Online]

* Special counsel Robert Mueller has added an appellate lawyer from the Justice Department’s criminal division to his team. Per a spokesperson, Scott Meisler, who had not been previously identified as being involved, joined the effort in mid-June. Meisler is a 2005 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. [Reuters]

* Winston & Strawn may have more than 900 lawyers, but according to the firm’s managing partner, that’s still not good enough. You can soon expect the firm’s corporate transactions practice in New York to expand, its D.C. office to grow in size, and its West Coast presence to double or triple. [Big Law Business]

* According to Altman Weil’s MergerLine, law firm mergers are now on pace to break a 2015 record. Thus far in 2017, 76 tie-ups have been announced, which may lead the industry to surpass its previous high of 91 mergers. The number of law firm combinations could even exceed 100 this year. Exciting times… [Am Law Daily]

* Retired U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson Jr. will be retiring as founding dean of the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law as of June 30, 2018. Why is Furgeson planning to retire with only five years as dean under his belt? He’s almost 76, and “plan[s] to do a lot of things when [he’s] 80 — but not this job.” [Law.com]

* Under cover of a natural disaster, President Donald Trump decided to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt after ignoring a federal judge’s order. Trump, who has shown contempt for judges since the start of his campaign, now seems to be using his “weaponized pardon power” to circumvent the powers of the judiciary. [New York Times]

* Speaking of Hurricane Harvey, we know that many lawyers, law students, and law professors in Texas have been and continue to be affected by the devastating after effects of the storm. How has your firm or your law school handled the destruction and historic flooding? Please get in touch with us via email, text message (646-820-8477), or tweet (@atlblog) to let us know. [Above the Law]

* Getting back to Joe Arpaio’s pardon, lawyers, former government officials, and current lawmakers of all stripes have spoken out against the president’s unconventional action. Perhaps our favorite comment of all came from Professor Orin Kerr of USC Gould School of Law: “Trump shows his love of the Constitution by pardoning a man who refused to stop violating it.” [Law.com]

* Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating whether former national security adviser Michael Flynn played any kind of a role in obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers. If he did have something to do with it, Flynn may be more concerned about Clinton’s emails right now than the average Trump voter was in the lead-up to the election. [Wall Street Journal]

* Thanks to President Trump, Irell & Manella now stands to lose one of its top rainmakers. In a Friday announcement, patent litigator Andrei Iancu, a partner at the firm, was nominated to become the next Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. We wonder how long it’ll take for him to be confirmed.[Am Law Daily]

* “Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot.” Because 2016 isn’t over yet and we love kicking horses thought to be dead, the D.C. Circuit has revived a legal challenge regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email server that was once considered to be moot. [Reuters]

* The Supreme Court may be taking a turn to the conservative side come 2017, but not immediately. It’s expected that shortly after his inauguration, President Trump will announce his nominee in either late January or early February, with confirmation hearings held in March, and a vote sometime in April. By the time a new justice is sworn in, there will be just a few days left of oral arguments for the current Term. [NPR]

* “This case of cyber meets securities fraud should serve as a wake-up call for law firms around the world.” Three Chinese hackers have been charged with breaking into the servers of several Biglaw firms — firms like Cravath and Weil Gotshal — to illegally trade on stolen information. They made more than $4 million, but only one of them has been arrested thus far and is awaiting extradition to the United States. [Bloomberg]

* “Providing a profit motive to make arrests gives officers an incentive to make improper arrests.” In counties across the country, those who are arrested must pay “booking fees,” regardless of whether or not they are found guilty of their crimes. Two cases regarding these fees will soon be heard by the Supreme Court in early 2017, and one county was so brazen that it didn’t even bother to submit a brief in opposition. [New York Times]

* If you’re applying to law school, you may be wondering how you can make the strongest argument for your acceptance in your application. Focus on your essays and make sure that you provide compelling examples of the type of person you are and your career goals. If you can sway just one person on the admissions committee to give you a chance, then you might soon find an acceptance letter with your name on it. [U.S. News]

* “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” President-elect Donald Trump can’t keep himself away from his Twitter account thanks to the recount that’s going on, and now he seems to have accidentally called into question the legitimacy of the election in its entirety. Oopsie! [New York Times]

* Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has jumped on Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s election recount bandwagon, but according to campaign general counsel Marc Elias, it’s only “to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.” Thus far, Wisconsin has already agreed to perform a recount. [CBS News]

* Just like the president-elect who’s included him on his Supreme Court shortlist, Judge Raymond M. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit seems to be incredibly blunt. The judge expects civility between parties in briefs, but is well known for his “caustic rebuke[s]” and “eviscerat[ing] [litigants] like first-day law student[s].” [Big Law Business]

* Per recent TV ads, “Wells Fargo is making changes to make things right,” but only if those changes don’t involve public court records: Wells Fargo customers who had unauthorized accounts opened in their names have filed a class-action suit, but the bank is trying to quash their claims by forcing plaintiffs into arbitration. [CNN Money]

* “If you look at other parts of the state — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio — everybody has a law school.” But that doesn’t mean that everybody needs to have a law school. A dearth of potential applicants be damned, because lawmakers in the Texas Rio Grande Valley are going ahead with plans to establish a public law school in the area. [Valley Star]