Kerrie Campbell

* Baker Hostetler has a new chair. By that we mean a new leader, not new furniture. [American Lawyer]

* Now that they’ve settled, Chadbourne is a big fan of Kerrie Campbell. [New York Law Journal]

* Cox witness thinks AT&T merger would be “horribly ugly.” Well at least it’s an unbiased source. [National Law Journal]

* Ogletree Deakins slapped with punitives in malpractice trial. I’ve said it before… someone over there needs to figure out labor law. [Daily Report Online]

* Some people don’t pass the bar. [Inside Higher Ed]

* GE signed a multiyear contract with UnitedLex. A conversation with William Deckelman, general counsel of DXC Technology. [Corporate Counsel]

* Per recently filed FEC paperwork, the Republican Party’s campaign arm has severed financial ties with would-be Alabama senator Roy Moore thanks to his allegedly pervy predilections. If there’s no grass on the field, the GOP won’t play ball, but this man will probably still be elected. [The Daily Beast]

* Starting today, members of the public will be able to access briefs and relevant case documents from the Supreme Court’s website for the first time in history. This will be pretty cool for a day or two, and then people will go back SCOTUSblog, to the OG of high court documentation. [Washington Post]

* After seeing a five-year nose-dive, the number of LSAT-takers has ticked upwards ever so slightly over the course of the past two years. Law schools are probably thrilled given the dearth of quality applicants, but this is likely little comfort for the LSAC given the unexpected rise of the GRE. [Law.com]

* Late last week, a judge ruled favorably for Kerrie Campbell in a discovery dispute in her gender bias case against the now-defunct Chadbourne & Parke. Campbell will be able to review the personal email accounts of the firm’s former leaders for any documents relevant to the case. [American Lawyer]

* A 12-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating seizures and was forced to move from Texas to Colorado for treatment is suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an effort to legalize medical marijuana nationwide. The government has already lost its first motion to dismiss her case. [The Hill]

* As we continue to reel from Judge Posner’s retirement, here are some of his best quips. Unfortunately lists like these will always miss something. Like my personal favorite: “Yeah, but, you know, the problem with the balancing test is there’s nothing on your side of the balance!” [National Law Journal]

* The high price of becoming a partner. [American Lawyer]

* Top Kasowitz Benson partner jumps ship… could this be more fallout from the ill-fated attempt to defend Trump? [New York Law Journal]

* The government’s been in a slump at the Supreme Court. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* A deep dive into the Chadbourne discrimination suit. [Bloomberg Businessweek]

* If you’ve not followed the phenomenon of running payday lending from tribal lands, here’s an in depth look at a $2B lawsuit over the practice. [Law360]

* Some predictions about the upcoming law school application cycle. Here’s another one… a bunch of people will end up in debt for no good reason. [US News]

* Sometimes you fall for someone who is always jerking you around and the whole thing is just doomed from the start. That’s… probably how Norton Rose feels. [Big Law Business]

* Speaking of Chadbourne, Judge J. Paul Oetken has denied the firm’s motions to end the $100 million gender discrimination class action they’re facing. [Am Law Daily]

* Marcia Coyle points to the tragic coincidence that the Supreme Court is set to review a concealed carry case the day after yesterday’s shooting — mirroring their review of Sandy Hook legislation the day after the Orlando attack. It’s not really a coincidence… there are shootings every day now. [Law.com]

* A little preview of the hoopla surrounding the upcoming Bristol-Myers Squibb decision where the Supreme Court is suspected to crack down on class action forum choices. Because mom and pop stores like Bristol-Myers Squibb just can’t be bothered to litigate in all the places they sell drugs. [Corporate Counsel]

* Since the NBA Finals weren’t really competitive, maybe you can get your competitive sports fix from this Wilkinson v. Kessler showdown over football. [National Law Journal]

* That Jim Harbaugh is the face of legal aid will never stop being insane. [ESPN]

* Looks like Anna Stubblefield will get a new trial. [Slate]

* According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, it’s highly likely that we’ll have another Supreme Court vacancy this summer. Word on the street is that a justice is thinking about retiring, and all eyes are on Justice Kennedy, the high court’s swing vote. Hmm, we thought we’d already put this rumor to bed. [The Hill]

* After years of accepting incoming students with questionable academic qualifications followed by unsurprisingly dismal bar exam results, another law school will be closing soon. We all knew it would happen eventually, but it was just a matter of which one it would be. We’ll have much more on this later today. [Orange County Business Journal]

* Kerrie Campbell, the Chadbourne & Parke partner who filed a $100 million gender discrimination suit against her firm, will learn later this morning whether she’s been ousted from the Chadbourne partnership. Campbell, who is out on medical leave, says her removal from the partnership would be financially ruinous. [Am Law Daily]

* Former pharma bro Martin Shkreli and his former attorney, former Kaye Scholer partner Evan Greebel, will have separate trials this summer thanks to this ruling. After all, Greebel turned on his former client months ago, and his lawyers planned to “assert a defense that [would] be an ‘echo chamber’ for the prosecution.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* When Big Weed meets Biglaw: In honor of 4/20, the mainstream media has finally caught on and realized that marijuana law is an up-and-coming practice area. This article focuses on some of the well-known law firms that have adopted marijuana practices, like Thompson Coburn, Fox Rothschild, and Much Shelist. [Chicago Tribune]

Is this Supreme Court nominee a plagiarist?

* SCOTUS nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch has been accused of plagiarizing borrowing language and sentence style from other authors and incorporating it into a book and a law journal article without proper citation. On the bright side, at least one of the authors whose language he copied doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. [POLITICO]

* As it turns out, Chadbourne & Parke isn’t too keen on having a partner who filed a $100 million gender discrimination suit against the firm still working there. A spokesperson for Chadbourne says that the partners will convene to vote Kerrie Campbell out of the partnership. We’ll likely have more on this later today. [Am Law Daily]

* According to Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group, the leaders of some of America’s largest law firms had the wrong idea about how 2016 would turn out. Legal demand went down, not up as hoped for; realization rates did not improve, as expected; and revenue at many firms dropped, instead of increasing. Ouch. [Big Law Business]

* Professor Verna Williams will serve as the special assistant to the provost (i.e., interim dean) of the University of Cincinnati College of Law while Dean Jennifer Bard is on administrative leave. Williams was one of the UC professors who opposed Bard’s leadership, once referring to the situation as “untenable.” [Cincinnati Enquirer]

* Speaking of Dean Bard, she has obtained legal representation and claims that her removal from her position was improper. Per her attorney, “[t]he interim provost placed Dean Bard on administrative leave without the slightest factual basis for doing so,” and the law faculty were unwilling to put students’ needs ahead of their own. [Law.com]

* 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]

* A Wisconsin judge has ordered that Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of “Making a Murderer,” be freed from prison while the state appeals a ruling overturning his conviction, as authorities have “failed to demonstrate that Dassey represents a present danger to the community.” The date of his release is not yet known, but the state plans to file another appeal. [USA Today]

* “If you have baseball commissioner to offer me, then I can tell you what my plans are.” Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White is stepping down from her position even though she still has two years left before her term is up. The departure of the former Debevoise partner and federal prosecutor will make way for President-elect Donald Trump to start dismantling the Dodd-Frank Act. [DealBook / New York Times]

* For a man who seems to be completely obsessed with all things tremendous, big league, great, and yuge, the vast majority of the judges on President-elect Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist have at least one thing in common: They didn’t go to Ivy League law schools. That being said, just like his outsider campaign as a whole, the names on Trump’s Supreme Court pick list are a “revolt against the elites.” [New York Times]

* While he was still on the campaign trail, President-elect Trump pledged to “open up our libel laws” so celebrities and public officials can “sue [the media] and win lots of money,” but it might not be so easy to do. The Supreme Court doesn’t seem to have any designs on overturning the precedent set in New York Times v. Sullivan, and the only other way to change libel laws would be to amend the Constitution. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Chadbourne & Parke has filed a motion for summary judgment in the $100 million gender discrimination class-action suit filed by one of its current partners and one of its former partners, contending that not only are their claims “utterly baseless,” but that the plaintiff partners are not or were not employees of the firm who fall under employment discrimination laws. We’ll have more on this news later today. [Big Law Business]

* There are many questions, but no answers, as Judge Merrick Garland’s “final reckoning” approaches. His nomination will die if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected, but would he be confirmed in a lame-duck session if Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wins? In that case, if Senate Republicans refuse to confirm him after the election, will Clinton re-nominate him after she’s sworn in? Will he ever receive a hearing? Someone please help this poor man. [Reuters]

* With apologies to Judge Garland, the only thing that seems to remain certain is that Senate Republicans are firm in their stance that they’ll continue to prevent the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court from being filled. Senator John McCain, for example, asked supporters to re-elect him so he can assist his GOP brethren in “prevent[ing] that four-to-four split from tilting to the left.” [Huffington Post]

* According to FBI director James Comey, after review of additional emails found in an unrelated investigation into Anthony Weiner, there’s still no evidence that Hillary Clinton should face any criminal charges over the handling of her email communications while she was Secretary of State. Voters can breathe a little easier now, because there will be no indictments coming for the Democratic presidential nominee. [New York Times]

* Chadbourne & Parke has finally responded to partner Kerrie Campbell’s $100M gender discrimination suit, and the firm didn’t pull any punches, alleging that her practice area was a “poor fit” for the firm, that she “exhibited questionable legal judgment,” and that its decision to ask her to leave was for “entirely legitimate and proper business reasons and without a scintilla of consideration being given to her gender.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* “No purpose will be served by letting him rot in prison for years on end.” Judge Jed Rakoff, a longtime critic of federal sentencing guidelines, has sentenced Harvard Law School graduate-cum-Ponzi schemer Andrew Caspersen to four years in prison for his $38.5M fraud, even though prosecutors sought almost 16 years of time behind bars for his financial crimes — a proposition which Rakoff referred to as “absurd.” [Reuters]

* E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., founder of the first appellate practice, RIP. [Hogan Lovells]

* Janet Reno, first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general, RIP. [New York Times]

* Slowly but surely, the effects of Brexit have started to take their toll on Biglaw firms in the United Kingdom. Thanks to the declining value of the pound, following a salary review, Akin Gump has decided to completely overhaul its compensation system and will now pay its junior associates in line with current exchange rates. Ouch! [The Lawyer (sub. req.)]

* “I do not consider it a coincidence that this Democratic smear on Justice Thomas comes as he celebrates 25 years on the court, and in the heat of a presidential election.” Former assistant White House counsel Mark Paoletta is having trouble believing attorney Moira Smith’s groping allegation against Justice Clarence Thomas, while the justice himself says it’s “preposterous,” claiming “it never happened.” [Washington Post]

* “[M]ale management has not uttered a verbal word to me since April 1 — radio silence — despite my repeated invitations and efforts to sit down and discuss important issues that need to be sorted out….” If you’d like to know what life has been like for partner Kerrie Campbell since she filed her $50M suit against Chadbourne & Parke, this interview, though it may be brief, will tell you quite a bit about it. [Big Law Business]

* A troubled Florida law firm — one that’s currently grappling with an ethics investigation against at least two attorneys and whose managing partner has previously been disciplined by the state bar — has turned to layoffs in an attempt to solve some of its financial problems. Thus far, more than 50 employees have been let go from the firm since this past spring. We may have more on this later today. [Orlando Sentinel]

* “This is an attack on the credibility of the court.” Just when you thought elections for state judges couldn’t get any duller, Microsoft’s Bill Gates is banding together with other billionaires to oust Washington State Supreme Court Justice Charles Wiggins from his seat on the bench. In all, they’ve spent $850,000 to fund political action committees in an effort to convince voters to cast ballots for his opponent. [WSJ Law Blog]