Mergers and Acquisitions

* “If the law’s not going to be improved by Congress, we have to help these young people who are drowning in student loan debt.” In the past, judges would rarely consider helping people who were bankrupted by student debt payments, but now offering their support through the court system. [Wall Street Journal]

* Guess which Biglaw firm helped the United States Soccer Federation secure the 2026 World Cup? If you guessed it was the firm that celebrated its bid by not raising its associates’ salaries yet, you were right. Thanks, Latham! [American Lawyer]

* A judge approved AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner on Tuesday, and two days later, it’s now complete. Although the Justice Department isn’t filing for a stay, that’s not going to stop lawyers in the Antitrust Division from appealing the judge’s decision in the case, though. [CNN]

* As our personal-finance columnist Jordan Rothman complained of earlier this week, it’s messed up that you can lose your law license after defaulting on your student loans. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio thought it was messed up too, so they introduced a bill to stop it from happening. [Law.com]

* RBG, the documentary about the life and times of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is quite literally stealing the show. The film has made $9.2 million since its release, making it the highest-grossing movie of the Sundance Film Festival. I highly recommend seeing this movie. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Even the mainstream media is covering Biglaw’s new salary scale, but dare we say, our coverage is much better. Check it out here while you cross your fingers and pray that your firm follows the latest in associate compensation trends. [New York Post]

* “We don’t create or adjudicate under secret law or procedure.” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has filed suit against the Department of Justice, alleging that the DOJ has repeatedly refused to turn over any documents or identify any policy or procedures that were relied upon when firing him. [Associated Press]

* There’s no vacancy on the Supreme Court right now, but Demand Justice, a liberal nonprofit group, has already spent a hefty sum on digital attack ads against some of the judges on President Trump’s short list. Thus far, Judges Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit, Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit, and Amul Thapar of the Sixth Circuit have been treated to campaign coverage. [BuzzFeed]

* In case you somehow missed it, over the government’s antitrust objections, a federal judge has approved AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner following a six-week trial. They hope to close the deal by or before June 20. Have hope, everyone, maybe Time Warner Cable will actually function sometime soon. [USA Today]

* The ABA’s president has asked members of the House to oppose the part of the PROSPER Act that would end Public Service Loan Forgiveness, because “[w]ithout PSLF, the organizations that provide life- and livelihood-sustaining services will be even farther away from being able to meet these important challenges.” Plus, many law school graduates wouldn’t be able to survive. [ABA Journal]

* Guess which Biglaw firm has decided to bring back on-campus recruiting for its summer associate program? Here’s a hint: You’re going to need a pair of flip flops. We’ll have more on this later today. [American Lawyer]

* With an estimated $11 million annual salary, Sandra Goldstein, who recently left Cravath for Kirkland & Ellis, may be the highest paid female partner in all of Biglaw. You go, girl! [The Careerist]

* Speaking of female Biglaw partners, Bracewell partner Barbara Jones’s $700 per hour rate as special master in the review of materials seized from Michael Cohen’s office has added up to a pretty YUGE bill for just one week’s worth of work: $47,390. [New York Law Journal]

* The Justice Department approved a merger between Bayer and Monsanto, but only after the companies agreed to dump $9 billion in business assets. “Today’s news makes it clear that our antimonopoly laws are completely worthless,” said one farm group that’s just thrilled by the news. [Washington Post]

* Eduardo M. Peñalver, the first Latino dean of an Ivy League law school, has been reappointed to a second five-year term as dean of Cornell Law after achieving quite a few milestones for employment and bar pass rates at the school. [Cornell Chronicle]

* Briana Williams, a single mother who requested an epidural while she was in labor so her contractions wouldn’t interfere with her completion of a final exam, recently graduated from Harvard Law School. Much respect from one law mama to another. Congratulations and best of luck in all that you do! [Yahoo!]

* The New York Times has a list of the questions Mueller would like to ask Trump. Why are we hearing about it? Methinks the “he’s exceeding his mandate” noise is about to ramp up. Either that or the New York Times scored a coup with their RudyGiuliani_69@aol.com account. [NY Times]

* California Supreme Court opts for employee classification standard that critics claim could ruin the gig economy. That… sounds like a good thing. Happy May Day! [Law.com]

* Cleary is getting slapped with a harassment suit arising from conduct between two Williams Lea employees. What does Cleary have to do with this? Well, the employees work at Cleary, use Cleary equipment, and are directly controlled by Cleary. It’s the common law “walks like a duck” doctrine. [Law360]

* Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter is running for Senate in Minnesota as a Democrat because we’ve reached the point where even the W era is renouncing the GOP. [CNN]

* The lawyer social event of the season is upon us, and it’s called the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. At least a dozen firms are getting in on this fray. [American Lawyer]

* Justice Sotomayor will get “reverse shoulder replacement surgery” which… sounds like the wrong direction. [National Law Journal]

* DACA fight looks like it’s heading for the Second Circuit. [Courthouse News Service]

* DA candidate in Maine suspended from practicing law over sexual assault allegations brought by a former client who was living in the candidate’s house. [Sun Journal]

* “Please Stay, Justice Kennedy. America Needs You.” The editorial board of the paper of record has penned a moving letter to Justice Anthony Kennedy, pleading with him not to retire from the Supreme Court during a moment in history when the high court — and the country at large — faces “an institutional crisis.” [New York Times]

* Par for the course? In order to be hired for her job, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s top spokeswoman apparently had to swear fealty to President Donald Trump because she had criticized him during the 2016 Republican primaries. [Washington Post]

* House Republicans want to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a punishment that was last used against an executive branch employee 122 years ago. FYI, “[i]t’s not meant to use to go after officials who don’t share your policy views or your political goals,” so it’s not likely to happen, but good luck with that. [USA Today]

* T-Mobile has agreed to buy Sprint (again), and this time, they think that the Trump administration will allow the deal to go through because they want Make America’s 5G Great Again. To paraphrase what Sprint spokesman Paul would say, all law firms are great, but we wonder which ones are on this deal. [Wall Street Journal]

* The first lawsuit has been filed against Southwest Airlines by a survivor of the deadly flight where a passenger was partially sucked out of the window following an engine explosion. The suit was filed by Lilia Chavez, who “prayed and feared for her life” after she “witnessed the horror” of the disaster, and now claims she has PTSD. [ABC News]

* Judge Robert F. Chapman, senior judge of the Fourth Circuit, RIP. [Fourth Circuit]

* What’s behind the Supreme Court’s sluggish pace, and does Justice Gorsuch have anything to do with it? Only 18 rulings have been sloooooowly handed down so far this Term, and the world is still waiting for decisions to be made in some of the high court’s most contentious cases. [Reuters]

* House Republicans are so pissed the DOJ failed to comply with a subpoena deadline to turn over more than a million documents related to investigations of Hillary Clinton’s emails, alleged FISA abuses, and Andrew McCabe’s firing that there’s a “growing consensus” Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein could be held in contempt of Congress — or even impeached. [Washington Examiner]

* There may be a law school brain drain when it comes to a lack of applications from students at top undergraduate institutions, but the Law School Admission Council is reporting that the number of applicants with LSAT scores of 160 or higher is up by 21 percent since last year. We’ll have more on this interesting news later. [Law.com]

* In case you missed it, with an average deal size was $3.7 billion and a market share of about 24 percent, Skadden came out on top of Bloomberg’s law firm league table for global M&A deal volume in 2018’s first quarter. Congratulations! [Big Law Business]

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal services industry added 400 jobs between February and March. The entire profession now ranges from 1.2 to 1.3 million jobs, down from pre-recession highs of 1.8 million jobs. Sorry, but after about a decade, it’s looking like those jobs may be lost forever. [American Lawyer]

* M&A lawyers see a banner year ahead as companies feel flush with cash and eager to spend it on flashy deals. Relatedly, bankruptcy lawyers should start gearing up for a monster 2019. [American Lawyer]

* Army filed a challenge to the Las Vegas Golden Knights alleging it’s being harmed by people confusing the NHL hockey team with Army’s parachute team. With this filing, the three different “Tigers” in the SEC all start eyeing each other warily. [Washington Post]

* Attorneys file fresh legal challenge on behalf of 11 men still detained at Gitmo since Trump’s been consistently Tweeting that they should be categorically held there indefinitely. [Huffington Post]

* Some prominent Nazi-wing personalities are planning to sue privately owned social media companies for discriminating against their content. Because free enterprise should allow companies to not make cakes for immutable minorities but should not allow companies to choose how they present ideological content on their platforms. Yeah, that makes sense. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Find yourself a job where you can not work for 500 days and still get paid. [New Jersey Law Journal]

* Dean’s position gets $5 million endowment. [Duke Chronicle]

* New Mexico toying with complete legal immunity for law enforcement. Because no one’s been arbitrarily killed by a cop in this country in, like, a whole two weeks. [Courthouse News Service]

* If in-house work is outsourced is it really in-house work? Mind. Blown. [Law360]

* The “20th Century Disney” deal helped make this a very happy holiday season for a bunch of Biglaw firms. [American Lawyer]

* “Did Alabama just violate federal voting law?” I’m going to go ahead and assume the answer is “yes” until proven otherwise. Now there’s an idea! We could have some sort of statute that presupposes changes to voting laws in places like Alabama are bad until proven otherwise. A law that requires that they get, I don’t know, “preclearance” for election law changes. [Slate]

* The Net Neutrality law suits are piling up and throttling the FCC’s plan to move forward at full speed. [National Law Journal]

* Remember when Nate Newton was arrested for having 213 pounds of marijuana in his car? Well this arrested Georgia football player is, like, the complete opposite of that. [Slate]

* Vivia Chen discusses Heidi Bond, focusing on how systematic abuse has the power to make people with all the objective markers of success feel incompetent. [The Careerist]

* WSJ declares that it’s cool to go to law school again. There’s no way this leads to another bubble. [Wall Street Journal]

* There are a lot of reasons why Sedgwick is going out of business but one of them has to be partners who had enough spare time to build stuff like this. [The Recorder]

* Pro: The DOJ is finally taking the sort of antitrust action they should’ve been pursuing for decades in blocking the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Con: They’re only doing it because Trump hates CNN. [BBC]

* State Department officials formally accuse the Secretary of State of violating U.S. law. Things seem to be running smoothly over there. [CNBC]

* Husch Blackwell sheds 40 lawyers… zero associates. [Law.com]

* Bob Mueller’s team seems to be gearing up to get Rick Gates’s counsel disqualified. [National Law Journal]

* Inside the world of a Biglaw GC. [Corporate Counsel]

* We all were wondering what would happen to the FCPA under an administration that publicly claims businesses need to be able to bribe local officials. The answer? It now only applies to the Chinese and Africans. That makes sense. [Law360]

* Former Biglaw partner dies in around-the-world yacht race. [American Lawyer]

* One of Roy Moore’s former law school classmates says he isn’t surprised that the former judge was accused of having a “sexual encounter” with an underage girl. He warns Alabama to “beware of false prophets,” because he’s seen “Bible-thumping, God-fearing hypocrites” all his life — and Moore is one of them. [Washington Examiner]

* Much to President Trump’s the DOJ’s chagrin, AT&T has no plans to sell CNN in order to push through its deal with Time Warner. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Earlier this week, the Supreme Court released its first opinion of the October 2017 Term, less than a month after hearing oral arguments in the case. Justice “Rapid Ruth” Ginsburg wrote the Court’s unanimous opinion in record time. [Associated Press]

* Who is Kate O’Scannlain? You’re not the only one who has no idea, but she’s the Trump administration’s pick for solicitor of labor. You may be familiar with her dad, though. He’s a senior judge on the Ninth Circuit. [Big Law Business]

* According to a new report by the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance, although 2017 was a record year, women are still lagging behind men when it comes to making partner in law firms. This is apparently news to some people? [American Lawyer]

* A juror who was dismissed from Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial says she thinks this is going to end in a hung jury. She says if she would’ve stuck around, “he would have been ‘not guilty’ on every charge.” [New York Post]