Miguel Estrada

Olson tries to play the media. Ends up playing himself.

The long and winding road to a nominee for Solicitor General of the United States is about to come to an end.

* To answer the question posed in Morning Docket today… no. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Miguel Estrada will not be the next Solicitor General. [Law.com]

* Elena Kagan is finally getting some meme love. [Huffington Post]

* The Texas Supreme Court is hearing arguments about rolling back spousal benefits for same-sex couples. No, you didn’t imagine Obergefell in a fever dream, it’s just Texas. [Slate]

* Can legal remedies be effective against age discrimination? Or will that take too long? [Law and More]

* RIP Barbara Lundergan the first woman to be partner at Seyfarth Shaw. [Crain’s Business]

* How does Neil Gorsuch fare on the issue of abortion? [Constitutional Accountability Center]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiyYk6WbFfU&feature=youtu.be

* Amazon is struggling to protect law enforcement from turning the Echo into a permanent wiretap. Maybe they should ask Alexa if she can find some caselaw. [Law.com]

* Is this the next Solicitor General? [National Law Journal]

* In case you missed it, a bunch of whiny snowflakes are complaining that law schools don’t respect their opinions. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* If you’re wondering what life might be like in a totalitarian version of America, consider this profile of Jones Day. [American Lawyer]

* Kellogg Huber is now Kellogg Hansen for those keeping score at home. [Kellogg Hansen]

* Summer Associate hiring hit a wall last year. Not a good sign for the fragile 3-hour lunch industry going forward. [Am Law Daily]

* Dewey & LeBoeuf’s Stephen DiCarmine has gotten the government’s documents surrounding the Frank Canellas plea deal. [Law360]

* After hearing powerful testimony from victims’ relatives, a federal jury sentenced Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof to death. [BuzzFeed]

* Dahlia Lithwick on yesterday’s Jeff Sessions hearing: the nominee “will be handily confirmed,” and Democrats “are rightly very, very afraid.” [Slate]

* An interesting puzzle for the Supreme Court: free speech and credit card fees. [New York Times via How Appealing]

* Also from Howard Bashman, also about free speech: Gibson Dunn partner Miguel Estrada “warns City of Philadelphia that his hourly rate is very expensive.” [How Appealing]

* More about Morrison & Foerster snagging former Justice Department national security chief John Carlin — the latest in a series of high-profile hires of former government lawyers, including Kathryn Thomson and Jessie Liu. [Law.com]

* Some good news out of the Charlotte School of Law: students might be getting their spring semester loan proceeds after all. [ABA Journal]

* Speaking of money, Volkswagen is going to pay a lot of it — perhaps $4.3 billion in fines — to resolve the federal criminal investigation into its cheating on vehicle emissions tests. [New York Times]

Handicapping the field of legal superstars in line for a coveted post.

Say what you will about these folks, but at least they're interesting.

Isn't this oral argument painful to listen to?

* A guy who tried to get on the bench more than once was just busted in a prostitution sting. Oops. He also spells his name weird. [The Press Democrat] * Tomorrow, Gibson Dunn partner Miguel Estrada will argue before the Second Circuit that private parties can’t get injunctions under RICO. For those keeping score, Gibson Dunn partner Randy Mastro hangs his whole case in Chevron v. Donziger on a request for an injunction under RICO. Time to play the Distinguish Polka. [Courthouse News] * Wait until the RIAA realizes there are royalties to be made at CIA black sites in Uzbekistan. Because the only thing more torturous than being forced to listen to this music is the tenacity of the RIAA. [Slate] * More on the legislative fight over accrual accounting versus cash-basis accounting for Biglaw firms. To the barricades! Swear your allegiance to Generalissimo MacEwen! [Adam Smith, Esq.] * Is there a right to online anonymity? All the people out there trying to hire contract killers over the Internet certainly think so. [InsidePrivacy] * Jay Edelson and Chandler Givens of Edelson PC examine the flawed law firm recruitment model. [Legal Solutions Blog / Thomson Reuters] * Slip and falls at the IRS office. [Lowering the Bar]

[U]nderneath a sometimes gruff exterior, he has the proverbial heart of gold: no one I know is a more faithful friend or a more fundamentally decent person. — Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about appellate litigator Miguel Estrada, a Gibson Dunn partner and possible […]

Last week, inspired by the pending Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan, we embarked upon a fun little imaginative exercise: What if Supreme Court nominees didn’t have to defend themselves to the American public? What if the U.S. Senate’s constitutional privilege of “advice and consent” was revoked? What would the Court look like if the […]

* Professor Orin Kerr wonders: Could Roe be indirectly responsible for the religious imbalance on the Court? [Volokh Conspiracy] * Speaking of SCOTUS, Tom Goldstein suggested that an endorsement of Elena Kagan by Miguel Estrada (pictured) “has the potential to swing at least a half-dozen Republican votes.” Well, here you go. [PostPartisan / Washington Post] […]

If the answer is no, that’s about to change, as of tonight. A culinarily-minded tipster alerts us: Tonight at 10:30 EST, the fabulous Judge Midge Rendell will appear on the Food Network. Check out tonight’s episode of Dinner: Impossible: “Chef Robert Irvine faces his most daunting assignment yet. In a surprise meeting, the governor of […]