Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 09.29.25

* Supreme Court considers letting Ghislaine Maxwell off the hook. [MSNBC]

* Oregon sues Trump administration over troop deployment. Suit comes after Trump indicates to Oregon's governor that he sent military because he's watching bizarre conspiracy accounts suggesting Portland is on fire instead of a hipster artsy town. [Willamette Week]

* Apparently, the war on drugs is over because the DOJ has surrendered so they can spend all their time hunting immigrants. [Reuters]

* Cadwalader has lost 33 partners this year and that's going to lead to some sort of reckoning. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Amy Wax plans to appeal her discrimination case against Penn to the Third Circuit. [Legal Intelligencer]

* Trump demands Microsoft fire Lisa Monaco, its President of Global Affairs, because she worked for Biden's DOJ. [Law360]

* The Roberts Court turns 20. [One First]

Morning Docket: 09.26.25

* James Comey indicted in effort to criminalize hurting Trump's feelings. [CNN]

* Comey is hiring Pat Fitzgerald, the former Illinois federal prosecutor, to represent him. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Clarence Thomas tells audience that he and his colleagues are no longer even pretending to respect stare decisis. [Courthouse News Service]

* Administration sues six states for election rolls in vote suppression bid. [Reuters]

* DOJ creates new branch dedicated to suing people and institutions that don't comply with administration policy and messaging. [Law360]

* Fourth Circuit prepares to hear Trump's lawsuit against all Maryland judges. [Law.com]

* Biglaw lawfluencer quits after two weeks. [Roll on Friday]

Morning Docket: 09.25.25

* Judge considering sanctioning DOJ lawyers over repeated statements compromising fairness of Mangione trial. [NY Times]

* Roberta Kaplan representing Disney shareholders seeking discovery to determine if Kimmel suspension demonstrates a breach of fiduciary duties. [Semafor]

* Group challenging SEC gag rule, which prevents parties who voluntarily settle enforcement cases from turning around and telling the market they did nothing wrong, seeks en banc review from the Ninth Circuit. But, you know, you don't have to settle. [Law.com]

* Supreme Court could decide if prediction markets are betting sites just because they let you "bet on stuff." [National Law Journal]

* "The Ryder Cup Is an Uncanny Mirror for UK Big Law’s Aspirations" [Bloomberg Law News]

* Law partners launch accusations against each other ranging from stealing firm money to cocaine use. [WCSC]

* ABA argues that the administration's law firm intimidation policy is very real. [Law360]

* FTC suit over Amazon Prime cancellations heading to trial. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.24.25

* Court blocks arbitrary, capricious, and retaliatory grant cuts until Supreme Court can shadow docket them back. [Bloomberg Law News]

* AI hallucinations strike at Boies Schiller. [Original Jurisdiction]

* [Dr. Manhattan Meme] It's 2013 and we're talking about Cooley Law School's accreditation. It's 2016 and we're talking about Cooley Law School's accreditation. It's 2025 and we're talking about Cooley Law School's accreditation. [Law.com]

* Meanwhile, St. Thomas Law is out of compliance. [ABA Journal]

* Isaac Chotiner interviews Cass Sunstein and it goes predictably poorly for the interviewee. [New Yorker]

* Nexstar and Sinclair will continue preempting Jimmy Kimmel... but their affiliate agreements carry limits on the number of times they're allowed to preempt ABC programming before the network can declare them in breach and cut them off entirely. [Politico]

* RadioShack comeback allegedly gets scammy. [Law360]

* Law school application boom delivers record classes. [Reuters]

* Now convicted attempted Trump assassin attempts to kill himself. [CNN]

Morning Docket: 09.23.25

* Elena Kagan points out that the Supreme Court majority just used a glorified TRO to functionally reverse a century of precedent because, like Whose Line Is It Anyway, the rules are made up and nothing matters. [Newsweek]

* Clifford Chance unveils new logo. [Legal Cheek]

* West Point law professor sues administration over First Amendment violations. [Army Times]

* The administration says Tylenol causes autism... reset the clock to see who shorted Kenvue hours before the announcement, followed by who goes long hours before Trump announces that the company bought him a mega yacht and now ibuprofen causes cancer. [Bloomberg Law News]

* "Did the SEC Just Kill the Securities Class Action?" Teapot Dome over the weekend... Hoovervilles by next year. Right on pace. [New York Law Journal]

* Oracle taking control of TikTok data, proving that it really can get worse than handing your data to the Chinese Communist Party. [Law360]

* Trump wants charges brought against Letitia James and other political enemies as retribution for the charges he and his business faced because he doesn't understand that his organization committed crimes and they didn't. [National Law Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.22.25

* Border czar Tom Homan recorded taking $50K from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen based on Homan claiming he could help them secure future government contracts. Trump DOJ dropped the investigation. So, um, does he keep the money? [NY Times]

* Mark Geragos has malpractice verdict overturned. [LA Times]

* Trump posted -- and then deleted -- a Truth Social that looked suspiciously like an intended DM, excoriating Attorney General Pam Bondi for not doing more to prosecute his political critics. [CNN]

* Lewis Brisbois sees more leadership shuffling. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Ty Cobb compares Trump to Putin. [NBC News]

* Immigration lawyers scrambling to figure out how new pay-to-play $100K per H1-B visa rule works. [Business Insider]

* Donna Adelson wants a new trial based on jurors' social media habits. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.19.25

* Craving another law firm ranking? Of course you are! The Global 200 is here. [Law.com International]

* Trump-appointed judge calls out DOJ for making false claims to deport a bunch of children under the radar. [Washington Post]

* Tennessee Supreme Court suggests dropping the ABA for law school accreditation. Hey, maybe PragerU could step in! [Law.com]

* Law professor suspended over Charlie Kirk comments. [ABA Journal]

* After unconstitutionally pressuring ABC to suspend Kimmel, FCC chair proposes investigating The View. [Politico]

* DOJ eliminating neutral hiring process for Civil Rights Division, handing hiring authority over to Trump loyalists. [Bloomberg Law News]

* A conversation with an FBI whistleblower who raised questions about the agency's name check program. [Whistleblower of the Week]

Morning Docket: 09.18.25

* Rudy Giuliani owes lawyers roughly $1.3 million. [NY Times]

* Late night host Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air after FCC threatened ABC broadcast license. So go ahead and set that First Amendment crisis clock to midnight. [Variety]

* Cadwalader losing talent, but not engaged in merger talks... yet. [American Lawyer]

* Go "anti-woke," go broke, and then sue blaming Winston & Strawn. [Law360]

* The IPO oligopoly. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Morgan & Morgan sues Disney to use Steamboat Willie in test of public domain status. [AP News]

* Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deportation as part of crackdown on Israel criticism. [Reuters]

Morning Docket: 09.17.25

* Utah seeking death penalty in Charlie Kirk case. [Courthouse News Service]

* Legislators raise concerns over the proposal to force JAG officers to serve as immigration judges. Because it's stupid. [AP]

* DOJ just removed a report confirming that white supremacist and far-right violence "continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism." [404 Media]

* Harvard Law School's incoming class includes more Black students after last year's decline. So prepare for the White House to slash more Harvard funding. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Judges looking beyond monetary fines to police AI hallucinations. [Reuters]

* A&O Shearman losing more partners. [Law.com International]

* Fun exercise: what are the most overused words in law firm press releases? [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.16.25

* D.C. Circuit blocks attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor. [NBC News]

* Trump files $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times for malicious reporting of stuff he doesn't like. [CNN]

* Two different people claim to be Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft and no one could figure out the correct answer. This is what happens when you run on Microsoft Teams. [Corporate Counsel]

* Brett Kavanaugh's getting protested in Waco, if you want a sense of how unpopular this Court has gotten. [Texas Lawyer]

* Prosecutors argue that Tom Goldstein can't pay his fees with his house since his house is the subject of one of the charges. [Law360]

* Trump administration calling its politically motivated federal cuts as contract breaches in order to shunt them into the Court of Claims where litigants can't get equitable relief. If you're wondering, yes, this is the bonkers baby-splitting solution Justice Barrett recently pitched. [Bloomberg Law News]

* China accuses Nvdia of antitrust violations. [Investopedia]

Morning Docket: 09.15.25

* Lawyer accused of hallucinated cites in case about getting law license back. [ABA Journal]

* FTC sees collapse of CFPB as a new opportunity to oversee the fleecing of Americans. [Bloomberg Law News]

* EU allowing Microsoft to remove Teams from its product bundle to avoid antitrust issues, opening the door to your European colleagues having a teleconference tool that works. [Law360]

* Judge extends block on government randomly deporting kids in the middle of the night. [Reuters]

* SEC wants to keep its case against Musk in D.C., which makes you think: he did all that and still didn't get Trump to drop the SEC case? [National Law Journal]

* The financial press can't get enough Harvey stories. [Financial Times]

Morning Docket: 09.12.25

* "Firms that aren’t willing or able to compete with the highest-paying players are instead competing on flexibility." Which is, frankly, the right business strategy. [Law.com]

* A lawyer for the Korean workers rounded up by ICE -- throwing the whole U.S.-South Korean economic alliance in turmoil -- says they all had legal visas at the time. Because of course that's how this turns out. [AP]

* Nadine Menendez gets 4.5 years in political bribery case. The Supreme Court has spent years trying to say bribery isn't a thing, so let's see there's hope for her yet! [Law360]

* Steve Vladeck breaks down the Kavanaugh concurrence in the ICE decision and it's... curious. [One First]

* Looks like the Feds are still trying to go after former Biglaw associate Paul Bryant even after the grand jury passed on an indictment. [ABA Journal]

* Trump attempt to block migrant children from Head Start programs they qualify for slapped down by federal judge. [Reuters]

* "Lower-court judges are defying precedent and even openly criticizing Supreme Court justices" Except, you know, shadow docket opinions are NOT precedent and the open criticism is "please take the time to write opinions to keep right-wing cranks from phoning in violent threats to our homes." Other than that, the Wall Street Journal op-ed page is making great choices. [WSJ]

Morning Docket: 09.11.25

* Trump administration appeals stay in bid to fire Federal Reserve governor in prelude to Supreme Court showdown. [Reuters]

* Former FBI agents allege they were subjected to loyalty tests. [NPR]

* Clients driving firms to use more generative AI. Knock it all you want, but hallucinations are cheap! [Bloomberg Law News]

* Bipartisan ABA task force calls for serious election reform to protect the rule of law. [Law.com]

* D.C. Circuit returns Copyright chief to job. [Law360]

* As authorities keep detaining and then releasing suspects in the Charlie Kirk case, the local newspaper notes that Utah allows open carry everywhere, making it harder to just nab everyone leaving the scene with a gun. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* Lynne Stewart, the defense lawyer that the Bush administration accused of aiding terrorists, has died. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.10.25

* Judge blocks effort to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, noting that pre-role misconduct -- in this case, a mere accusation of pre-role misconduct to boot -- doesn't meet the statutory definition of a "for cause" dismissal. [Politico]

* Federal judges are learning from each other's experiences. It's why Judge Sooknanan oversaw a grueling, round-the-clock oversight effort having watched the government exploit Judge Boasberg for treating them like good faith litigants. [Lawfare]

* Banksy piece depicting a UK judge using a gave to brutally beat a protester will be removed. [Legal Cheek]

* Supreme Court to fast track appeal of Trump's tariffs case. Big test for a Court that already tried to twist itself in knots to build a conception of presidential power that's unlimited right up until it impacts their stock portfolios. [CNBC]

* Former Biglaw associate accused in DC occupation receives the latest no bill from a grand jury [WUSA]

* Second Circuit to hear appeal in "Tylenol causes autism" suits. The Onion had the best take on this latest of RFK Jr.'s insane theories. [Law.com]

* LGBTQ rights lawyer indicted in Alabama for judge shopping. Meanwhile, in Amarillo, that's just called "a Tuesday." [Reuters]

* Just Ken... getting a DUI. [Lowering the Bar]

Morning Docket: 09.09.25

* Supreme Court authorizes Trump administration to begin racially profiling Latinos -- and anyone authorities think looks Latino -- in another shadow docket special. [The Nation]

* Review calls Amy Coney Barrett's new book "studiously bland," which perfectly captures the lane she's cynically trying to claim for herself. [NY Times]

* State judge who ruled that Trump could continue his suit against the Pulitzer Prize for giving the award to reporting that he didn't like now confirmed to the federal bench. [Reuters]

* The Biglaw firms who didn't surrender are embracing Trump Media work. At least they're getting paid for their time. [American Lawyer]

* Companies increasingly fear that federal worker cuts will end up compromising cybersecurity. [Bloomberg Law News]

* E. Jean Carroll award upheld on appeal. [Courthouse News Service]

* The end of an era as TaxProf Blog, a fixture of the legal blogging world for over 20 years, puts up his final post. [TaxProf Blog]