Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.28.26

* Justice Department launching criminal investigation of E. Jean Carroll, in case you were wondering how the whole "weaponization of the DOJ against the president's enemies" is going. [BBC News]

* Kirkland & Ellis plans to spend half a billion to build their own AI technology, which in about 18 months will almost assuredly be worse than Claude. [Financial Times]

* CFTC overturning penalties secured by career attorneys against Trump donors. [CNBC]

* Fenwick paying $54 million to settle case over its FTX representation. [American Lawyer]

* Chancery slams WWE from the top rope. [Delaware Business Court Insider]

* Trump's executive order purporting to ban mail-in ballots stands... for now. [NPR]

* Want to know how to get $9 million as an AI-native law firm? Here's how Moritz did it. [Business Insider]

Morning Docket: 05.27.26

* "A fake Mossad agent. Twin grifters. The nation’s top lawman. A head-spinning legal drama has attorney general Todd Blanche fighting off accusations of forgery, malpractice, and more." There's a tagline for you. [Vanity Fair]

* Wiley Rain sued over cyberattack breach. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Supreme Court refuses to intervene in the discrimination case Brian Flores brought against the NFL. [ESPN]

* Alabama judge suspended for putting off hearings to walk her dogs. [AL.com]

* Wachtell faces lateral market pressure. [American Lawyer]

* Thomas and Alito mad that Court won't allow Florida to sue California over drivers' licenses. [MS Now]

* Supreme Court retirement!!! (In the UK). [Legal Cheek]

Morning Docket: 05.26.26

* Judge tosses Kilmar Abrego Garcia charges as result of vindictive prosecution. [Reuters]

* Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader clearing final hurdles before merger. [American Lawyer]

* Former U.S. Attorney arrested for hit-and-run. [ABA Journal]

* In-house counsel are getting paid more... but actual authority remains a bigger gap. [Corporate Counsel]

* Authorities warning of "anti-tech extremism" because of AI backlash. [WIRED]

* Former prosecutor launches another suit over Trump's January 6 slush fund. [Law360]

* Law schools need to teach AI faster, but it's hard to build a curriculum around something that's changed a thousand times in the last three years. [Bloomberg Law News]

Morning Docket: 05.22.26

* Michael Cohen says he's applying to the DOJ slush fund. Let's see how this plays out. [Daily Beast]

* Gibson Dunn and Davis Polk eye largest IPO in history -- a $2 trillion valuation for a company that brings in about $15 billion a year. Who doesn't love a 130x valuation? [Bloomberg Law News]

* Tom Goldstein hires Elizabeth Prelogar. So he knows he's heading for an appeal. [Law360]

* If it seems like Todd Blanche has reoriented the whole DOJ around delivering illicit gifts to Trump, it's because he has -- and it's why he's going to keep his job. [Politico]

* Company turns over its outside counsel engagement process to an AI bot. What could go wrong? [Roll on Friday]

* New report says the administration will move immigration lawyers into the DOJ to "speed up" the process. [Reuters]

* ChatGPT confesses to crime that it didn't commit. [Lowering the Bar]

Morning Docket: 05.21.26

* Government charges former DOJ lawyer with keeping a copy of Jack Smith's report on Trump criminal conduct. Maybe if she'd kept the report in her resort pool locker she'd be all right. [Reuters]

* Paul Weiss seen as "rebalancing" as litigators depart. [American Lawyer]

* And on that subject, Paul Weiss loses another litigation partner. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Judge orders Trump administration to comply with presidential records law. [Washington Post]

* Lawyer and "influencer" daughter arrested in bizarre murder-for-hire plot to kill boy band member... you have one guess which state. [Fox 35]

* Appellate court doesn't seem to be buying the Jack Daniel's bid to silence a dog toy parody. [Law360]

* Senate confirms U.S. Attorney right after judges had to toss several indictments citing his misconduct, but... YOLO. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 05.20.26

* Former member of Watergate prosecution team explains how Trump's January 6 slush fund exposes DOJ lawyers to fraud charges down the road. Not if they all get pardons first... [Bloomberg Law News]

* James Comey realizes he's probably one of the only people actually due some money from this "anti-weaponization" fund, which is both true and honestly hilarious. [The Hill]

* Reed O'Connor "enjoins" hospital from complying with federal judge ruling from their own state. In a normal world, that would be a swift impeachment and removal from the bench, but it's the full Caligula era now. [Slate]

* Todd Blanche seems to be lying under oath, which honestly tracks. [The New Republic]

* NYC lateral hiring at 3-year high. [New York Law Journal]

* Alex Murdaugh now suing the clerk whose actions led to his murder convictions getting overturned. [ABA Journal]

* Boies Schiller and Dentons defeat RICO suit brought by former client. [Reuters]

* Quinn Emanuel sanctioned... more. [Law360]

Morning Docket: 05.19.26

* Department of Justice announces it has settled Trump's lawsuit against the IRS and the judge acknowledged that she has no grounds to block the settlement. Now $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds will go into a non-reviewable fund to compensate January 6 rioters. [NBC News]

* Top Treasury lawyer abruptly quits after announcement of rioter slush fund. [WSJ]

* Interview with Legal Aid attorney present as baby born during arraignment denies account of woman's lawyer, and says mother was restrained the whole time. [Hell Gate]

* Wrongfully convicted defendants in Pennsylvania have to fight their own lawyers for chance at freedom. [Inquirer]

* Elon loses lawsuit trying to tear down OpenAI. [Corporate Counsel]

* Constipation drug illegally blocked up by antitrust violation. Jury finding sets market on path to regularity. [Reuters]

* Some chemicals may be forever, but EPA regulations against them aren't as Trump administration lifting rules against poisons. [Law360]

* Are Harvey and Legora on borrowed time? [Law.com International]

* Partner advertised mentoring sessions on TikTok. [Legal Cheek]

Morning Docket: 05.18.26

* California moving closer to adopting NextGen UBE, coming full circle back to the same dumb arrangement that ran them into the red the first time. [ABA Journal]

* Former CFTC leaders worry the agency can't handle regulating crypto and prediction markets, but they're missing the trick: taking jurisdiction over those industries and then doing nothing is easy! [Bloomberg Law News]

* Supreme Court rejects Virginia's bid to use a Trump administration argument to overturn their own state supreme court's comically reasoned decision. [NY Times]

* Proposed class action accuses Amazon of foregoing tariff refunds to make Trump happy. [Law360]

* Applicants who don't go to ABA-accredited law schools are less likely to pass bar exam, more likely to be disciplined. Well, it's a good thing a bunch of states are making high-profile breaks from the ABA, huh? [Law.com]

* Harvey Weinstein rape trial ends in mistrial. [Reuters]

* DOJ eyes AI to analyze price-fixing and collusion, hopefully allowing antitrust officials identify companies to settle with in exchange for a Trump Organization kickback. [Corporate Counsel]

Morning Docket: 05.15.26

* Elon Musk leaves country despite judge in OpenAI trial warning him that he wasn't excused. [Independent]

* Clients don't mind lawyers working from home, blowing up a key law firm excuse for aggressive back to office drives. [Roll on Friday]

* Supreme Court allows mifepristone telesales to continue -- suddenly Alito and Thomas are very angry about the shadow docket. [NBC News]

* Ethics lawyer calls out "fundamental threat" to profession in DOJ effort to sue D.C. Bar into refusing to enforce ethical rules against government lawyers [National Law Journal]

* Judge blocks Texas immigration law noting that "it is implausible to imagine" every state having its own immigration law. [Texas Tribune]

* Wilson Sonsini handing out big bucks to encourage pro bono work. [American Lawyer]

* Supreme Court says courts continue to have power over cases they've sent to arbitration. [Law360]

Morning Docket: 05.14.26

* The DOJ takes the fight against law firms that refused to bow to Trump's intimidation campaign to the appellate court. [National Law Journal]

* Federal judge has concerns over SEC's sweetheart Elon Musk settlement. [Reuters]

* DOJ sues D.C. Bar for seeking professional discipline against Trump allied lawyers. There's a reason... they understand bar discipline is coming for them all and they want to get a head start in intimidating licensing authorities to stay out of it. [NY Times]

* Private equity firms are unhappy with lawyer rates. Boo hoo. [Financial Times]

* Anthropic bid to become the legal industry's AI front door and now it's up to the rest of the tech industry to figure out how to react. [Legaltech News]

* Judge McElroy absolutely lets the DOJ have it in attempt to subpoena hospital records of trans patients. [Boston Globe]

Morning Docket: 05.13.26

* Claude launches legal industry blitz, announcing connectors across the legal tech industry. [LawSites]

* Former DLA Piper associate sues firm alleging she was fired after revealing her Palestinian heritage. [American Lawyer]

* SEC junks rule barring defendants from denying settled allegations -- a rule that exists because keeping market fraudsters from lying to their investors is kind of a big deal. [National Law Journal]

* Sam Altman tells jury he believes he's trustworthy. Which is also what ChatGPT says and we know how that turns out. [Law360]

* Interim NDNY US Attorney committed professional misconduct according to disciplinary authorities. [ABA Journal]

* Biden fighting back against DOJ plan to release tapes of meetings with biographer. [Politico]

* Judge Liman getting very tired of this Lively-Baldoni case. [Page Six]

Morning Docket: 05.12.26

* Supreme Court lifts order barring Alabama from redistricting away Black voting power, three years after rejecting the same proposed redistricting. [Washington Post]

* ABA Committee recommends dropping law school diversity rules in order to protect accreditation status from Trump administration. [Reuters]

* Ye argues that his use of another person's song was "test drive" and not infringement. Pretty sure that's not in the hornbook. [Law360]

* Trump continues to pay his personal lawyers in federal appointments as opposed to cash. [National Law Journal]

* Virginia asks U.S. Supreme Court to overturn state supreme court decision. Which is crazy because the Supreme Court doesn't rule on exclusive state constitutional issues... unless it's Bush v. Gore. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Federal judge applauds Susman Godfrey for trusting young associate with high stakes copyright argument. [Litigation Daily]

* Lawyer spends evenings as extra on hit soap opera. [CBS]

Morning Docket: 05.11.26

* Legal shared in this month's decent job report. But if recent history is any guide, expect a downward adjustment in a couple months. [Law360]

* David Lat talks to Neal Katyal about the flak the lawyer's faced since his TED Talk. [Original Jurisdiction]

* Lawyers getting worried about proliferation of AI notetakers. [NY Times]

* Alleged Correspondents' Dinner attacker seeks recusal of DOJ leaders who've spent the last several days publicly talking about being fact witnesses. [ABA Journal]

* Law students enrolling early to get around federal loan changes. [Reuters]

* DOJ investigating prosecutor for "preferential treatment" of undocumented migrants, which just means "not automatically sending them to black site prisons for jaywalking." [National Law Journal]

* Second hundred firms more cautious with their AI spend. [American Lawyer]

Morning Docket: 05.08.26

* The grand jury that investigated Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election heard from more than 60 witnesses. The transcripts are now available. [Lawfare]

* A dive into how John Roberts growing up in a whites-only neighborhood brought us to Callais. [Slate]

* Former Willkie Farr lawyer became the key cooperator in insider trading case. [Reuters]

* Todd Blanche tells CBS News that he doesn't know anything about Jim Comey getting indicted over "Sea Shellgate" and blames the whole thing on local prosecutors and that "I don't even know their names." Apparently the "we spent 9 months investigating this at the highest levels" line from the week before wasn't testing well. [CBS News]

* Trump loses new, revised tariffs case. Surely he will respond with dignity and grace. [AP News]

* The UCLA Federalist Society event that became a right-wing "campus free speech crisis" story was... not at all what how it was portrayed on social media. Shocking! [Dorf on Law]

* Kash Patel reportedly ordering polygraphs of more than two dozen current and former close staff in desperate effort to identify those talking to the press about drinking escapades... that he claimed never happened anyway. [MSNow]

Morning Docket: 05.07.26

* Alleged Epstein suicide note finally unsealed. [Law360]

* FBI raid office of Virginia state senator who masterminded redistricting ballot initiative citing vague corruption claims. [NY Times]

* At the exact same time, the DOJ agreed to return or destroy all evidence it collected from Rep. Andy Ogles -- before the FBI was allowed to review it -- in long-running corruption investigation that includes stealing over $20,000 in money he raised for a stillborn child's burial that he seems to have just kept. [News 5]

* John Roberts worries that Americans see the conservative majority as "political actors" just because they have no consistent stances other than ruling in favor of Republicans. [NBC News]

* Plaintiff in wild JP Morgan scandal brings on lawyer who repped Epstein victims. [NY Post]

* Law firm turns to AI avatars to teach soft skills. [Legaltech News]

* Insider trading ring run out of top law firms busted. [Financial Times]