Morning Docket

* Justice Kennedy may be stepping down from the Supreme Court, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a job. The dean of the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law already called the soon-to-be retireee and offered him a teaching position. Will Kennedy become a law professor? [Sacramento Business Journal]

* The suspect in the Capital Gazette shooting has been identified as Jarrod Ramos. Ramos filed and lost a defamation suit against the newspaper in 2012 for correctly reporting that he’d pleaded guilty to criminal harassment. At least five people were killed during the shooting spree, and several others were seriously injured. [CNBC]

* Does the death penalty violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution? At this rate, we may never find out because the Supreme Court keeps turning down cases challenging the issue. Justice Breyer is getting really upset about this, and dissented in both of the Court’s denials this week. [National Law Journal]

* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is known to her fans as the Notorious R.B.G., and now she’s got an album that’s bears the exact same name. “Notorious R.B.G in Song” is a musical tribute that was created by her children, and even includes jokes about her horrible cooking skills. [WOSU Radio]

* Remember Leicester Bryce Stovell, the lawyer who claimed via failed lawsuit that he was NBA legend LeBron James’s father? He just got disbarred. [American Lawyer]

* Now begins the period of wild predictions about Kennedy’s eventual replacement. Young judge with proven record of hostility toward minorities, gays, and women would be a pretty good bet. [National Law Journal]

* A whopping 33 states employ the UBE now. [Law.com]

* No one is actually complying with GDPR. Sounds right. [Digiday]

* But back to Supreme Court news, remember Roe? Yeah that won’t be around much longer. And if you’ve deluded yourself into the Pollyannaish belief that Roberts won’t go there, you’re forgetting how courts work.
[Slate]

* This op-ed by the legal luminary power family, the Amars, about Justice Kennedy’s call for a civil and balanced court in his Muslim Ban concurrence did not age well. But it’s worth revisiting to demonstrate just how deeply Kennedy grifted everyone, including some of the smartest legal minds around, with his “swing” schtick. [CNN]

* ICE lawyer decides it’s time to help kids instead of hurt them. To quote West Wing: “Let’s… I tell you what, let’s forget the fact that you’re coming a little late to the party and embrace the fact that you showed up at all.” [USA Today]

* Border patrol is about to get aggressive on keeping Canadians out. [Newsweek]

* A Republican-appointed federal judge has ordered that families separated at the border be reunited within 30 days, and if children are younger than 5, they must be reunified within 14 days of her order. [USA Today]

* Immigration attorney Andrea Martinez claims that an ICE officer broke her foot and detained her in a room while she was covered in blood as she attempted to drop off a 3-year-old boy to be reunited with his pregnant mother before they were deported to Honduras. [Daily Beast]

* “Did Justice Anthony Kennedy Just Signal His Retirement? The depressing defeatism of Kennedy’s work this term indicates his time on the court could be coming to an end.” Given the fact that Justice Kennedy’s recent opinions have seemed a bit phoned-in… Rick Hasen might just be right. [Slate]

* In case you missed it amid all of the fanfare of Biglaw’s 2018 associate salary raise, the public interest pay gap is now even larger. Public interest salaries have been stagnant for way too long. In fact, according to NALP’s Public Service Attorney Salary Survey, the median entry-level salary is just $48,000. [Big Law Business]

* Sedgwick, the dearly departed Biglaw firm that suddenly closed its doors in January, is now facing a $450,000+ default judgment in a landlord/tenant lawsuit, which includes $31,982 in “failure to vacate” fees. Oopsie. [American Lawyer]

* Even though Florida Coastal has filed suit against the ABA, the law school accreditor has decided to extend a little olive branch to the school. It won’t have to reveal its weak first-time bar exam pass rate record to current students. [Daily Business Review]

* Michael Cohen’s lawyers say just a little over 12K of their client’s files are privileged. That’s out of 4 million… and still seems high. [Law360]

* If you thought the Westworld videogame felt suspiciously like Fallout Shelter, so did the makers of Fallout. [BBC]

* Online retailers are confused in the post-Wayfair world. They’ve built algorithms that can guess what you want to purchase before you think of it, but they’re totally baffled about tacking 6 percent on a sale heading to Kentucky. [Corporate Counsel]

* Professor Tim Wu thinks yesterday’s Amex decision has devastated antitrust law. There’s no argument that this was the Court’s intent, but it strikes me that the decision prevented the market from rapidly devolving into a Visa/MasterCard duopoly — since they already have a near stranglehold on the market — so it’s hard to consider this anticompetitive in result even if it is in reasoning. [NY Times]

* The economic dumpster fire that is Kansas will have to cough up more money to fund schools according to their Supreme Court, based on the state’s constitutional obligation to equitably fund education. Don’t worry, the Trump administration sees Kansas as a model for the country! [Courthouse News Service]

* Age discrimination could blow up soon if the Seventh Circuit expands protection to job applicants. It’s a pressing issue for an aging generation just now realizing that they’ve spent 30 years voting for the government to pilfer their retirement. [National Law Journal]

* Lawyer indicted on charges of stealing $150K from clients. [NY Post]

* The Supreme Court is set to rule on six more cases this week, and one of them is President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. Stay tuned, because we could find out a decision on this one later this morning. [Reuters]

* President Trump has called for the immediate deportation of undocumented immigrants with “no judges or court cases.” Adios to due process, which was pretty cool while it lasted. [The Hill]

* Speaking of undocumented immigrants, Lawyers for Good Government has launched Project Corazon, a program led by Kirkland & Ellis, where attorneys will help reunite families that were separated at the border under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. [ABA Journal]

* Valparaiso Law might not be going anywhere after all. As it turns out, Middle Tennessee State University is in talks to inherit the struggling law school program. MTSU isn’t buying the school or merging with it — no, this is going to be considered a “gift.” Mmmhmmm. [Chicago Tribune]

* Coming to a law firm near you is the Mansfield Rule 2.0, which aims to close the gap in leadership roles for LGTBQ+ attorneys in Biglaw. Fifty firms signed up for the original Mansfield Rule to promote the success of women, and 35 of those firms plus 11 new ones have joined to support LGTBQ+ attorneys. [American Lawyer]

* Paul Manafort loses evidence motion. He should embrace that feeling of loss. [Courthouse News Service]

* CNBC criticizes the Cohen case Special Master, Judge Barbara Jones, for charging $330K for document review. This is, of course, an entirely reasonable fee for a case of this import but CNBC has clearly let their bias flag fly. [CNBC]

* While America focuses, fairly, on children suffering institutional child abuse, please take a second to remember that cops straight up killed a teenager running from a traffic stop. One could say, “why was he running?” but I’ve seen the video of Philando Castile’s death — staying peacefully in a car isn’t necessarily safe anymore. [CBS News]

* The new awareness of widespread sexual harassment in the workplace may have another positive side effect: women are advancing to partnership faster than before. [American Lawyer]

* Dumb people are up in arms that the ACLU might shift its resources away from random Nazis toward other projects that don’t have hordes of self-styled rebel lawyers and downright crypto-fascist attorneys ready to defend them pro bono. This video, however, is exactly why the ACLU is right to reorient itself to focus on more pressing challenges. [io9]

* Trump proposes merging the Education Department with the Department of Labor. Do you know how hard he had to work to make this not his dumbest idea of the week? We’re going to have to build the Starship Trump just so America doesn’t focus on this nonsense. [NPR]

* NY’s Mayor is doing more to protect unfairly targeted immigrants than almost anyone in America and his policy has a glaring, awful hole in its provision of legal aid. [NY Daily News]

* A Guatemalan woman seeking asylum in the United States has filed suit against the Trump administration, alleging that her 7-year-old son was taken from her at the border last month. She’s only spoken to him once, and desperately wants to be reunited with her child. [The Hill]

* Stop the inhumane insanity: A group of state attorneys general and former U.S. attorneys have written letters to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, demanding that he “immediately” reverse his policy of separating families at the border, letting him know that “the unfolding tragedy falls squarely on [his] shoulders.” [National Law Journal]

* After being dumped by McDermott Will, Michael Cohen has hired Guy Petrillo as his attorney. Petrillo is an ex-S.D.N.Y. prosecutor, which could make it easier for his client to negotiate a deal of some sort after he starts cooperating. [New York Times]

* Seyfarth Shaw has been slapped with a $40 million malpractice suit by Manhattan’s Blue Dog restaurant group, with claims that the firm “negligently, deceptively, and repeatedly” failed in its attempts to properly represent them. [American Lawyer]

* The Justice Department will be holding its annual DOJ Pride event on June 26, and it’s doubtful that AG Sessions will attend. To be honest, given his record, it’s probably better this way for the LGBT employees who’d be celebrating. [Washington Blade]

* Florida Coastal seeks restraining order against ABA requirement that the school to let students know that they’ll probably not be passing the bar exam. [Daily Business Review]

* Kris Kobach lost his effort to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters based on a series of rank fabrications… but the best part is the judge ordered him to attend CLE as punishment for his cluelessness throughout the trial. [Courthouse News Service]

* Cadwalader Cabinet functions as the “Bloomberg Terminal for financial regulation.” [American Lawyer]

* … And then promptly loses its financial services co-chair to Debevoise. So it’s an up and down kind of day down there. [American Lawyer]

* MillerCoors and Pabst locked in bitter legal battle. Why do mommy and daddy have to fight like this? [CNBC]

* Conversations with minority partners. [Law360]

* A call for Silicon Valley to get behind a privacy law. [Politico]

* This weekend, a passerby recognized Michael Cohen on the street, calling him out as “that guy that’s going to jail.” For his part, President Trump later recognized Michael Cohen as a “good person,” calling him out as “not my lawyer anymore.” Ouch. [The Hill]

* For what it’s worth, Michael Cohen may not have to worry about jailtime for too long. After all, Rudy Giuliani says that the president may pardon Paul Manafort after the conclusion of the Russia investigation. His longtime personal lawyer could very well get a pardon thrown his way too. [Washington Post]

* Justice Anthony Kennedy had dinner in Manhattan this weekend following his grandson’s graduation, and he was treated like the superstar that he is. Per sources, as soon as Justice Kennedy arrived at Antica Pesa for his meal, “a security detail almost shut down a street, as onlookers wondered who he was.” [Page Six / New York Post]

* According to a survey conducted by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, some in-house leaders are really angry about the latest Biglaw associate raises, and other in-house leaders aren’t angry about them at all — so long as they don’t have to pay more for their outside counsel, that is. [Corporate Counsel]

* Hot off the heels of her settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was recently indicted on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in an alleged scheme to con investors and mislead doctors and patients. [MedCity News]

* “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]

* The New York American Inn of Court presents, “Fast Times at Ruth Bader Ginsburg High.” You’ll never think of Phoebe Cates the same way again. [New York Law Journal]

* In the wake of decades of sexual abuse, Michigan State turned to former Republican governor John Engler to serve as interim president and steer the school back from this tragedy. His response is to smear the victims. The only shocking thing about this is that anyone expected a different result. [Detroit Free Press]

* Apple is making it harder for law enforcement to crack into your phone. If they can follow this up with a longer lasting battery, we might forgive them for removing the headphone jack. [CNN]

* A reminder that the next shoe in the Supreme Court’s attempt to resuscitate Lochner is about to drop. [Vox]

* United Lex and LeClairRyan’s new deal has the legal technology community buzzing. But banking on law firms to embrace change hasn’t always panned out. [American Lawyer]

* When the revolution comes, they’ll point to our highly developed law of golf balls as proof of our decadence. [Law.com]

* Due process suit brought by journalists on the infamous United States kill list will go forward. [Courthouse News Service]

* 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]

* Proskauer tells the EEOC that there’s nothing “sinister” about employers demanding that sexual harassment victims sign away their legal rights to be railroaded through employer-chosen kangaroo courts and then forcibly silenced. Welcome to 2018. [National Law Journal]

* In emoluments news, Judge Peter Messitte asked the Justice Department if, based on their chosen defense, “Wouldn’t that be bribery?” which he seemed to think would be a bad thing as if the Supreme Court hadn’t legalized bribery in McDonnell. [US News]

* Chris Christie is starting his own law firm and somehow Rudy Giuliani has already managed to lie about that. [NJ.com]

* Betsy DeVos succeeded in keeping fraud victims indebted to the government. She was also ordered to stop pursuing collection actions against the victims, but she still gets to destroy their credit ratings, which is still a great day for kleptocracy. [Courthouse News Service]

* Nelson Mullins merging with Broad and Cassel as part of the growing trend of super-regional firms designed to keep the Am Law elite at bay. [Daily Report]

* In a lesson on putting carts ahead of horses, the former general counsel for Portland, Oregon’s public school district was just admitted to the bar… after the state bar lodged ethics violations against him for serving in that role without a law license in the state. [Portland Tribune]

* Guess which law school is on the verge of losing its accreditation? We’ll have more on this unsurprising news later today. [Arizona Republic]

* When it comes to Milbank’s new $190K salary scale for associates, some general counsel and in-house leaders don’t seem to really care, and others are none too thrilled about it, but absolutely NONE of them want to pay for it. [Corporate Counsel]

* How much does President Donald Trump detest AG Jeff Sessions? This much! The president says he’ll probably support legislation protecting marijuana activities in states where the drug has been legalized. [NBC News]

* Pointing out numerous dueling injunctions in a Friday night filing, the Trump administration’s Justice Department is paving the way for a SCOTUS showdown over DACA — possibly as soon as sometime this summer. [BuzzFeed]

* If you’re planning to someday become a Supreme Court clerk, you better make sure that your law school is following the new law clerk hiring plan. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is now the fourth justice to offer her support, following in the footsteps of Justices Kagan, Ginsburg, and Breyer. [National Law Journal]

* Trump wanted to put Jeanine Pirro on the Supreme Court, which sounds stupid but then you read Neil Gorsuch’s writing and wonder, “could it be any worse?” [NY Mag]

* Casey Anthony’s old lawyer heading to jail for 15 years. Apparently trying to smuggle $13 million in cocaine is frowned upon. [US News]

* Stores putting up “No Gays Allowed” signs as Anthony Kennedy’s legacy withers. [The Hill]

* Since the GOP legislature couldn’t muster the votes to kill the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration is just not going to defend it against frivolous lawsuits. That sounds about right. [CNN]

* Speaking of “things the Trump administration isn’t going to do anymore,” the EPA isn’t going to deal with asbestos anymore because Trump thinks it’s a mob-led conspiracy. [Newsweek]

* Here comes the bipartisan legal weed law. Let’s see what Fox & Friends tells Trump to do about it. [Forbes]

* Ogletree opens up in Portland, Maine… and brings an Above the Law columnist with them. [American Lawyer]

* France is trying to ban fake news. [Time]

* Stormy Daniels has accused her former lawyer of being a Trump puppet, which I think is called a Trumpet. [Politico]

* EPA Senior Counsel Sarah Greenwalt has resigned because lawyers always find a way to bolt a sinking ship. [The Cut]

* Judge orders Above the Law all-star Richard Luthmann to get a psych evaluation. [New York Post]

* Law schools are failing students of color, which is less of a newsflash than something people need to be constantly reminded about. [Nation]

* Philly hears from dozens of criminal justice experts speak out over a proposed sentencing algorithm that they say will further cement racial inequalities. Because it will. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Global law firms are returning to Tokyo so aging partners can live out Lost in Translation. [International]

* In-house attorneys produce another music video to convince people to call velcro “hook-and-loop.” [Corporate Counsel]

* Biglaw loves mob prosecutors for some reason. [Law360]

* Simpson Thacher isn’t increasing associate salaries to the $190K scale (yet), but it is partnering with Columbia Business School to launch a new associate training program. We bet your incoming associates are “STBReady” … for higher salaries. Click here to see all the firms that have raised salaries thus far . [New York Law Journal]

* President Trump is appealing the decision that says he can’t block people on Twitter based on their political views to the Second Circuit (because of course he is). He already had to unblock the seven plaintiffs in the case, and he likely wasn’t very happy about it because of glorious follow-up tweets like this. [BuzzFeed]

* After reportedly being rejected by several candidates for the associate attorney general position — one that would oversee the Mueller investigation if Rod Rosenstein were to suddenly depart — the Trump Administration is giving up on trying to fill the job for the moment, and focusing on other vacancies. [Wall Street Journal]

* In the wake of allegations of sexual harassment against former Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, the federal judiciary’s working group on sexual harassment has released 24 recommendations, specifying three areas that need change to make circuit courts an “exemplary workplace.” [Big Law Business]

* The American Bar Association wants out of this whistleblower suit, ASAP. ABA officials claim that former Charlotte Law professor Barbara Bernier only added the law school regulatory group to her suit against the defunct law school and its owner, InfiLaw, as a “last-ditch effort” to keep her action kicking in court. [Law.com]

* “It was a mistake. I swear to God,” remarks Giuliani outlining the excuse for conflicting testimony that works like a charm for every other criminal defendant. [CNN]

* Law professors point out that Trump’s lawyers are bad at their jobs, which isn’t news but will somehow dominate the news cycle and still not sway anyone who isn’t already on board with these facts. [Politico]

* Judge Aaron Perksy — who sentenced rapist Brock Turner to a mere six months — may get recalled today. So it’s a good time to remind everyone of this older post laying out exactly how dangerous and misguided this is. Persky may deserve to lose his job in due course… but embracing the recall mechanism for judges who hand down lenient sentences is a one-way road to needless mass incarceration, usually with a heavy dose of racial bias. [Slate]

* Liverpool player injured in nasty tackle has achieved immortality as the subject of a law school exam question. [BBC]

* The NFL may have a new problem with its disastrous anthem policy — it violates multiple state constitutions… in states with perennial playoff teams too. [Slate]

* Despite the death of the prime suspect, Arizona law firms went ahead and beefed up security in the wake of the recent paralegal murders. [AZ Central]

* The GOP tax bill accidentally put a tax on victims of sexual abuse because that’s what happens when you railroad a bill through both chambers in the middle of the night with a bunch of hand-written amendments in the margins. [Bloomberg]

* Sex workers are taking action against SESTA/FOSTA, the ill-conceived anti-human trafficking law that really just puts legitimate sex workers in danger — almost like that was the politicians’ plan all along. [Gizmodo]

* According to President Trump’s lawyers in a confidential memo sent to special counsel Robert Mueller, the President can’t obstruct justice because the Constitution allows him to “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.” Tell that to Bill Clinton. [New York Times]

* President Trump was complaining via tweet about the costs of the special counsel’s “Russian Hoax Investigation” this weekend, but as it turns out, the costs of the President’s trips to Mar-a-Lago dwarf the costs of Mueller’s legal bills, so there’s that. [The Hill]

* Speaking of the Russia investigation, despite numerous past denials, Trump’s lawyers also admitted in that confidential memo that the President “dictated” his Donald Trump Jr.’s statement on his 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians where he reportedly hoped to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. [Slate]

* Rudy Giuliani says that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for President Trump to testify before Mueller because “our recollection keeps changing.” That’s an eloquent way of saying that they’re having trouble keeping their fibs in line. [CNN]

* The latest U.S. jobs report was just peachy, but the story for lawyers was a little less rosy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal profession lost about 200 jobs last month, and about 1,000 jobs since last May. [American Lawyer]

* New firm, new pay: Recently merged firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner is going to be moving to a merit-based pay system for partners. Messing with people’s money? This should be interesting! [Legal Week]

* Reed Smith has rolled out a new plan that will “revamp” associate life at the firm, complete with new training, billing requirements, and reviews. This isn’t specifically for millennials (suuuuure), but rather, “an acknowledgment that there are some creative and inventive ways to do things differently.” [American Lawyer]

* In case you missed it, President Trump says he’s considering commuting former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence for corruption and he might even throw a pardon Martha Stewart’s way. Hmm, it’s almost like the president is trying to set the stage for something that could come in the future… [Chicago Tribune]

* According to Vivia Chen, if we really want gender equity in the legal profession, it might be time for some quotas. It’s working for corporate boards in Europe, so it could work here too, but alas, “the topic has largely been a nonstarter in the U.S.” [The Careerist]

* Jennifer Ihns, the former clinic administrator at Notre Dame Law, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for embezzling about $200,000 from the school, but she’ll only spend two years behind bars, with five years of probation. [Law.com]