Movies

* The Supreme Court may undo President Obama’s legacy… of executive actions. [Talking Points Memo]

* Speaking of United States v. Texas, it just may be Chief Justice John Roberts’s worst nightmare. [Slate]

* Today is a special anniversary: six years, the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United decision, and democracy hasn’t looked the same since. [Huffington Post]

* Interesting data analysis from Professor Derek T. Muller: as full-time law faculty numbers shrink, law school administrator numbers grow. [Excess of Democracy]

* Benghazi is getting a Michael Bay movie — and the congressional hearing is still raging on. [Rolling Stone]

* Attorneys for Daniel Holtzclaw, the Oklahoma City police officer convicted of raping eight women while on duty, have filed a motion seeking a new trial; they suspect discovery shenanigans on the part of the prosecution. [Gawker]

* Nope. Hillary Clinton may not be a radical, but she also isn’t a moderate Republican. [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* Seven legal tech considerations for 2016, from lawyer and legal-tech enthusiast Steven J. Best. [Legal Tech Blog]

What do you get when you cross galactic supervillain Darth Vader with judicial superhero Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Ed. note: Indulge your inner nerd! Welcome to our daily legal trivia question. Enjoy! The Academy Award winning role of defense attorney Hans Rolfe was played by what actor? Hint: Academy Award nominations are out! What better way to celebrate then remembering an award winning performance from the 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg? Highlight the […]

By 2020, will the diversity and inclusion efforts of show business or the legal profession prove more fruitful?

* Has the dearth of law school applicants finally pinched Harvard Law? [Bloomberg Business]

* Meanwhile, New York Law School is doing just fine… thanks to its savvy real estate moves. [Crain’s New York Business]

* Amal Clooney sighting in D.C. [Washington Post]

* For those keeping score, only Scalia, Thomas, and Alito skipped the State of the Union last night, which was not really surprising. [CBS News]

* Former Cravath attorney Robert Miranne talks about the movie “Joy,” chronicling the life and times of his mother, Joy Mangano. [The Am Law Daily]

* In July, China arrested Wang Yu, a top women’s rights lawyer for creating a disturbance. They got around to notifying her mother of this… on Monday. In fairness, they’ve really been swamped over there with the sabotaging the global economy thing. [Reuters]

* FLSA class actions expected to hit record high this year. “I keep waiting — because I’ve been studying it for 15 years — for the number of wage-and-hour lawsuits to crest or go down” said Seyfarth’s Gerald Maatman Jr. And I keep waiting for companies to dutifully pay employees the money they actually owe them, yet here we are. [Law 360]

Culture columnist Harry Graff looks back on the year that was in law-related television, books, and movies.

The acting and editing in Spotlight are top-notch; does it deserve the Academy Award?

"[Thurgood] Marshall was a cowboy who used his law books as guns."

Would Luke Skywalker make the best Biglaw associate of all time?

We need a law to stop J.J. Abrams.

This film character had a family connection to his lawyer.

Somewhere some graduate thesis on The Character And Motivations Of Gollum Née Sméagol is about to become actually useful.

Columnist Steve Dykstra would like to introduce you to someone who escaped Biglaw to something cool.

Can you picture Elle Woods as a Harvard Law professor?

* Even Jordan Weissmann of Slate, who is relatively pro-law school, accepts that there are some people who shouldn’t bother going. [Slate]

* Yet another prosecutor with a temper: sorry he whipped out a gun at the office, but “Assistant Prosecutor Chris White is really [really, really] afraid of spiders.” [Charleston Gazette-Mail]

* Moot Court: the movie! Unleash your inner gunner and check out this documentary next month. [DOC NYC]

* Roadkill: it’s what’s for dinner (and apparently there’s no law or regulation against this). [Grub Street / New York Magazine]

* Professor Michael Koehler on “The Uncomfortable Truths and Double Standards of Bribery Enforcement” (beyond the FCPA). [FCPA Professor]

* Nationwide Layoff Watch: sports bloggers. Grantland, RIP. [Bloomberg]

* ICYMI, here’s your chance to be a D.C. judge (Superior Court, not D.D.C. or D.C. Cir.). [D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission]

* Elsewhere in interesting employment opportunities, Practical Law / Thomson Reuters is looking for an experienced IP lawyer to join its Intellectual Property & Technology Service. [Glassdoor]

* We wish all our readers a happy (and safe) Halloween — and remind you to submit legally themed costumes in our annual competition. [Above the Law]

An enjoyable evening with a prominent prosecutor and one of the nation's greatest writers.

* Good news, everyone! Legally Blonde 3 is supposedly in the works, and Reese Witherspoon says that the movie may involve Elle Woods becoming a Supreme Court justice or some kind of an elected official. It’s really too bad that SCOTUS robes aren’t pink. [Washington Post]

* Biglaw firms aren’t the only ones that are downsizing when it comes to their headcount. Case in point, Lear Corporation’s in-house legal department has dropped from 20 attorneys to 11, but its GC Terry Larking says it’s working for the company. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Cornell Law School will be teaming up with Cornell Tech to launch a new LL.M. degree in law, technology, and entrepreneurship. Like most LL.M. degrees, we imagine that it will cost a pretty penny, but that its overall value on the market will be low. [Cornell Chronicle]

* “Do we really need to protect people from trying to achieve their dreams?” Professor Noah Feldman of Harvard Law thinks we shouldn’t coddle law school applicants who are unlikely to pass a bar or try to “save” them from a lifetime of debt. [Bloomberg View]

* She shoots, she scores? An ex-cheerleader filed suit against the Milwaukee Bucks under the Fair Labor Standards Act because she alleges she was paid less than minimum wage to cheer for the team. The suit is the first of its kind filed against an NBA team. [ABC News]

* “Cases swing. I don’t.” Justice Anthony Kennedy would really like it if folks would stop referring to him as the high court’s swinger swing vote. In other news, the Supreme jurist thinks Legally Blonde is a “pretty good movie.” [Harvard Gazette]

* Hey, everyone, it’s high time we did something about this law school debt crisis. Have you somehow never heard about or experienced this before (despite reading Above the Law for eons)? Not to worry, because the New York Times is on it! [New York Times]

* “She’ll still be fighting for the things she cares about. But this time, she’ll be asking us to join her.” Irin Camron, co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (affiliate link), thinks we’ll see more Badass Bader this Term. [New York Times]

* The Pennsylvania Senate is trying to kick embattled Attorney General Kathleen Kane out of office because she’s working with a suspended law license. Come on, it must be pretty embarrassing when your AG can’t even refer to herself as a lawyer. [Morning Call]

* According to Professor Paul Campos, the law school scam will keep on trucking thanks to the for-profit institutions — Arizona Summit Law, Charlotte Law, and Florida Coastal Law — that are run by InfiLaw. Well, at least they’re good at one thing, right? [The Atlantic]

* Toke the vote! The next states that will likely legalize recreational marijuana by ballot referendum come November 2016 include California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Vermont, on the other hand, may pass marijuana-friendly legislation. [Rolling Stone]

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It's a good thing this movie's predictions for the legal profession haven't come true.