NCAA

* Kirkland promotes whopping 141 to partner. [American Lawyer]

* Supervised injection site given the go ahead in Philly. So maybe Gritty can finally get the help he needs. [Gizmodo]

* Gordon Caplan set for sentencing today. Prosecutors are looking for 8 months of prison time. [New York Law Journal]

* Trade war moves into the European theater. [Courthouse News Service]

* Law schools lag when it comes to minority clinical faculty. [Law.com]

* More clamoring for a national law to give NCAA athletes access to compensation for their likeness. [ESPN]

* A bunch of useless facts about the UK Supreme Court in case you’re looking for cocktail chatter. [Legal Cheek]

* IP professors swear IP cases are going to be interesting this time. Of course they say that… it’s their trademark response. [National Law Journal]

* Chris Collins resigns from Congress in advance of pleading guilty to abusing his board position. [Law360]

* California has fired the first, serious shots at the NCAA’s student-exploitation model. Where do we go from here? [Sports Illustrated]

* Forever 21 enters Chapter 11, learning exactly what 32 feels like. [USA Today]

* Law firm merger market remains relatively quiet. [American Lawyer]

* Companies hiring GCs increasingly consider candidates based on potential to move into executive leadership someday. [Corporate Counsel]

* Immediately after John Bolton lost his job, a true genius tweeted that he’d signed with the Patriots. It looks like he might return to Kirkland which is basically the same thing in legal circles. [National Law Journal]

* Supreme Court decides government can circumvent international law while asylum rules get litigated. Cool. [NY Times]

* Dentons just added five firms across Africa in one day. [American Lawyer]

* “Chief Counsel of Digital Citizenship” is an actual title a major company came up with for a lawyer presumably after spinning the buzzword wheel. [Corporate Counsel]

* Latest appellate judge pick was so mealy-mouthed and evasive that even the Republicans snapped at him before they’ll ultimately vote down the line to give the racist myth peddling jackhole a lifetime job. [Huffington Post]

* Former Big 4 partner gets a year for fraud. [Law360]

* What exactly would happen if California stood up for college athletes? [Sports Illustrated]

* John Hinckley seeks sentence adjustment so he can move to California and get into the music business which is a sentence no one ever expected. [AP]

* Government wants jurors told that prosecution entirely over the NCAA’s rules and overarching structure isn’t about the NCAA. [Law360]

* Don McGahn joins the ranks of “people getting subpoeaned. [Washington Post]

* Speaking of McGahn, he reportedly told people that as White House Counsel he represented “pictures on the wall” and not Trump. What’s impressive about this story is this means Trump hasn’t replaced the entire White House art collections with Jon McNaughton. [National Law Journal]

* Chalking tires for parking enforcement declared unconstitutional. [NBC News]

* Wilmer partner joins forces massing near Winterfell. [American Lawyer]

* Bob Kraft has inspired other massage guests to sue authorities. Given recent revelations that this may not have been a human trafficking operation as the cops originally suggested, the moral high ground momentum is swinging to Kraft and the gang’s side. [Courthouse News Service]

* Iowa facing challenge of its comically bad “Ag-gag” law. [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

In one shining moment, plaintiffs' attorneys can make bank.

Your bracket is probably busted, but hers is still going strong.

* Attorney General William Barr says he plans to make a version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report available to Congress and the public within a matter of weeks, and apparently the White House won’t be receiving a copy in advance of the release. [Wall Street Journal]

* Speaking of the Mueller report, Rudy Giuliani says he wouldn’t have any issues with releasing Trump’s written testimony that was submitted to Mueller. Jay Sekulow would beg to differ. [Washington Examiner]

* The EU approved the controversial Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, a new IP law that will govern the way copyrighted material is uploaded online and who will be liable for infringement. At least memes are exempt? [BBC News]

* Congratulations to Bridget Bade, who was just confirmed to the Ninth Circuit. She’s the 37th circuit court judge to be appointed by President Trump, who is changing the makeup of the federal judiciary, one conservative judge at a time. [Big Law Business]

* Elon Musk must appear in court next week for a contempt hearing over his Tesla tweets against self-interest that are allegedly in breach of his settlement agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. [CNN]

* Your bracket may be busted, but this Biglaw associate has a near-perfect track record. She’s gotten 46 out of 48 matchups right thus far, and at one point she was one of just eight people in the country with a perfect bracket. [American Lawyer]

* In college hoops corruption trial, it seems the defense wants to confuse having a “reason” with having an “excuse.” The judge is not here for it. [Law360]

* On the same theme, here’s an exploration of how billable hour pricing models encourage overbilling that doesn’t confuse identifying the impetus of bad behavior with excusing it. [American Lawyer]

* Dog Gone! DA drops animal cruelty charges in “authorities accuse lawyer of sex with dog” case, putting an end to the most bizarre of the charges. All the drug and firearm charges though… yeah, he had to plead guilty to those. But Snoopy’s honor is restored. [Trib Live]

* Google, a company worth billions, gets hit with $57 million GDPR fine, reinforcing that GDPR is a lot of useful bark but very little actual bite — at least for now. [NY Times]

* Legal Aid fighting back against law that lets private investors pay off people’s minor tax bills and then seize their homes. [Omaha World-Herald]

* Shutdown may start killing people directly — federal worker needs her insurance back to live. [Courthouse News Service]

* Ghost of former national Chief Justice upset according to psychic. [Legal Cheek]

* Michael Flynn’s going in for sentencing today. My money is on him not throwing out the plea deal over materiality. [National Law Journal]

* Meanwhile, some of his old cronies have been charged for acting as illegal agents of Turkey, which is not the cooperation that’s getting the most attention, but it’s the cooperation that probably has the most direct impact. [Courthouse News Service]

* Judge makes deer poacher watch Bambi. I guess to understand what a wonderful and delightful journey he kicks off when he kills boring adult deer. [LegalCheek]

* The top verdicts of the year. [Law360]

* Howrey doing with that bankruptcy? [American Lawyer]

* Client misconduct is an underappreciated source of sexual harassment. Women in firms feel greater pressure not to report harassment from clients fearing it could damage their careers. Firms often don’t even consider the possibility that this is going on. [Corporate Counsel]

* Closing arguments due in NCAA’s right to profit off of its student ath-o-leets. [The Recorder]

Guilty on all counts.

* Valparaiso celebrated earlier in the week after reaching an agreement to send its beleaguered law school to Middle Tennessee. Tennessee’s education officials have killed the idea of hosting another middling law school with extreme prejudice. [Chicago Tribune]

* Ninth Circuit judge displays deliberate ignorance in what appears to be a looming decision to keep college athletes out of court. [Courthouse News Service]

* Whenever you doubt the stupidity of humanity, remember people accused of global financial fraud tend to email each other explicit descriptions of what they’re doing. [Law360]

* Boies Schiller will act as special prosecutor in the Joe Arpaio appeal in what should be the easiest appellate layup ever. [The Recorder]

* Republican judge dismisses lawsuit against Republican politician. [Huffington Post]

* Jeff Sessions tells the Heritage Foundation that he doesn’t approve of this idea that courts might consider themselves some kind of “check” or “balance” on the executive branch. [National Law Journal]

* Ralph Baxter thinks Biglaw needs to change its business model to succeed. [American Lawyer]

The powers-that-be in college sports celebrated the FBI crackdown on basketball... but they could have been making their antitrust case a lot worse.

The NCAA faces an uphill battle this time.

You know your organization is corrupt when it's looking for loopholes in the 13th Amendment.

* Federal law enforcement’s crackdown on NCAA coaches has likely brought an end to Rick Pitino’s career. That said, we thought his career was over when we all learned that Louisville hired hookers for recruits so maybe he still has a shot. [ESPN]

* Law firm mergers continue at a record place. Yep, there’s no fundamental market weakness here at all. [Am Law Daily]

* DOJ lawyers face an unpleasant grilling at the Second Circuit. Maybe someday Sessions can disinvite judges he doesn’t want criticizing his unsupported legal theories. [Slate]

* Women losing pregnancies while detained by the administration. I’d say we’re going to look back on this era of immigration policy in horror, but we can probably go ahead and be horrified now. [Huffington Post]

* The USD Alumni Board has weighed in on the Wax/Alexander op-ed. They take a “let’s all come together” approach, which isn’t wrong as much as it seems asymmetric. When one-side throws bombs about cultural superiority, decrying divisiveness puts the onus on the wrong side side to move. [Motions Online]

* The most likely grants from the long conference. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Here’s how you get $4 billion in punitive damages (hint: be in Texas). [Law.com]

It's not about helping people, it is about cold, hard cash.

* 50 Cent is suing Reed Smith for malpractice. As they say, “Get Rich Or Sue Your Lawyers.” [Law.com]

* The federal government lags in cybersecurity because all the talent is going to the private sector. [New York Law Journal]

* Nothing says, “politics as usual” better than the South Dakota legislature declaring an “emergency” to overturn an ethics law. [Huffington Post]

* D.C. Circuit blocks state attorneys general from coming to the defense of the CFPB. [National Law Journal]

* Kellyanne scolds America for not remembering the Bowling Green massacre. Admittedly it’s easy to forget, what with it never happening and all. [CNN]

* Trump plans to roll back the protections put in place after the financial crisis. Presumably next week he’ll take action to eliminate airbags because, “hey my car isn’t crashing right this second, why does anyone need these?” [Wall Street Journal]

* NFL TE turned Wiley Rein associate Colin Cloherty has a hard time picking who to root for in the Super Bowl. [The Am Law Daily]

* The NLRB’s general counsel issued a memo recognizing college football players as employees, because they fit every conceivable definition of an employee. So obviously politicians — of one party anyway — are demanding his resignation. [Law360]

* Following up on today’s Morning Docket item about the blind law student challenging the ABA for discrimination, a tipster brought to our attention the recent loss of Justice Richard Teitelman of the Missouri Supreme Court, who faced discrimination trying to find work out of law school because of his own blindness. [STL Today]

* Finding impeachable offenses for which Donald Trump could face charges is becoming a cottage industry. [Salon]

* A Drexel Law professor, Lisa McElroy (remember her?), on why ‘Love Trumps Hate.’ [Huffington Post]

* How the NCAA prevents students from using the legal process. [Vice]

* How many Twitter followers you have may now be relevant to trademark inquiries. [The Fashion Law]

* A fascinating new documentary raises interesting questions of security for lawyers. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]

* D’Oh! A look at Christmas criminal crackdowns. [Versus Texas]