New Jersey

* “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign.” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump plans to sue all of the “liars” who have accused him of sexual assault within the last two weeks when the election is over. As an attorney representing one of Trump’s accusers noted, a lawsuit would provide a “field day” to depose him under oath. [CNN]

* The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has approved a tougher bar-passage rate standard that would require 75 percent of of a law school’s graduates who sit for the bar exam to pass it within two years. It’s up to the ABA House of Delegates to decide if the stricter standard will ever be implemented. We’ll have more on this later today. [ABA Journal]

* “I don’t know why he would wait around for 200 days and then pull out at the very moment that it seemed likely that he was going to get confirmed.” Will Judge Merrick Garland be confirmed to SCOTUS? With senators calling for lame-duck hearings if Hillary Clinton is elected and a bare-bones oral arguments calendar scheduled, it seems like even the justices are holding out hope for a full house in 2017. [Washington Post]

* In a deal likely to invoke government scrutiny, AT&T has agreed to purchase Time Warner for $84.5 billion. Teams from Sullivan & Cromwell (transaction work) and Arnold & Porter (regulatory work) will be representing AT&T, while Cravath will be representing Time Warner. Faiza Saeed, Cravath’s deputy presiding partner, will lead the team working on the deal from her firm. [DealBook / New York Times; Am Law Daily]

* According to testimony from Bridget Kelly, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Christie allegedly knew about the Bridgegate lane closures a month before they occurred, not afterwards, as he’s repeatedly claimed. Kelly, who says she thought the lane closures were for a traffic study, not a politically motivated scheme, is currently being tried in federal court over her role in the 2013 scandal. [Reuters]

* Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may have vowed to “open up our libel laws” if wins the election, but it turns out that despite his many threats to do so, he hasn’t actually sued a newspaper for libel in more than three decades. The last time he sued a newspaper for libel was in 1984, and his suit was ultimately dismissed. [Reuters]

* “If Billy had been passive or responded ‘Shut the f— up’ to Trump, Billy would have been out of a job the next day.” Billy Bush, formerly of Access Hollywood, has hired Orrick partner Marshall Grossman as he tries to negotiate his exit deal from NBC and further defend himself in light of his role in the now infamous Donald Trump “grab them by the p*ssy” tape. [Hollywood Reporter]

* New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wants to bring sports gambling to his state. He’s asked Ted Olson to take the fight to the Supreme Court, where he’ll argue that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act is an unconstitutional assault on state sovereignty. What’s your over/under bet on this split decision? [WSJ Law Blog]

* Where do the members of Wall Street’s secret society of in-house lawyers for the world’s most powerful banks meet for their yearly gathering? Reportedly organized by Shearman & Sterling partner Robert Mundheim, the 2016 soirée was held at the Trianon Palace Versailles, a place opulent enough to discuss banking woes. [Big Law Business]

* A federal judge has temporarily enjoined the Houston College of Law (formerly known as South Texas College of Law) from using its new name because it’s confusingly similar to the University of Houston Law Center’s name, and has created a “substantial threat of irreparable injury” to the school. We’ll have more on this later. [Houston Chronicle]

* Rudy Giuliani may be hot to trot for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean his relatives are. His daughter, Caroline, has indicated that she’ll be casting her ballot for Hillary Clinton. [Big Law Business]

* Police in New Jersey have made their first creepy clown arrest. The alleged perp is a 12-year-old from Toms River who made an “unspecified threat” against her middle school from the Instagram account “Killerclownfromnj.” [Fault Lines / Mimesis Law]

* Just like your country, you’re young, scrappy, and hungry, but that unauthorized “Hamilton” merchandise you’re selling is a definite way to lose your shot — and find yourself on the receiving end of an IP lawsuit. [THR, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

* Why not combine your love for liquor with your love for the law? Be a beer and wine attorney! Raise your glass, because these are the three coolest job listings this week in that field, and two of them are in-house! Cheers! [Greedy Associates / FindLaw]

* Why haven’t you registered for the Academy for Private Practice yet? You can network with your peers at our cocktail reception *and* receive CLE credit. It’s taking place in Philadelphia on October 27 and 28, and we’re offering a huge discount. Use code “10YRDISCOUNT” to receive $100 off the price of your ticket! [Above the Law]

* Florida AG Pam Bondi admits she took donation money from Donald Trump when she was toying with an investigation of Trump University, but says she has no regrets about keeping the cash. “If I had returned it, you would have reported ‘Bondi accepted a bribe, got caught and returned it.” [AP]

* Could President Barack Obama sue Donald Trump over the “birther” conspiracy? If so, what would be his cause of action? He could potentially file suit for defamation, but as a public figure, he’d have an uphill battle proving actual malice and damages. [Big Law Business]

* Ahmad Rahami, the man accused of Saturday’s bombings in New York and New Jersey, has been federally charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing, destruction of property, and use of a destructive device. His bail has been set at $5.2 million. There’s been no word yet as to whether he has hired an attorney. [CNN]

* According to Judge Alison Nathan of the Southern District of New York, bitcoins are, in fact, money — at least under this federal anti-money laundering statute. If you think “funds” are “pecuniary resources… generally accepted as a medium of exchange or a means of payment,” you better believe bitcoins are a form of money. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “We think that they are attempting to use civil discovery to get around the limits on criminal discovery in the criminal case.” According to Gloria Allred, the civil sexual abuse case her client has filed against Bill Cosby in California is going to be put on the back burner for a time into his criminal charges can be more fully litigated. [Reuters]

* “Could a firm with a different business model suffer, potentially, if they don’t match the $180,000? Maybe.” Law firms may be competing for fewer students than in years prior thanks to decreased law school enrollment, but Biglaw’s new starting salary scale doesn’t seem to have made a big impact on the summer associate applicant pool — at most schools, OCI participation has held steady or risen only slightly since last year. [Law.com]

* “Are you listening? He just flat out lied. … [I]t could be bad.” In a text message that was included in a federal court filing earlier this week, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie claimed that the governor lied when he told the media none of his staff knew about a plan to block George Washington Bridge traffic. Uh-oh! [New York Times]

* “We’ll tell the council that there’s a giant need for affordable law schools like us, and we’re going to meet that need.” After learning it was unlikely his school would receive accreditation due to students’ poor qualifications, Dean Royal Furgeson Jr. of UNT Dallas Law shrugged it off, saying the school would “get a fair hearing.” [ABA Journal]

* Robert Schulman, a former partner at Hunton & Williams, has been indicted for allegedly trading on insider information ahead of Pfizer’s $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals, a client he represented in 2010 while at the firm. He, along with his investment adviser, will face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. [Big Law Business]

* Yet another Biglaw firm has partnered with a financial company to assist its attorneys with their law school debt. Miller Canfield is working with Social Finance (SoFi) to provide loan refinancing options to the firm’s associates to help “ease the financial burden” of their heavy six-figure debt loads. [Grand Rapids Business Journal]

* “They’re being terribly exploited.” Lichten and Bright, a New York labor law firm, has contacted hundreds of UFC fighters in an effort to unionize them and help get them benefits that other sports unions share, like health insurance, pensions, and the ability to negotiate the terms of their contracts with the mixed martial arts giant. [MMA Junkie]

* Singer Kesha has dropped her lawsuit in California against producer Dr. Luke, but will continue her appeal in New York. She says she dropped the suit because she’s “focused on getting back to work,” but Dr. Luke’s lawyer says it’s because she has “no chance of winning.” Ouch, that’s got to sting. [People]

* Get off my lawn, you damn kids! A New Jersey personal injury attorney has filed a class-action lawsuit against Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, for the “unlawful and wrongful” invasion of his property. It seems that in the rush to catch ’em all, people have been gathering outside of his home, knocking on his door, and asking to enter his backyard. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Following up on his tentative oral ruling, Juge Gonzalo P. Curiel has ruled that a Trump University fraud case filed against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may proceed to trial, but he refused to release Trump’s videotaped deposition. We suppose that the transcript will have to be good enough. [New York Times]

* “These are things that don’t just affect one job; it keeps women’s wages down over their entire lifetime.” Thanks to a new law geared toward closing the gender wage gap, in Massachusetts, it is now illegal for employers to ask about applicants’ salary history before offering them jobs. This goes into effect in 2018. [DealBook / New York Times]

* “We are confidently looking to the future.” Following a series of “regrettable departures” and a capital call that successfully raised about $18.4 million from the firm’s existing partners, it looks like the “modernization” and restructuring of the King & Wood Mallesons partnership is finally going to be drawing to a close. [Big Law Business]

* Jenner & Block has teamed up with the University of Chicago Law School to create a Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, with the goal of “educat[ing] and train[ing] the next generation of extraordinary appellate advocates and continu[ing] the tradition of helping clients hanks their most important litigation problems.” Congratulations! [ABA Journal]

* TRUCE! In the wake of his settlement with Paul Cassell, Alan Dershowitz looks to make peace with David Boies after a vicious fight. [Big Law Business]

* Speaking of making peace, Chris Christie has made a deal with New Jersey Democrats to end a six-year stalemate over the state Supreme Court. He is nominating Bridget Kelly’s old lawyer, Walter Timpone. [New Jersey.com]

* More analysis of bar exam results: see what happened in Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, and Kentucky. [Bar Exam Stats]

* Is it ethically acceptable — and does it work — to shame prosecutors for wrongful convictions? [Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics via Slate]

* Yes, that’s billions with a B: Goldman Sachs to pay $5 billion in settlements over charges it contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. [Gawker]

* Kevin Abikoff, partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, cleared Unaoil in an anti-corruption report, and is now facing questions about that representation. [Huffington Post]

* Professor Victor Williams of the Catholic University of America School of Law, who’s been called the “Republican Lawrence Lessig” by some, is running a write-in campaign for president with the sole intent of eliminating Ted Cruz as a candidate due to his birth in Canada. He alleges that the Texas senator committed ballot access fraud by falsely swearing that he was a natural born citizen. Thanks to Williams’s allegations, a primary disqualification hearing is being held today in New Jersey. [PR Newswire]

* Does SCOTUS have a diversity problem? One justice thinks so. In the wake of President Obama calling attention to his nominee’s whiteness, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted the Court’s homogeneity, saying that SCOTUS is currently at a “disadvantage from having [five] Catholics, three Jews, [and] everyone from an Ivy League school.” [TIME]

* Here’s an interesting theory: According to Patterson Belknap senior partner Gregory Diskant, because the Senate has failed to give President Obama its advice and consent with regard to his Supreme Court nominee, it can be said the Senate waived its rights, leaving Obama free to appoint Judge Garland to the high court. [Washington Post]

* “There is something seductively subversive about having a name that has a secondary street meaning, which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing to think of your lawyers as being.” MoFo — a law firm that’s perhaps known as Morrison & Foerster in more conservative circles — has fully embraced its sexy “street name.” [Big Law Business]

* Prosecutors say former House speaker and disgraced Dickstein Shapiro partner Dennis Hastert paid $3.5M to silence a boy he sexually abused, and molested at least four more children. Because the statutes of limitations have long since run on those crimes, he’ll likely serve only six months for banking crimes related to his hush-money payoffs. [AP]