Patents

* The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been operating without a director for almost a year and a half, and Sen. Orrin Hatch is calling it “inexcusable.” Here’s his politely pissed off letter to President Barack Obama. [Corporate Counsel]

* The chief judge of Florida’s 18th Judicial Circuit Court wants you to know Judge John “I’ll Just Beat Your Ass” Murphy’s behavior “in no way reflects the typical manner that courtrooms are managed … in this circuit.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* Weed has been legal and free flowing in Colorado for months, but now the state is starting to see its dark side. It seems morons who get too high are accidentally killing themselves and others. [New York Times]

* InfiLaw’s bid to purchase Charleston Law reached the pages of the NYT, with a shout-out to one “scrappy website” that referred to the company by its one true name: “diploma mill.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* “Why would you bring black people into the world?” An ex-lover/employee of Donald Sterling is suing him for racial and sexual harassment over lovely comments like this. She’s repped by Gloria Allred. [CNN]

* In sad news, Judge Harold Baer Jr. died last night. A giant of the Southern District of New York, Judge Baer will be remembered for his sound judicial temperament and his biting wit. [New York Law Journal] * Paris Hilton hit with $2 million lawsuit for breaching a footwear deal. Does anyone still care enough about Paris Hilton to sign her to multi-million dollar sponsorship deals? [Radar Online] * Kamala Harris may have a bright future, but her present has some issues. She started a task force to go after foreclosure consultant fraud and managed to pursue only 10 cases, fewer than her colleagues in other states despite California’s foreclosure crisis. Part of having a prestigious job is actually doing it. [East Bay Express] * A Texas woman has filed suit claiming she was forced to give birth in solitary confinement, begging for — and not receiving — medical care. The baby died. But, hey, the baby came out of her, so it’s not a problem whether it lives any more in conservative Texas. [Feministing] * Judge allows Bank of America to continue foreclosing on the home of Burt Reynolds. And somewhere Alex Trebek smiles. [WPEC] * More on the female brain drain at law firms and how to fix it. [She Negotiates] * 5 awesome charts that prove that patent litigation is officially out of hand. [Vox] * Ray Rice’s lawyer offers a hypothetical of the videotaped altercation between Rice and his now-wife. This is why lawyers shouldn’t use hypotheticals. [Sports World News] * Is there really a “third way” when it comes to Net Neutrality? This article makes a good case for rules allowing providers to take reasonable actions to address the different needs of Skype vs. email. [The Hill] * Law firms are starting to think like media companies. Next thing you know, Biglaw will be all Hollywood. Video after the jump…. [Mimesis Law]

* Supreme Court justices are “basically rewriting the law,” sometimes years after the fact. As it turns out they’ve been quietly “changing the wording of opinions” — sometimes, even our legal idols make mistakes. [New York Times]

* Many law school deans at leading law schools are pretty pissed off about Justice Antonin Scalia’s latest criticisms of the legal academy. Please, continue taking “Law and Unicorns.” It’s a real class, we promise! [National Law Journal]

* Judge Randall Rader, who recently resigned as the Federal Circuit’s chief judge, released a memo to his colleagues apologizing for his scandalous recusals in a pair of patent cases. Poor guy. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Peter Alexander, Indiana Tech Law’s dean, has resigned less than a year after opening the school’s doors. The school’s interim dean doesn’t use capital letters in his name. That’s cute. [Journal Gazette]

* Très, très déclassé: Mahbod Moghadam, formerly of Dewey & LeBoeuf, was fired from Rap Genius after he inappropriately annotated suspected Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodgers’s manifesto. [Re/code]

These must be interesting times for in-house counsel at Apple.

Sometimes patent trolls need to be trolled themselves.

* Partners from Patton Boggs and Squire Sanders may vote on their merger sometime this week. Get ready to say hello to Squire Patton, House of Boggs, Hodorific of Its Name. [Reuters]

* “[E]xcuse me, sir, you may not be here in five years.” Biglaw firms are becoming more “egalitarian” about office space because attorneys have expiration dates. [National Law Journal]

* After a flat year in 2013, and much to Biglaw’s chagrin, “[i]t is going to be harder to sustain year-over-year profitability gains.” Oh joy, time to power up the layoff machine. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Tech giants Apple and Google have called a ceasefire in their dueling patent suits in a quest to reform patent law — and so Apple can concentrate all of its efforts on suing the sh*t out of Samsung. [Bloomberg]

* GM’s in-house legal department is being heavily scrutinized in the wake of the car maker’s ignition switch lawsuit extravaganza. You see, friends, people die when lawyers don’t even bother to lie. [New York Times]

* Donald Sterling found a lawyer willing to represent him, an antitrust maven who thinks the NBA should take its ball and go home because “no punishment was warranted” in his client’s case. [WSJ Law Blog]

* When it comes to billing rates, starting at the junior level, female law firm partners are still lagging behind their male counterparts by an average of 10 percent less. Boo. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Just in time for the graduation of one of the largest law school classes in history, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the legal sector is shedding jobs. That sucks. Sorry Class of 2014. [Am Law Daily]

* Law school deans are dropping like flies. Since last week, at least three have announced their intention to leave their positions. We know of one more that we may discuss later. [National Law Journal]

* If you want to work as an attorney, your odds are better if you go to a Top 50 law school. Seventy-five percent of Top 50 grads are working as lawyers, compared to 50% of all others. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* The verdict is in on the latest Apple v. Samsung patent case, and Apple is probably pretty miffed it was awarded only $120M this time, since lawyers for the company requested billions in damages. [Reuters]

* Laura LaPlante, a 3L who was set to graduate from U. Chicago Law on June 16, RIP. [Chicago Tribune]

Are large firms losing their advantage over small firms in the area of knowledge management?

Put those phones away, lest you anger this judge.

* Justice Scalia was asked, “Why should society be bound by laws that were passed only by white male property owners?” If you guessed he’d eschew a substantive response in favor of a condescending sarcastic quip, you’re right! [Wall Street Journal] * 2L who based his student government bid around a self-made rap video failed to secure election. He was probably screwed the moment Dr. Dre entered the race. [Daily Business Review] * Nursing home sued for hiring male strippers for patients. Lawsuit aside, wasn't it a bit much to make them dress up like Matlock for their act? [NY Post] * A firm is handing out pairs of Google Glass to clients to record how their injuries impact their daily lives. Next up: a firm specializing in the injuries caused by wearing Google Glass to record how injuries impact daily lives. [Slate] * Big corporations are filing junk patents. Will anyone put a stop to them? Of course not. [Politix] * It’s time to put a stop to shady tax preparers ripping off low-income families. That way low-income families can go back to being ripped off by every other avenue of American society. [New York Times] * Managing your Facebook account can give rise to spoliation. So you’d better be happy with all those pictures you’re tagged in before you get in a legal scrape. [IT-Lex]

What can litigators learn from cameras in the courtroom?

Biglaw firms often move very slowly; are boutique law firms any different?

What are the implications of a major patent law case, soon to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, for law firms and lawyers that practice patent litigation?

* A Minnesota court ruled that it is not a crime to encourage people to commit suicide. So… keep commenting assholes, just know that you’ll feel really bad if I do it. [Gawker] * I might be in the market for a used car, and I’m hoping to get a really good deal on one of these “recalled” GMs. I hope the DOJ doesn’t screw up my plans. [Reuters Legal] * Speaking of cars, Alan Dershowitz calls for vigorous prosecution of reckless drivers. I call for vigorous prosecution of any box-blocking suburbanite who drives around Manhattan on a Saturday like they’re cruising to the country fair. [ABA Journal] * Alabama thinks that people over 70 should be excused from jury duty. YES, they deserve to be excused and I hope they burn in Hell! [WSJ Law Blog] * Narc is the new tattletale. [Simple Justice] * Are you an IP lawyer, especially a patent litigator? Here’s a symposium you should consider attending (featuring ATL columnist Gaston Kroub). [Markman Advisors] * Speaking of conferences, who wants to hang out with Lat in Las Vegas? Read on for details (plus video)…. Lat will be speaking next month at Avvo’s big Lawyernomics conference in Vegas. Here’s the agenda, here’s the registration from, and here’s Lat’s speaker spotlight video:

It's possible to get a good job if you graduate from an unranked law school. It'll just be extremely difficult.

* “How many years would you put a TV pitchman in jail? 3 years? 5 years? Don’t answer yet…” [Sentencing Law and Policy] * So there’s a sex tape of Chris Christie. Except it isn’t him. They should have known Christie could never be a porn star. You can’t get far in the porn biz by saying, “This lane is closed.” [Gawker] * Dolt Duped By Date Sues OKCupid. [NY Post] * Patents are a terrible measure of innovation. Hold on, I defy you to besmirch the Anti-Drowning Hat. [Concurring Opinions] * Wage theft in fast food shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the role played by the franchise model in creating labor law violations is intriguing. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * A gathering of business development tips, including shout outs to Anonymous Partner and Mark Herrmann. [Corporette] * What better qualification to challenge for the Vegas DA’s job than to be prosecuted by that office days before the election? [Las Vegas Law Blog] * A Baltimore lawyer aggressively used the habeas process to release mentally ill girls to serve as personal slaves to the wealthy. [Slate] * Weil’s Business Finance & Restructuring team is putting together a March Madness bracket based on quotes from bankruptcy decisions. Let the excitement wash over you. Having not seen the bracket yet, I’m reserving judgment on what an awesome array of bankruptcy quotes would look like. [Bankruptcy Blog] * Kevin O’Keefe, who presented on my panel at our Attorney@Blog conference, left all of us touched with his tribute to Above the Law. [Real Lawyers Have Blogs]

* Missouri lawyer is hauled into a disciplinary hearing about his practice of showing a picture of a naked woman to a female client. He says it wasn’t about sex and he was just showing her the kinds of pictures that come up in a divorce proceeding. That sounds like a fine explanation. I mean, every divorce involves autographed photos of strippers. He also commingled funds. That’s less easy to explain. [Inside the Ozarks] * Hey look! They brought back Debtors’ Prison. The prison-industrial complex has gotta get paid somehow. [Bergen Dispatch] * Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are now looking into David Samson, the chair of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a Christie appointee. If government agencies aren’t for petty revenge and plunder, then what are they for? [Talking Points Memo] * Insurance company cronies threaten that insurance company may have to get out of the business because of all the lawyers winning cases making the insurance company actually pay their contractual obligations. Don’t they understand the purpose of litigation is just to collect premiums? [Legal Newsline Legal Journal] * How ACLU attorney Ben Wizner became Snowden’s lawyer. [Forbes] * “One of the reasons I could never imagine being a lawyer is because you have to account for your time in 15-minute increments.” Thankfully she was corrected and told that lawyers are actually more irritatingly measured in 6-minute increments. [Dear Prudence / Slate] * With all the talk of patent law reform coming from the President, this is an excellent time to look back at eight dumb patents. [Mashable]

When you are fortunate enough to watch skilled advocates make the difficult look easy, try and learn something from them.

How much do you travel for work, and do you enjoy it? Some thoughts and advice from Gaston Kroub.

Outdated legal concepts collide with new technology.