Religion
-
International Law
Historic Victory For The International Criminal Court
Today's a big day for the ICC. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.22.16
* “You’re going to make a federal case out of this – a dispute between two sorority sisters?” A fight between two sorority sisters recently landed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, but it turns out the suit was dropped quicker than a misbehaving pledge. We’ll have more on this later today. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
* “Generally, it is God who decides whether presidents get Supreme Court appointments.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may be the oldest member of SCOTUS, but that doesn’t mean she’s preparing to step down, even if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. She’s already hired clerks for the October 2017 term. [Washington Post]
* The Eastern District of Michigan has ruled that in cases of employment discrimination, religious rights trump transgender rights. The ACLU says this case has set a “dangerous precedent,” in that it has “exempted [a business that was “not a particularly religious operation”] from civil rights law with regard to transgender people.” [WSJ Law Blog]
* The ABA has closed a probe regarding allegations of religious discrimination (i.e., expulsion of students who left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and bans of sexual activity between students of the same sex) that were said to have occurred at BYU Law School. The school is said to have changed its honor code. [ABA Journal]
* Infamous Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has lucked out thanks to some actions taken by the Sixth Circuit. A new state law removed the names of clerks from marriage licenses, thus enabling the appeals court to refuse her claims, allowing a judge to toss a suit she was facing over her unwillingness to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. [WSAZ]
- Sponsored
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use. -
Police, Religion
What If Taco Bell Treated Cops The Way Chick-Fil-A Treats Gays?
It is stupid to refuse people food service based on your beliefs about the validity of their choices.
-
Religion
Newt’s Religious Test Sounds More Like Sharia Law Than Constitutional Law
Newt and the Republicans who agree with him will find no quarter for their bigotry in the American Constitution. -
Biglaw, Religion
Why This Biglaw Associate Wears A Hijab To Work
She's smashing stereotypes left and right and teaching lawyers to accept others. -
Alex Kozinski, Benchslaps, Prisons, Religion
Benchslaps All Around: Watch Out For Those Wiccans
Did a Wiccan prisoner cast a spell on the Ninth Circuit? -
Gay, Quote of the Day, Religion
The Struggle For LGBT Equality Continues
And Roberta Kaplan of Paul Weiss is leading the charge. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 06.17.16
* A plea to strike down Mississippi’s “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” which gives special privileges to opponents of gay marriage. [Bloomberg View]
* Not every litigation financier is Peter Thiel, and I think we are all pretty happy about that. [Wall Street Journal]
* What can Judge Maryanne Trump Barry teach her brother about the federal judiciary? [Real Clear Politics]
* Musings on why some law firms still haven’t matched the Cravath pay bump. [Law and More]
* These are the facts people need to know about gun laws. [Slate]
* This is what estate planning attorneys wished you knew about death and dying. [Forbes]
- Sponsored
How Generative AI Will Improve Legal Service Delivery
Learn how emerging tools will likely change and enhance the work of lawyers for years to come in this new report. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 06.06.16
* Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has already attacked a federal judge due to his “Mexican heritage,” and now he’s speaking out about judges’ religious beliefs. Trump apparently thinks Muslim judges would be biased against him due to his plans to ban Muslim immigrants. [New York Times]
* Reviled pharma bro Martin Shkreli finds himself on the wrong side of the law, again: He — along with his ex-attorney, Evan Greebel (formerly of Kaye Scholer) — has been accused of scheming to defraud potential investors of Retrophin, the drug company Shkreli founded in 2011. [Associated Press]
* Ouch! Last week, Norton Rose stole an entire practice group from Sidley Austin. The 17-member public finance group, including six partners, will move to San Francisco, marking the firm’s entrance into the Northern California market. [Big Law Business]
* Dean Phyliss Craig-Taylor of North Carolina Central University School of Law has been appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Congratulations! [News & Observer]
* A suit filed against Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby that accused her of firing prosecutors due to their political associations has been dismissed. According to Judge J. Frederick Motz (D. Md.), prosecutors can be fired for political reasons. [Baltimore Sun]
-
Biglaw, Religion
Catholic Church Turns To Biglaw To Stop Child Sex Abuse Victims Act
The Catholic church knows the value of having a Biglaw firm on its payroll. -
Religion, White-Collar Crime
Vatican Bank Now Fully Compliant With ‘Thou Shalt Not Launder Money’ Commandment
Somebody saw Godfather III... -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.03.16
* As Judge Shira Scheindlin leaves the federal bench to join Stroock concentrating on public interest work as of counsel, Law360 spoke with Judge Scheindlin about the move. [Law360]
* George Mason’s president responds to rumblings that the law school is too dependent on private donors who cajoled the school into its ASSLaw moniker. [Washington Post]
* A full rundown of all the twists and turns in the ongoing legal battle between Boies Schiller partner Nicholas Gravante Jr. and his mother. [The Am Law Daily]
* These are the questions clients are about to ask you about cybersecurity. Can you answer them? [PC World]
* The McDivitt Law Firm is offering free cab rides home on Cinco de Mayo for lucky drunks in Colorado Springs and Pueblo. So toast the defeat of the hated French all you want Colorado residents! [KKTV]
* The U.S. Trade Representative has some choice words for countries that don’t respect IP laws, like China, India, and Switzerland. Wait, what? Switzerland? [Corporate Counsel]
* Kentucky judge blocks the city of Louisville from removing a Confederate monument because, you know, “the South will rise again” and the city doesn’t want egg on its face when that happens. [Fox News]
* The complicated case of religious tax exemption for a coffee shop… on grounds owned by a religious order. [The Atlantic]
-
Boutique Law Firms, Litigators, Small Law Firms, Trials
Look To A Rabbi To See How To Advocate
While "What Would Jesus Do" might not be a completely adequate principle of advocacy, lawyers who try cases, to juries in particular, can learn a lot from Jesus’s storytelling tradition.
Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Profit Powerhouse: Elevating Law Firm Financial Performance
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
Sponsored
This AI-Powered Document Tool Will Meet You Where You Are
How Generative AI Will Improve Legal Service Delivery
-
Religion, Social Media
Vatican A Role Model On Social Media For Legal Profession
Leaders of the legal profession could learn a thing or two about social media from leaders of the Catholic Church. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.20.16
* Puff, puff, pass the vote! In honor of today’s nationwide holiday for cannabis aficionados, these are all of the states that have legalized marijuana, be it for either recreational or medical use. This year, at least 10 more states may legalize weed by ballot referendum for recreational use, and pot could be rescheduled by the Drug Enforcement Agency depending on the outcome of the upcoming election. [Refinery 29]
* Members of student activist group Reclaim Harvard Law have demanded that the prestigious law school eliminate tuition completely. They propose that the school dip into its endowment to cover tuition, or cut costs like faculty salaries to make debt-free legal education a reality. This won’t happen, but it’s a nice thought. [Harvard Crimson]
* The ABA is investigating Brigham Young Law’s policy of expelling ex-Mormon students. Per ABA guidelines, law schools can’t discriminate on the basis of religion, and yet the BYU honor code requires students to get annual endorsements from LDS Church members — endorsements for which former Mormons aren’t eligible. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Pharma bro Martin Shkreli was dropped from a lawsuit related to his purchase of the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s latest album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” It’s likely plaintiff Jason Koza, who claims his art was used for the album without his approval, dumped Shkreli due to a purchase-agreement indemnity clause. [New York Post]
* Because a judge reduced his manslaughter conviction to criminally negligent homicide at the last minute, former NYPD Officer Peter Liang will not serve jail time for the 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley. Liang once faced up to 15 years in prison, but instead he was sentenced to five years of probation and 800 hours of community service. [CNN]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
-
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.15.16
* Ted Cruz may not like dildos, but he doesn’t seem to mind legal weed. Earlier this week, the Republican presidential candidate said that while he opposes federal legalization of cannabis, states should be free to experiment because the Constitution allows for it. Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana is safe and sound, for now. [Denver Post]
* “It was a very pleasant meeting, but it has changed nothing.” Senate Republicans may want nothing to do with confirming D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but they’ve sure been taking their sweet time telling him “no” during their courtesy meetings with him. Some of these seemingly pointless meetings have gone on for more than an hour. [New York Times]
* Chief Judge Garland may be wasting his time with these lengthy meetings, though, because if the jurist isn’t confirmed before the upcoming presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders said during last night’s Democratic debate that if he wins, he’d ask President Obama to withdraw his nomination, as he doesn’t think that Garland would pass his progressive litmus test on Citizens United. Are you still feeling the Bern? [TIME]
* Lawmakers in several states have passed bathroom bills that enable bigotry in the name of protecting religious rights, but what you may not have known is that there is one lawyer behind them all. Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel — who was recently in the news for representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis — says he’s doing it to push back against the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. [CBS News]
* Professor Richard Sander of UCLA School of Law, whose claim to academic fame is his “mismatch” theory of affirmative action, has been trying to get more than 30 years’ worth of data from the State Bar of California for quite some time in an effort to continue his research into the “large and persistent gap in bar passage rates among racial and ethnic groups,” and now he’s finally going to get his day in court. [WSJ Law Blog]
* David Gherity, a former Minnesota lawyer who was falsely accused of setting his girlfriend on fire using accelerants like alcohol, lotion, hair spray, and fingernail polish remover, has filed a civil rights suit against the police and prosecutors who kept him in jail for about two months. Gherity, who was suspended from practice in 2004, alleges a violation of the “protected interest in his good name.” [Twin Cities Pioneer Press]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
-
Prisons, Religion
Religious Freedom For Everyone (Except Prisoners)! A Tragic Tale Of Incarceration And Spaghetti.
Is religious freedom only important when it protects those on the outside or is something more fundamental at work here? The answer is a little of both depending on how you look at it. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.30.16
* An odd order? Perhaps in an attempt to avoid yet another 4-4 split in a controversial case, SCOTUS justices have ordered parties on both sides of the contraceptive coverage battle in Zubik to file briefs describing how such coverage could be provided without religious groups having to put forth much effort to formally object. [Associated Press]
* “It’s mind bogglingly obvious, but often gets lost in the mix. Apart from checking there aren’t any conflicts, clients are rarely put at the heart of these mergers.” Go figure, but according to a new report by professional services consultancy Gulland Padfield, law firm mergers usually don’t benefit clients in any way, shape, or form. [Am Law Daily]
* It seems that Russian cybercriminal “Oleras” has hired hackers to break into the computer systems of 48 Biglaw firms so he can collect confidential client data and then trade on the stolen insider information. Thus far, he’s been unsuccessful. Has your law firm been targeted? If you’d like to know, check the list here. [Crain’s Chicago Business]
* The NFL is so pissed that the New York Times recently published a story linking the league to the tobacco industry that it not only wrote a two-part rebuttal that was more than 3000 words long, but it also sicced Paul Weiss attorneys on the paper of record in search of a retraction, claiming that the story was defamatory in nature. [Yahoo! Sports]
* “I will not go down. I want Bill Cosby in court.” A Los Angeles judge has ruled that model Janice Dickinson’s defamation case against Bill Cosby can move forward so that a jury can decide whether her allegations of rape are truthful, and further, whether a “liar” comment made by the comedian’s ex-lawyer, Marty Singer, was defamatory. [Telegram]
-
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.29.16
* Legal showdown averted (for now): the feds were able to access the data on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone without any help from Apple. [Washington Post]
* A Harvard Law School grad stands accused of a $95 million fraud scheme — yikes. We’ll have more on this later. [ABA Journal]
* Does a sentencing delay violate the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial? Some on SCOTUS seem skeptical. [How Appealing]
* Georgia Governor Nathan Deal announces his intention to veto the Free Exercise Protection Act, which critics claimed would have protected discrimination as a form of religious liberty. [New York Times]
* Hillary Clinton takes Republicans to task for their handling of the current Supreme Court vacancy. [Wisconsin State Journal via How Appealing]
* Some thoughts from Professor Noah Feldman on the recent Seventh Circuit ruling about the use of form contracts on the internet (which nobody reads). [Bloomberg View]
* Save money (on taxes), live better: a federal judge strikes down a tax levied by Puerto Rico on mega-retailer Wal-Mart. [Reuters]
* The Bracewell law firm, now sans Giuliani, elects Gregory Bopp as its new managing partner. [Texas Lawyer]
-
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 02.26.16
* Justice Thomas chats it up with a TMZ reporter about Lance Ito, NYU, and his lunch at Capital Grille. For as engaged as he is, it’s weird that he won’t divulge what he ordered, right? I assume it was a steak and probably some kind of cola. [TMZ]
* “Hey, buddy… we’re going to take back your money because your old firm sucked. Sorry it took us four years to notice!” [National Law Journal]
* Dewey know anyone breathing a little easier today? Former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and chief financial officer Joel Sanders saw 30 counts of grand larceny (15 each) dismissed today. [Law360]
* Were you wondering when the next Supreme Court justice is going to die? Because there’s an app for that… apparently. [Slate]
* Remember Judge Richard Cebull’s racist emails? Well, there are more, but we won’t get to see them. [National Law Journal]
* T-Swift is now in the litigation finance game. Imma let her finish but I think some of these other litigation finance firms are the greatest of all time. [Mighty]
* Lawyer suspended for Facebook misconduct. That’s a thing now. [Legal Profession Blog]
* Keeping up the pressure: Fix the Court writes Chief Justice Roberts requesting faster access to Supreme Court audio in the name of transparency. He will probably go ahead and ignore this. [Fix the Court]
* How do Biglaw bigwigs really live? Vivia Chen visits the home of our 2013 Lawyer of the Year, Roberta Kaplan of Paul Weiss. [The Careerist]
* Attorney Renee Rabinowitz has had enough of this religiously cloaked sexism stuff. She’s suing El Al for making her switch seats because an ultra-Orthodox man refused to sit next to a woman. [New York Times]