Republicans

* The ABA has placed Arizona Summit Law School on probation for its poor bar exam passage rates and questionable admissions practices. How will this affect the school’s affiliation with Bethune-Cookman University? Will the Department of Education strip the law school of access to the federal student loan program like what happened with Charlotte School of Law? We’ll have more on this later today. [Arizona Republic]

* More Democratic senators have announced their opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit, but the White House is calling for a “fair, up-or-down vote.” Hmm, when the previous administration called for a hearing followed by a “fair, up-or-down vote” for Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit, the request went completely ignored. [Reuters]

* The Eastern District of Texas is home to more than 40 percent of all patent lawsuits, but the Supreme Court may decide to send patent trolls packing to other jurisdictions when it hands down its ruling in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods. This case may not only resolve a Federal Circuit decision that’s at odds with SCOTUS precedent, but it may bring forum shopping in patent cases to an end. [DealBook / New York Times]

* As we mentioned previously, it was rumored that President Donald Trump would be nominating White House deputy counsel Makan Delrahim to lead the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. It looks like Trump finally decided to pull the trigger to elevate Delrahim to the position. He’ll need to be confirmed by the Senate, which should be a relative breeze for him compared to other Trump nominees. [Law 360 (sub. req.)]

* Eric Conn, a Social Security disability lawyer known as “Mr. Social Security,” recently pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government money and one count of payment of gratuities in the largest Social Security fraud scheme in recent memory, submitting false medical paperwork and fake claims to the Social Security Administration to the tune of $550M. He earned himself more than $5.7M in fees as part of the scam. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “I’m guessing they have had a number of long days and potentially sleepless nights.” The government lawyers behind the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act have had a rough go of things. Who are they, which law schools did they attend, and which Biglaw firms did they work for before becoming Hill lawyers? [National Law Journal]

* Don’t forget about Merrick: A third of Democratic senators have pledged to vote against confirming Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch. At this time, it remains unclear as to whether there will be a united effort by Democrats to oppose his confirmation when the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on April 3. [Reuters]

* Guess who isn’t boycotting Hawaii? People who apparently have a vendetta against this federal jurist. Judge Derrick Watson of the District of Hawaii has been receiving death threats ever since he blocked President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on March 15. He is now receiving 24-hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service. [The Hill]

* The Second Circuit has upheld New York’s ban on non-lawyers investing in law firms. Personal injury firm Jacoby & Meyers argued that the state’s prohibition on non-lawyer investment violated lawyers’ First Amendment right to associate with clients, but the court found that connection to be “simply too attenuated.” [New York Law Journal]

* Ithaca may be gorges, but it can’t compete with the Big Apple with it comes to hands-on learning about issues dealing with cutting-edge tech. Cornell Law is launching a semester-long Program in Information and Technology Law at its Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City that’s slated to begin in Spring 2018. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Judge Edward J. McManus, the longest serving of any incumbent judge in the United States (and third-longest servng in the history of the United States), RIP. [N.D. Iowa]

This is really disheartening.

* Siding with prosecution and without explaining its reasoning, the Seventh Circuit has delayed the release of “Making a Murderer” subject Brendan Dassey, ordering that he remain incarcerated “pending the outcome of the appeal” in his case. Dassey’s conviction was overturned in August; he was set to be released today. [Reuters]

* According to some sources, we may have a full Supreme Court bench by the end of the current term, but at this point, it’s really a matter of “who President Trump nominates and what kind of ‘payback’ the Democrats decide to exact for having lost the election and for the Senate’s having held up the Merrick Garland nomination.” [Big Law Business]

* For the first time, the ranking Republican and Democratic lawmakers leading the Senate Judiciary Committee will be non-lawyers. Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein will not only review judicial appointments, but they’ll also have Department of Justice, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security oversight. [Wall Street Journal]

* Rather than issuing a grant or denial, the ABA will continue to review the University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law’s application for accreditation. What does this mean for the school’s third-year students? The administration hopes the Texas Supreme Court will allow them to take the state bar exam in July 2017. [Dallas Business Journal]

* “[University leadership] need to be ashamed of themselves. … [They showed a] total lack of consideration for the lives of the staff and faculty.” People are pretty angry about the impending closure of Indiana Tech Law School, including its benefactors, and some of them want refunds. We may have more on this at a later time. [Indiana Lawyer]

Don't forget, President Obama knows a thing or two about the Constitution.

For just a taste of the kind of white men (and they will be, exclusively, white males) Trump will bring, take a look at who Scott Walker just appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

He hates regulations like Dodd-Frank, so he must be PSYCHED about his dad’s promise to bring back Glass-Steagall.

The good and the bad of the GOP platform.

Witnesses describe the would be judge's behavior as a "temper tantrum."

* “I find it highly amusing and somewhat heartening to know that Donald Trump is indirectly subsidizing the defense of undocumented immigrants.” Jones Day may be representing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but the firm is also fighting for the rights of more than 100,000 undocumented refugees, all of whom Trump would likely want to see deported if he were to be elected as president in November. [Yahoo!]

* Believe it or not, but Donald Trump’s political career in the Republican Party closely tracks that of a Biglaw legend of the bar. In 1940, Wendell Willkie of Willkie Farr & Gallagher fame was an outsider presidential candidate with absolutely no public service experience to his name — just like Trump. Willkie later went on to lose the election, and only time will tell if Trump will suffer a similar fate in Election 2016. [Big Law Business]

* Professors at George Mason University have demanded that the law school’s renaming to honor the late Antonin Scalia be delayed until school leaders answer their questions about the funding of scholarship monies being tied to the ongoing service of the current dean, but according to law school senior associate dean David Rehr, “[e]ven with this action, we are moving forward … and expect a favorable resolution.” [Washington Post]

* After receiving the largest gift in its history, Pace Law has been renamed in honor of an environmentalist, and will now be known as the Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law. The donors do not want the amount of their gift to be disclosed, but Pace says it’s comparable to the $30 million and $25 million gifts George Mason and Villanova respectively received for their recent name changes. Congratulations! [WSJ Law Blog]

* The trial between Sumner Redstone and Manuela Herzer over the media mogul’s mental competence is slated to begin today and will last for a week. With lurid allegations about the 92-year-old’s supposed sexual proclivities, his penchant for eating steak through a feeding tube, as well as his incontinence, this is sure to be an incredibly salacious matter that will play out in the public eye. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Arizona Law’s plans to scrap the LSAT in favor of the GRE has angered the Law School Admission Council terribly. In fact, LSAC’s general counsel says the school’s new policy may violate the organization’s bylaws, so it may boot Arizona Law from its membership, thereby cutting the school out of its applications and admissions clearinghouse. We’ll have more on this news later today. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Tom Brady of the New England Patriots hasn’t filed an appeal of the Second Circuit’s reinstatement of his four-game suspension yet, but you can bet your ass that it’s coming soon, because the quarterback just made the ultimate Hail Mary legal hire by adding Ted Olson to his team of lawyers. Sports fans can look forward to a bid for an en banc Second Circuit hearing, or even a possible flea flicker to the Supreme Court. [NBC Sports]

* “Republicans haven’t been satisfied to simply hobble the court’s ability to function. In recent weeks, they have gone to remarkable lengths to impugn the integrity of the justices and thus the legitimacy of the court.” The New York Times Editorial Board has a piece that essentially begs Republicans to stop their shenanigans, give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, and “rescue the Supreme Court from limbo.” [New York Times]

* Law firm merger mania is already in full bloom this spring, but which Biglaw firm was one of the first to bite the bullet? It looks like it’s Husch Blackwell, which is merging with Milwaukee-based Whyte Hirschboek Dudek, effective July 1. The combined firm will have more than 700 attorneys, 19 offices, and it will likely be among the country’s 100 top-grossing law firms. We hope redundancy layoffs won’t follow. [Journal-Sentinel]

* “We respect other professors’ point of view, but it’s less than (8 percent) of the academic faculty.” Some professors are outraged over Mason Law being renamed after the late Justice Antonin Scalia, but the university isn’t budging, and plans to stick with its new name since administrators “believe that the Antonin Scalia Law School, once it’s approved, will be one of the top law schools in the country.” [Big Law Business]

* Law students, you make think you know what a gunner is, but you haven’t met this prodigy yet. Eighteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed will be the first student to attend the University of Southern Florida College of Medicine and the Stetson University College of Law at the same time. If you hurry, you may be able to convince this genius to join your study group. You’ll surely be the envy of all of your new friends. [ABC Action News]

* 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.

* You may have heard about North Carolina’s new anti-LGBTQ law (and the inauspicious circumstances surrounding its passage), but it seems unlikely to withstand constitutional muster. [Slate]

* In the latest case before the Supreme Court over the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive provision, the conservative justices — all male, natch — fail to grasp the basics of contraceptives, insurance. [Talking Points Memo]

* Previewing the issues in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes surrounding finality under the Clean Water Act. [SCOTUSblog]

* Republicans are in favor of open-carry laws, but what about at their own convention? [Gawker]

* Vice President Joe Biden has some biting words over Congress’s obstructionist plan over Merrick Garland’s nomination. [Huffington Post]

* Is there really strong opposition to free trade? Has the U.S. plunged into a policy without caring about the repercussions of said policy? [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* Jian Ghomeshi was acquitted on sexual abuse charges, and now the complaining witnesses are talking about their experiences with the justice system. [Jezebel]

This is why every female associate needs to know her boss's politics.

Less than one-third of U.S. citizens express confidence in our highest court.

* Bonus season has officially arrived in Biglaw-land. But what does it all mean? [ATL Redline]

* Sure, it may be cuffing season, but if you don’t get divorced before January 23rd it could cost you. [New York Post]

* Will Generation Z destroys law schools? [Law and More]

* What is beneath the crusty exterior of hardened partners? [Daily Lawyer Tips]

* Can the Republicans’ Southern Strategy be classified as a success? [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* Michigan State is tops in football, basketball, and, oh yeah, debate. [SB Nation]

Which of your favorite SCOTUS justices will be next?

"[T]his is not the first, second, third, or even tenth time [the GOP] had missed a deadline in this case...."

* PETA’s general counsel swears his organization isn’t monkeying around when it comes to asserting the IP rights of Naruto the selfie-taking monkey, but he may have to deal with a jungle of jurisdictional issues first. [Motherboard / VICE]

* Mmmm, Dewey smell a mistrial? On the eighth day of deliberations in the criminal trial of D&L’s former leaders, the jurors likely made defense counsels’ hearts skip a beat when they asked the judge for instructions on what to do concerning their undecided colleagues. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Chief Justice John Roberts, who has voted conservatively in 85 percent of the Supreme Court’s most divisive 5-4 decisions, apparently isn’t conservative enough for our conservatives. It’s the damn Affordable Care Act. Thanks, Obama. [New York Times]

* According to the latest Acritas Global Elite Law Firm Brand Index 2015, for the sixth year running, Baker & McKenzie has the most recognizable Biglaw brand in the world. DLA Piper will continue to “churn [those] bill[s], baby!” in second place. [PR Web]

* Take the deal: Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who’s accused of hiding large sums used as hush money to conceal his prior sexual misconduct, is negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors. If he were convicted at trial, he’d face up to 10 years in prison. [Reuters]

Conservative columnist Tamara Tabo takes aim at hypocrisy.