Rupert Murdoch

  • Morning Docket: 04.27.23

    Morning Docket: 04.27.23

    * Judge Luttig joined the chorus calling for stricter Supreme Court ethics — a chorus that features pretty much everyone not on the Supreme Court. [Reuters]

    * Trump loses effort to block Pence testimony. Again. [Politico]

    * Biglaw firms game their partnership size to look more profitable, but there’s a stat to look for to check if a firm is truly healthy. [Bloomberg Law News]

    * Biglaw capital market groups living in suspended animation as the whole economy continues to pretend there’s a recession until the Federal Reserve gives up trying to create one. [American Lawyer]

    * Fox handing Smartmatic the Murdoch depositions because how much more damage can be done? Reputationally, we mean. Financially, it’s about $2 billion more. [Law360]

    * Copyright claim against Ed Sheeran lodged by Marvin Gaye’s co-writer. Look, I get that Blurred Lines was — in addition to a bizarrely rapey song for the 21st century — pretty much Got to Give It Up, but you don’t get to own every chord progression in the universe. [ABA Journal]

    * Ivanka hires Jeffrey Epstein lawyer after separating counsel from her brothers. [Daily Beast]

  • Morning Docket: 04.12.23
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.12.23

    * Don’t you hate it when you get to the eve of trial and have to admit your disclosures about the client’s leadership structure have been wrong all this time? No… because that doesn’t happen in real life. Unless you’re representing Fox News. [Law360]

    * Kentucky is going to auction off the gun from the Louisville shooting? Like, for real? [Washington Post]

    * Breaking up is hard to do as EY learns. [Bloomberg Law News]

    * Johnson & Johnson “faces skepticism” over bankruptcy shenanigans in strong contender for understatement of the year. [Reuters]

    * It’s good to be from Missouri. If you’re a law firm anyway. [American Lawyer]

    * “10 pics of Pedro Pascal dressed like law firms” is surprisingly true to the headline. [LegalCheek]

  • Morning Docket: 01.19.23
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 01.19.23

    * With productivity in decline, are we set to see a boom in alternative fee arrangements. No… but isn’t it pretty to think so? [American Lawyer]

    * Alex Spiro is arguing that Elon Musk’s false tweets were just “technical wordsmith inaccuracies.” Not sure how it’s a technicality to say “funding secured” when funding had not, in fact, been secured, but kudos for trying. [Ars Technica]

    * Rupert Murdoch faces questions in the ongoing Dominion defamation case where he’ll testify like Mr. Burns negotiating with kidnappers, “$5000? $6000? I swear, that’s all I’ve got.” [Reuters]

    * After forcing Hector LaSalle to suffer the foregone indignity of getting rejected by the committee, Kathy Hochul has at least taken a tentative step back from her threat to sue fellow Democrats on “because you made me sad” grounds. [Bloomberg]

    * Flo Rida wins $82 million in dispute with energy drink company. Much like the club, the company’s lawyers couldn’t handle him. [Billboard]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 01.14.16
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 01.14.16

    * Interesting take on how the union strategy floundered in Friedrichs. [The Seventy Four]

    * Think you know the cutting edge of copyright law? Because it is apparently about tractors. [Slate]

    * Ah, progress. The site of the Salem Witch Trials now overlooks a Walgreens. [Pictorial]

    * Rich people problems: Rupert Murdock’s new fiancee means a new will. [Law and More]

    * Let’s talk about liability insurance… for dummies. [Coverage Opinions]

    * Planned Parenthood goes on the offensive against the group making undercover videos, filing a federal lawsuit. [Huffington Post]

  • Sponsored

  • 9th Circuit, Biglaw, Cozen O'Connor, Divorce Train Wrecks, Gay, Gay Marriage, Job Searches, Jury Duty, Law Schools, Lesbians, Litigators, Morning Docket, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Women's Issues

    Morning Docket: 07.30.13

    * The number of women arguing before the Supreme Court is still small, but most of its appellate practitioners follow sage advice like this: “Clerk, work, and don’t be a jerk.” [National Law Journal]

    * If you were curious about whether gays and lesbians could be excluded from juries on the basis of their sexual orientation, the Ninth Circuit is about to lay down the law. [New York Times]

    * Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Windsor, Cozen O’Connor will be forced to give a deceased partner’s profit-sharing benefits to her wife, and not her parents. [Legal Intelligencer]

    * Who are Biglaw’s top innovators of the last 50 years? There are many familiar names, but one of them is near and dear to our own hearts at Above the Law: It’s our managing editor, David Lat. Congratulations! [Am Law Daily]

    * If you’re making a career change to go to law school, you should think about why the the hell you’d do such a thing right now — or try to leverage it in applications. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

    * In a surprise move, Wendi Murdoch, better known as Rupert Murdoch’s soon-to-be ex-wife, has hired William Zabel to represent her in the divorce. This is going to get very, very messy. [New York Times]

    * “Why you mad, bro?” Brian Zulberti, the man with the muscles, is trying to make the most of his 15 minutes of fame. He’s lined up several job interviews, so wish him good luck. [Delaware News Journal]

  • 5th Circuit, Attorney Misconduct, Bar Exams, Biglaw, California, Divorce Train Wrecks, Edith Jones, John Roberts, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, Patents, Pro Bono, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Women's Issues

    Morning Docket: 06.14.13

    * When SCOTUS cases involve public companies and rulings are misinterpreted, it can lead to some pretty volatile stock performance, as was evidenced by yesterday’s highs and lows for Myriad Genetics of BRCA1 patent fame. [Washington Post]

    * The ethics complaint against Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit has been transferred to the D.C. Circuit after receiving a blessing from the Chief Justice of the United States. Uh oh, that’s serious business if Roberts is involved. [Times-Picayune]

    * The number of women working in the NLJ 350 is sad. They make up only one-third of all attorneys working in Biglaw, and we’re stuck celebrating the tiniest positive changes. Sigh. [National Law Journal]

    * Proskauer Rose’s former CFO, Elly Rosenthal, settled her $10M disability discrimination suit against the firm in anticlimactic fashion, “without costs to any party as against the others.” [Am Law Daily]

    * California is obviously trying to one-up New York with this one. In addition to a 50-hour pro bono requirement, they’re pushing for 15 hours of real-world training before bar admission. [The Recorder]

    * Try to stop a man from throwing a pie in your husband’s face and in return you’ll be served with your wifely walking papers a few years later. Aww, Rupert Murdoch is such a kind old man. [Bloomberg]

  • Barack Obama, Biglaw, Environment / Environmental Law, Politics, Student Loans

    Non-Sequiturs: 05.16.13

    * A White House petition started by a young lawyer asking that at least student loan interest be tax deductible like interest on a mortgage to help out those folks like, frankly, most lawyers, who make too much money to deduct their student loans. [WhiteHouse.gov] * Antoinette “Toni” Bush, partner-in-charge of Skadden’s communications group, is leaving the firm to become global head of government affairs for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Free tip: brush up on your hacking law. [Am Law Daily] * The Department of Energy may adopt a new “commercial maturity test” to get rolling on the backlog of liquid natural gas export license requests. And that, of course, will spur the inevitable lawsuits. [Breaking Energy] * Apparently, President Obama dreams of “going Bulworth and resents the “Harry Potter theory of the presidency,” that the President can wave a wand and make things happen. So he’s pro Pras, Maya, and ODB, and anti-Hagrid. Who’s anti-Hagrid??? [New York Times] * Lois Lerner, the manager at the center of the IRS “scandal,” has backed out of delivering the keynote at the WNEU Law commencement. I’m pretty sure Staci would do a better job… of running the IRS. [Boston Herald] * Overlawyered blasts the Daily Caller for trying to tie Lerner to Obama via her husband, Michael Miles of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan because the large firm had some ties to Obama. Blerg. Meanwhile, this “partisan scandal” is turning out to be bipartisan entirely based on which IRS office the groups dealt with. [Overlawyered] * Congratulations to this guy. Must have been a hell of a feast. [WDRB]
  • Attorney Misconduct, Bail, Biglaw, Constitutional Law, Drinking, DUI / DWI, Intellectual Property, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, United Kingdom / Great Britain

    Morning Docket: 07.05.12

    * Who needs a Declaration of Internet Freedom when the government supports protesting citizens who go buckwild in the streets? The European Union voted against ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. [Associated Press]

    * Kenneth Schneider, the former Debevoise & Plimpton associate serving a 15-year sentence for forcing a Russian teenager to be his sex slave, was suspended from practice pending further disciplinary proceedings. [New York Law Journal]

    * Glenn Mulcaire, the investigator who intercepted voicemail messages on behalf of News of the World, lost a bid to remain silent about who commissioned his services. Rupert’s gonna be sooo pissed. [New York Times]

    * Congratulations to the team from the University of Chicago Law School that won the United States Supreme Court Prediction Competition. They won $5K for betting on their Con Law nerd-dom. [SCOTUS Competition]

    * Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. is expected to rule on George Zimmerman’s motion for bond today, and perhaps he won’t be so quick to forget that the defendant already lied to the court to get out of jail. [Orlando Sentinel]

    * “You can’t just arbitrarily add anything you want to a sentence.” Well, it looks like you can, because in addition to jail time, a judge in South Carolina tacked on a Biblical book report to this woman’s sentence. [Daily Mail]

Sponsored