S.D.N.Y.

* “How to Con Black Law Students: A Case Study,” by our very own Elie Mystal. [New York Times]

* Professor Rick Hasen responds to Judge Alex Kozinski’s colorful dissental in the travel-ban litigation. [Slate]

* Speaking of the Ninth Circuit, should it be broken up? Prominent appellate lawyer Ben Feuer makes the case against. [Los Angeles Times]

* Professor Ilya Somin hopes senators ask Judge Gorsuch these questions at tomorrow’s hearing. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* But his co-blogger, Professor Orin Kerr, isn’t holding his breath for revealing answers. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Walt Pavlo wonders: are former prosecutors from the S.D.N.Y. padding their résumés? [Forbes]

* Almost three years have passed since the death of Eric Garner — and we still have many more questions than answers. [CityLand / New York Law School]

* Jane Genova: What can legal media and marketers learn from Jimmy Breslin? [Law And More]

The big winners from the firing of Preet Bharara: the producers of the Showtime drama Billions.

Why the outrage surrounding this president doing what every recent president has done?

One of the biggest winners in the shakeup might just be Fox News and executive chairman Rupert Murdoch.

The Trump Administration says "you're fired" to a prominent prosecutor.

Oh great! Another lawyer show!

* The Supreme Court takes on an issue of major importance to the patent bar (and the Eastern District of Texas): where can an infringement suit be filed? [How Appealing]

* And SCOTUS also grants cert to a case raising the scope of what prosecutors must disclose to the defense under Brady v. Maryland and a case about a criminal lawyer’s erroneous advice to his client about immigration consequences of a guilty plea. [New York Times via How Appealing]

* Sheriff of Wall Street Preet Bharara loses another deputy to private practice: Katherine Goldstein, head of the S.D.N.Y.’s securities-fraud unit, will join several of her former colleagues — Adam Fee, Antonia Apps and George Canellos — at Milbank Tweed. [WSJ Law Blog]

* President-elect Donald Trump won’t take office for a few weeks, but he’s already inspiring new law school courses. [National Law Journal]

* And Trump might also trigger new lawsuits from state attorneys general seeking to rein in his administration. [New York Times]

* As for existing litigation between Trump and celebrity chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian, both the real estate tycoon and his adversaries are repped by big Biglaw names: Seyfarth Shaw and Steptoe & Johnson. [BuzzFeed]

* Speaking of Seyfarth, it’s the firm representing ExxonMobil in litigation alleging anti-gay discrimination in its hiring practices — litigation that continues even as CEO Rex Tillerson prepares to leave the company to head the Trump State Department. [Washington Blade]

The Sheriff of Wall Street will keep wearing his spurs, because he wants to.

Prominent prosecutor Preet Bharara will stay on as U.S. Attorney when President Trump takes over.

This is how you leave a firm!

A federal prosecutor turned law firm partner offers insights to law students and young lawyers.

As they say: those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Overseeing this litigation wasn't easy, but the judge has no regrets about the ultimate outcome.

This former Biglaw counsel is going to prison, although not for a huge amount of time (as prison sentences go).

As Billions ends its first season and begins to prepare for its second, television critic Harry Graff offers some suggestions on how to improve it.

Twitter's latest sensation is just trying to do his job.

Who doesn't love a good "reply all" scandal?

* Remember Kent and Jill Easter, the married lawyers who planted bags of weed and pills in the car of Kelli Peters, a PTA volunteer at their son’s school? Kent’s law license was suspended, Jill was disbarred, they’re now divorced, and to top it all off, a jury recently awarded Peters $5.7M in her case against them. [Orange County Register]

* The horror! The horror! Not only did Marco Rubio get his ass handed to him during this weekend’s Republican debate, but it turns out he’s accused of having been a law firm lobbyist for Florida firms Becker & Poliakoff and Broad and Cassel. [BuzzFeed News]

* A proposed ABA resolution that local bar groups think has to do with non-lawyer ownership of law firms — they’re not entirely sure, of course — is making the hair stand up on the back of attorneys’ necks. What could possibly go wrong? [WSJ Law Blog]

* Career alternatives for attorneys law school deans: David Yellen, dean of Loyola Law – Chicago for more than a decade (and former ATL columnist), will be leaving the law school game to assume the presidency at Marist College. [Poughkeepsie Journal]

* Applications may be down at Yale Law School when compared to prior years, but administrators aren’t exactly concerned about it. Come on, get real: It’s Yale, and the law school “still [has] more qualified applicants than [it] can accept.” [Yale Daily News]

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal profession celebrated the New Year by shedding 1,400 jobs. Don’t worry, 2016 graduates, there’s still a chance the job market could improve, but we’ll have to wait it out. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Miriam Cedarbaum, longtime federal judge of the S.D.N.Y., RIP. [New York Times]

It's not without flaws, but Billions has a strong group of actors and an interesting premise.

* Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit completely obliterated a Wisconsin law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Posner said any health benefits conferred by the law were “nonexistent.” [Reuters]

* Judge Richard Sullivan (S.D.N.Y.) wasn’t a fan of the Bank of China essentially telling Gucci to “suck it up” when it came to “ridiculous” delays in providing counterfeiters’ records, so he held the bank in contempt and is considering assessing millions of dollars in fines. [WSJ Law Blog]

* A Pennsylvania attorney activist who launched the “Kane is not Able” campaign has asked the state’s highest court to provide clarification on how AG Kathleen Kane should delegate her duties considering the fact she has a suspended law license. [PennLive.com]

* A proposed class-action suit has been filed against fashion company Kate Spade over its alleged “imaginary discount prices.” If this goes the way of the $4.88M Michael Kors settlement over the same issue, then Kate Spade could be in trouble. [Consumerist]

* “Talk about being uprooted!” Vendors who sell wares outside of Brooklyn Law are pissed about the school’s plans to install planters on the sidewalks around the building, thereby kicking the vendors not to the curb, but out onto the street. [Brooklyn Paper]