Samuel Alito

* During an interview on “Face the Nation,” President Donald Trump was wishy-washy as to whether he’d be comfortable with special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report being released to the public, saying, “I don’t know. It depends. I have no idea what it’s going to say.” He was really comfortable saying it was time to “get rid” of the probe, though. [New York Times]

* Speaking of the special counsel’s Russia inquiry, a former federal prosecutor predicts that Mueller will indict Donald Trump Jr. to get leverage over his father. After all, “[w]e’ve seen Mueller use people’s kids to get to folks in the past.” Will his son’s actions be President Trump’s undoing? [Newsweek]

* Here’s a headline we bet you thought you’d never see: “Justice Alito Temporarily Blocks a Louisiana Abortion Law.” The sad part here is that this case may place a burden women’s abortion rights if the full Court hears it. [New York Times]

* “I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I can’t sit in a room and look at documents. I won’t get into what that is, but it’s deadly. Deadly. Document production.” Doc review might have been “deadly” in Michelle Obama’s day, but has it improved? [American Lawyer]

* Remember Bruce Reilly, the convicted murderer who went on to become a student at Tulane Law? He’s since graduated, and while he’d like to take the bar exam to practice as a lawyer, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to overcome his character and fitness issues. [New York Times]

* Earth’s finest lawsuit? The #FijiWaterGirl (aka Kelleth Cuthberg née Kelly Steinbach), the model who inadvertently photobombed celebrities on the red carpet during the Golden Globes, has filed suit against Fiji Water for allegedly using her likeness to promote its brand without her permission. [CBS News]

* Congratulations to John K. Bush, who won confirmation to the Sixth Circuit despite his controversial undercover blogging. [How Appealing]

* Team Trump is digging into the backgrounds of special counsel Robert Mueller’s all-star team of attorneys, looking for discrediting dirt. [New York Times]

* DLA Piper swallows up Liner LLP, a California-based boutique with 60 lawyers — so, DLA’s idea of breakfast. [Law.com]

* Justice Alito defends his tenure on the Supreme Court cafeteria committee (in this hilarious piece by Jess Bravin). [Wall Street Journal via How Appealing]

* Ex-Dentons associate Michael Potere, represented by a public defender, pleads not guilty to charges that he tried to extort his former firm. [Law360]

* Is the relationship of President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions damaged beyond repair? [New York Times]

* Is Charles Miller’s move to Tarter Krinsky & Drogin the beginning of a partner exodus from Kasowitz Benson — one possibly driven by the debacle of the Donald Trump representation? [New York Law Journal]

* Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law gets censured by the ABA in the wake of sex-discrimination allegations. [ABA Journal]

* Thanks to Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination now enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate. [The Hill]

* But the “nuclear option” isn’t off the table — and here’s how to explain it to your non-lawyer friends and relatives. [GQ]

* Speaking of SCOTUS, how often do you see a separate opinion written by Justice Sotomayor and joined by… Justice Alito? [How Appealing]

* And don’t look for either justice in Adam Feldman’s discussion of the most powerful Supreme Court justices of all time. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Thinking of (debt financing) a law degree? Use this handy student loan calculator to crunch the numbers first. [AccessLex]

* A big issue in international and maritime law: control over the South China Sea. [Instapundit]

* “He has always said he’s given to politicians his entire career and he thinks the system is broken. A review of Donald Trump’s political donations show that the Republican presidential candidate has made campaign contributions to several to state attorneys general while they weighed decisions affecting his business, particularly in New York. What’s that about a “rigged” system? [Wall Street Journal]

* Carl Ferrer, the chief executive officer of Backpage.com, was arrested last night on in Houston, Texas, on a California warrant for criminal charges including pimping. If you recall, Backpage.com was recently in the news thanks to a Senate investigation into allegations that the site was helping to facilitate child sex trafficking. [Reuters]

* Per a report publish by Altman Weil, law firm merger and acquisition activity was way down in the third quarter of 2016. Last year at this time, the merger market was 40 percent more active. Why are so dormant? “[F]irms are waiting on the sidelines seeing if it will all work: 6,000-lawyer law firms and that type of thing.” [Big Law Business]

* “Congratulations to the ‘Nino’ Scalia Law School for memorializing, for celebrating this most remarkable judge and teacher.” Justices Kagan, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, and Sotomayor — attended the dedication for the school named after Scalia, while Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Ginsburg attended a dinner in his honor. [USA Today]

* “If students are graduating and they can’t pass the bar, that’s a big problem.” Law schools are coming around to the fact that it’s now a buyer’s market for students, and some will even allow 0Ls to “vet” their schools to evaluate the teaching methods being used. You can even check out professors’ résumés. [U.S. News & World Report]

* So, you’ve found a new job. Yay! You give your boss your two-week notice and your current job comes back with a counter offer. Should you take it? [Manila Recruitment]

* Evaluating the impact of the ghosts of decisions past on this term’s Supreme Court. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Law school applications are down, but medical school applications are up. A look at the trends that have created this phenomenon. [Law School Cafe]

* Are Justices Alito and Thomas in denial? [Slate]

* If a student commits suicide after being bullied, is the school liable? [Litigation Daily]

* Interesting podcast about what it is really like to be a criminal defense attorney. [LST Radio]

* WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHER, WHEN THIS JURY’S PUNITIVE DAMAGES AWARD RUNS WILD ON YOU?!? Gawker was hit with an additional $25M in punitive damages yesterday in Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit, on top of the $115M award the jury had already slapped the media company with last week. That loud typing sound you hear is the appeals being furiously written. [Reuters]

* They were gonna grant you leave to file, but then they got high? The Supreme Court has puff, puff, passed on the opportunity to hear a challenge posed by Nebraska and Oklahoma to Colorado’s legalization of marijuana. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented, contending that the case fell within the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction. [NPR]

* This took longer than the iOS 9 download: Hot on the heels of the announcement of new Apple products, we got the news that the tech giant and its rival, Samsung, will face off next term before SCOTUS in a patent case that’s been going on since the iPhone 4 was still considered the latest and greatest in smartphone technology. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “Once you start seeing leading law firms offering this, it’s going to become more prevalent and pretty rapidly, because it’s going to be required to compete.” Lawyers with law school debt will probably jump at the chance for their firms to pitch in to repay their loans, but don’t forget, all of that assistance will be taxable as income. [U.S. News]

* “My job is to enforce the law, and starting today, DraftKings and FanDuel will abide by it.” In a settlement reached with New York AG Eric Schneiderman, the sports betting daily fantasy sites will cease operations in the state, and in exchange, the AG will hold off on additional litigation that could force them to pay restitution to their losers. [ESPN]