Securities and Exchange Commission

* A Magic Circle firm sees two New York banking partners disappear. [Big Law Business]

* A Biglaw partner cuts a deal with the SEC over allegations that he acted as a conduit for improper campaign donations, paying $95,000 and admitting no wrongdoing. [ABA Journal]

* Being general counsel of Uber is a fascinating job because the company constantly confronts legal and regulatory issues — the latest being a Justice Department probe into its “Greyball” software tool. [New York Times]

* An interesting interview by Casey Sullivan of Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal, now tied with Thurgood Marshall as the minority lawyer with the most Supreme Court arguments. [Big Law Business via How Appealing]

* A preview of next week’s argument in the Trump travel ban case before the en banc Fourth Circuit (down a member because Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson is the father-in-law of acting solicitor general Jeffrey Wall, who’s arguing the case). [Law.com]

* Maybe Jeff Sessions feels shame. [Fusion]

* The War On Drugs isn’t going anywhere. [Huffington Post]

* The Trump administration is threatening a government shutdown over sanctuary cities. [Salon]

* A former SEC lawyer, Norm Champ, tells all in a new book. [The Atlantic]

* Can LinkedIn actually be useful in building your practice? [Reboot Your Law Practice]

* The Rolling Stone/UVA defamation case has reached a settlement. [Law and More]

* S&C may be Trump’s second favorite law firm, but don’t count your chickens on SEC nominee Jay Clayton yet — the Office of Government and Ethics has flagged some potential conflicts of interest. [Law360]

* Law schools often discriminate against women by undercompensating positions that skew female. Sure this is important, but is it as egregious an act of discrimination as not valuing originalist scholarship? [Law.com]

* Three firms admit to overbilling for temp and staff attorneys. [Am Law Daily]

* Ninth Circuit says Dodd-Frank provides broad whistleblower protection, which sets up an intriguing circuit split for the roughly three weeks Dodd-Frank remains a law. [National Law Journal]

* Key cybertrends of 2017. [Legaltech News]

* Fried Frank has its best year ever while the rest of you experienced 2016 as a runaway train of sadness. [Am Law Daily]

* Robot lawyer assisting refugees, making it official that even cyborgs have more of a heart than some politicians. [BBC News]

* The confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions to serve as U.S. attorney general get underway today; here’s what to watch for. [How Appealing]

* Biglaw faces big challenges today, and even top law firms need to up their game. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law (and also holder of an NYU Law degree), will serve as senior adviser to President Trump; Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick of WilmerHale, dismissed nepotism and conflict-of-interest concerns. [Washington Post]

* Speaking of conflicts, it’s probably a wise idea for Supreme Court justices to unload their holdings of individual stocks — as a recent snafu involving Chief Justice John Roberts suggests. [New York Times]

* Speaking of SCOTUS, the Court heard arguments yesterday in a case about a Colorado law making it more difficult for criminal defendants whose convictions get overturned to obtain refunds of fines and restitution they previously paid. [How Appealing]

* Here is Chris Geidner’s assessment of the where the Court is right now — and how it might change after President Trump’s first appointment, to be announced sometime after inauguration. [BuzzFeed]

* And here is a detailed dossier on one of Trump’s SCOTUS finalists, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit. [U.S. Law Week / Bloomberg BNA]

* What can we expect from the SEC if Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton is confirmed as chair? Thoughts from Peter J. Henning. [DealBook / New York Times]

* The antitrust battle between Apple and Nokia has heated up. Apple filed a new lawsuit against nonpracticing entities, Acacia Research Corp. and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc., alleging an abusive anti-competitive scheme. [Law.com]

* Gibson Dunn partner Debra Wong Yang may be in line to lead the SEC under President Trump. [CNN]

* North Carolina failed to repeal their controversial law regulating the use of public bathroom by transgender people. [Washington Post]

* New York City’s plan to destroy data collected in connection with its IDNYC card program is on hold pending a hearing in a Staten Island courtroom. [New York Times]

* 2016 was a record breaking year for the SEC’s Whistleblower program. [National Law Journal]

* President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, is a critic of the Obama Administration’s regulation in this area (and he’s a former litigator, interestingly enough). [Washington Post]

* Judge Bill Pryor (11th Cir.), a top SCOTUS contender in a Trump Administration, is beloved by conservatives — but confirming him could be a battle. [Bloomberg BNA via How Appealing]

* The Arkansas Supreme Court rules that married lesbian couples can’t put the names of both spouses on their children’s birth certificates. [WSJ Law Blog]

* SEC enforcement chief Andrew Ceresney will leave the agency by the end of this year; where might he wind up? [Law.com]

* Governor Andrew Cuomo met with the feds in connection with the corruption case brought against some of his former aides. [New York Times]

* Michael Jordan’s latest court victory — in an IP case in China. [Bloomberg]

* Alabama prisoner Ronald Smith is executed after the Supreme Court denies a stay, leaving SCOTUS review of the state’s unique “judicial override” system for another day. [New York Times via How Appealing]

* “Voters deserve to know that personal priorities will never take precedence over the national interest.” Thanks to President-elect Donald Trump’s unwillingness to release his tax returns, a New York lawmaker has introduced the Tax Returns Uniformly Made Public (TRUMP) Act, which would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to disclose their income tax returns going back five years to appear on the ballot in New York. [Big Law Business]

* In what’s being considered a blow to college athletes, the Seventh Circuit has ruled that they are not employees deserving of a minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Fortunately, there may be a bright spot of hope in a concurring opinion because it shows that “[t]he nature of the relationship between kids who play FBS football and their schools, leagues and the NCAA … is a business relationship.” [Huffington Post]

* Weil Gotshal snagged a prominent antitrust partner from Simpson Thacher, and it just so happens that he’s already great friends with the attorney with whom he’ll work alongside of as co-head of the firm’s antitrust practice. Congrats to Kevin J. Arquit (and to Steven A. Newborn, who’ll be reunited with a friend). [DealBook / New York Times]

* President-elect Trump may turn to another prosecutor turned Biglaw partner to lead the SEC following the departure of Chairwoman Mary Jo White. It looks like Debra Wong Yang, chair Gibson Dunn’s crisis management practice, may become Wall Street’s “top cop” under the Trump administration. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* If you thought that the American Bar Association had learned its lesson after the closure of Indiana Tech Law, then you thought wrong, because the ABA has granted the UMass Law School full accreditation. Feast your eyes upon these glorious bar exam passage statistics from the last two July administrations of the test. [Lowell Sun]

* A Wisconsin judge has ordered that Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of “Making a Murderer,” be freed from prison while the state appeals a ruling overturning his conviction, as authorities have “failed to demonstrate that Dassey represents a present danger to the community.” The date of his release is not yet known, but the state plans to file another appeal. [USA Today]

* “If you have baseball commissioner to offer me, then I can tell you what my plans are.” Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White is stepping down from her position even though she still has two years left before her term is up. The departure of the former Debevoise partner and federal prosecutor will make way for President-elect Donald Trump to start dismantling the Dodd-Frank Act. [DealBook / New York Times]

* For a man who seems to be completely obsessed with all things tremendous, big league, great, and yuge, the vast majority of the judges on President-elect Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist have at least one thing in common: They didn’t go to Ivy League law schools. That being said, just like his outsider campaign as a whole, the names on Trump’s Supreme Court pick list are a “revolt against the elites.” [New York Times]

* While he was still on the campaign trail, President-elect Trump pledged to “open up our libel laws” so celebrities and public officials can “sue [the media] and win lots of money,” but it might not be so easy to do. The Supreme Court doesn’t seem to have any designs on overturning the precedent set in New York Times v. Sullivan, and the only other way to change libel laws would be to amend the Constitution. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Chadbourne & Parke has filed a motion for summary judgment in the $100 million gender discrimination class-action suit filed by one of its current partners and one of its former partners, contending that not only are their claims “utterly baseless,” but that the plaintiff partners are not or were not employees of the firm who fall under employment discrimination laws. We’ll have more on this news later today. [Big Law Business]

* Before Donald Trump sets foot into the Oval Office, he’ll have to step into a federal courthouse to litigate claims made by former students who claim they were defrauded by Trump University. How in the world will they find an impartial jury? “This is a jury consultant’s nightmare to pick in a case like this. It will be taught in jury consulting school.” [Reuters]

* Yesterday, in a silent act of protest against Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wore her “dissent jabot” during oral arguments at the Supreme Court. This summer, she famously remarked that she “[couldn’t] imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president.” [The Hill]

* In his first 100 days in office, Donald Trump says he’ll appoint a conservative judge to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and his legacy may be the undoing of Supreme Court precedent, like overruling Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action, striking down campaign finance laws, and invalidating gun restrictions. [Los Angeles Times]

* How will Donald Trump’s presidency change the DOJ and the SEC? There will likely be changes at the top of both organizations. It’s speculated that Rudy Giuliani may be selected to replace Loretta Lynch as AG, but Trump has given no indication as to who he’ll choose to replace Mary Jo White as commissioner. [DealBook / New York Times]

* If you’d like to know what it takes to become a law firm partner, these 338 lawyers who made partner within the last four years have some helpful hints for you. It seems to be a mixture of “hours, hours, hours” and being a man — two-thirds of those who were surveyed were men who had worked at their firms for five to 10 years. [Am Law Daily]