Sedgwick

  • Morning Docket: 06.10.19
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.10.19

    * The end of the Supreme Court’s current term is drawing near, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says that dark times may be ahead in terms of “sharp divisions” for some of the “most watched cases” with decisions yet to be announced. Uh-oh… [Associated Press]

    * Who is the real Attorney General Bill Barr? In this interesting profile, opinions vary wildly, with some calling him “closest thing [the Trump administration has] to Dick Cheney” and others referring to him as a “real danger.” [New York Times]

    * George Conway of Wachtell, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, has once again taken to Twitter to call out President Trump: “You would have been fired from any other job by now.” [The Hill]

    * Sedgwick wants its money back: After partners fled the firm prior to its demise, the bankruptcy estate is now hoping for $1.6 million clawback settlement to make things right. [Big Law Business]

    * Even though the lead plaintiff has dropped out in favor of arbitration, tech giant Google can’t seem to shake the lawsuit claiming the company is biased against conservatives, men, white people. [Mercury News]

  • Morning Docket: 10.03.18
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.03.18

    * “BREAKING: President Donald Trump repeatedly mocks Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.” When I got this alert on my phone last night, I couldn’t help myself but to blurt out, “F**k that guy.” That’s our president! Not sure why I expected more. [NBC News]

    * According to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate will vote on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh just as soon as the F.B.I. wraps up its investigation — which could be as early as sometime today. Gee, it’s almost as if they don’t care about what the results are. [New York Times]

    * In the meantime, more than 500 law professors have signed onto two letters that will be presented to the Senate, each condemning Kavanaugh’s “lack of judicial temperament” and “lack of respect for our democratic institutions and women in positions of power in particular.” At least they’re trying. [Guardian]

    * Sedgwick closed up shop sometime around the beginning of 2018, and the failed firm finally got around to filing for bankruptcy, and the court documents read like a Greek Biglaw tragedy. We have have more on this later. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

    * Which Biglaw firm has the strongest brand? It’s not the firm with the highest revenue, and it’s not the firm with the largest headcount, but this firm has that certain je ne sais quoi that makes clients love their attorneys. [American Lawyer]

  • Morning Docket: 12.20.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.20.17

    * Remember when President Trump attacked the federal judiciary, and Neil Gorsuch, then a Supreme Court nominee, called those statements “disheartening” and “demoralizing”? Gorsuch’s comments reportedly pissed off the president so much that his SCOTUS nomination was almost rescinded. [Washington Post]

    * After passing the GOP’s sweeping tax overhaul by a margin of 227-203 yesterday afternoon, the House will need to vote again this morning because several provisions in the bill — including its name — violate the Senate’s Byrd Rule requirements. [TIME]

    * Under would-be SCOTUS Justice Chief Judge Merrick Garland’s leadership, the D.C. Circuit will now live-stream audio of any oral argument upon request. Send your requests by email to liveaudiorequest@cadc.uscourts.gov. [Washington Post]

    * See ya, Sedgwick! Up to 15 partners and up to 65 lawyers and staff members from the failed firm will be headed to Clyde & Co, boosting the British firm’s U.S. partnership by one-third. [American Lawyer; Big Law Business]

    * What are the 20 cheapest law schools in the U.S. News Top 100? If you want to do your future finances a favor, you may have to go South. [Law.com]

  • Morning Docket: 12.15.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.15.17

    * The “20th Century Disney” deal helped make this a very happy holiday season for a bunch of Biglaw firms. [American Lawyer]

    * “Did Alabama just violate federal voting law?” I’m going to go ahead and assume the answer is “yes” until proven otherwise. Now there’s an idea! We could have some sort of statute that presupposes changes to voting laws in places like Alabama are bad until proven otherwise. A law that requires that they get, I don’t know, “preclearance” for election law changes. [Slate]

    * The Net Neutrality law suits are piling up and throttling the FCC’s plan to move forward at full speed. [National Law Journal]

    * Remember when Nate Newton was arrested for having 213 pounds of marijuana in his car? Well this arrested Georgia football player is, like, the complete opposite of that. [Slate]

    * Vivia Chen discusses Heidi Bond, focusing on how systematic abuse has the power to make people with all the objective markers of success feel incompetent. [The Careerist]

    * WSJ declares that it’s cool to go to law school again. There’s no way this leads to another bubble. [Wall Street Journal]

    * There are a lot of reasons why Sedgwick is going out of business but one of them has to be partners who had enough spare time to build stuff like this. [The Recorder]

  • Morning Docket: 12.08.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.08.17

    * ICYMI: Texas Supreme Court Justice and Fifth Circuit nominee Don Willett saved a man from choking to death at a Chik-fil-A about a week ago. Chief Judge Stephen Dillard of the Georgia Court of Appeals had this funny little quip about Willett’s heroism: “This Day in Judicial ‘Activism.'” [Houston Chronicle]

    * If you want an easy way out of your Biglaw job, just follow these easy tips for how to behave at your firm’s holiday party. [American Lawyer]

    * Lanny Davis has an interesting take on all of the reasons why — much to Donald Trump’s chagrin — the DOJ is not the president’s own personal law firm. [The Hill]

    * Biglaw firms are swooping in like vultures to pick apart Sedgwick’s decaying carcass. The failed firm’s London office only has one partner left. [American Lawyer]

    * “This is embarrassing, Mom. You look homeless.” A Detroit lawyer has founded a nonprofit law firm and she’s currently working and sleeping in an outdoor hovel during her “campout for justice.” She hopes to raise money to help more clients. Here’s her GoFundMe page. Donate bonus cash to a good cause! [Detroit Free Press]

  • Morning Docket: 12.06.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.06.17

    * “They’re not just preparing for a court challenge. They’re prepared to lose.” President Trump has been including severability clauses in some of his most controversial executive orders and proclamations (e.g., Travel Ban 2.0, Travel Ban 3.0, and the transgender military ban). At this rate, he’s on pace to use them more than all of his most recent predecessors combined. [USA Today]

    * Special counsel Robert Mueller filed his legal team’s first expenditure report yesterday afternoon, and it’s a doozy. Thus far, $6.7 million has been spent between May 17, 2017, and September 30, 2017, and contrary to popular belief at the White House, the Russia investigation is nowhere near an end. [National Law Journal]

    * The Justice Department is now open to regulating guns; we repeat, the Justice Department is now open to regulating guns — or at least parts that can make guns even more deadly than they already are. That said, the DOJ has entered into a rule-making process that will redetermine the legality of bump stock devices. [CNN]

    * All has been quiet on the Sedgwick front for about a week, but now we’ve got word that “many” of the failed firm’s lawyers from numerous offices — including San Francisco-based team led by partners Bruce Celebrezze and Alexander Potente — will be joining British insurance firm Clyde & Co in the new year. [American Lawyer]

    * In case you missed it, Judge Valarie E. Turner — who allowed a law clerk to wear her robes and preside over cases — was recently forced into retirement after admitting that she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and “acknowledg[ing] that she [was] permanently unable to perform her judicial duties.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

  • Morning Docket: 11.27.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 11.27.17

    * According to recently released tax records, a mystery donor gave more than $28 million to the Wellspring Committee to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat in Republican hands and help get Neil Gorsuch confirmed. How awesome would it be if that mystery donor were the president himself? [Law Newz]

    * The DOJ says Trump can appoint the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Federal Vacancies Act, but the Dodd-Frank Act says the deputy director will head the agency in the absence of a permanent director. Now we have two dueling CFPB directors, AND there’s a lawsuit. Yay! [The Hill; CNN]

    * FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is so against Chairman Ajit Pai’s “lousy plan” to do away with net neutrality that she wrote an op-ed to plead for help: “I’m on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality.” She encourages us to “make a ruckus” about this — and we really, really should. [Los Angeles Times]

    * The layoffs are coming! The layoffs are coming! Along with Sedgwick’s announcement that the faltering firm intends to close its doors in early 2018 comes the news that it will shutter its back office operations center. Up to 75 people are expected to lose their jobs. It’ll be a not-so happy New Year. [American Lawyer]

    * Start placing your bets: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in New Jersey’s sports betting case next week, and is expected to issue a ruling in June. What’s the over/under on the high court overturning the federal ban on sports betting? Come on, SCOTUS, make Atlantic City great again! [NJ.com]

    * Representative John Conyers Jr. will be stepping down from his platoon as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee during an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed his former aides. Even though a settlement was made in 2015, Conyers continues to deny the allegations. [New York Times]

    * The InfiLaw System has been lowering the bar for minority law students for years and years and dooming them to hundreds of thousands of dollars of nondischargeable loan debt, and the man who started it all seems relatively disappointed with what’s happened and the awful outcomes students have seen. [Wall Street Journal]

    * “I think when it’s all said and done, what you’re gonna see is there was nothing racial that motivated this.” The lawyer representing the white University of Hartford student who smeared period blood all over her black roommate’s things to get her to move out doesn’t think his client should be charged with a hate crime. [Hartford Courant]

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  • Morning Docket: 10.14.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.14.16

    * Senator Mike Lee, an influential member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (and a former Supreme Court clerk himself), explains why Republicans won’t confirm Judge Merrick Garland to SCOTUS in the lame-duck session. [Washington Post via How Appealing]

    * Jaroslawa Zelinsky Johnson, former managing partner of Chadbourne & Parke’s defunct Kiev office, wants in on Kerrie Campbell’s sex discrimination suit against the firm. [American Lawyer]

    * In other news about alleged gender bias in Biglaw, it looks like partner Traci Ribeiro’s lawsuit against Sedgwick is bound for arbitration. [Law.com]

    * The latest bad news for Theranos: a hedge fund is suing the company for securities fraud, and it’s represented by a pair of high-powered Gibson Dunn partners, former federal prosecutors Reed Brodsky and Winston Chan. [Corporate Counsel]

    * Kasowitz Benson’s recent legal work on behalf of Donald Trump is just the latest example of the firm representing litigious tycoons. [New York Law Journal]

    * As some firms exit China, others enter the market; Hogan Lovells just announced a strategic alliance with Fujian Fidelity Law Firm in Shanghai. [Big Law Business]

    * In my ancestral homeland of the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte poses a threat to the rule of law, but remains very popular with the people. [New York Times]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 08.26.16
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 08.26.16

    * The definitive answer to the question only Elie Mystal cares about — Who in Game of Thrones would make the best lawyer? [LinkedIn]

    * It’s official: non-profit Truth in Advertising has filed a complaint with the FTC about the Kardashian/Jenner family’s sloppily labeled sponsored posts. [The Fashion Law]

    * Texas is forum shopping in its lawsuits against the federal government — and it’s working. [Huffington Post]

    * Sedgwick’s gender discrimination lawsuit could be headed to arbitration. [Law.com]

    * Despite knowing better, people are still going to law school. [Law and More]

  • Morning Docket: 07.28.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.28.16

    * State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby dropped all remaining charges against the three Baltimore police officers still awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray — a decision she called “agonizing.” [New York Times]

    * Judge Paul L. Friedman (D.D.C.) ordered the release of John W. Hinckley Jr., the man who in 1981 attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan (and who, some argue, murdered White House press secretary James Brady). [Washington Post]

    * Traci Ribeiro, a non-equity partner at Sedgwick, sued the firm for discrimination, alleging that she and other women “cannot crack the glass ceiling at Sedgwick.” [Law.com]

    * A promising proposal from the Justice Department for how to deal with the law enforcement challenges presented by evidence stored in other countries (in the wake of Microsoft’s Second Circuit victory over the DOJ). [Christian Science Monitor]

    * “Is fake burping in gym class enough to get a seventh-grader arrested?” Professor Noah Feldman analyzes an interesting new Tenth Circuit ruling. [Bloomberg View via How Appealing]

    * Judge Janet Bond Arterton: sorry, Principal National Life Insurance Co., but you can’t escape paying out on the $10 million life insurance policy you issued to a law firm partner just because he died 15 months after the policy’s issuance. [Law.com]

    * For folks finishing up the bar exam today, some advice from former ABC News president (and former SCOTUS clerk) David Westin: it’s okay to walk out of there early. Good luck! [Big Law Business]

  • Bar Exams, Biglaw, Christopher Christie, Gay, Gay Marriage, Health Care / Medicine, Law Schools, LSAT, Morning Docket, New Jersey, Pro Bono, Sexual Harassment, State Judges, Utah

    Morning Docket: 02.12.14

    * Sedgwick is the latest Biglaw firm to jump on the back-office bandwagon. The firm will be moving all of its administrative operations — from HR to IT — to Kansas City, Missouri. Don’t be sad, it’s probably better than West Virginia. [Am Law Daily]

    * Lawyers may be pecking at Biglaw’s rotting carcass, but at least there are lessons to be learned for Big Med, the next profession supposedly on the brink of implosion. It’s time to stop obsessing over revenue and rankings. [The Atlantic]

    * Ten states rushed to help Utah defend its ban on gay marriage using “pretty embarrassing” arguments, but Nevada just washed its hands of its own appeal, saying its ban was “no longer defensible.” [Bloomberg]

    * Here’s something that’ll make you love or hate Chris Christie even more: he once made Bristol-Myers Squibb donate $5 million to Seton Hall Law to avoid securities fraud charges. Yep. [Washington Post]

    * Faruqi & Faruqi doesn’t want its attorneys’ compensation information to be disclosed to Alexandra Marchuk in her sexual harassment case against the firm. A kinder, gentler firm, huh? [Law 360 (sub. req.)]

    * Soon you’ll be able to take the bar before you graduate in New York, but only if you do pro bono work during spring semester of your 3L year — and you’ll likely have to pay to complete it. [New York Times]

    * If you just took the LSAT, you’re cutting it pretty close, buddy. Guesstimate your score so you can avoid sending out applications that will make admissions officers laugh. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]