Sonia Sotomayor

Did the Wise Latina engage in unwise behavior at a Supreme Court party?

* Justice Sotomayor would like to remind you that just because you’ve been to one Indian casino, that doesn’t mean all Native Americans are fantastically wealthy. [KGOU] * Nor is every Native American cured by this news, but this is certainly a start — the Department of the Interior will sign a $554 million settlement in the breach of trust case brought by the Navajo nation. [Buckley Sandler LLP] * A Peruvian woman has sued Disney for $250 million because she alleges that Frozen is a rip-off of her life story. Because she has magic ice powers? I guess. Actually, it looks like the only connection is that she lived in a cold place and had a sister. This reminds me of my lawsuit against Chuck Palahniuk for basing Fight Club on my life story. Not that I ran anarchic underground fight clubs, but because one-time at camp I made a bar of soap. [Bustle] * Law professor goes after revenge porn and patent trolls because he’s trying to win the title of best person ever. [Brooklyn Paper] * Harold Hamm, Continental Resources’ Chairman and CEO — and former energy adviser to Mitt Romney — is staring down the barrel of a massive divorce settlement. So he takes a page from Romney’s adversary. Hamm is arguing that his fortune… he didn’t build that! He was just the beneficiary of a good market rather than a contributing factor so he doesn’t have to share. [Upstream Online] * The CAC launches a new series on the Roberts Court at 10. It’s hard to believe how long ago that was. When the Chief Justice took over we still thought the ending of Lost was going to make sense! [Constitutional Accountability Center] * Winston & Strawn lawyer turned famous LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya opened a new show in London. Sculptures made of thousands and thousands of hand-assembled bricks. Just in case you were wondering if there was a task more boring than document review. [Yahoo! Canada News] * Paul Clement and Mike Carvin offer a SCOTUS preview. [Heritage Foundation]

* If you want to know why Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s summer was “really not fun,” it’s because she spent it reading a book about Justice Antonin Scalia and a book written by Justice John Paul Stevens. [Washington Whispers / U.S. News & World Report]

* “There is less money to pay everybody.” Corporations are shifting more and more of their legal work to their in-house lawyers, and some law firms — especially smaller ones — are feeling the financial squeeze. [WSJ Law Blog]

* If you’ve wanted to know what federal judges discuss during their bathroom breaks, stop wondering, because it’s not that exciting. All they talk about is their “stupid little trials,” and get overheard by jurors and forced into disclosures. [New York Daily News]

* Dewey know why the former leaders of this failed firm want their criminal indictment dismissed? It’s because the case is allegedly based on a “flagrant misunderstanding of the law.” [New York Law Journal]

* If you want to own a “piece of history,” Jodi Arias is auctioning off the glasses she wore during the first phase of her murder trial. She intends to donate the proceeds of the sale to (her own?) charity. [Daily Mail]

Which SCOTUS justice committed this prestigious offense?

Don't be fooled by the gavels that she got, she's still "Sonia from the Bronx." Which is also the name of a new hamburger.

It's only fitting that we'd some day see an episode of SCOTUS and the City.

* Justice Sonia Sotomayor insists that her meeting with Hillary Clinton at Costco wasn’t planned. She just wanted to say hello to the “other lady,” as referenced by the woman at the store’s pharmacy counter. [Washington Post]

* Six U.K. firm leaders got together to talk about how to run their practices during challenging economic times. It turns out they’d prefer not to run their firms into the ground. [The Lawyer]

* Look out everyone, because Taylor Wessing, an international law firm that’s known for its IP, media, and telecommunications work, is storming both coasts of the United States in its very own dual office launch Biglaw blitzkrieg. [Am Law Daily]

* “It is a shameful canard that student loans and indebtedness are the cause of high tuition. They are not; they are the symptom,” says a law dean standing up for his students. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* If you want to go to law school and you’ve got an undergrad degree in a technical area like engineering, then congrats. You might stand to get a job after graduation. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

How well are the Supreme Court justices doing financially? Pretty darn well....

Hillary Clinton is so "dead broke" she has to sign books at Costco.

Hillary Clinton is so "dead broke" she has to sign books at Costco.

Was Hillary Clinton selling her book at bargain basement prices to attract Costco customers -- like Justice Sonia Sotomayor?

* They know where to find a deal: Justice Sonia Sotomayor ran into Hillary Clinton at Costco this weekend where the former secretary of state was hawking her book (affiliate link). It’s almost like this wasn’t arranged. [Huffington Post]

* “[T]his is my chance to do what I love and I am going to seize it!” Judge Randall Rader stepped down from his role as chief of the Federal Circuit less than a month ago following an ethics issue, and now he’s retiring for good. [Reuters]

* The government says that Zachary Warren’s prestigious legal accomplishments “left him well-able to understand the criminal nature of his conduct at Dewey.” Ouch, the People just turned it around on him. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “The reasons they have are the reasons they have.” The ex-dean of Indiana Tech Law quit his job weeks ago, but no one has any idea why. We guess he got out while the getting was still good. [Journal Gazette]

* Kenan Gay, the Charlotte Law student charged with murder after allegedly tossing a man into traffic, was acquitted. He graduated this spring. Nice work, but loans are still a life sentence, bro. [Charlotte Observer]

* It’s been 20 years since the O.J. Simpson case — aka the “trial of the century” — came to its dramatic conclusion. If you want to know what happened to all of the lawyers involved, we’ve got you covered. [CNN]

These are some pretty insane blatherings from a state official!

* When people tell you that you can do anything with a law degree, they’re wrong. Sounds like… everything Elie writes. [Slate] * Student debt is dragging down the economy. Is today “every news outlet catches up with Elie Day”? [New York Times] * Everyone’s talking about the law student turned prostitute. What about the law professor who was a gigolo? [The Nota Bene] * Baker Hostetler lawyer leaving the law to start a gym. With any luck he’ll have a championship dodgeball team in no time. [Crain's Cleveland Business] * Just a reminder, there isn’t a “telling a university everything you’ve done for an oral history” privilege. [BBC] * An argument for Republicans to get serious about loosening the reins on technological innovation like the Republican Party of old. But that might require saying no to some billionaire donor, so that’s off the table. [The American Conservative] * Professor Will Baude pointed us to a fun new law professor blog from Professor Richard Re, soon to be of UCLA Law, with an even more fun title. Here he compares Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Schuette to Quidditch. [Re's Judicata] * A new show about law school. It’s supposedly about criminal law, but the trailer looks more like a professional responsibility fact pattern. [YouTube]

* Footnote fight! Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been clashing with quite a few of her fellow Supreme Court jurists lately, aside from Chief Justice John Roberts. She recently inspired the wrath of Justice RBG herself. [New York Times]

* After months of being poked and prodded for cash, 60 former Howrey equity partners have reached clawback deals with bankruptcy trustee Allan Diamond, and it looks like a few of them agreed to pay pretty hefty sums. [Am Law Daily]

* Here’s a headline we could’ve told you was coming: “The US lawyer bubble has conclusively popped.” It’s not a terribly good decision to attend now, but if you do, people who can’t pay you need your help. [Quartz]

* Cutting law school tuition may be a good idea to attract more students, but in the long run, it could hurt the schools, says Moody’s. Aww, let us shed some tears for those poor law schools. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Crim Law prof not guilty of… crime. Stephen Smith of Notre Dame Law was acquitted on a misdemeanor invasion of privacy charge, and the felony battery charge he faced was dismissed. [South Bend Tribune]

* The University of Arizona will be the first school in the U.S. to offer a bachelor’s degree in law. The degree is being marketed to people who eventually want to have lots of law-related debt. [National Law Journal]

* Meow! Last week, in a rare move, Justice Sonia Sotomayor let the world see that she’s not exactly the best of friends with Chief Justice John Roberts through her fiery dissent in the Schuette affirmative action case. [National Law Journal]

* The Am Law 100 law firm rankings are out, and 2013 is being described as a “middling” year for most Biglaw firms. On the bright side, it looks like the big and rich got even bigger and richer. We’ll have more on this later. [American Lawyer]

* Bingham McCutchen has settled a discrimination suit filed by Sleeping Beauty a former associate with a rare sleep disorder. We hope this lawyer will be able to sleep well on her new bed of cash. [Am Law Daily]

* Secrets, secrets are no fun: The search for a new dean is on at George Washington University Law, but professors say they were “sworn to secrecy” on the candidates who’ve visited campus. [GW Hatchet]

* “It’s not about me getting the money; it’s about showing the NFL you can’t do this.” Ex-Vikings punter Chris Kluwe may sue the team after being cut for expressing positive views on gay marriage. [NBC Sports]

* Donald Sterling’s wife ain’t sayin’ V. Stiviano is a gold digger — she’s alleging V. Stiviano is a gold digger. This, plus the accusations of racism against Sterling, is a flagrant foul. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]

* Sonia Sotomayor has been dubbed as the “people’s justice” in a law professor’s article recently published in the Yale Law Journal Online. If only RBG had appeared on Sesame Street, the title could’ve been hers. Sigh. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* It’s a “procedural game-changer”: Virginia’s class action lawsuit against same-sex marriage has been stayed pending the outcome of the Fourth Circuit’s decision in the case that struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage. [Legal Times]

* “They’re certainly going to be very careful about biting the hand that feeds them.” Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, the firm behind the “Bridgegate” report that cleared Gov. Christie of wrongdoing, received $3.1M from New Jersey last year. [New Jersey Star-Ledger]

* Now that approximately 60 percent of compliance officers are women, in-house insiders are starting to wonder if the position is being reduced to “women’s work” — and not in a good way. [Corporate Counsel]

* Everyone involved in this case is dead, but it’s been hanging in the courts for more than a decade. Soon we’ll find out if Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-stepson will be sanctioned in the grave. [National Law Journal]

* Elizabeth Wurtzel: “I am a lawyer. The first rule of law: All the promises will be broken. Attorneys could not be in business if people did not fail to do what they agreed to do all the time — and lawyers are very busy.” [Nerve.com] * Laura Ingraham clerked for SCOTUS, so presumably she knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. [Media Matters] * Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, known for zero tolerance of prosecutorial misconduct, has written the foreword to a new book on the subject. [Facebook] * In addition to the one we mentioned yesterday, here’s another petition for the Obama Administration that’s aimed at addressing the student debt crisis. [WhiteHouse.gov] * Thomson Reuters Concourse keeps getting bigger and better. [Thomson Reuters] * Appellate law? In California? What’s not to like? Check out these job openings in the California SG’s office. [California Department of Justice; California Department of Justice] * Want to know the backstory behind the awesome Jamie Casino Super Bowl ad? Keep reading…. Georgia personal injury lawyer Jamie Casino spoke with Mike Sacks of HuffPost Live about the lawyer ad heard around the world. What kind of reactions has Casino been getting to the ad? Is the kid in the video really his son? And does Jamie Casino harbor any Hollywood ambitions? Watch the video to find out.

* The FBI announces that there will be no criminal charges over the “scandal” in which the IRS gave heightened scrutiny to conservative groups that sought tax exemption for their entirely, in no way political activities. As another faux scandal bites the dust, here’s a good round up of butthurt right-wing editorials. [TaxProf Blog] * SCOTUS Benchslaps! In a lengthy footnote in Daimler v. Bauman, Justice Ginsburg accuses Justice Sotomayor of misstating the record in the latter’s concurrence. In reading the competing interpretations, it seems as though Justice Sotomayor has the most fair reading, but then again the case is 62 years old, and Justice Ginsburg was probably there when it decided the first time. [Josh Blackman's Blog] * Investment banks are seeing potential recruits running over to the tech industry. Law firms haven’t felt the same draw, mostly because you got a law degree because you suck at math and science. [Law and More] * It’s about time Wile E. Coyote fought for his rights against Acme’s wanton disregard for customer safety. [Pentagram] * An interview with Stephen Neal, the chairman of Cooley LLP, probing why Cooley is such a cool firm (evidenced by their #1 ranking in the ATL Insider Survey). [The Careerist] * There’s a proposed law in Wisconsin designed to get dads out of child support payments. I know this may come as a shock, but it was written by a millionaire who doesn’t want to pay his court-ordered child support. [Jezebel] * Well, we suggested the NFL concussion settlement was a bum deal the other day, and apparently Judge Anita Brody agrees, halting the deal. [Bleacher Report]

* The Supreme Court has been “surprising[ly] silent” when it comes to how to apply Obamacare’s contraception mandate to religious non-profits. We imagine at least one justice will raise hell about it during their first judicial conference of 2014. [Los Angeles Times] * Contrary to what was apparently popular belief by some, Justice Sonia Sotomayor doesn’t wear dentures. She was very candid about her oral hygiene at a recent speaking event — her teeth are so great because she’s had a lot of work done on them. [Washington Post] * In your face, Cravath! James Woolery is movin’ on up to officially taking the rein at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. Fun fact: Chuck Woolery of “Love Connection” is his distant cousin. [Am Law Daily] * The U.S. Attorney’s office Chris Christie used to be in charge of will investigate Bridgegate. Word on the street is that the governor had just finished reading War and Peace when he heard the news. [Bloomberg] * Sumner Redstone donated $10 million to Harvard Law School so that its graduates can pursue public interest careers — because otherwise they’d be too poor to “build a better world.” [National Law Journal]