Supreme Court
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Health Care / Medicine, Supreme Court
Anthem Asks SCOTUS To Review Cigna Deal
Just when everyone thought the Anthem-Cigna merger had been put to rest, Anthem brought it back to light. -
Politics
'Fake Law': The Latest Effort To Delegitimize The Judiciary And The Constitution
Law professor's rant weaponizes a troubling trend. - Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
The rise of remote work has dramatically reshaped the relationship between Lawyers and Law Firms, see how Scale LLP has taken the steps to get… -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.05.17
* 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]
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Donald Trump, Supreme Court
Trump Gladly Takes Credit For Every 5-4 SCOTUS Split For The Next Four Decades
Donald Trump may have fundamentally changed American history. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 05.02.17
* A look at how behavior on the Court has changed since Justice Gorsuch’s began serving. [Empirical SCOTUS] * Is General Counsel Dianne Brandi likely to be the next head to roll of Fox News? [Law and More] * We’ve all seen the local news and after school specials — cyberbullying is a real phenomenon. […]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.02.17
* Fewer than 18 percent of federal appeals have oral arguments because federal judges think your argument is just as dumb as the rest of us. [Law.com]
* Mark Geragos files $100 million lawsuit against Ja Rule and the other organizers of Fyre Festival because rich people can’t be forced to live like poors without consequences. [Variety]
* Former Acting Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn says, “I feel like I am standing on the shoulders of giants,” which is just a tad sly considering he’s returning to the firm he worked at for 12 years. [National Law Journal]
* Speaking of the exodus to the private sector, the “Government to Debevoise Pipeline” rolls on with SEC Enforcement’s FCPA chief Kara Brockmeyer joining the firm. For those keeping track this pipeline has now officially created more jobs than the Keystone Pipeline promised. [Corporate Counsel]
* Maybe we’ll make this whole roundup about moving to private practice! Crowell & Moring adds former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Paul Rosen. [Politico]
* Fox Rothschild does what anyone else who spends time in Los Angeles does: moves to Seattle. [Legal Intelligencer]
* The Supreme Court made it harder to sue a foreign government that seizes American assets. Good thing America’s leadership is focused on sound diplomacy and doesn’t needlessly provoke countries by describing them as “a mess.” This should work out well. [Law360]
* The folks behind the Bar Exam Stats blog have opened a Law School HQ, a new site with a broader focus. [Law School HQ]
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 05.01.17
* Airbnb will allow the government to audit hosts in order to test for racial discrimination. [The Guardian]
* Texas cop shoots and kills an unarmed black 15-year-old. [The Root]
* There’s no video, but Popehat has a nice little tale about an airline and airport police completely failing. [Popehat]
* If this had happened to Ann Coulter, conservatives would be concerned. But since it only happened to left-leaning women in Kentucky… crickets. [ABC]
* The Supreme Court doesn’t want to touch California’s ban on gay conversion therapy. Banning gay conversion therapy is, of course, the only reason to be happy Donald Trump hasn’t been repealed and replaced by Mike Pence. [ABA Journal]
* In case you missed it, on Friday night I debated Jenner Block’s Lindsay Harrison about the Constitution, and Seema Iyer about sex offenders. Check out the webcast here. [WNYC Studios]
* Richard Posner and Jed Rakoff face off over the death penalty. [Slate]
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
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- Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
If 2023 introduced legal professionals to generative AI, then 2024 will be when law firms start adapting to utilize it. Things are moving fast, so… -
Justice, Racism, SCOTUS
Supreme Court Invents New Way To Go After Banks And Predatory Lenders
Supreme Court interprets the Fair Housing Act... fairly. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.01.17
* Checks and balances, how do they work? President Donald Trump seems to be looking for anyone and anything to blame for his first 100 days in office being bungled, and he’s finally settled on the rule system that controls the Senate, calling it a “very rough system,” an “archaic system” that’s “really a bad thing for the country.” [The Guardian]
* In other news, according to Reince Priebus, President Trump’s chief of staff, something that the White House has looked into is changing libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations, but “[h]ow it gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.” Wow. [CNN]
* One things for sure — there’s no Supreme Court retirement watch here: Described as “exuberant,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently exclaimed that she “love[s] her job,” and that Justice Elena Kagan must be absolutely thrilled about Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation, since that means she’ll no longer have to suffer through the incredibly boring tasks typically given to the high court’s junior justice. [National Law Journal]
* “The logic of the decision is hard to accept. You’re OK’ing a system that perpetuates the inequity in compensation for women.” In a disheartening opinion, the Ninth Circuit said employers may legally pay women less than their male counterparts for the same work based exclusively on differences in their prior salaries, even though those differences were recently ruled discriminatory under the Equal Pay Act by a lower court. [CBS News]
* A second suspect has been arrested in the fatal April 10 shooting of Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles. Earl Wilson, 45, a man who is “no stranger to the criminal justice system,” was charged with first-degree murder. Per prosecutors, this was a robbery gone wrong, and Myles was not supposed to be killed. Myles is the first Chicago-area judge to be fatally shot in more than three decades. [Chicago Tribune]
* Late last week, the Hollywood Reporter released its annual ranking of the best attorneys who serve the nation’s most glamorous celebrities — the Hollywood 100 — which is always celebrated like “lawyer Christmas in Hollywood for a day.” How many Biglaw attorneys made the list in the tenth edition of the rankings, and how well represented are each of their firms? We’ll have more on this later. [Big Law Business]
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Supreme Court
Neil Gorsuch Isn't Ready For This Supreme Court
Gorsuch having trouble with the rowdy Supreme Court. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 04.27.17
* Jesus is fighting back against the bum rap he got. [The Onion]
* Kansas is the canary in the coal mine for the future of the United States. It… doesn’t look great. [Slate]
* When John Roberts is incredulous at a line of questioning an assistant solicitor general is going down, well, that’s not good for business. [Salon]
* Donald Trump hates the Ninth Circuit, wants to break them up. [Huffington Post]
* Getting fired really, really sucks. [Law and More]
* It’s like we live in the upside down. [Politico]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.27.17
* Guess who gets to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s new tax plan? Lawyers and their law firms — which are largely organized as pass-through entities — will likely benefit greatly, as they’ll be able to reduce their tax rate from 39.6 percent to 15 percent. [ABA Journal]
* The Charlotte School of Law may be on the brink of collapse, but the school is heading to court to try to shake off three of the four federal class-action lawsuits that were filed by current students and recent graduates with motions to dismiss. We’ll have more on this later today. [Law.com]
* The Trump administration didn’t seem to fare very well during oral arguments in an immigration case yesterday. Chief Justice John Roberts certainly wasn’t impressed, and Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed even less so, dropping this benchslap: “It seems to me that your argument is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship.” [Reuters]
* Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will propose a rollback of the Obama-era net-neutrality rule that regulated broadband internet providers as common carriers. Critics aren’t pleased: “It makes no sense. We cannot keep the promise of net neutrality openness and freedom without the rules that ensure it.” [Big Law Business]
* Four third-year students at Harvard Law have demanded that the administration provide clarification as to how it assesses applicants who have been accused or convicted of sexual assault. “We put forth a call for transparency and affirmative efforts demonstrating the school takes sexual assault seriously.” [Harvard Crimson]
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Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.26.17
* Can you hear me now? Modern marvels of technology like cellphones and other electronic devices are barred from the Supreme Court during oral arguments, but yesterday, justice was interrupted by the ringing of… a Justice’s cellphone. Who was the culprit? The offending phone belonged to Justice Stephen Breyer. Oopsie! [AP]
* After a week charged with sexual harassment allegations and the ouster of Bill O’Reilly, just when Fox News thought its troubles were over, a group of current and former employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the network alleging “abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination.” The plaintiffs’ lawyers got in this zinger of a statement: “When it comes to racial discrimination, 21st Century Fox has been operating as if it should be called 18th Century Fox.” [DealBook / New York Times]
* Ever since it dumped Eversheds, Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner has been out on the prowl for another merger partner, and it looks like the firm has finally found its ideal mate in New York boutique Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman. The whole thing seems to be a bit “incestuous” if you ask us. We’ll have more on this later today. [Am Law Daily]
* Ahead of his confirmation hearing todays, Makan Delrahim, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the antitrust division of the Department of Justice who’s been called a “centrist nominee,” has pledged to recuse himself from all matters involving his prior work as a lobbyist, including the merger between Anthem and Cigna. [Big Law Business]
* At some firms, like Ballard Spahr, senior partners must “transition[] their practices” by age 60, but at other firms, like Cozen O’Connor, age is nothing but a number. “We have so many lawyers who are extremely productive and terrific lawyers and if they want to work well into their 70s, God bless ’em,” says CEO Michael Heller. [Philly Inquirer]
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Supreme Court
Tracking The Educational Paths Of Supreme Court Justices
Law schools that make the justices. -
Donald Trump, Legal Ethics, Supreme Court
Dinner With Trump: An Ethical Landmine For The Supreme Court?
A White House aide later claimed that 'no invitation was extended or accepted.' -
Supreme Court
Justice Sotomayor Rips Into Court's Decision To Unjustly Protect Police Officers
The individual cases and controversies adjudicated before the Supreme Court are still fundamentally linked to the national zeitgeist. -
Clerkships, Neil Gorsuch, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Clerks
A Closer Look At Justice Neil Gorsuch's Current Clerks
Let's learn more about this formidable foursome. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 04.20.17
* Just how long can we expect Neil Gorsuch to be on the Court? [Empirical SCOTUS]
* Cherokee Nation is taking drug manufacturers to court over the opioid epidemic. [Turtle Talk]
* Respect isn’t weakness. [Katz Justice]
* President Trump is going after LL.M.s. [TaxProf Blog]
* Where is the line between the First Amendment and a bad decision? [The Hill]
* High school “it girls” don’t make partner. [Law and More]
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Books, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
'Al-Tounsi' An Interview With Novelist And Playwright Anton Piatigorsky
Learn more about this compelling story of the justices' lives and powerful commentary on the law.