Survivor

  • Morning Docket: 12.21.18
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.21.18

    * In completely unshocking news, despite advice from ethics officials, Acting Attorney General and former Tight End Matthew Whitaker has refused to recuse himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian election interference probe. [USA Today]

    * Corporate clients are trying to control their spending, and that means more and more Biglaw firms are having trouble collecting on their year-end bills, such that “on average [a firm] can lose 20 percent of its original billing amount.” [Big Law Business]

    * First-year law student enrollment increased by 3 percent this year, and two New Jersey schools played a really big role. Rutgers Law increased its 1Ls by 17.87 percent and Seton Hall Law increased its 1Ls by 24.87 percent. [New Jersey Law Journal]

    * Another day, another law school that’s willing to accept the GRE for admissions. Starting this fall, the University at Buffalo School of Law will accept the alternative test in place of the LSAT to “eliminat[e] barriers to access to education.” [UB Now]

    * In case you missed it, earlier this week, Nick Wilson, a public defender, won the latest season of Survivor. Now the 2013 graduate of Alabama Law has $1 million to pay off his loans after becoming the Sole Survivor. Congratulations! [Kentucky Today]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 11.20.15

    * Jared Fogle, Subway’s former spokesman, pleaded guilty to federal charges related to sex with minors and child pornography, and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison. His creative defense? Losing weight on the Subway diet made him choose to erm… “eat fresh.” Yuck. [Washington Post]

    * Biglaw firms have been announcing their new partnership classes over the past few weeks, and it goes without saying that the vast majority of new partners attended highly ranked law schools. Take a wild guess at which school was the most represented. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * Per the latest report from the NALP, women and African-Americans continue to falter in their career progress at Biglaw firms. James Leipold says it’s “troubling” that the numbers are “reversing course.” We couldn’t agree more. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * UnitedHealth recently announced that it expects to suffer in terms of its insurance sales under the Affordable Care Act, and has gone so far as to threaten that it may pull out of the exchange. Here are five things you need to know about that. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * One of the members of Survivor filed a copyright infringement suit against Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign after the song “Eye of the Tiger” was played during a rally held for Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. Now it’s stuck in your head. Welcome! [Reuters]

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  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 02.04.15

    * Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht found guilty. [Law360

    * Valentine’s Day gifts for lawyers. [Law and More]

    * “7 Things You Only Find Out as a Lawyer to the Poor.” [Cracked]

    * On the day high school athletes sign away their futures, this article explains that law school is almost as bad when it comes to transfers. [Inside Higher Ed]

    * The lawyer who won Survivor: Racism Survivor: Cook Islands is now in charge of keeping Facebook users from throwing privacy hissy-fits. [Fusion]

    * Win your case… still lose your license. [Associated Press via Philly.com]

    * On the subject of law-related scents, does you law school have a custom fragrance yet? [TaxProf Blog]

    * Should law professors serve as both parties and counsel on amicus briefs? An interesting question of ivory towerness. [Josh Blackman’s Blog]

    * The duty to vaccinate: or not all libertarians are as crazy as Rand Paul. [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 01.28.15

    * SWAT team called in to break up a poker game between a bunch of rich people. The militarization of the police seems like it’s going great. [Washington Post]

    * The SPLC is lodging an ethics complaint against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore after he explained that he intends to defy federal law. He’s such a delight. [WAAY TV]

    * Rutgers-Camden’s student evaluation controversy unfortunately fits right into the grand scheme of legal industry misogyny. [Salon]

    * South Carolina has finally vacated the convictions of the Friendship Nine — protesters busted for sitting at the diner counter who pioneered the “jail, no bail” strategy that dominated the 60s civil rights movement. It only took 54 years. [Huffington Post]

    * Another day, another embarrassing development for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell. This time it’s former Senator Ben Nelson who Obamacare challengers cite for their claim that the Senate never intended subsidies to go to states without their own exchanges. Well, Senator Nelson wrote his own brief blowing this theory out of the water. This is basically SCOTUS’s version of the Marshall McLuhan scene. [Washington Post]

    * A list of upcoming books about the Supreme Court. [SCOTUSBlog]

    * An enterprising law office discovered that the courts in Oklahoma publish social security numbers all the time. [Wirth Law Office]

    * D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett talks clerking diversity. [National Law Journal]

    * UC Hastings Law student Hali Ford is competing on the 30th season of Survivor. Her interview video is below. [TV Grapevine]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ydBekmEOw

  • 6th Circuit, Eliot Spitzer, ERISA, Non-Sequiturs, Patents, Survivor, Technology

    Non-Sequiturs: 07.30.13

    * For everyone at the midway point of a bar exam: Here… [Dinmoney] * Naked selfies: Not just for Carlos Danger anymore. A female police officer uses her workday to post naked pictures of herself. [Legal Juice] * Speaking of NYC politics and placing Weiners where they don’t belong, Professor Lawrence Cunningham argues that Eliot Spitzer would be a horrible Comptroller based on his record as New York Attorney General. Cunningham then lists every reason Eliot Spitzer was an awesome Attorney General. [Concurring Opinions] * An appeals court has upheld the ruling that killed Mayor Bloomberg’s large sugary soda ban. Drink up, fatasses! It’s your right as an American. In the meantime, check out this argument over whether the decision contains a curious paradox [PrawfsBlawg] * The Sixth Circuit affirmed an earlier decision dismissing a suit brought by Cooley grads. But they did not repeat the classic, “an ordinary prudent person would not have relied on [Cooley's] statistics to decide to spend $100,000 or more.” [ABA Journal] * After winning Survivor, Cochran has decided to turn his law degree into the most expensive TV screenwriting degree ever. He’ll be penning a sitcom this Fall. [St. Louis Today] * Susan Westerberg Prager, the incoming dean of Southwestern Law School, is the first female dean of a law school… again. [Chronicle of Higher Education] * One doctor. Four different signatures “under penalty of perjury.” I think we’re underestimating the evil quadruplet theory. [New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog] * As someone without kids, I find this fascinating. Popehat has a poll asking readers their thoughts on monitoring the electronic communication of their middle schoolers. As a parent, are you more Edward Snowden or J. Edgar Hoover? [Popehat]
  • Fame Brief, Reality TV

    Fame Brief: Survivor of the Fittest at Harvard Law School

    Hopefully the next edition of What Can You Do With a Law Degree? has not gone to press yet, because there is a thriving new category of jobs a JD gets you these days: reality show contestant. See? Law school is good for something. Joining the entire pantheon of lawyer-turned-reality luminaries is John Cochran, a 24-year-old Harvard Law School student who appears as a member of the "Savaii" tribe on this season's Survivor: South Pacific....