Tax Law

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.08.18

Ed. note: In honor of Columbus Day (and Canadian Thanksgiving), Above the Law will be on a reduced publication schedule. We'll be back in full force tomorrow. * In case you somehow missed it, Brett Kavanaugh, who is "totally brilliant" per President Trump, was confirmed to the Supreme Court in one of the closest votes in American history (50 to 48). He was sworn in shortly thereafter by Chief Justice John Roberts and the recently retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. [New York Times] * It's certainly worth mentioning that Chief Justice Roberts received judicial misconduct complaints from the D.C. Circuit about Kavanaugh's hearing testimony, but he decided to not to do anything about them. Now, people are accusing Roberts of being involved in some sort of a Kavanuagh cover-up. [Washington Post] * As Kavanaugh mentioned during his confirmation hearing, he'll be the first Supreme Court justice to have four women law clerks. Counting his clerks, women will make up a majority of the Supreme Court's clerks for the first time in history. Nice work, Justice Brett. At least he's good for something. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ [National Law Journal] * "The women are against her." How did Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg become the feminist pop culture icon that we know and love today when she was almost bypassed for her SCOTUS nomination because women didn't trust her? [New Yorker] * We've got a situation! Jersey Shore cast member Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino will be heading to federal prison for eight months on tax evasion charges. Expect his co-stars to starting referring to him as "The Incarceration." [Courthouse News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 09.13.18

* Brett Kavanaugh admits he played dice, but not for money. If you believe that, I've got some $80K baseball tickets to sell you. [Huffington Post] * When you hear about people ignoring authorities and remaining in the path of a hurricane, you may not think of lawyers, but some attorneys in the path of Florence are embracing the opportunity to finally get some work done. [Law.com] * El Chapo's lawyer may have a conflict of interest. Saul Goodman couldn't be reached for comment. [NY Post] * D.C. Circuit set to hear case about the IRS's obligation to turn over Trump's tax returns. This is another of those cases where losing is its own victory -- the tax returns are almost certainly less interesting than how aggressively he's fighting this. [National Law Journal] * Alyssa Milano partners with the Vera Institute of Justice promoting the SAFE Families Fund to protect immigrant families targeted by the government. [San Diego Union Tribune] * Trump's divorce lawyer has sold a tell-all book. That's either a marketing lie or he has some client confidentiality issues. [Page Six] * "Strangely my most memorable case was also in some respects my least enjoyable" -- the best way to make a mark is to leave a scar. [Legal Cheek]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 09.12.18

* Law schools in North and South Carolina have canceled classes for the foreseeable future so that students, faculty, and staff can evacuate the area and hunker down before Hurricane Florence arrives. Please be careful and stay safe, everyone. [Law.com] * President Trump is eager to choose Emmet Flood to succeed Don McGahn as the next White House counsel. Ty Cobb, one of Trump's former lawyers, is in Flood's camp because he's "battled investigations from the White House before—[and] that’s what will be coming." [Wall Street Journal] * Earlier this week, Bob Woodward said that former Trump attorney John Dowd told the president he couldn't testify in the Russia investigation because he's "disabled" and "can't tell the truth." That sounds just about right. [People] * The University of California Berkeley School of Law may soon be doing away with almost all references to John Henry Boalt thanks to his racist views. Public comment on the issue will close on Halloween, and then Dean Erwin Chemerinsky may formally apply to dename Boalt Hall. Let's see what happens with this one. [ABA Journal] * "This is clear interference with an ongoing criminal investigation." Representatives from the New York state tax department reportedly met with Michael Cohen's attorney yesterday over the objections of Southern District of New York. [CNN] * A family of conspiracy theorists: Donald Trump Jr. says he's not worried about going to jail as a result of Robert Mueller's Russia probe, but "[t]hat doesn't mean they won't try to create something" that could put him in jail. [USA Today]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.14.18

* Prosecution rests in Paul Manafort trial after deciding the jury didn't even need to hear about the Fabregé egg bedazzled White Rhino skin robe. [WSJ] * Now we enter the ridiculous world of musing about whether or not it was legal for Omarosa to tape her own firing. Which was held in the Situation Room. Which doesn't sound like a clumsy setup at all. [The Guardian] * "Will AI-Powered Law Enfrocement Force Us To Rewrite Our Laws?" Well, decades of empirical evidence of limited efficacy and systemic discriminatory application haven't done it, so why would AI? [Forbes] * Law firm figures out how to make Trump's tax laws work for them proving once again that if you set your mind to it, anyone can outsmart this administration. [American Lawyer] * The ban-the-box movement to keep employers from amplifying the debilitating effects of the criminal justice system by effectively barring ex-convicts from reentering the workforce, has now taken hold in 31 states. [Corporate Counsel] * It's telling that "Trump cabinet official accused of violating ethics rules is so passé it's below the fold. [CNN] * Hawaii has dropped its fight over the Trump Muslim Ban after the Supreme Court handed down its persuasive "there are 5 of us and only 4 of you" ruling. [US News]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.08.18

* Among all of his other legal worries, Michael Cohen is now under investigation for tax fraud. This guy just can't catch a break. [Wall Street Journal] * You may remember the "frozen trucker" case that Justice Neil Gorsuch was plagued by during his confirmation hearings. As it turns out, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has his own "frozen trucker" case, but his involves a woman who was drowned by a killer whale at SeaWorld. Stay tuned for questions about that. [Slate] * You may want to lateral to another firm in a hot market like Texas, but bless your heart, that doesn't mean your current firm is going to just let you do it. More and more firms -- like Weil Gotshal, Baker Botts -- have been enforcing their contractual "hold" provisions and delaying lateral moves. [Texas Lawyer] * Let's face it: if you're applying to law schools, you're not going to be able to get in to all of them. Figure out which ones are your safety schools ASAP. [U.S. News] * Angelina Jolie has accused Brad Pitt of neglecting his child support obligations in a new court filing, claiming that the actor hasn't made any "meaningful" payments in the year and a half since Jolie filed for divorce. [NBC News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 06.26.18

* Michael Cohen's lawyers say just a little over 12K of their client's files are privileged. That's out of 4 million... and still seems high. [Law360] * If you thought the Westworld videogame felt suspiciously like Fallout Shelter, so did the makers of Fallout. [BBC] * Online retailers are confused in the post-Wayfair world. They've built algorithms that can guess what you want to purchase before you think of it, but they're totally baffled about tacking 6 percent on a sale heading to Kentucky. [Corporate Counsel] * Professor Tim Wu thinks yesterday's Amex decision has devastated antitrust law. There's no argument that this was the Court's intent, but it strikes me that the decision prevented the market from rapidly devolving into a Visa/MasterCard duopoly -- since they already have a near stranglehold on the market -- so it's hard to consider this anticompetitive in result even if it is in reasoning. [NY Times] * The economic dumpster fire that is Kansas will have to cough up more money to fund schools according to their Supreme Court, based on the state's constitutional obligation to equitably fund education. Don't worry, the Trump administration sees Kansas as a model for the country! [Courthouse News Service] * Age discrimination could blow up soon if the Seventh Circuit expands protection to job applicants. It's a pressing issue for an aging generation just now realizing that they've spent 30 years voting for the government to pilfer their retirement. [National Law Journal] * Lawyer indicted on charges of stealing $150K from clients. [NY Post]

By Joe Patrice
Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 06.24.18

* It's checkout time at the Supreme Court, and courtroom correspondent Mark Walsh is ready to reveal what's in his shopping cart. [SCOTUSblog] * Being cited by the Supreme Court is usually something to boast about -- but not always, as Adam Feldman notes in this thoughtful analysis of how much oral arguments matter. [Empirical SCOTUS] * Will Baude breaks down the Court's intriguing debate over stare decisis in South Dakota v. Wayfair. [PrawfsBlawg] * Joel Cohen looks at why the federal judiciary gets better treatment from the press than the other two branches of government -- and whether the differential is justified. [The Hill] * Orin Kerr identifies an interesting issue: if a police officer uses Google Translate to try and request consent to search from a non-English speaker in that person's own language, is the consent valid if Google Translate botched the translation? [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason] * There's a long and bipartisan tradition of... the federal government spying on reporters, as Charles Glasser explains. [Daily Caller] * Speaking of the media, Jean O'Grady points out a helpful new resource from CQ for consumers of news, along with tips for how to tell whether or not a story is "fake news." [Dewey B Strategic] * If reforms come to university boardrooms, let's hope they include law schools as well. [ProfessorBainbridge via Instapundit] * An interesting new use of voice-activated technology, courtesy of Wolters Kluwer: getting insights into federal tax law. [Artificial Lawyer] * If you'll be in New York on Tuesday, July 17, raise your glass with fellow young lawyers, summer associates, and law students, at the UJA's Summer Law Happy Hour. [UJA Federation of New York]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 06.05.18

* "It was a mistake. I swear to God," remarks Giuliani outlining the excuse for conflicting testimony that works like a charm for every other criminal defendant. [CNN] * Law professors point out that Trump's lawyers are bad at their jobs, which isn't news but will somehow dominate the news cycle and still not sway anyone who isn't already on board with these facts. [Politico] * Judge Aaron Perksy -- who sentenced rapist Brock Turner to a mere six months -- may get recalled today. So it's a good time to remind everyone of this older post laying out exactly how dangerous and misguided this is. Persky may deserve to lose his job in due course... but embracing the recall mechanism for judges who hand down lenient sentences is a one-way road to needless mass incarceration, usually with a heavy dose of racial bias. [Slate] * Liverpool player injured in nasty tackle has achieved immortality as the subject of a law school exam question. [BBC] * The NFL may have a new problem with its disastrous anthem policy -- it violates multiple state constitutions... in states with perennial playoff teams too. [Slate] * Despite the death of the prime suspect, Arizona law firms went ahead and beefed up security in the wake of the recent paralegal murders. [AZ Central] * The GOP tax bill accidentally put a tax on victims of sexual abuse because that's what happens when you railroad a bill through both chambers in the middle of the night with a bunch of hand-written amendments in the margins. [Bloomberg] * Sex workers are taking action against SESTA/FOSTA, the ill-conceived anti-human trafficking law that really just puts legitimate sex workers in danger -- almost like that was the politicians' plan all along. [Gizmodo]

By Joe Patrice
Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 03.25.18

* Brad Karp and Christopher Boehning of Paul, Weiss make the case in favor of stripping gun manufacturers and sellers of their statutory immunity from suit in most negligence and product liability actions. [New York Times] * Remember the Moonlight Fire case? Ten state AGs have filed an amicus brief in support of the cert petition. [U.S. Supreme Court] * It's almost time to file your taxes -- and the Supreme Court just made it a little bit easier to cheat on them. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason] * In other SCOTUS news, the Court is taking its sweet time in handing down opinions this Term, as Adam Feldman observes. [Empirical SCOTUS] * And speaking of Adam Feldman, he's now working with SCOTUSblog -- congratulations to both parties! [SCOTUSblog] * Leading media lawyer Charles Glasser looks at the challenges that corrections pose to the media (both print and digital). [Daily Caller] * Vineeta Vijayaraghavan points out that gun violence doesn't spare the elite, noting that firearms killed three of her Harvard classmates (including Professor Dan Markel). [USA Today] * Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics consulting firm, has been widely condemned for its work on the 2016 Trump election campaign -- but it's not clear that its conduct violated data-protection laws or even Facebook policies, according to Tim Pullan of ThoughtRiver. [Artificial Lawyer] * Professor Michael Dorf remembers lawyer, author, and editor Julie Hilden, who passed away earlier this month. [Dorf on Law]

By David Lat