Television

* 12 Things Every Lawyer Should Learn From Saul Goodman. [LinkedIn]

* The 10th Circuit had so much trouble wading through a federal statute they had to diagram the sentence. As the opinion notes, “[t]hat bramble of prepositional phrases may excite the grammar teacher but it’s certainly kept the federal courts busy.” If you want to see the whole opinion, it’s here. [Lowering the Bar]

* Meet your King v. Burwell plaintiffs! It’s actually kind of sad. Like the guy paying $655/month on health insurance who could be paying $62.49/month but won’t because Obama is a secret Muslim or something. [Jezebel]

* A guide to cybersecurity for lawyers. If this interests you, come to our conference March 18, to see the author, Leeza Garber, participate in a panel on privacy. [Capsicum Group]

* Speaking of cybersecurity, hackers hit Anthem Insurance pretty bad. At least the company is handling the data breach well. [LXBN]

* New evidence reveals that the victims of lynchings in the South were much higher than previously assumed. Thankfully, racism is over according to the Supreme Court. [Gawker Justice]

* After introducing you to J.Ko, the Harvard Law rapper, it seems his website is now password protected. Aw. Come back, J.Ko! This is what free publicity looks like. [Harvard Rapper]

* Maybe there is a role for Millennials to play in ending unpaid internships. They won’t take it of course, but there’s a role out there to be played. [Law and More]

* Geopolitics explained simply. Shearman’s Richard Hsu talks to Dr. Pippa Malmgren, author of Signals (affiliate link). [Hsu Untied]

Meanwhile, that sentence diagramming opinion discussed earlier is available on the next page….

https://www.scribd.com/doc/255322959/United-States-v-Rentz

* 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]

* 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

* On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to evaluate the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, and this is perhaps the definitive article on how the justices have been preparing the nation for marriage equality. Get ready for some big gay weddings this summer. [BuzzFeed]

* Smile for the camera! Kent and Jill Easter, the infamous helicopter-parenting lawyers who went to jail for attempting to frame a volunteer at their son’s school on drug charges, found themselves at the center of a 20/20 story. [ABC News]

* With it being highly likely that the Supreme Court will declare bans on same-sex marriage by the states unconstitutional, people are wondering which justice will be the one the vote hinges upon. Could it be Chief Justice Roberts? [New Republic]

* Come on now, the swing vote in the same-sex marriage cases will obviously be Justice Kennedy. The legal tea leaves have been read, and with his majority opinions in Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor, the future has been foretold. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Steven Metro, the former managing clerk of Simpson Thacher’s New York office, was finally indicted after being charged with insider trading almost one year ago. If you’re interested, flip to the next page to see the juicy indictment. [Am Law Daily]

* In a new report, the Texas attorney general’s office concluded the forgivable faculty loan program at UT Law not only violated school rules, but also “set into motion a lack of transparency that ultimately led to a lack of accountability.” [Texas Tribune]

https://www.scribd.com/doc/252991700/Indictment-U-S-v-Steven-Metro

* From Biglaw to big fields: This Duane Morris attorney decided to put her legal career out to pasture so she could hop on a tractor and become a farmer — and not just any farmer, but an organic farmer. Oooh, how artisanal! [Am Law Daily]

* Seventy percent of people who make $150K+ get the raises they ask for, and people with law degrees get raises more often than any other degree holders. Walk up to your law firm’s managing partner and demand a raise. We dare you. [U.S. News]

* The Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit filed by a former Kansas Law student who claimed he was wrongfully expelled. Apparently he forgot to disclose his criminal past, and when the school found out, he got the boot. [National Law Journal]

* The William Mitchell College of Law welcomed its first class of “hybrid” online students this week. Law school may have lost its flair, but 85 crazy kids ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s jumped at the chance to learn law online. [Star Tribune]

* Marvel trotted out a familiar law firm plaque to gin up excitement for the premiere of Daredevil, which will be out on Netflix come April. Comic book nerds, rejoice, for Nelson and Murdock will soon be open for business and gracing your screens. [/Film]

* Governor Chris Christie was worried America didn’t realize he has no respect for his constituents and is a complete fake, so he’s publicly rooting for the Dallas Cowboys over any of the three teams real New Jersey residents root for. He’s also possibly violating ethics rules. [The Legal Blitz / ATL Redline]

* Screech is going to trial. [Associated Press / Yahoo! News]

* New dean at USC. Who is it? [USC Gould School of Law]

* As the Supreme Court stares down the barrel of some highly political cases, will Chief Justice Roberts live up to his promise of non-partisanship? [Chicago Sun-Times]

* Judge Richard Kopf reviews our own Mark Hermann’s book, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law (affiliate link). The verdict? It’s curmudgeon-y. [Hercules and the Umpire]

* David appeared on MSNBC’s The Docket today to discuss Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [MSNBC]

* The GOP is very, very against using the popular vote to elect a president which they characterize as an effort to “steal the presidency.” Seriously. [Concurring Opinions]

* In all the excitement of being back yesterday, I’d forgotten to note that TV’s Screech was arrested for allegedly stabbing a guy in Wisconsin. Mr. Belding is reportedly pissed. [ABC News]

* United Airlines is suing a 22-year-old for pointing out that they routinely rip-off passengers. Sounds… well, a lot like something United Airlines would do. [WGN]

* Boston law schools lose over a third of their enrollment. Except Harvard. Harvard’s doing just fine. [TaxProf Blog]

* Following up on the release of the July 2014 California bar results, here’s a breakdown that includes an examination of first-time vs. repeater results. [Bar Exam Stats]

* President adopts a werewolf. There’s one important reason you haven’t seen this on Fox News yet. [Lowering the Bar]

* Want to test yourself with a Con Law final exam about Ebola? [Dorf on Law]

* The Hardcore Pawn guys talk about what they look for in lawyers. If we’re good enough they’ll give us $20 for our services, but honestly that’s the best they can do. [Forbes]

* 10 Things People Don’t Understand About ‘Serial’ Unless You’re a Criminal Attorney. What I don’t understand is why we’re still talking about this show a week later. [Huffington Post]

* Have you been waiting for a Dynamite Hack’s Boyz N the Hood to be reimagined as a song about law professors? Then I present Profs in the School. [Lawprofblawg]

* Are law students worse students than they used to be? At least worse than they were when professors used to walk uphill both ways in the snow. [PrawfsBlawg]

* 2013 job results. For all the schools. [Associate’s Mind]

* Florida Judge Cynthia Imperato was “devastated” after a jury found her guilty of DUI and reckless driving charges, but we imagine the judge may be more devastated by the fact that she’s a sitting judge who’s been sentenced to 20 days of house arrest. [Florida Sun Sentinel]

* David Schwimmer, best known for his role as Ross on Friends, has been cast as lawyer Robert Kardashian in an O.J. Simpson true crime television miniseries. He surely knows it’ll take a lot of “unagi” to play the role just right. [Rolling Stone]

* If you have to debt finance your J.D., you’re going to in for a rude awakening when you graduate and the loans start coming due. FYI, “lot[s] of graduates [are] buried in private student loan debt with not enough income to repay it.” [Forbes]

* The parents of James Holmes, who’s better known as the alleged shooter in the Aurora movie theater massacre, have begged for him to be spared the death penalty ahead of his trial, but prosecutors say that in this case, “justice is death.” [Denver Post]

* When it comes to Russia, “[a] lot of firms are thinking about pulling out.” That’s what she would’ve said if she were a managing partner. Biglaw firms that have been rocked by the ruble’s ruin are telling lawyers to leave before they’re laid off. [Am Law Daily]

* Binder & Binder, the National Social Security Disability Advocates® whose late-night TV commercials you’ve grown to love, has filed for bankruptcy. The firm’s headcount will likely drop by more than half because of this. Yikes! [WSJ Law Blog]

* “[I]t’s hard to find anybody as handsome as Antonin Scalia.” Some would beg to differ, but as it turns out, legal scholar Bryan Garner can brown-nose with the best of them. [WSJ Law Blog]

* For the third year in a row, Cooley Law graduates have mostly failed the July administration of the Michigan bar. So much for it being a “highly prestigious” law school. [Crain’s Detroit Business]

* In a lawsuit filed against real estate database Zillow, a former employee claims she was subjected to the “most heinous acts of sexual harassment imaginable” and “sexual torture.” That’s just lovely. [LAist]

* Law firm merger activity is still going strong as 2014 winds down to a close. Aside from big-name tie-ups like Bingham / Morgan Lewis and Locke Lord / Edwards Wildman, other firms like Verill Dana also had the urge to merge. [Am Law Daily]

* “Does it really surprise me? Not all that much.” University of Memphis School of Law students are on high alert during finals time after one of their own was almost robbed at gunpoint across the street from campus this week. Yikes. [WMC Action News 5]

* In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Above the Law’s managing editor, David Lat, wrote a book called Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), and it’s been receiving rave reviews. If you dig clerkship lit, you should try to check it out. [National Law Journal]

* “Have a taste of this. It will do you good in so many ways.” Louisa Moritz, one of Bill Cosby’s alleged victims, is interested in filing a class-action lawsuit against the comedian. [Fox News Latino]

* If you’re interested, here’s all of the testimony and evidence that was presented to the grand jury that resulted in no true bill for Darren Wilson in the Michael Brown shooting. [Associated Press]

* HBO hired a team of 160 lawyers to look at its film adaptation of Lawrence Wright’s book about Scientology. The power of thetans compels them to keep churning that bill, baby. [Hollywood Reporter]

* “The Constitution is not a math problem,” but it seems like the Supreme Court is playing a numbers game when it comes to its decisions having to do with same-sex marriage. What’s the magic number for SCOTUS to take a case? [New York Times]

* It’s official: Morgan Lewis has gobbled up most of Bingham McCutchen ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Stick a fork in it, because Morgan Lewis is done — it’s now stuffed full of more lawyers than any other firm in the country. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Emerson Briggs III, an ex-partner at Hunton & Williams, is facing disbarment in D.C. over the child pornography he downloaded at work. Oh, how the mighty have fallen: he’s been working as a paralegal since being disbarred in New York. [Legal Times]

* Patricia Nesci, a law firm secretary, allegedly forged a judge’s signature on an order to show cause to keep herself from being evicted from her home earlier this month. She apparently did not get a Biglaw-style bonus from her former firm. [Syracuse.com]

* Before you submit your applications, you should try creating a budget to see just how financially screwed you’ll be during and after law school, and then compare it to your pre-law school budget. Try not to cry. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]