Texas

* It’s not always the best law schools whose grads perform the best on the bar exam: For the third year in a row, FIU Law posted the greatest passing percentage out of all Florida law schools. Which one did the worst? We’ll have more on this later. [Miami Herald]

* “[T]he court will be looking for cases that don’t break along traditional partisan lines. IP cases fit that bill.” With only eight justices, the Supreme Court has shied away from dealing with any hot-button political or social issues this term, instead choosing to deal with business-related cases like intellectual property disputes. [Reuters]

* According to court documents, New York and New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami now has an attorney. David E. Patton, a Sullivan & Cromwell alum who leads the Federal Public Defenders of New York and is known as a “vigorous critic of the criminal justice system,” will be representing the 28-year-old alleged terrorist. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “We believe there’s really an unmet need here in El Paso to have a law school.” Now that UNT Dallas Law School is struggling to be accredited by the ABA, it’s high time that we open yet another Texas law school. Right now, El Paso Law is just a poorly conceived idea, but it could be a poorly conceived diploma mill in the future. [Texas Lawyer]

* “We’re competing with people who have been laid off and have five to 10 years of experience.” With loan debt looming large as “the tax you pay for not having a college fund,” law students are slowly but surely adapting to the realities of the “new normal” when it comes to their post-graduation employment options. [Cleveland Scene]

* Taking a phone call for one client while meeting with another leaves a terrible impression. [Reboot Your Law Practice]

* Constitution Smonstitution. A look at Trump’s new plan. [Huffington Post]

* The Avengers are taking a side in this year’s election. [Salon]

* Texas is straight-up lying to voters about its voter ID laws. [Slate]

* Disturbing allegations surrounding Anthony Weiner’s sexting habit. [The Slot / Jezebel]

* Here’s what to bring to a presidential debate party. [Law and More]

* The definitive answer to the question only Elie Mystal cares about — Who in Game of Thrones would make the best lawyer? [LinkedIn]

* It’s official: non-profit Truth in Advertising has filed a complaint with the FTC about the Kardashian/Jenner family’s sloppily labeled sponsored posts. [The Fashion Law]

* Texas is forum shopping in its lawsuits against the federal government — and it’s working. [Huffington Post]

* Sedgwick’s gender discrimination lawsuit could be headed to arbitration. [Law.com]

* Despite knowing better, people are still going to law school. [Law and More]

* Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father of a deceased Muslim soldier who offered a stern rebuke for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during the Democratic National Convention, has taken his law firm’s website offline in the face of incredibly harsh criticism from many of Trump’s supporters. [RT]

* This brings a whole new meaning to the term “gunner”: Earlier this week, a campus carry law went into effect at public schools in Texas, and law students at UT Law, Texas Southern Law, Texas Tech Law, Texas A&M Law, U. Houston Law, and North Texas Law may now bring concealed weapons with them to school. [Law.com]

* Yesterday afternoon, President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 214 prisoners, the most in a single act since at least 1900. According to White House counsel Neil Eggleston, the president’s work is “far from finished,” and he expects that clemency will continue to be granted through the end of his final term. [Big Law Business]

* After a week of voter ID laws being struck down in battleground states, Texas has agreed to weaken its own voter ID law. Citizens without proper identification will now be able to present a government document with their name and address and sign an affidavit to vote. This will “open the door to voting” for many people. [New York Times]

* In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the Clinton Library has released more than 1,300 pages of files on Supreme Court nominee Chief Judge Merrick Garland. It’s really interesting to see what people who refuse to hold a vote for him now had to say when they voted on his D.C. Circuit nomination almost 20 years ago. [POLITICO]

* Are law firms being exploited by their clients to launder money? [Wall Street Journal]

* Richard McLaren is the law professor who laid the ground work for Russia potentially being banned from the Rio Olympics over a doping scandal. [New York Times]

* An analysis of the legal issues in the new Ghostbusters movie. [The Legal Geeks]

* Review of Anxious Lawyer (affiliate link), a new book by AtL columnist Jeena Cho and Karen Gifford. [Legal Ink Magazine]

* What does Rick Hasen think will happen in Texas now that the 5th Circuit has struck down its voter ID law? [KUT]

* Matthew Dowd and Robert Kulik, the lawyers turned children’s book authors we previously profiled, went on TV to discuss their work. [ABC News]

* The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, rules that Texas’s voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act by having discriminatory effects on minority voters (but remands on the issue of discriminatory purpose). [How Appealing]

* It appears that yes, Roger Ailes is on his way out at Fox News — thanks in part to the work of lawyers from Paul, Weiss. [New York Times]

* Matt and Melissa Graves, the parents whose two-year-old son was killed by an alligator at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort, will not be suing Disney. [Washington Post]

* Congratulations to exoneree Jarrett Adams, who served nearly eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit, on his admission to the New York bar. [ABA Journal]

* Republican VP nominee Mike Pence is a lawyer, and his Democratic counterpart probably will be as well: shortlisters Tim Kaine, Thomas Perez, and Tom Vilsack are all lawyers, and James Stavridis is a law dean. [New York Times]

* A California man gets convicted in a plot to kill two prosecutors, two FBI agents, and federal judge Andrew Guilford — with a wood chipper. [Los Angeles Times via ABA Journal]

* A New York appeals court affirms a ruling in favor of Boies Schiller in a malpractice suit brought by fashion model Mary Anne Fletcher. [Big Law Business]

* A bit more about former Attorney General Eric Holder’s work for Airbnb (a development we noted yesterday). [American Lawyer]

* Superfans of Seinfeld will remember the Michigan bottle scam, wherein Kramer and Newman try to return bottles to Michigan for the 10 cent deposit. Apparently, that’s a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison, as this poor sap is learning the hard way. [11 Points]

* Intelligence Squared is circulating a petition to fix the presidential debate. They want to see robust policy discussions not gotcha questions… maybe this’d work if Donald Trump weren’t one of the candidates. [Change.org]

* You need to take care of yourself in order to fight the legal battles that need to be fought. [Katz Justice]

* Now that the D.C. Circuit has upheld the FCC’s right to enforce net neutrality, what will the Supreme Court do about it? [Slate]

* Has the fact that there are only 8 justices on the Supreme Court affected its cert rate? [Empirical SCOTUS]

* U.S. District Judge David Godbey ruled, no, Texas, you can’t sue the federal government over Syrian refugees. [Huffington Post]

* We know our readers: here’s the only news that you care about this morning. This is the roster of salary movement news from Friday and Saturday: Desmarais, Brown Rudnick, Susman Godfrey, White & Case, Shearman & Sterling, and Baker Botts. If you’re ever worried that you’ve missed any of our coverage, check out our omnibus 2016 salary page where we collect all of these stories. [2016 Salary Increase / Above the Law]

* You may be wondering why some law firms in your city haven’t hopped on board the Cravath-inspired MoneyLaw train yet. It’s apparently all about competing market forces. John Beulick, Armstrong Teasdale’s new managing partner, says he’s considering bumping up associate pay because “[w]e want to and need to be competitive in our markets to have the talent that clients want us to have.” [Big Law Business]

* Speaking of raises for associates in flyover country, four Texas-based firms and seven national firms with offices in the Lone Star state have already announced matches to the new Cravath scale. Three more Texas firms — Akin Gump, Haynes and Boone, and Andrews Kurth — are expected to follow suit in the coming days. Please be sure to send us your firm’s memos ASAP after raises are announced! [Dallas Morning News]

* WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHER, WHEN LITIGATION FINANCE RUNS WILD ON YOU?!? Thanks to billionaire Peter Thiel’s financial assistance, Hulk Hogan bodyslammed Gawker into submission with a multimillion-dollar jury verdict. After declaring bankruptcy and entering into an asset purchase agreement, the media company is investigating possible legal claims against the venture capitalist. [Forbes]

* “I don’t really think [this lawsuit] has legs.” Doctors in California are filing suit to block The End of Life Option Act, a new state law that legalizes physician-assisted suicide. They claim that the law violates the state’s constitution with regard to citizens’ equal protection and due process rights because it fails to make “rational distinctions” between those who qualify under the law and those who are not covered under it. [WSJ Law Blog]