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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 01.08.18
* Okay, let’s get this straight: Roy Moore’s Jewish lawyer isn’t Richard Jaffe, the one who voted for Doug Jones; no, Roy Moore’s Jewish lawyer is Martin Wishnatsky, the one who “has accepted Christ” as his savior. [Washington Post]
* In our last Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch, we focused a bit on the fact that rumored retiree Justice Anthony Kennedy hired a full set of clerks for OT 2018, but in case you missed it, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg already has a full set of clerks for OT 2019. The Notorious one isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. [Newsweek]
* Lawyers for the Department of Justice who are attempting to defend the Trump administration’s rescission of the DACA program have asked Judge William Alsup, who is handling the case, to ignore our “very stable genius” president’s recent tweets regarding the immigration policy. [The Recorder]
* Evan Greebel, pharma bro Martin Shkreli’s ex-lawyer, is facing hard prison time for conspiracy, but one of the juror’s who convicted him is having second thoughts. The former Biglaw partner better hope that Judge Kiyo Matsumoto decides to reopen his case. [Big Law Business]
* In what may have been some sort of a Christmas miracle, the legal sector witnessed a very slight uptick in jobs in December. Beggars can’t be choosers, so a gain of 600 jobs is better than nothing at all. Employment in the profession is still nowhere near where it once was before the recession. [American Lawyer]
* Lewis Donelson, cofounder of Baker Donelson, RIP. [Memphis Business Journal]
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Social Media
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 12.04.17
* This weekend was full of huge news in Trumpland. Following Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, President Trump tweeted that he fired Flynn because he lied to the FBI. If you recall, Trump originally said that he’d fired Flynn because his former NSA adviser had lied to Vice President Pence. [New York Times]
* Here’s why Trump’s shift is pretty important, according to Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller: “Oh my god, he just admitted to obstruction of justice. If Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go, then there is your case.” [The Hill]
* Slow your roll, prosecutors. President Trump is now saying that he never asked former FBI director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn, even though Comey testified to that version of events before Congress. Per Trump, it’s “[j]ust more Fake News covering another Comey lie!” [CBS News]
* But wait, there’s even more! It seems that President Trump wasn’t the author of that tweet. Apparently it was written by one of his lawyers, John Dowd, who now says it was “[his] mistake” as he’s “out of the tweeting business” and “did not mean to break news.” [Washington Post; Axios]
* Finally, in case you missed it, the Senate passed its version of the tax bill in the dead of night as it was still being written, with a 20 percent tax rate for corporations. Now, President Trump — the client who will never be satisfied — says that rate might go up to 22 percent. [CNBC]
* Last, but not least, President Trump has endorsed accused child-toucher Roy Moore via tweet (obviously) for the Republican Senate seat that was left open by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This has reached a whole new level of ridiculousness. [CNN]
* In other news, CVS is planning to buy Aetna for $69 billion. We’ve not yet seen which law firms are representing the companies on the deal, but this is a move that could seriously change the way our health care system looks. (And as an aside, it could seriously change the way your EOBs look, since CVS is a fan of those absurdly long receipts.) [DealBook / New York Times]
* Brock Turner, the former Stanford swimmer who served just three months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, is now appealing, claiming that his trial was “fundamentally unfair.” Most would counter that raping an unconscious woman in the street is what’s really “fundamentally unfair,” but that’s neither here nor there. [NBC News]
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Feeder Judges, Social Media
Will Justice Don Willett Continue Tweeting If He's Confirmed To The Fifth Circuit?
We sure hope so! Lawyers and law students really miss his entertaining presence on Twitter. -
Free Speech
Law Profs Argue Trump Treats Twitter Like A Dictator Would
Donald Trump and the First Amendment go together like peanut butter and pickles. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 11.06.17
* Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims of the deadliest church shooting in modern U.S. history, which took place yesterday in Sutherland Springs, Texas. This is the second mass shooting in a little more than one month. [ABC News]
* The Russian election collusion investigation is just getting started, but lawmakers have introduced a nonbinding resolution demanding that special counsel Robert Mueller resign due to his “obvious conflicts of interest.” [POLITICO]
* “Jeff, you need to tell us everything you know about Russia.” Senator Lindsey Graham wants AG Jeff Sessions to testify again before the Senate Judiciary Committee about whether there were any arranged meetings between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. [UPI]
* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal profession lost 1,100 jobs in October, which is depressing news for jobless law school graduates who just found out positive bar exam news. [American Lawyer]
* LSAT or GRE? Thanks to a vote by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, it might not matter. If this proposal passes, soon law schools won’t even have to test potential applicants seeking admission. [Law.com]
* Advice for the internet hero who shut down President Trump’s Twitter account on his last day of work: “Don’t say anything and get a lawyer.” Why? He likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. [The Hill]
* Todd Macaluso, one of Casey Anthony’s former attorneys, has been found guilty in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy involving a plane load of drugs worth about $13 million. He plans to appeal his conviction. [New York Daily News]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 10.30.17
* Former President Barack Obama has been called for jury duty in November, and unlike most Americans, he’s not looking for a way to get out of serving. [ABC Chicago]
* The pivot you’re looking for is in another castle: Now that a grand jury’s approved the first charges in the Russian collusion investigation and someone’s about to be taken into custody, President Trump took to Twitter to demand that Hillary Clinton be investigated. [New York Times]
* Paul Manafort is turning himself in. Surprise! (Is this really a surprise?) [CNN]
* Like it or not, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is planning to be around for the long haul. Don’t count on this “flaming feminist litigator” retiring any time soon. [The Hill]
* Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s Tweeter Laureate, hasn’t tweeted a single time since he was nominated to the Fifth Circuit. How long will this god-awful silence from everyone’s favorite Twitter judge last? [Texas Lawyer]
* So long, borrower-defense rule? Betsy DeVos is thinking about only partially forgiving loans for students who were defrauded by for-profit schools. [AP]
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Politics
Scaramucci Falls Face First Into Some Holocaust Denial
What in the dystopian hellscape is this? -
Politics
Jeff Sessions's Social Media Game Will Never Be This Good
Former AG Eric Holder threw some well placed side-eye at the president. -
Intellectual Property, Wall Street
LawTwits?
Could the legal world use a tool like StockTwits in the finance world? -
Books, Federal Judges
Posner Thoughts Annotated: An Interview With Jack Metzler
Can't get enough of Judge Richard Posner? There's a book for that! -
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 08.11.17
* SNL’s take on the Mooch. [Huffington Post]
* Outside of the T14, the news for law schools isn’t good. [TaxProf Blog]
* Ethics, smethics. The one thing the Trump presidency is good at is making money — for Trump. [Business Insider]
* Penn Law is bucking the GRE trend. [Daily Pennsylvanian]
* You aren’t being paranoid, they’re coming after your civil rights. [The Slot]
* Advice for providing legal representation to iGen. [Law and More]
* A look at the procedure involved in Sarah Palin’s defamation case. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Who is next on Trump’s Twitter frenemy list? [Salon]
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Health / Wellness, Social Media
Lawyers Share Their Deepest Secrets Anonymously On Twitter
Perhaps this can be the first step in opening up a dialogue about what it means to be a lawyer. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 07.28.17
* At a rally in front of Long Island police, Trump said that he was okay with police being “rougher” on arrested suspects. And the officers roared their approval. I grew up on Long Island. The first person to ever call me the N-word to my face was a Long Island police officer when I was a tween. I can’t explain to you guys how absolutely chilling and terrifying this moment was for me. I wish you MAGA people, you soft bigots who think that this is a game of your guy versus political correctness, could understand why people like me will never stop fighting people like you. [Lawyers Guns and Money]
* I’ve kind of moved passed the point where the courts tell Donald Trump that he cannot block people on Twitter, because I expect that will be a fairly obvious decision. I’m now wondering if the courts can order the specific performance of Trump unblocking those he doesn’t wish to hear. And, naturally, I’m wondering if people tweeting at him, day and night, things he can’t block, will make him cry. [Slate]
* This guy argues, more or less, that partisan gerrymandering is not the cause of our factionalized democracy, it’s merely one of the results. I think it’s more of a feedback loop: we’re factionalized, which leads to gerrymandering, which leads to more factionalization, and so on, until we get to the point where 60 million people can elect a crazy person to lord over a country of 320 million souls. That also probably explains why Dunkirk is going to win an Oscar. [Election Law Blog]
* I’d like to think of John Roberts vacationing in New Zealand like Gandalf visiting The Shire. I can picture him, smoking some pipe weed, setting off some fireworks, enjoying a moment untrammeled by thoughts of what’s happening back at home in Mordor. [Constitution Daily]
* I assume the GOP will now move onto tax reform, which is codenamed: “Operation Cannot Possibly Fail, Again.” Tax Prof blog has put together a fine collection of links on where we stand with that. [Tax Prof Blog]
* Checking in with white American news sources, it would appear that Fox News doesn’t recognize the defeat of the Republicans’ signature policy proposal for the past seven years as “headline” news. They’re much more interested in getting a special prosecutor to look into a couple of women who hold no public office, and the FBI director who handed them an election. But they’re not totally ignorant of what’s going on. “Couple jump to their deaths because they ‘can’t afford’ health care,” is a below-the-fold story. The Republican plan wouldn’t have reduced costs for this couple, nor made it easier for them to get the mental health services that could have saved their lives. But when you support a president whose stated policy goal is “implosion,” human tragedy furthers your aims. [Fox News]
* In case you missed last night’s dramatic moment:
https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/890815543258865664
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Politics, Senate Judiciary Committee
Senate Judiciary Chairman Fires Off Warning Subtweet For Donald Trump About AG Antics
Twitter: The way American politics are conducted in 2017. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 07.26.17
* “[W]e will see what happens, time will tell, time will tell.” President Trump has reiterated how “very disappointed” he is that Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, but hasn’t publicly stated in so many words that he wants to fire the AG. For what it’s worth, it didn’t take very long for time to tell what happened with James Comey, Marc Kasowitz, and Sean Spicer. [CNN]
* Which in-house officials make the most money? Big Law Business took a look at the summary compensation tables from the 500 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue to figure out the answer. Take a look at the list of the 30 highest earners, gasp at their eye-popping compensation, and then wonder why you haven’t decided to move in-house yet. [Big Law Business]
* A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit struck down Washington, D.C., regulations which required that residents prove they had a “good reason to fear injury” in order to obtain a concealed-carry permit for firearms, ruling that the carrying of firearms was a “core” Second Amendment right. The District may seek an en banc review of the decision. [BuzzFeed]
* “There is not a law firm function that happens without alcohol” Do law firms enable alcoholism? In a word, yes — and the fact that we still have to ask ourselves this when one-third of attorneys have admitted that they drink too much and even more have admitted that they have a serious drinking problem is simply appalling. [Am Law Daily]
* The bar exam is now well underway, and those whose fates are now in the hands of the bar examiners have taken to Twitter to unleash their anxieties via humorous tweets. Here are 10 of the best bar exam-related tweets from before the test began. The tweets from Day 1 are a little more… aggressive. [Law.com]
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Politics
Preet Bharara's Twitter Feed Is Fire
Those of us following you on Twitter are sure glad to have you as a private citizen. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 07.19.17
* The Supreme Court’s latest ruling in the travel ban litigation: good news for grandparents, bad news for certain refugees. [How Appealing]
* And in the travel ban battle, the parties aren’t pulling their punches. [Democracy in America / The Economist]
* Nor does Joshua Matz: “The Supreme Court is now a co-owner and co-author of the travel ban.” [Take Care]
* Justice Goodwin Liu and a team of Yale Law School researchers have issued an important new report about Asian Americans in the legal profession today. [The Portrait Project]
* A defense of that controversial David Brooks column about salami. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]
* And a defense of due process when it comes to allegations of sexual assault on college campuses. [The Federalist via Instapundit]
* In other higher-education news, here’s the tweet that got Nick Lutz suspended from the University of Central Florida. [Althouse]
* How do millennials view the legal industry? Drew Rossow and Elan Fields discuss. [Legal Tookit / Legal Talk Network]