U.S. Chamber of Commerce

  • Non Sequiturs: 02.17.19
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non Sequiturs: 02.17.19

    * I share Allahpundit’s take on the retirement buzz around Justice Clarence Thomas (recently discussed by Jeffrey Toobin, but also in the air at last November’s Federalist Society conference): it’s certainly possible, and if it happens, Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Judge Amul Thapar are the two top picks. [Hot Air]

    * And Judge Barrett is protecting her prospects for Supreme Court confirmation: she just joined the opinion of a fellow shortlister, Judge Diane Sykes, that dutifully applies Hill v. Colorado, the shaky but not-overruled Supreme Court precedent about free-speech rights outside abortion clinics. [Bench Memos / National Review]

    * Speaking of SCOTUS, which amici boast the best track recorders in filing certiorari-stage amicus briefs in business cases? Adam Feldman crunches the numbers — and the dominance of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce should come as no surprise. [Empirical SCOTUS]

    * And speaking of the Chamber, it also seems to be making progress on its goal of forcing more disclosure of litigation-funding arrangements, with the reintroduction of the Litigation Funding Transparency Act (LFTA). [Institute for Legal Reform]

    * Litigation funders don’t reflexively oppose any and all disclosure requirements; Michael German of Vannin Capital, for example, argues for a sensible and limited disclosure regime. [New York Law Journal]

    * If you’re looking for an interesting new podcast (besides Wondery’s exploration of the Dan Markel case), consider Bound by Oath from the Institute for Justice (Eugene Volokh is a fan). [Institute for Justice]

    * Should Roger Stone be gagged? Joel Cohen weighs the pros and cons. [The Hill]

    * Are you a lawyer who enjoys poker? Mark your calendar for February 23! [Attorney Poker Tour]

  • Non Sequiturs: 12.23.18
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non Sequiturs: 12.23.18

    * Nancy Gertner and Laurence Tribe take Alan Dershowitz to task for his unorthodox analysis of the sentencing proceedings of General Michael Flynn. [Boston Globe]

    * In this elegant essay, Jane Chong uses two notable new books — To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, and the updated edition of Charles Black’s classic, Impeachment: A Handbook, with a new preface and additional chapters by by Philip Bobbitt (affiliate links) — as the jumping-off point for reflections on impeachment, law, and politics. [Los Angeles Review of Books]

    * Judges often struggle when it comes to sentencing — and that’s as it should be, according to veteran defense lawyer and former prosecutor Joel Cohen. [New York Law Journal]

    * Yes, more of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees have been rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association compared to the nominees of his four most-recent predecessors — but as Patrick Gregory explains, there are some reasons for this (most notably, the Trump Administration’s decision to stop giving the ABA a sneak peek at nominees, which allowed past administrations to simply pull nominees the ABA deemed unqualified). [Big Law Business]

    * Jonathan Adler has many problems with the recent ruling by Judge Reed O’Connor (N.D. Tex.) on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — including the fact that Judge O’Connor ruled in the first place. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

    * Former public defender Stephen Cooper flags an issue that many reporters probably haven’t thought much about: “When Will Journalism Grapple With the Ethics of Interviewing Mentally Ill Arrestees?” [CounterPunch]

    * As 2018 draws to a close, the U.S. Chamber offers up its annual list of the year’s Top 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits.
    [Faces of Lawsuit Abuse]

    * Looking ahead to 2019, the new year could ring in new legislation that could help lower drug prices by facilitating the timely entry of generics into the market, as Alaric DeArment reports. [MedCity News]

  • Morning Docket: 07.03.18
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.03.18

    * Michael Cohen’s lawyers are doubling down on their effort to get a gag order against Michael Avenatti. Meanwhile, Cohen gave an interview to Good Morning America, an irony not lost on Avenatti. [Courthouse News Service]

    * After the Supreme Court gutted public sector unions, the cheerleaders of Alito’s judicial activism may end up getting more than they bargained for. Some believe that, stripped of funds to negotiate a contract at the table, unions may increasingly jump right to the picket line. [National Law Journal]

    * The sad tale of Stan Lee’s finances apparently has folks lawyering up. [USA Today]

    * Jones Day’s gender discrimination suit puts a new spotlight on its notorious black box compensation model. Will the firm come clean about how it pays people, or will it be dragged into discovery? [American Lawyer]

    * The top appellate attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an entity devoted to whittling down the rights of consumers to pursue meaningful legal action against businesses, has left the group to join a plaintiffs’ side firm. Ahahahahahahahaha. [National Law Journal]

    * Michigan State is fighting hard to keep the advice of its in-house attorneys privileged. The state has some concern that potential criminal activity could’ve been shielded by having a lawyer in the room, which given the scope of the cover-up revealed so far is not entirely unreasonable. [Corporate Counsel]

    * We’ve given the NLJ 500 a lot of flack over the years, but the ranking does give us insight into which markets are in growth mode. This year, that’s Portland, Oregon. Tell that to Perkins Coie. [Law.com]

  • Morning Docket: 06.06.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.06.17

    * The government can work out exactly how NSA contractor Reality Winner leaked classified documents, but no one seems capable of explaining how America gave Top Secret clearance to someone named “Reality Winner.” [Quartz]

    * An open letter to Tiffany Trump from one of her future classmates. [Teen Vogue]

    * A profile of Don McGahn that begins “By day, Don McGahn is a straight-laced lawyer, but by night, he’s a long-haired rocker.” Oh? An affluent middle aged white guy sublimates his sad existence through a Peter Pan complex… tell me more! [NPR]

    * If you were wagering, we now know that Robert Barnes picked up his client Cassandra Fairbanks on Twitter. I’d have bet on the Pepe the Frog subreddit. [National Law Journal]

    * Kokesh puts kibosh on SEC disgorgement. [Corporate Counsel]

    * Chamber wants a rule to expose litigation financing. [Law.com]

    * Now the Trump administration is hitting firms in the wallet — with partner Charles Tobin moving to Ballard Spahr, bailing on Holland & Knight over their alleged policy of never taking on matters adverse to Donald Trump. [Legal Intelligencer]

    * Speaking of Ballard Spahr, they’re moving to a new office in New York. [NY Post]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 12.22.16
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 12.22.16

    * The top ten most ridiculous lawsuits of 2016. [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform via USA Today]

    * Not the first homeless lawyer we’ve heard about, and surely not the last. [Instagram]

    * Jonathan Adler: “Donald Trump has not even been sworn in yet, and it’s already becoming easier for public figures to sue people in the nation’s capital.” [Volokh Conspiracy]

    * Congrats to Kellyanne Conway on her future role as counselor — or should that be “counsellor”? — to President Trump. [Althouse]

    * Why does defense lawyer Jon Katz smiles when he objects during trial? [Katz Justice]

    * Ivanka Trump’s incident at the airport has all the makings of a bar exam issue-spotter. [Instapundit]

    * Another in-house lawyer with critical comments about the Great Pay Raise of 2016. [ABA Journal]

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  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 07.02.15

    Ed. note: Above the Law will have a reduced publishing schedule today and we’re off on Friday, July 3, in observance of whipping those English wankers a couple centuries ago.

    * After the German robot ran amok and killed a worker in a VW plant, prosecutors are struggling to figure out whom to charge in this violation of Asimov’s First Law. [Josh Blackman’s Blog]

    * Dean Erwin Chemerinsky thinks Ted Cruz is right about the Supreme Court. [The New Republic]

    * In the wake of Obergefell, Bloomberg chats with Margaret H. Marshall, the former chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, who wrote the opinion making that state the first to legalize same-sex marriage. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

    * California February bar exam results. A couple of schools got a 100 percent passage rate. Stanford was not one of them. [Bar Exam Stats]

    * Love wins. The Chamber of Commerce wins more. [Constitutional Accountability Center]

    * A not-entirely-partisan argument that Justice Scalia should retire. He may be slipping into William O. Douglas circa 1975 territory. [Dorf on Law]

    * Did you know that David Lat was supposed to play Quentin Tarantino’s role in Pulp Fiction? I didn’t either until I saw this video (at 0:48). [ClickHole]

  • 2nd Circuit, Benchslaps, Non-Sequiturs, Supreme Court

    Non-Sequiturs: 07.01.14

    * Judge Judy hears a case about Grindr. “Don’t pee on my leg… unless you’re into that.” [Gawker] * Supreme Court retirements announced! [Legal Times] * Most criminals don’t walk around in a giant yellow bird costume. This guy is not most criminals. [Lowering the Bar] * The Washington Post credits blogger Josh Blackman with coining the term “benchslap.” Professor Blackman corrected the author. Let’s get a Kickstarter going to buy her a Black’s Law Dictionary (affiliate link) so she doesn’t make this mistake again. [Washington Post] * The Chamber of Commerce didn’t win every case this term. But it came awfully close to perfect when it counted. [Constitutional Accountability Center] * If you’ve been looking to complete your collection of Second Circuit bobbleheads, behold Judge Denny Chin! If this wasn’t sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, I’d worry this pic was a little racist…. [Squareup]
  • Gay, Gay Marriage, Non-Sequiturs, Prisons, SCOTUS, Sex, Supreme Court

    Non-Sequiturs: 03.13.14

    * Lawyer opts to wear orange prison scrubs for Lent. When you think about it, it makes a lot more sense than giving up chocolate when your religion is based on a death row inmate. [Waco Tribune] * A profile of Bob Bennett. They compare him to Olivia Pope. Not sure about that… Bennett’s got bigger tits. [Washington Post] * A Brooklyn lawyer reached out and grabbed his dream. Unfortunately, that dream involved the crotches of multiple unsuspecting women. [New York Post] * George Zimmerman’s parents are suing Roseanne Barr, who apparently is still enough of a celebrity that people care to sue her. [IT-Lex] * Married women can’t get divorced in Alabama. Look at the bright side, that means you can’t get a divorce lawyer who’ll bill you for sex. [Associated Press via WTOP] * Play along at home with this handy tracker showing just how often the U.S. Chamber of Commerce prevails at the Supreme Court. It’s a long Supreme Court season, but based on the last couple years, the scoreboard might look disturbingly like the Super Bowl’s when all is said and done. [Constitutional Accountability Center] * Hey, law schools! Looking for more students? It looks like a simple legal change can spike your applications. [Fox News] * If you’re in D.C. next week, swing by the Race and Access to the Justice System symposium at Georgetown. [Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics]
  • Department of Justice, Gay, Gay Marriage, H. Rodgin Cohen, Health Care / Medicine, Military / Military Law, Morning Docket, New Jersey, Prostitution, Wall Street

    Morning Docket: 10.21.13

    * How Jamie Dimon (and Stephen Cutler and Rodge Cohen) reached JPMorgan Chase’s tentative $13 billion settlement with Eric Holder and the Department of Justice. [DealBook / New York Times; Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

    * Congratulations to all the New Jersey couples who got married since midnight, in the wake of the state supreme court’s decision not to stay a lower-court ruling in favor of marriage equality. [Newark Star-Ledger]

    * Additional insight into all the partner departures from Weil Gotshal in Texas. [Dallas Morning News]

    * Lawyers aren’t the only folks who know how to overbill; defense contractors do too, according to federal prosecutors who allege that a company provided prostitutes and kickbacks to Navy personnel. [Washington Post via The BLT]

    * The legal battle over Obamacare rages on. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

    * Judge Oing, this really isn’t that hard. Here’s a draft opinion for you in the long-running litigation between Macy’s and J.C. Penney over the right to sell Martha Stewart merchandise (by James Stewart, no relation to Martha). [New York Times]

    * If you’d like to run with the bulls without schlepping to Spain, former lawyers Rob Dickens and Brad Scudder can help. Presumably their legal training helped them draft ironclad waivers. [BuzzFeed]

    * Another interesting but very different event, taking place this Wednesday: “Healing the U.S. Lawsuit System.” [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (one of our advertisers)]

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