United Kingdom / Great Britain

* Kirkland promotes whopping 141 to partner. [American Lawyer]

* Supervised injection site given the go ahead in Philly. So maybe Gritty can finally get the help he needs. [Gizmodo]

* Gordon Caplan set for sentencing today. Prosecutors are looking for 8 months of prison time. [New York Law Journal]

* Trade war moves into the European theater. [Courthouse News Service]

* Law schools lag when it comes to minority clinical faculty. [Law.com]

* More clamoring for a national law to give NCAA athletes access to compensation for their likeness. [ESPN]

* A bunch of useless facts about the UK Supreme Court in case you’re looking for cocktail chatter. [Legal Cheek]

* The LeClair Ryan dissolution enters a new chapter. But will it be Chapter 7? [American Lawyer]

* Alex Jones set to find out if it’s really defamation to tell the world that grieving parents are lying about their dead children. [Connecticut Law Tribune]

* America has the RBG Jabot-Watch, the UK has the Lady Hale Brooch-Watch. [Legal Cheek]

* Judge Preska did not seem convinced by the latest Dershowitz arguments. [The Careerist]

* Racist voting laws in the South are to be expected by everyone but Chief Justice Roberts, but usually they’re more subtle than this provision that Mississippi’s had for over a century. [NPR]

* Banks one step closer to actually cashing in on the marijuana economy. [Courthouse News Service]

* While everyone got distracted by impeachment, there are still “not qualified” judges streaming through the system. [Law360]

* Bill Cosby has to fork over some hefty funds to Quinn Emanuel. [The Recorder]

* Boris Johnson unanimously smacked down by UK Supreme Court, a bizarre institution where jurists uphold the law regardless of whether or not it inconveniences one or the other political party. [Legal Cheek]

* The biggest law firms in the world enjoyed a good year as the rich get richer. [American Lawyer]

* The Supreme Court needs to branch out from Harvard and Yale when it comes to clerks. For that matter, it needs to branch out from Harvard and Yale when it comes to justices. [National Law Journal]

* This is about well-being coordinators but holds a universal truth: firms hiring non-lawyer professionals probably should only focus on people familiar with the law firm environment. [Law.com]

* Today’s the day Dershowitz tries to disqualify Boies Schiller from the defamation case against him. Let’s see how that pans out for him. [New York Law Journal]

* The Ninth Circuit’s Stairway to Heaven case will ramble on. [Courthouse News Service]

* Uh, no collusion? In a lawsuit over the TRUST Act, Trump’s lawyers have accused congressional Democrats and New York state officials of colluding to expose the president’s financial information. [New York Law Journal]

* “You may recognize some of this. I hope I’ve improved it a little bit since you’ve last seen it.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg welcomed Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by gifting to him the clerk manual that he was assigned to create for Justice Byron White while he was clerking, who later gave it to his successor, the Notorious RBG. [CNN]

* Was Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings politically motivated? Comments made by one of her lawyers reportedly seem to indicate that Ford spoke out to protect Roe. v. Wade. [Newsweek]

* “Being a lawyer is the most stressful yet boring job in the world. I’d never recommend it to anyone. Ever.” About half of attorneys working in U.K. Biglaw firms have experienced mental health issues like depression and stress due to their jobs. [Legal Week]

* “Can y’all play nice or do I have to attend these depositions?” A completely reasonable request from a judge after one of the lawyers on a case allegedly slapped another lawyer in the face before a prior deposition. [Texas Lawyer]

* Morrison & Foerster wants all of the employment records from the new firm of a former associate who’s anonymously for gender discrimination, claiming they’re relevant to her “negative reference” retaliation allegations. Sheesh… [Big Law Business]

* In his final days, accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein surrounded himself with lawyers in a private meeting room for up to 12 hours a day, emptying vending machines, if only to escape his cramped, vermin-infested cell. [New York Times]

* The Trump Justice Department wants the Supreme Court to deny civil rights protections for transgender employees, but the EEOC doesn’t agree and its general counsel refused to sign the DOJ’s brief to the high court. [National Law Journal]

* Per a leaked Brexit document, U.K. officials are trying to avoid a “catastrophic collapse in the nation’s infrastructure” (e.g., food, fuel, and medicine shortages; port gridlocks; and civil unrest) if Britain is unable to leave the EU with a deal. [NPR]

* Will other Biglaw firms with similar parental leave policies face scrutiny in the wake of the reverse discrimination lawsuit filed against Jones Day? We’ll have to wait and see if this reproduces additional legal claims. [American Lawyer]

* Milbank just scored a major lateral coup after scooping up some talented IP litigators from Irell & Manella, including David Gindler, the firm’s managing partner. Gindler was Irell’s third managing partner in just a few years. [Big Law Business]

* With a no-deal Brexit now on the horizon, lawyers able to practice in Ireland pose about the only path to save the hefty revenue streams of London’s Biglaw behemoths. But Ireland isn’t sure Irish law can be practiced from afar. [International]

* Donald Trump wants all the credit from the First Step Act releasing non-violent drug offenders — meanwhile the Justice Department that he runs is trying to put the people getting released right back in jail because this whole thing is just a publicity stunt so he can have photo ops with Kim Kardashian. [Reuters]

* Baker McKenzie gets out of Brazilian malpractice suit. [American Lawyer]

* Courts are trying to push sexual harassment back into arbitration where it can be quietly covered up like the old days. [Law360]

* Cryptocurrency investor’s suit against AT&T moves forward. [Courthouse News Service]

* Just a former judge being dragged out of a courtroom to serve six months — totally normal. [CNN]

* According to a recent poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, most Americans — 40 percent — don’t think President Trump was cleared of wrongdoing by the Mueller probe (“[W]hile this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”). It’s somewhat comforting that most Americans can read. [NBC News]

* “What are you, Oprah now? I mean, what am I, on a couch and you are a psychiatrist? I think it’s a really inappropriate question.” Kellyanne Conway didn’t approve of a question about her marriage to Wachtell partner and Trump critic George Conway on live TV. [USA Today]

* It seems like everyone will be a loser in this sad Brexit affair — everyone except for the lawyers, that is. UK Biglaw firms report that almost every practice area is “thriving” and they’re seeing the best financial results in a decade. [New York Times]

* Georgia bar examinees who were told they failed the exam when they actually passed it lost their suit against the company that calculated their scores. They apparently missed a contracts issue in their suit. Thank god that wasn’t on the bar exam… [Big Law Business]

* Congratulations to Zuzana Caputova, the liberal lawyer oft referred to as “Slovakia’s Erin Brockovich,” who was just elected as the first female president in the country’s history. [CNBC]

* Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) of the House Intelligence Committee is none too pleased with the Justice Department at the moment. Apparently two unnamed senior officials said the DOJ might refuse to share special counsel Robert Mueller’s report with Congress, a claim Schiff called “absolutely insupportable.” [ABC News]

* Last week, Paul Manafort was sentenced to under four years in jail by Judge T.S. Ellis III (just a little less than the 19 to 24 years called for in the sentencing guidelines), and today, Judge Amy Berman Jackson could sentence him to up to 10 years behind bars. [The Hill]

* Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels have officially “broken up” (i.e., their attorney/client relationship has ended), and their announcement was obviously made on Twitter. Clark Brewster will now serve as her personal lawyer. [Daily Beast]

* In case you missed it, the federal judiciary announced a major change to how it will respond to allegations of sexual misconduct. Per Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit, it is now “misconduct not to report misconduct.” [Big Law Business]

* “[I]f this deal is not passed, then Brexit could be lost.” Unconvinced, British lawmakers have once again rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan to leave the European Union. Will this be the end of Brexit? [USA Today]

* Women lawyers continue to push for lactation rooms in courthouses across the country, and now, the ABA House of Delegates has passed a resolution to make sure all courts create proper facilities for mothers who need to pump or nurse. [Law.com]

* Elon Musk claims that the Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to unconstitutionally censor him and “trample on” his First Amendment rights. This is all over a tweet on Twitter, mind you. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Judge Dabney Friedrich proves every stereotype about joyless judges by throwing a fit over Reed Smith’s practice of writing actually engaging briefs, prompting the firm to muse whether or not the judge is trying to get the firm’s almost certainly Putin-allied client to fire him right when we were about to learn the truth of the nude selfies. [Courthouse News Service]

* Federal judiciary trying desperately to keep the lights on one week later than initially reported. [National Law Journal]

* The big winner of Brexit? Ireland’s lawyers who firms are stockpiling in advance of Britain’s departure. [International]

* Rajat Gupta’s conviction upheld by the Second Circuit. [Very Seinfeld voice] Newman! [Law360]

* Supreme Court declines to enter the Skakel murder case because try as they might, they couldn’t find anything about the case that would result in disenfranchising poor people. [Boston Herald]

* In a total shock, sexual harassment claims went up as soon as America stopped immediately dismissing sexual harassment claims out of hand. Amazing! [Corporate Counsel]

* Roger Stone continues to wait in torturous limbo for a decision on whether or not he’ll be indicted while burning through cash on lawyers. Yeah… that’s how this process works. Welcome to white-collar crime. [ABC News]

* Remember how Trump promised that he’d “fight for” the transgender community while he was campaigning? Perhaps he meant that he’d fight to erase them. The Trump administration is reportedly considering defining sex under Title IX “based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” [New York Times]

* Democratic senators in Washington are refusing to return their blue slips for Perkins Coie partner Eric Miller, a Ninth Circuit nominee, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is pissed. Slow your roll, Chuck. I thought we didn’t care about blue slips anymore? [The Recorder]

* About half of lawyers in the United Kingdom say they’re not ready to deal with Brexit. That’s okay. The United Kingdom isn’t ready to deal with Brexit either — and 40 percent of lawyers think their Biglaw firms will try to escape the UK because of it. [Am Law International]

* In case you missed it, Paul Manafort showed up at the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday afternoon in a wheelchair, citing health concerns as his attorney requested an expedited sentencing date. Manafort seems to have gotten what he wanted, and will be sentenced there on February 8. [National Law Journal]

* During his inauguration speech, the University of Virginia’s new president, James Ryan — a UVA Law graduate who once worked as a UVA law professor — pledged that tuition would be free for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year. We wonder if that applies to law school tuition as well. [WTTF Fox 5]