Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice

Law firms Brexit each other.

* The Hamilton Ponzi scheme ends in a guilty plea. Well, he had his shot. [New York Law Journal]

* You know who is really worried about the Paul Manafort case? Every lawyer who acts as a lobbyist and thinks, “uh oh… this criminal complaint reads a lot like my billable hour diaries.” [National Law Journal]

* Charleston School of Law didn’t have a very good bar exam. [Post and Courier]

* Womble completes its merger with Bond Dickinson. [American Lawyer]

* NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin’s term has ended. So gear up for the new Lochner-era! [Law360]

* Game-changing litigation moves. Probably not game-changing… game-adjusting. [Litigation Daily]

* “Nothing about recent events or any of these actions of the special counsel has altered the president’s determination to support the special counsel and fully cooperate and that is where we are,” said White House lawyer Ty Cobb, twirling his mustache as he presumably wondered how to extricate himself from this situation. [Big Law Business]

* An Akin Gump partner who initially refused to testify before the grand jury in Paul Manafort’s case was ordered to do so under the “crime fraud” exception to attorney-client privilege. She’s (understandably) not responding to media requests for comment at this time. She’s already said her fair share. [National Law Journal]

* The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave Eighth Circuit nominee Leonard Steven Grasz, who happens to be a Husch Blackwell partner, a “not qualified” rating because its members were concerned he wouldn’t be able to follow precedent due to his “passionately-held social agenda.” [ABA Journal]

* Foley & Lardner is in merger talks with Gardere Wynne Sewell. Last we heard, the firm was in merger talks with New York boutique Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman. While the firm claims that a final decision on the merger hasn’t been made yet, they’ve already set up a new website. That’s probably just a coincidence. [Am Law Daily]

* Speaking of mergers, the one between Womble Carlyle and Bond Dickinson is now official, and the combined firm, Womble Bond Dickinson, is now one of the world’s 100 largest. More than 1,000 lawyers work for the new firm across 24 offices in the U.S. and U.K. As with most mergers, some layoffs could be ahead. [Chronicle Live]

* The Supreme Court has a few options when it comes to President Trump’s travel ban. The justices can grant or deny certiorari to hear the case, or grant or deny a stay on lower court rulings blocking various aspects of the ban. Either way, this case could become moot before it’s ever heard. [New York Times]

* Meanwhile, the man who’s the worst client in the universe lashed out at Justice Department lawyers this morning in a series of Tweets, demanding that the travel ban be referred to as a travel ban instead of the “watered down, politically correct version they submitted to [SCOTUS].” Congrats on undermining your case! [New York Times]

* Get your popcorn ready, because according to two senior administration officials, President Trump will reportedly not be invoking executive privilege to block former FBI director James Comey from testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee later this week in the ongoing Russia probe. [The Hill]

* During a speaking engagement at Harvard, the Supreme Court’s freshman, Justice Neil Gorsuch, recounted the time he met Sandy, the dean of Oxford’s naked sex doll, who was dressed in only a boa. Although she could be counted on for answers, Gorsuch said she didn’t provide him with any. [Washington Post]

* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will soon be the star of her very own fitness book. Co-authored by her longtime trainer Bryant Johnson and illustrator Patrick Welsh, “The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong … and You Can Too!” (affiliate link) will be out the first week of October Term 2017. [Associated Press]

* Womble Carlyle is entering into a transatlantic merger with British firm Bond Dickinson to become Womble Bond Dickinson. The combined firm will have about 1,080 lawyers across 23 offices, with revenues exceeding $410 million. A spokesperson claims the tie-up will not result in layoffs. [News & Observer]

* The jury deliberated for just two hours before convicting Dylann Roof of the Charleston church murders. [The Daily Beast]

* Tables turned: how Judge Jed Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) got the Second Circuit, which normally reviews his judgments, overturned. [Bloomberg BNA]

* Keith Lee takes a deep dive into newly released law school data (the ABA 509 disclosures). [Associate’s Mind]

* Eugene Volokh breaks down a new Fourth Circuit ruling that protects the right of police officers to criticize department policies on Facebook. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* David Lander evaluates the pluses and minuses of law schools relying upon adjunct professors to fill curricular gaps. [PrawfsBlawg]

* What variables best explain the decisions of the Roberts Court? [Tennessee Law Review via Hangley Aronchick]

* Check out Womble Carlyle’s new podcast, Bulldog Bites. Says host Mark Henriques, “I promise it won’t feel like work. If you don’t learn something, hopefully you’ll laugh with us about something.” [Womble Carlyle]

These salaries aren't at New York levels, but they're perfectly reasonable, and associates are pleased.

* In keeping with our new morning ritual, we recap the firms that announced salary raises yesterday. We had Schulte Roth & Zabel, Robbins Russell, Arnold & Porter, Kramer Levin, Hughes Hubbard, McDermott, and Cadwalader. [Above the Law / 2016 Salary Increase]

* Womble Carlyle is forming a “strategic alliance” with U.K. firm Bond Dickinson. If mergers are law firm marriages, then think of this as the law firm f**k buddy arrangement. [Legal Week / Daily Report]

* This law school thinks the future of law is taking money to educate non-lawyers. [Newsworks]

* Here, read Law360 describe how Law360 settled with the NYAG’s office. It’s very meta. [Law360]

* Harvard Law grad suing NY State Board of Law Examiners for failing to accommodate her disability and causing her to twice fail the exam. [ABA Journal]

* Amid criticism, Shannon Liss-Riordan agrees to cut her fee in half for negotiating a class action settlement with Uber on behalf of the drivers. Apparently she was 2x surge priced the day she secured the deal.

* X marks the sanction: Attorney disciplined for hiding sunken treasure records. [Courthouse News Service]

These are the firms that work to allow distressed corporations a fresh start.

* The statute of limitations giveth, and the statute of limitations taketh away. Los Angeles prosecutors have declined to charge Bill Cosby in a case where a woman claimed that the comedian raped her in 1965 when she was 17 years old. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]

* Apparently sick and tired of people continuing to just waive in, the D.C. Court of Appeals is considering allowing third-year law students to take the D.C. bar up to 190 days before they even graduate, making it the most permissive early bar program in the country. [Blog of Legal Times]

* This is apparently the new way for law firms of all sizes to survive and thrive: Per Altman Weil, 2015 was yet another record year for law firm mergers and acquisitions, with 91 announced over the course of the year. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Congratulations to Elizabeth “Betty” Temple, the first woman to serve as chair and CEO of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. She joins about two handfuls of other women who are leading some of the country’s largest law firms. You go, girl! [WSJ Law Blog]

* “The food-borne illness costs extra. Is that okay?” Thanks to numerous food scares and an outbreak of norovirus, Chipotle now finds itself at the center of a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the Central District of California and the FDA. [AP]

* Politico asked 19 legal experts to evaluate the Supreme Court term. I wonder which 9 justices they thought were most important this term? [Politico] * One of the girls who stabbed a friend at the supposed behest of the fictional “Slenderman” was deemed incompetent. [Chicago Tribune] * Have you checked out the logo for Stussy jeans? Because those horsies look awfully familiar to a certain other, more famous jean company. [Los Angeles Intellectual Property Attorney Blog] * The sad truth for those of you banking on Biglaw careers to pay off your loans? You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. [Law School Lemmings] * The recent study that created a cumulative ranking of law schools based on LSAT scores, employment, and citations has been updated to account for school-funded jobs. No more gaming the system schools. [The Faculty Lounge] * Womble Carlyle prevails in the discrimination suit brought by a cancer survivor they fired when her cancer treatment left her weak. What’s with lawyers picking on cancer survivors today? [Triangle Business Journal] * Mr. Florida Football: July 2014. Check out his stats: 6’1″, 245, 3 murder charges… [Chronicle of Higher Education] * The next generation wants to change the world. Maybe consider something other than law school. [Law and More] * The suit between Jerry Only and Danzig (Glenn, not Chris) is heating up with a countersuit. [Metal Sucks] * Time for another Battle of the Law Firm Bands! This one is in L.A. next Tuesday, July 8, and 11 bands from area law firms and companies are playing, including bands from Latham, Gibson, O’Melveny, and MoFo. It’s for a good cause, so show up. [Family Violence Appellate Project]

How are small law firms doing in a still-challenging economy? Better than you might expect, according to the results of a new survey.

While woutheastern United States Senators are busy making the world safe for Toyota, southeastern law firms are busy just trying to survive. The latest bad news comes the 132-year-old law firm Womble Carlyle. The North Carolina-based firm has decided to freeze salary increases for all attorneys through the first half of 2009 at least: In […]