Tax Law

* Prosecution rests in Paul Manafort trial after deciding the jury didn’t even need to hear about the Fabregé egg bedazzled White Rhino skin robe. [WSJ]

* Now we enter the ridiculous world of musing about whether or not it was legal for Omarosa to tape her own firing. Which was held in the Situation Room. Which doesn’t sound like a clumsy setup at all. [The Guardian]

* “Will AI-Powered Law Enfrocement Force Us To Rewrite Our Laws?” Well, decades of empirical evidence of limited efficacy and systemic discriminatory application haven’t done it, so why would AI? [Forbes]

* Law firm figures out how to make Trump’s tax laws work for them proving once again that if you set your mind to it, anyone can outsmart this administration. [American Lawyer]

* The ban-the-box movement to keep employers from amplifying the debilitating effects of the criminal justice system by effectively barring ex-convicts from reentering the workforce, has now taken hold in 31 states. [Corporate Counsel]

* It’s telling that “Trump cabinet official accused of violating ethics rules is so passé it’s below the fold. [CNN]

* Hawaii has dropped its fight over the Trump Muslim Ban after the Supreme Court handed down its persuasive “there are 5 of us and only 4 of you” ruling. [US News]

* Among all of his other legal worries, Michael Cohen is now under investigation for tax fraud. This guy just can’t catch a break. [Wall Street Journal]

* You may remember the “frozen trucker” case that Justice Neil Gorsuch was plagued by during his confirmation hearings. As it turns out, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has his own “frozen trucker” case, but his involves a woman who was drowned by a killer whale at SeaWorld. Stay tuned for questions about that. [Slate]

* You may want to lateral to another firm in a hot market like Texas, but bless your heart, that doesn’t mean your current firm is going to just let you do it. More and more firms — like Weil Gotshal, Baker Botts — have been enforcing their contractual “hold” provisions and delaying lateral moves. [Texas Lawyer]

* Let’s face it: if you’re applying to law schools, you’re not going to be able to get in to all of them. Figure out which ones are your safety schools ASAP. [U.S. News]

* Angelina Jolie has accused Brad Pitt of neglecting his child support obligations in a new court filing, claiming that the actor hasn’t made any “meaningful” payments in the year and a half since Jolie filed for divorce. [NBC News]

It's high time for these nominees to receive the confirmation votes they deserve.

#AllAmendmentsMatter

* Michael Cohen’s lawyers say just a little over 12K of their client’s files are privileged. That’s out of 4 million… and still seems high. [Law360]

* If you thought the Westworld videogame felt suspiciously like Fallout Shelter, so did the makers of Fallout. [BBC]

* Online retailers are confused in the post-Wayfair world. They’ve built algorithms that can guess what you want to purchase before you think of it, but they’re totally baffled about tacking 6 percent on a sale heading to Kentucky. [Corporate Counsel]

* Professor Tim Wu thinks yesterday’s Amex decision has devastated antitrust law. There’s no argument that this was the Court’s intent, but it strikes me that the decision prevented the market from rapidly devolving into a Visa/MasterCard duopoly — since they already have a near stranglehold on the market — so it’s hard to consider this anticompetitive in result even if it is in reasoning. [NY Times]

* The economic dumpster fire that is Kansas will have to cough up more money to fund schools according to their Supreme Court, based on the state’s constitutional obligation to equitably fund education. Don’t worry, the Trump administration sees Kansas as a model for the country! [Courthouse News Service]

* Age discrimination could blow up soon if the Seventh Circuit expands protection to job applicants. It’s a pressing issue for an aging generation just now realizing that they’ve spent 30 years voting for the government to pilfer their retirement. [National Law Journal]

* Lawyer indicted on charges of stealing $150K from clients. [NY Post]

* It’s checkout time at the Supreme Court, and courtroom correspondent Mark Walsh is ready to reveal what’s in his shopping cart. [SCOTUSblog]

* Being cited by the Supreme Court is usually something to boast about — but not always, as Adam Feldman notes in this thoughtful analysis of how much oral arguments matter. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Will Baude breaks down the Court’s intriguing debate over stare decisis in South Dakota v. Wayfair. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Joel Cohen looks at why the federal judiciary gets better treatment from the press than the other two branches of government — and whether the differential is justified. [The Hill]

* Orin Kerr identifies an interesting issue: if a police officer uses Google Translate to try and request consent to search from a non-English speaker in that person’s own language, is the consent valid if Google Translate botched the translation? [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* There’s a long and bipartisan tradition of… the federal government spying on reporters, as Charles Glasser explains. [Daily Caller]

* Speaking of the media, Jean O’Grady points out a helpful new resource from CQ for consumers of news, along with tips for how to tell whether or not a story is “fake news.” [Dewey B Strategic]

* If reforms come to university boardrooms, let’s hope they include law schools as well. [ProfessorBainbridge via Instapundit]

* An interesting new use of voice-activated technology, courtesy of Wolters Kluwer: getting insights into federal tax law. [Artificial Lawyer]

* If you’ll be in New York on Tuesday, July 17, raise your glass with fellow young lawyers, summer associates, and law students, at the UJA’s Summer Law Happy Hour. [UJA Federation of New York]

Court overturns its own precedent, because of this thing called 'the Internet.'

Check out this very interesting cert petition, just filed by Paul Clement.

* “It was a mistake. I swear to God,” remarks Giuliani outlining the excuse for conflicting testimony that works like a charm for every other criminal defendant. [CNN]

* Law professors point out that Trump’s lawyers are bad at their jobs, which isn’t news but will somehow dominate the news cycle and still not sway anyone who isn’t already on board with these facts. [Politico]

* Judge Aaron Perksy — who sentenced rapist Brock Turner to a mere six months — may get recalled today. So it’s a good time to remind everyone of this older post laying out exactly how dangerous and misguided this is. Persky may deserve to lose his job in due course… but embracing the recall mechanism for judges who hand down lenient sentences is a one-way road to needless mass incarceration, usually with a heavy dose of racial bias. [Slate]

* Liverpool player injured in nasty tackle has achieved immortality as the subject of a law school exam question. [BBC]

* The NFL may have a new problem with its disastrous anthem policy — it violates multiple state constitutions… in states with perennial playoff teams too. [Slate]

* Despite the death of the prime suspect, Arizona law firms went ahead and beefed up security in the wake of the recent paralegal murders. [AZ Central]

* The GOP tax bill accidentally put a tax on victims of sexual abuse because that’s what happens when you railroad a bill through both chambers in the middle of the night with a bunch of hand-written amendments in the margins. [Bloomberg]

* Sex workers are taking action against SESTA/FOSTA, the ill-conceived anti-human trafficking law that really just puts legitimate sex workers in danger — almost like that was the politicians’ plan all along. [Gizmodo]

Right after the 16th Amendment was passed was a heady time to be a lawyer.

We need a statute of limitations when it comes to the scribblings of one's youth.

Applying to the federal government isn't like applying to any old employer.

Love or hate his jurisprudence, Judge Reinhardt's importance and influence cannot be denied.

DMX faces up to five years in prison for tax evasion.

* Brad Karp and Christopher Boehning of Paul, Weiss make the case in favor of stripping gun manufacturers and sellers of their statutory immunity from suit in most negligence and product liability actions. [New York Times]

* Remember the Moonlight Fire case? Ten state AGs have filed an amicus brief in support of the cert petition. [U.S. Supreme Court]

* It’s almost time to file your taxes — and the Supreme Court just made it a little bit easier to cheat on them. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* In other SCOTUS news, the Court is taking its sweet time in handing down opinions this Term, as Adam Feldman observes. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* And speaking of Adam Feldman, he’s now working with SCOTUSblog — congratulations to both parties! [SCOTUSblog]

* Leading media lawyer Charles Glasser looks at the challenges that corrections pose to the media (both print and digital). [Daily Caller]

* Vineeta Vijayaraghavan points out that gun violence doesn’t spare the elite, noting that firearms killed three of her Harvard classmates (including Professor Dan Markel). [USA Today]

* Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics consulting firm, has been widely condemned for its work on the 2016 Trump election campaign — but it’s not clear that its conduct violated data-protection laws or even Facebook policies, according to Tim Pullan of ThoughtRiver. [Artificial Lawyer]

* Professor Michael Dorf remembers lawyer, author, and editor Julie Hilden, who passed away earlier this month. [Dorf on Law]

* Adam Feldman uses BriefCatch, a powerful new tool from legal writing guru Ross Guberman, to find the best writers in the Supreme Court bar — and some of the top advocates might surprise you. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Prominent First Amendment litigator Charles Glasser makes the (compelling) case in favor of a federal anti-SLAPP statute. [Daily Caller]

* Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, argues that the Trump Justice Department’s installation of Trump allies as interim U.S. attorneys “represent[s] a test of civil society’s ability to fight back against threats to the rule of law” — and so far, “the test is going poorly.” [Slate]

* Speaking of the Trump DOJ, Ben Adlin breaks down the latest federal-state fight — and explains why it’s not as simple as just citing the Supremacy Clause. [Leafly]

* “Bring me a case!” Reflections from Joel Cohen and Bennett L. Gershman on using litigation to bring about social change. [Law.com]

* What can legal marketers learn from… a man using a cat as his hat? [Shana Douglas]

Under the new tax law, clients may be paying taxes on thousands of dollars in income they'll never see.

South Africa's decision to take land from white farmers without compensation is a noble thought, but there's a better way to execute the plan.

What's the latest proposal on the table, and will it actually work?