* Just in time for the State of the Union, the Ninth Circuit ruled that immigrant children can be railroaded out of the country without access to a lawyer. Maybe they’ll avoid Trump’s ire tonight. [The Hill]
* Have you read about the Presidents Club dinner? If not, then you can read here, but it’s basically Tailhook for rich people. Now read about the law firm partners who may or may not have shown up including a Fried Frank partner who “did not attend the dinner and left shortly after arriving” which is an Escher painting of a statement. [Legal Cheek]
* New study from ALM Intelligence and Harvard Law School suggests part of the reason women are underrepresented at the partnership level is a propensity to selecting lower risk paths earlier in their career, locking them out of greater opportunities. Of course, this fails to answer what happens in the law that tends to encourage women to step off the path, but it’s valuable for diagnosing the problem. [American Lawyer]
* Money laundering with the Russians… yeah, lawyers aren’t supposed to do that. [Daily Business Review]
* Texas judge blocks law requiring respect for unborn children, provoking a fierce outcry from politicians worried about the sanctity of life. Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, but who really cares about that? I mean, once they get past negative 8-and-a-half months they stop being cute. [Dallas Morning News]
* Sad news, the former shadow attorney general of the UK, media lawyer Arthur Davidson, has passed at 91. [The Guardian]
* While the convict at the center of a UN bribery scheme was no doubt pleased to avoid jail time, he was ordered to get all his private massages with bedroom door open in view of assigned guards to ensure Chinese language messages aren’t being passed secretly. That’s not a happy ending at all. [Law360]
* It’s not exactly news that an ethics expert thinks Trump should be impeached. But this time the expert has fun visual aides for everyone whose attention span has been battered by cable news. [Facebook]
* Reminder that “Breaking Bad” shouldn’t be a blueprint for your legal career. [WTOL]
* Miami may no longer be a sanctuary city, but others aren’t giving up so easily. When someone brings a dubiously constitutional threat, you bring a lawsuit. That’s the Chicago way. [Courthouse News Service]
* So-called judge has some problems with the way the administration talks about jurists. [Law.com]
* Fried Frank gets malpractice claim kicked to the curb. [Texas Lawyer]
* You can’t patent podcasts. Phew. That’s one fewer category of trolls Thinking Like A Lawyer has to deal with. [The Recorder]
* UC Hastings has a new academic dean. [UC Hastings]
David J. Greenwald, Chairman
Columbia Law School, JD