Department of Justice
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* Is Matt Whitaker’s appointment as Acting Attorney General even legal? Well, Justice Thomas certainly doesn’t think so. [Twitter]
* Associate signing bonuses are on the decline according to a new report. On the other hand, we’ve heard about more firms offering payouts to make associates whole on bonuses when jumping firms, and I’m not sure this decline captures that. If not, this decline might be a distinction without difference. [American Lawyer]
* Rudy Giuliani claiming he’s got “financial troubles” while spending over $12K on cigars. Maybe he should ask for an advance from his client who claims to be a billionaire but is pretty obviously not even close to being a billionaire. [NBC]
* Ron Wyden proposes criminal penalties for corporate data breaches. [Corporate Counsel]
* Attorney wanted for murder has been apprehended in Cuba. [Law360]
* As much as we tout advances in legal technology, it’s the changes to the legal business model that may usher in the biggest transformation. [Forbes]
* More insights from the In-House Benchmarking Report. Work is still moving in-house and technology has a lot to do with this shift. [Legaltech News]
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Bull-Riding Lawyer Indicted For Allegedly Launching Cyberattacks Against His Critics
Is this really a cyberattack?
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* It’s the first day of the bar exam in a number of jurisdictions. These young lawyers have suggestions for your last month of freedom. [Young Lawyers Advisory Board]
* Jeff Sessions is withholding funding from local law enforcement. Just the latest example of Dummy the House Elf’s curious interpretation of being “tough on crime.” [NJ.com]
* Now Trump will meet with Mueller? Oh, he’ll talk to Mueller about anything but obstruction. So I guess they could discuss the weather. [Time]
* Stormy Daniels is getting a divorce. [NY Times]
* After a dicey back and forth with the ABA, NCCU has retained its accreditation. [News & Observer]
* The EU keeps fining American companies. American companies keep right on monopolizin’. [The Economist]
* Jonathan Turley goes all “get off my lawn” about Millennials and free speech. Magistrate Judge James Donohue points out that Millennials might appreciate free speech more if they had any reason to believe people like Turley weren’t trying to turn it into a pay-to-play right. [Courthouse News Service]
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* Harvey Weinstein has turned himself in to the NYPD. [Vox]
* Happy GDPR Day! [Wall Street Journal]
* Emmet Flood attended the DOJ’s briefing for congressional leaders because defense attorneys are always allowed to attend internal conversations about law enforcement tactics in ongoing investigations. [Talking Points Memo]
* Elon Musk may want to put away the Twitter machine for a bit now that he’s stepped into possible labor law violations. [Engadget]
* The Samsung-Apple war continues with a jury awarding Apple $539 million for IP infringement. [Law360]
* Professor Steven Calabresi is arguing that Robert Mueller’s whole job is unconstitutional. We’ve really come a long way from conservatives hailing the appointment of a no-nonsense lifelong Republican, haven’t we? [The Hill]
* Also, Calabresi is completely wrong. [Legal Skills Prof Blog]
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* John Dowd says the Trump legal team had a “terrific” relationship with Robert Mueller’s office. Yeah… that’s probably why you’ve been forced off the Trump legal team. [National Law Journal]
* Becoming beloved by GCs isn’t difficult. Just give them 100 percent of your time for 50 percent of the cost. And if you can’t handle that, here are some other tips. [Law360]
* Mayer Brown boasts mother and son partner duo. [American Lawyer]
* BDO has a new report entitled Inside E-Discovery & Beyond: Reimagining Digital Risk. I think the problem is too many lawyers haven’t begun imagining digital risk, let alone reimagining it. [BDO]
* Facebook would really, really like you to know that you have privacy settings available to you. [The Recorder]
* Senior DOJ attorney bolting for LGBT rights organization. That’s a lateral move I didn’t expect. [The Hill]
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* The effort to hijack “religious freedom” to legalize discrimination continues to be plagued by members of Satanic Temples invoking the same law to secure personal freedoms that governments routinely curtail. [Huffington Post]
* Cy Vance is barring donations to his campaign from lawyers with business before his office, resolving a conflict that was obvious to everyone but him. [ABC News]
* Mary Jo White admits Debevoise made a mistake in naming confidential witnesses in its report that functionally exonerated the University of Rochester in a massive sexual harassment investigation. Well, when they’re described as “confidential” witnesses this would seem to be a mistake. [American Lawyer]
* Prosecutors want to retry Senator Menendez and have a list of demands for the new trial like, “not letting defense attorneys talk.” [New Jersey Law Journal]
* HLS students open a startup bringing AI into document categorization following in the proud tradition of Harvard undergrads who dropped out to become tech moguls. [Legaltech News]
* Discrimination suit against Winston & Strawn hinges on what it means to be a “partner.” In other words, can firms placate attorneys with empty titles without accepting the consequences? [Litigation Daily]
* Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered map gets the benchslap. [NPR]
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* Both Quinn Emanuel and Kirkland & Ellis are moving into Boston. Is this going to be a trend? Is there enough extra work laying around up there for this to be a trend? [American Lawyer]
* Look forward to hearing more about machine learning in 2018! It’s good to know it won’t all be vague conversations about blockchain next year. [Legaltech News]
* Jeff Sessions opens door to debtor’s prisons, because of course he does. [New York Times]
* And… here come the lawsuits over Apple’s newly uncovered practice of slowing down old phones. There’s a lot of ill will about these types of suits, but this is a pretty good example of how out of hand things can get without the threat of litigation. [Daily Business Review]
* Texas Lawyer put together a top 10 list of the troubled lawyers and judges of 2017. [Texas Lawyer]
* Steptoe’s John Nolan Jr., who negotiated the Bay of Pigs prisoner releases, has passed. [National Law Journal]
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DOJ Subpoenas Twitter About Popehat, Dissent Doe And Others Over A Smiley Emoji Tweet
This is what those geniuses at the Justice Department do with their time.
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Stupid Lawyer Tricks: Legal Tech Edition
Learn from these lawyers’ mistakes. Don’t allow technology to get the best of you — or your case.
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House Passes Amendment Rolling Back Jeff Sessions’s Civil Asset Forfeiture Expansion
The House isn’t going to roll over and take this.
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* Buyer’s remorse: Trump says he wouldn’t have hired Jeff Sessions if he’d known Sessions would follow the law. [New York Times]
* Your grandma is now officially part of your close family according to the Supreme Court. [SCOTUSBlog]
* A fitting end to Trump’s “Made in America Week”? Star of “O.J.: Made In America” may get out today (or… get approval to get out in a couple months to be more accurate). [NBC News]
* White & Case slapped with record fine over conflict of interest. [Law.com]
* Andy Pincus mouths off about CFPB arbitration rule: “quite an extraordinary moment to see this agency, notwithstanding the election, six months into the new administration, issue this very dramatic and far-reaching rule.” You mean the election where Trump got 3 million fewer votes? Yeah, the CFPB may be more plugged into the will of the electorate than you are. [National Law Journal]
* New York City has extended the right to counsel to tenants. Here’s one City Councilman’s statement on the measure. [City & State]
* Second Circuit backhands federal prosecutors over foreign compelled testimony. [Forbes]
* When GCs become propaganda mouthpieces… a look at what ISP GCs are saying about the need to repeal net neutrality rules. [Corporate Counsel]
* Things that are a problem: Revenge Porn. Things that aren’t a problem: Revenge Editing. Someone explain that to this college. [Chronicle of Higher Education]
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* IBM says Watson’s about to take away your job, which is an announcement IBM makes roughly every three months because they’re taunting us. [Corporate Counsel]
* Betty Shelby acquitted in the killing of a black motorist because apparently it’s always reasonable to believe a random black guy is going to pull a gun. [NBC News]
* Former client seeks $1.4 million back that it spent trying to disqualify BakerHostetler. [Law360]
* Latham’s Alice Fisher has pulled out of the FBI Director sweepstakes. All eyes are on Joe Lieberman right now, but folks G. Gordon Liddy is just sitting there raring to go. [National Law Journal]
* And apparently Sheriff Clarke (who I’m sure was Trump’s personal pick) is taking a Homeland Security job so he can focus on harassing the poor and disadvantaged without having to bother all those nice bankers. [New York Times]
* Judge Charles Breyer took a break from writing the best benchslaps of all time to issue a groundbreaking video game ruling citing Star Wars and Love Actually — two movies that should never, ever be mentioned in the same sentence. [Hollywood Reporter]
* Stupid fan lawsuit against Warriors center ZaZa Pachulia moves on. [KENS5]
* More horrific allegations from Ken Starr’s world-class leadership at Baylor. [Huffington Post]
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* Was your firm disabled by a cyberattack? Probably not if you’re still reading this. [Am Law Daily]
* All these “classified intelligence” headlines miss the point. It’s not like Trump told them the nuclear codes or anything — he warned them about a possible terror plot. The problem is that haphazard handling of secrets could mess up future intelligence gathering and put sources at risk. And, of course, that Trump’s going to address a burgeoning national security scandal on Twitter. [Courthouse News Service]
* If you think movie theaters are a racket, well, the Department of Justice thinks that’s worth looking into. [Law.com]
* Dean Erwin Chemerinsky explains why firing James Comey didn’t spark a constitutional crisis — but that’s about the only good thing he has to say about the administration. [Newsweek]
* German law enforcement’s search of local Jones Day offices was legal. VW plans to turbocharge an appeal. [Reuters]
* This may come as a shock, but Arizona Summit Law School isn’t doing well. [Arizona Central]
* Conan has to go to trial on joke theft allegations. [New York Times]
* What to know about the Supreme Court’s latest arbitration decision. Besides “y’all are screwed,” of course. [Law360]
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The Geek Squad is on the case! But maybe they shouldn’t be.
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Cyberlaw, Department of Justice, Jury Duty, Military / Military Law, Technology, Trials
Finding an Impartial Jury For Bradley Manning Is Going to Be… Difficult
As the Bradley Manning court-martial continues stutter-stepping forward, the attorneys involved in the case struggle with jury selection.
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Cyberlaw, Department of Justice, Military / Military Law
Court-Martial Begins for Bradley Manning; He Faces 22 Counts and Life in Prison
Bradley Manning, the American traitor or human rights champion depending on your perspective, was back in court yesterday. His court-martial officially began, and he now faces 22 serious charges that could carry a life sentence, if he is convicted. The 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst allegedly gave more than 700,000 classified documents to Julian Assange, the […]
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Cyberlaw, Department of Justice, Technology
While the Internet was throwing itself a party for taking down the Stop Online Piracy Act, getting drunk off its own power and shooting pistols into the air like a Mexican fiesta, the Department of Justice was already throwing up a big middle finger to offshore rogue websites, or whatever they’re calling pirates now. Everyone’s favorite hacker collective, Anonymous, struck back in revenge almost immediately. The group launched massive denial of service attacks against every media and governmental website their deranged hive mind could think of….