Election Law
-
* Supreme Court steps in to block opioid settlement that would’ve immunized the Sacklers. Looks like someone needs to start buying some luxury vacations for Clarence! [CNN]
* FEC looking into campaign deepfakes. Not to offer Donald Trump free advice, but he might want to embrace AI and argue that all those election calls were just malicious AI phonies. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Law firm closing up shop after nearly a century in business. [Law.com]
* Ed Blum is taking his effort to stamp out diversity from the classroom to the boardroom, going after a venture capital firm that invests in Black-owned businesses. [Reuters]
* University of California drawing back from Lewis Brisbois over the email scandal. Though those guys aren’t there anymore so this is more of a “how did you let this happen?” penalty. [Law360]
* Caltech and Apple have settled lawsuit over Wifi. With that kind of money, maybe they can join the Big Ten too. [9to5Mac]
* Is an LLM worth putting off a Biglaw job? [LegalCheek]
-
* Much like everyone else, law firms have no interest in paying Twitter. [LegalCheek]
* Lawyers think the profession has gotten less civil, but that’s just what those degenerate scumbags would say. [ABA Journal]
* A nice guide to the lawyers working with Jack Smith on Trump’s classified documents case. [ABC News]
* No sooner did we note in this here column that New York would rewrite the rules to make criminal defense work even harder than NYC’s prosecutors reversed their push for the change. They don’t have a vote, but it’s taken a lot of the effort. [NY Times]
* Eleventh Circuit issues 2-1 opinion that suppressing the rights of Black voters is acceptable, but only if you’re coy enough. [Reuters]
* DC Circuit won’t break up Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. If only they could undo the whole “Meta” part of Facebook. [Law360]
-
-
Amazing new resource for anyone monitoring election laws.
-
This seems crazy that they would even need to do this.
-
* McDermott Will & Emery has a new plan to protect Michael Cohen: get Michael Avenatti’s pro hac motion denied. That seems… weak. [National Law Journal]
* Another list of possible successors to Eric Schneiderman. Still no one talking about Eliot Spitzer… that guy has experience! [Law360]
* David Lat argues that the end of blue slips is a good thing for the judiciary over the long-term. He’s totally right, and regardless of the naked cynicism involved, it’s refreshing that Senate Republicans have decided to ditch their states’ rights principles over this. [New York Times]
* Interesting election-related legal issue: can Facebook ban international advertisers from buying ad space related to the upcoming midterms? The answer seems to be yes. [Corporate Counsel]
* Have lawyers finally embraced the cloud? [Legaltech News]
* Managing clerk isn’t known as a particularly lucrative position. But a former Simpson Thacher clerk figured out how to make ends meet. Unfortunately, he’s going to have to go to jail for it. [American Lawyer]
* Lawyers for white guy accused of murdering a black student argue that his Facebook posts are too offensive to be shown to the jury. They say stuff about him hating black people and, really, what’s the probative value of that in a case where the defendant had no apparent motive other than racial animus? [Daily Beast]
-
* 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]
-
* Trump team decries Kate Steinle verdict as jury finds their preferred political talisman not guilty of murder. [SF Gate]
* IRS needs $1.7 million in back taxes? X gon’ give it to you. [Law360]
* Judge Pryor thinks court packing is stupid, which probably burned all his bridges with the Heritage Foundation. [National Law Journal]
* Pay for in-house counsel is up… women still lag behind. [Corporate Counsel]
* Black women in law face discrimination on two fronts. It’s almost like they sit at the intersection of oppressions. [American Lawyer]
* Judge orders handcuffs to prevent spanking. [ABA Journal]
* Even Texas can’t defend voter suppression anymore. [Texas Tribune]
* More M&A firms join the AI train. [American Lawyer]