Affordable Care Act

* New Jersey’s governor said “bring it on” in response to a lawsuit filed by the Trump Campaign against the state’s mail-in-voting plan. Have a good idea for how the Trump Campaign can respond… [Politico]

* The practicalities associated with COVID-19 are leading to some interesting trials. [ABA Journal]

* A residents’ group on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is lawyering up to take action against homelessness in the area that has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. [New York Post]

* The Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act one week after the November election. [Hill]

* An attorney has sued his former law firm for allegedly jilting him out of a fee split for a lucrative client the attorney brought to the firm. [Texas Lawyer]

* A lawsuit in Alabama will determine if curbside voting will be allowed during the next election. If you can be sworn into the bar curbside, it seems like voting curbside should be no problem. [AL.com]

* Bernie Madoff has asked to end his prison sentence early because he is allegedly dying of kidney disease. [Reuters]

* Law firms are cashing in on representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein. [New York Post]

* Oh Snap! The top lawyer at Snap, Inc. earned around $9 million in 2019. [Bloomberg Law]

* A Long Island man who was exonerated in the murder of his parents was just sworn in as a lawyer. [New York Post]

* The Supreme Court may decide to hear a case about the legality of the Affordable Care Act this month. [Hill]

* Remember how AG Bill Barr announced that lawyers would be getting swapped out on the census citizenship case? This federal judge has rejected the change because the DOJ “provide[d] no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel.” [New York Law Journal]

* After two hours of oral argument, judges on the Fifth Circuit seemed unsure of whether the Affordable Care Act would live to see another day. This case is likely headed to the Supreme Court no matter what, as health insurance for 20 million people protections for pre-existing conditions are in the crossfire. [POLITICO]

* Daniel Bress of Kirkland & Ellis was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit (or the “9th Circus,” as President Trump once referred to the appellate court) in a party-line vote. He’ll replace the disgraced Alex Kozinski, who resigned in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct. [Washington Post]

* Chief Justice Leo Strine of the Delaware Supreme Court will be retiring at the end of October, leaving time for Governor John Carney to select a replacement for the man who shaped the law on takeovers. [Reuters]

* Jeffrey McIntyre, a partner at Husch Blackwell, left the firm after he was reprimanded by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for punching a bar manager in the face and driving while intoxicated, both of which he was charged for and submitted guilty pleas. [Wisconsin State Journal; ABA Journal]

* Even Jonathan Adler, no fan of Obamacare, can’t support the Justice Department’s shift of position in the ongoing Affordable Care Act litigation out of Texas. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* John Lauro continues to protect the reputation of his client Wendi Adelson, ex-wife of murdered law professor Dan Markel. [2paragraphs]

* Meanwhile, another player in the Dan Markel case — David Oscar Markus, counsel to Charlie Adelson — argues that Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the right call on obstruction of justice. [The Hill]

* Speaking of the Mueller investigation, Brianne Gorod points out that Congress has the power to ask the district court to release grand jury transcripts and related information from the case. [Take Care]

* Whether or not you agree with Senator Marco Rubio’s proposed constitutional amendment to fix the size of the U.S. Supreme Court at nine justices, it’s not a bad idea to think about possible ways to restructure SCOTUS — as Gordon Renneisen does here. [Law360]

* Meanwhile, as the Court grapples with the cross-shaped war memorial case this Term, Rick Garnett wonders: can a liberal state favor one religion over others? [First Things via PrawfsBlawg]

* Legal tech M&A activity continues apace, with vLex’s acquisition of Justis. [Artificial Lawyer]

* Michael Cohen: The Movie? Cooley Law’s most infamous graduate could soon be on the big screen, because Trump’s former lawyer/fixer and soon-to-be federal inmate was seen meeting “Pulp Fiction” and “Inglourious Basterds” producer Lawrence Bender. [Page Six]

* Judge Reed O’Connor has stayed his ill-conceived ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional since many people have already purchased their health insurance plans. Gee thanks, Your Honor. How considerate! [National Law Journal]

* SCOTUS has kept a pretty low profile in the wake of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, but that may soon change thanks to the high-profile appeals the justices will be considering. Get ready for some dramatic 5-4 decisions. [Associated Press]

* Speaking of SCOTUS drama, perhaps you’ve been wondering why Chief Justice Roberts intervened in the Mueller investigation. Mueller’s team submitted its briefs on the matter on Friday night, so we’ll soon find out what’s going on. [POLITICO]

* There were a ton of pay equity disputes litigated in 2018, and you can probably expect to see even more in the year to come. In fact, the Supreme Court take a case on the gender-based salary differences soon. Stay tuned. [National Law Journal]

* “Big Law killed my husband.” For far too long, lawyers’ mental health was ignored, but the subject came to a head in 2018. Going forward, more attention will be paid to depression, substance abuse, and other problems lawyers face. [American Lawyer]

* Kevin Spacey was seen delivering pizza to paparazzi in Baltimore, Maryland, ahead of his arraignment for felony sexual assault next week. This is the first time he’s been seen in public since allegations of this kind were first revealed. [TMZ]

* Nancy Gertner and Laurence Tribe take Alan Dershowitz to task for his unorthodox analysis of the sentencing proceedings of General Michael Flynn. [Boston Globe]

* In this elegant essay, Jane Chong uses two notable new books — To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, and the updated edition of Charles Black’s classic, Impeachment: A Handbook, with a new preface and additional chapters by by Philip Bobbitt (affiliate links) — as the jumping-off point for reflections on impeachment, law, and politics. [Los Angeles Review of Books]

* Judges often struggle when it comes to sentencing — and that’s as it should be, according to veteran defense lawyer and former prosecutor Joel Cohen. [New York Law Journal]

* Yes, more of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees have been rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association compared to the nominees of his four most-recent predecessors — but as Patrick Gregory explains, there are some reasons for this (most notably, the Trump Administration’s decision to stop giving the ABA a sneak peek at nominees, which allowed past administrations to simply pull nominees the ABA deemed unqualified). [Big Law Business]

* Jonathan Adler has many problems with the recent ruling by Judge Reed O’Connor (N.D. Tex.) on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — including the fact that Judge O’Connor ruled in the first place. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* Former public defender Stephen Cooper flags an issue that many reporters probably haven’t thought much about: “When Will Journalism Grapple With the Ethics of Interviewing Mentally Ill Arrestees?” [CounterPunch]

* As 2018 draws to a close, the U.S. Chamber offers up its annual list of the year’s Top 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits.
[Faces of Lawsuit Abuse]

* Looking ahead to 2019, the new year could ring in new legislation that could help lower drug prices by facilitating the timely entry of generics into the market, as Alaric DeArment reports. [MedCity News]

* In case you missed it (the news broke on Friday night), Judge Reed O’Connor (N.D. Tex.) held that the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare is unconstitutional, in the wake of last year’s tax reform that reduced the ACA’s “shared responsibility payment” for lacking health-care coverage to zero. [MedCity News]

* Josh Blackman agrees with Judge O’Connor the constitutionality of the individual mandate, but disagreed with his severability analysis. [Reason / Volokh Conspiracy]

* Meanwhile, fellow Volokh Conspirator Samuel Bray is glad that the court didn’t issue a national injunction. [Reason / Volokh Conspiracy]

* Adam Feldman takes a closer look at the Federal Circuit’s relationship to the Supreme Court — including which members of the Federal Circuit are most frequently vindicated by SCOTUS. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Carrie Severino shares the disappointment of her former boss, Justice Thomas, in Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh voting against certiorari in Gee v. Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast. [Bench Memos / National Review]

* Eric Turkewitz calls out members of the media for misreporting on a routine trip-and-fall case because they don’t like the plaintiff’s famous father. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* Oakland is going on the offensive against the NFL, firing off a 49-page complaint signed by James Quinn of Berg & Androphy, among others. [The MMQB / Sports Illustrated]

* Speaking of Berg & Androphy, name partner David Berg offers expert insights on what it takes to win as a trial lawyer. [YouTube]

* “You were very busy. Wow. Wow. I always knew I liked him.” President Trump posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom to the Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday and managed to crack a joke about the late justice’s sex life when referring to his wife and their nine children. Wow. [USA Today]

* Speaking about birth control… President Trump has proposed a new way for employers to get around the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate by creating a Title X loophole that would “hijack” programs that already have limited funding and send women to low-income family planning clinics to get their contraceptives. [New York Times]

* Will Biglaw be the next thing that millennials kill? Not only has Weil Gotshal shortened its partner track in order to keep its youthful talent from walking out the door, but the firm that once made a big joke out of work/life balance is now allowing associates to work from home once a week. [American Lawyer]

* The California bar exam results are out, and they’re not anything to write home about — except if you enjoy schadenfreude, that is. Nearly six in 10 failed the test, and the overall pass rate is historically horrible. More on this later. [The Recorder]

* After having already been rejected by the ABA’s House of Delegates, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has sent its proposed 75 percent bar-passage rate within two years of graduation accreditation standard right back for another vote. Will it be approved this time around? We shall see. [ABA Journal]

* Joel Sanders, the ex-CFO of failed firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, was jailed on Thursday for failing to pay a $1 million fine associated with his fraud conviction, but he was out by the wee hours of the morning on Friday thanks to his new firm, Greenspoon Marder, which paid the entire sum on his behalf. [American Lawyer]

* Here’s the truth behind what some saw as Zina Bash making a “white power” sign at the confirmation hearings of her former boss, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. [Washington Post]

* With the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings in the rearview mirror, now is a good time to look back at the last four Supreme Court confirmation hearings. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Thomas Jipping summarizes research showing that the American Bar Association does tilt leftward in rating judicial nominees — which is why its unanimous “well qualified” rating for Judge Brett Kavanaugh is especially impressive. [Bench Memos / National Review]

* Jonathan Adler argues that claims of a Justice Kavanaugh threatening the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare have been greatly exaggerated. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* But a Justice Kavanaugh likely would affect the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on presidential authority and the separation of powers. [Instapundit]

* Speaking of the Supreme Court, conservative (and tiny) Hillsdale College punches above its weight in producing SCOTUS clerks — so Paul Rahe wants to know, why can’t his school get any love from the U.S. News Wall Street Journal rankings? [Ricochet]

* President Donald Trump’s “radically direct” tweets about pending prosecutions threaten the rule of law, according to Gerald Lefcourt and Joel Cohen. [Law & Crime]

* Legal research smackdown: Lexis v. Casetext! [Dewey B Strategic]

* And in other notable news from the world of legal tech, iManage just acquired business-process company Elegrity, which works in the risk and compliance management space. [Artificial Lawyer]

* The Senate rejects the latest GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act — with Senator John McCain casting the decisive “no” vote. [Washington Post]

* Riley Safer Holmes and Cancila continues its rapid expansion, adding 13 new lawyers — including eight from Bryan Cave, led by former managing partner Joseph McCoy. [Law360]

* More bad news for the LGBT community from the Trump administration: the Justice Department takes the position that Title VII doesn’t cover discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. [How Appealing]

* Meanwhile, civil rights and LGBT groups get ready to file suit if President Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from the military becomes a reality (which is not yet the case). [National Law Journal]

* And these groups might just prevail — Michael Richter and Anna Pohl, chairs of the New York City Bar Association’s Military Affairs and LGBT Rights Committees, lay out the case for why the transgender ban is unconstitutional. [The Hill]

* Stephanie Francis Ward takes a long, hard look at the woes of Charlotte School of Law — and the rest of the beleaguered Infilaw consortium of law schools. [ABA Journal]

* Closing statements in the Martin Shkreli case paint very different pictures of the infamous “Pharma Bro.” [Law.com]

* Nuisance claims, or nuisance suits? Judge James Donato (N.D. Cal.) seems skeptical of a purported class-action case targeting Pokémon GO (which recently added Legendaries to the game). [The Recorder]

* Another day, another notable immigration ruling from the Ninth Circuit (by the great liberal lion, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, joined by his brilliant ideological protégé, Judge Marsha Berzon). [How Appealing]

* The sexual assault case against Bill Cosby, which previously ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked, will be retried in November. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Why do associates leave Biglaw, and what can be done to reduce attrition? Insights from NALP and from Major Lindsey & Africa’s Tina Cohen and Jennifer Henderson. [ABA Journal]

* Law firm merger mania continues — and much of the action is taking place abroad. [Law.com]

* Senator Kamala Harris, prominent prosecutor turned politician, might get interrupted on occasion — but she will not be stopped. [New York Times]

* Linda Greenhouse wonders about Justice Neil Gorsuch: “How could the folksy ‘Mr. Smith Goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee’ morph so quickly into Donald Trump’s life-tenured judicial avatar?” [New York Times via How Appealing]

* Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges that the Republicans might not be able to repeal Obamacare right now — and that an interim solution might be needed. [The Hill]

* For interested readers, here’s the “origin story” of Above the Law, which turns 11 next month. [Yale Alumni Association of New York]

* Senate Republicans take another step forward on repealing the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. [MedCity News]

* Shocker: President Donald Trump has no “tapes” of his conversations with James Comey. [Talking Points Memo]

* Our own Elie Mystal breaks down this morning’s Supreme Court decisions, in conversation with Brian Lehrer of WNYC. [WNYC]

* And if you want to read the SCOTUS rulings for yourself, Howard Bashman has links to all of them. [How Appealing]

* Professor Ilya Somin explains how zoning and other land use controls exacerbate the affordable housing crisis. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* Professor Richard Re argues that Bivens isn’t dead — at least not yet. [PrawfsBlawg]

* A great profile of a great rainmaker: Bill Carmody of Susman Godfrey. [Lawdragon]

* A Thomson Reuters tool that takes torture out of timekeeping. [LawSites]

* “I’m guessing they have had a number of long days and potentially sleepless nights.” The government lawyers behind the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act have had a rough go of things. Who are they, which law schools did they attend, and which Biglaw firms did they work for before becoming Hill lawyers? [National Law Journal]

* Don’t forget about Merrick: A third of Democratic senators have pledged to vote against confirming Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch. At this time, it remains unclear as to whether there will be a united effort by Democrats to oppose his confirmation when the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on April 3. [Reuters]

* Guess who isn’t boycotting Hawaii? People who apparently have a vendetta against this federal jurist. Judge Derrick Watson of the District of Hawaii has been receiving death threats ever since he blocked President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on March 15. He is now receiving 24-hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service. [The Hill]

* The Second Circuit has upheld New York’s ban on non-lawyers investing in law firms. Personal injury firm Jacoby & Meyers argued that the state’s prohibition on non-lawyer investment violated lawyers’ First Amendment right to associate with clients, but the court found that connection to be “simply too attenuated.” [New York Law Journal]

* Ithaca may be gorges, but it can’t compete with the Big Apple with it comes to hands-on learning about issues dealing with cutting-edge tech. Cornell Law is launching a semester-long Program in Information and Technology Law at its Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City that’s slated to begin in Spring 2018. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Judge Edward J. McManus, the longest serving of any incumbent judge in the United States (and third-longest servng in the history of the United States), RIP. [N.D. Iowa]

* Yay, Jeff Sessions has done the bare minimum necessary. [CNN]

* What does Jeff Sessions think the standard is for lying under oath? [Slate]

* Ho, ho, ho. This piece from 2007 by Neal Katyal about independent counsel regulations is particularly salient. [New York Times]

* No matter what this Iowa Republican tells you, Sizzler (yes, the restaurant) does not run a real university. [Salon]

* Florida’s still cool with open carry law. Shocker. Correction: Florida Supreme Court upheld the BAN on open carry. I truly need more sleep, apologies. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Shhhhhh. It’s gonna be a secret law. [Huffington Post]

* Now the real question: who’s next? [Law and More]

* The judge from the Casey Anthony case has some theories… [Jezebel]

* Kenneth Feinberg gets tapped to run another victim compensation fund. [Wall Street Journal]

* Andy Puzder claims a “fake news tsunami” is what forced him to withdraw as Labor Secretary nominee. Sure, Andy, whatever you need to tell yourself to go to sleep at night. [Huffington Post]

* When George W. Bush starts sounding utterly reasonable you know we are truly in the darkest timeline. [The Slot]

* The ethics lawsuit against Kellyanne Conway might feel good, but it could set a bad precedent. [Slate]

* A 2,000+ page long legislation is complication. You don’t f*cking say. [Salon]

* Are Republicans ignoring House v. Burwell? [The Incidental Economist]

* Who’s been digging into Susan Fowler’s personal life? [Law and More]