Antitrust

The partners on this case are at the top of their game. Will they secure a win big for the top tech company?

Great news for folks with blue chat bubbles!

The DOJ said the deal would drive up prices for consumers.

This firm's managing partner has the scoop on why diversity matters when it comes to building a law firm that's seen as an attractive workplace for attorneys.

Doesn't matter as much when all of your flights are reimbursed by the firm, but it is still a win.

Illinois indicates that the Machiavellian machinations of corporate colluders over œufs were the culinary culprit in this sense-scrambling story.

Google is somewhere shaking in its boots.

* Donald Trump set to testify in New York. Be there, will be wild. [Reuters]

* Stroock files notice that it’s laying off roughly 140 people in New York. [Bloomberg Law News]

* The administration’s antitrust push hasn’t netted all the results one might’ve hoped, but Lina Khan’s tenure at the FTC may have some knock on effects as law students embrace antitrust work. [Politico]

* More firms are condemning senior associates to a holding pattern. [American Lawyer]

* Defamation filings are on the rise and it’s a real, shall we say, SLAPP in the face. [ABA Journal]

* It’s Pro Bono Week in the UK — the sort of annual recognition of good works that frightens and confuses Americans. [LegalCheek]

* NCAA faces billions in damages after feasting at the free labor trough for decades. [Law360]

As the legal woes of Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried are eating up most of the bandwidth, Google's own trial seems to be slipping to the second page of search results.

Looking at you, Clarence.

Why settle for one Biglaw firm when you can have two?

Amazon better have their defenses prepared from A to Z.

* Somehow they’ve managed to find even more undisclosed private air travel. This time taking Clarence Thomas to a Koch brothers event in a level of impropriety that a former W. Bush judge said, “takes my breath away, frankly.” [ProPublica]

* Clifford Chance opts for permanent hybrid work model while other firms choose alienation and extortion. [RollonFriday]

* Second Circuit decides Sam Bankman-Fried can wait in jail. [Law360]

* North Carolina Supreme Court justice Anita Earls spoke publicly about implicit bias in the legal system. After the judiciary commission ordered her to pre-clear future statements with them, she sued over the prior restraint and the federal judge chastised her for making the justice system look bad by talking about bias out loud. [Balls and Strikes]

* Having toppled admissions, right-wingers take aim at scholarships that might possibly help non-white people go to school. [Reuters]

* Judge upholds the right of private investors to put their money toward companies that match their environmental and social goals. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Profiling the folks chronicling the opaque Google antitrust case. [Wired]

* Trump moves to get Judge Chutkan kicked off his case because at a sentencing for a low-level January 6er, she said that the organizers of the riot had not been charged. But she never said Trump was the one who organized the riot. So… his lawyers are the ones making the connection that well obviously our client organized the riot. Galaxy brain work, gang! [CNN]

* NY judge strikes down state’s ethics commission, ruling that it violates separation of powers for former governor Andrew Cuomo to be subject to an independent ethical probe. By way of pure coincidence, this judge was a Trump nominee who failed to reach a Senate vote. [Law360]

* Because, relatedly, the Supreme Court eyes another run at the CFPB arguing that it violates the separation of powers to have an agency that lawmakers can’t unilaterally zero-fund at any moment. [Reuters]

* The Google antitrust defense team learned its trade while working on the other side of the Microsoft antitrust case. Around, around the revolving door goes! [Bloomberg Law News]

* Supreme Court needs binding ethics rules… but don’t hold your breath. [Dorf on Law]

* Tech and office space enjoy a complicated budgeting relationship. [American Lawyer]

* Legendary DC attorney Bob Bennett has passed away. [NY Times]

Some high academia weirdness going on here.

Defying an overall cooling market for books, Simon & Schuster has posted strong sales for the past two years.

* Come August, The Wisconsin Supreme Court will be a majority Democrat. Liberals in the state have big plans — particularly on abortion and voting rights. [Huffington Post]

* The DOJ and FTC have released new merger guidelines. They want to bring antitrust enforcement back to its roots. [Law360]

* Want a corporate board seat? Now’s your moment! Thanks to increased regulations everyone wants an attorney on their board. [Bloomberg Law]

* Sam Bankman-Fried will finally shut up. The talkative founder of crypto exchange FTX has accepted a gag order in the criminal case against him, though his attorney contest that his previous interviews with reporters amounts to witness tampering. [Reuters]

* Biglaw “caste system”? Sounds pretty accurate to me. [Law.com]

* With more legal threat closing in, Donald Trump is only getting Trump-ier. Thankfully, that’s unlikely to work in court. [Salon]

* Here we go again! Biden uses another avenue to issue some of the student debt relief blocked by Republicans in the Super Legislature. [Reuters] * After the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to foreign knockoffs, IP lawyers are left “questioning” what’s left. [Bloomberg Law News] * Fake money leads to real federal fraud charges. […]

* The FTC is appealing its case against the Microsoft-Activision merger. There’s a lot of talk about the FTC “failing” but even in losing they forced Microsoft to publicly claim it wouldn’t make key franchises XBox exclusives and… that’s a victory in itself. Successful litigation doesn’t have to end in a win to have been a smart case to bring. [Law360]

* But, because everything is stupid now, the FTC is going to get grilled in a congressional hearing. [Reuters]

* Gun ban in state parks upheld because the law has never been enforced and may never be… haven’t these people heard of 303 Creative? You don’t need any of that anymore. [Hartford Courant]

* Allen & Overy’s managing partner has stepped down in the midst of the Shearman merger negotiations. [Bloomberg Law News]

* The Titanic sub disaster underscores the need for robust anti-SLAPP laws. [Daily Beast]

* NCBE unveils its nextgen bar exam questions. They are not much better than the existing questions. [Law.com]

* A new wrinkle in the hybrid office reality: small firms sharing office space. A new ethics opinion deals with this issue and hopefully settles who gets to decide if the toilet paper is overhanded or underhanded. [ABA Journal]

* In bothsideism push, conservatives are hyping that Sotomayor’s book tour makes hosts purchase copies. Putting aside that this is how book tours work everywhere, the complaint underscores that Alito and Thomas defenders think the problem is “justices making money” as opposed to “justices getting paid by parties trying to influence the judges.” [AP]

* Lawsuit brought against Idaho’s abortion travel ban. [Law.com]

* It’s not just law firms forcing people back to in-person work just because old partners feel lonely. Judges are willing to let the wheels of justice grind if it gives them some playmates throughout the day. [New York Law Journal]

* “Judges Confused by Supreme Court’s Historical Test for Gun Laws.” It can be confusing if you get tripped up on the “historical” part. But it’s really easy once you ignore all the actual history and only use the gun manufacturer fan fiction account in Bruen. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Mainstream media asking snide questions about antitrust law after Microsoft ruling. [NY Times]

* Judge Newman’s battle with the rest of the Federal Circuit now has a mediator. [Law360]