ASS Law

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.01.23

* Donald Trump seeks mistrial after judge refused to let defense counsel play fast and loose with the definition of "bringing a rape charge." Yeah, the argument "it's unfair that you were more precise" is rarely a winner. [Reuters] * Smoke grenades used to intimidate barrister. Damn, maybe things aren't more civil across the pond. [Roll on Friday] * So, if uncovering the securities fraud is likely to bankrupt the company, whistleblowers are better off looking the other way? Great incentive system! [Bloomberg Law News] * North Carolina overrules precedent from last year because nothing matters and it's just a superlegislature. [Law360] * Sugar daddy lawyer sued young woman for $166 million. It did not work well for him. [Insider] * Maritime firm Ince seemed destined for Davy Jones's locker, but Axiom has thrown in a life preserver. [Splash 247] * A profile on how ASS Law leverages Supreme Court connections to artificially inflate its apparent prestige. [NY Times] * ... and of course this leveraging includes vacation boondoggles for right-wing justices. [Mother Jones]

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By Charles River Associates (CRA)
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 03.08.19

* Paul Manafort got 4 years out of a possible 24. A lot of breathless ranting will come out of this but the reality is 4 years is a significant amount of time to be incarcerated and the guidelines are crazy. Don't be mad that Manafort got too little, be mad that the system generally (and Judge Ellis in particular) unquestioningly applies the guidelines to give far too much to poor and minority defendants. [CNN] * Frankly, the charges that should earn Manafort heavy jail time are the charges of lying to the Mueller probe because that's where there's a significant interest in setting punitive disincentives. And Judge Jackson may have a very different view on how "otherwise blameless" Manafort's been. [Daily Beast] * While we're on these never-ending Trump orbit stories, Michael Cohen is suing Trump for legal fees since, he points out, all his problems stem from work he did in the official course of his duties. [New York Law Journal] * Wearing a disguise to court is totally normal lawyer behavior. [New York Times] * Orrick joins the $1B revenue club. [The Recorder] * Remember the drunken airline rant lady? She's facing jail time. [Legal Cheek] * George Mason receives largest gift in school history, but it'll never match the gift they gave prospective students the ATL community when they descriptively renamed their law school ASS Law. [Inside Higher Ed]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 06.01.17

* The gaggle of Jones Day lawyers who joined the Trump administration received a blanket waiver from ethical rules because what's the point when there's no integrity left to protect? [National Law Journal] * The ABA is discussing a massive overhaul of its law school accreditation regime in order to appease critics from the Department of Education (at least the former DOE). Hey, DOE... we already solved this problem for you! [Law.com] * Historically the Silk Road connected China to Europe. According to the Second Circuit it connects Ross William Ulbricht to a life sentence. [Law360] * Because it wasn't big enough yet, Dentons opens an office in Myanmar. [Legal Week] * In-house counsel complain that they receive too much marketing material. But that's not stopping firms from piling on more, because in-house lawyers don't know what's good for them. [Am Law Daily] * George Mason students have filed a lawsuit accusing the school of violating public records law in an effort to obscure funding the school -- especially ASS Law -- may receive from the Koch brothers. [Courthouse News Service] * "Lawyer who killed lover’s dog blames being lone Jew at boarding school." I'm just going to leave this here. [NY Post]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.03.16

* The New York Times has obtained Donald Trump's tax records from 1995, revealing a nearly $916 million loss that would have enabled him to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period. Marc Kasowitz, name partner of Kasowitz Benson, represents Trump, and has threatened the paper with "prompt initiation of appropriate legal action" for its publication of his client's tax records. [New York Times] * George Mason University will host a grand opening ceremony this week for the twice renamed Antonin Scalia School of Law Antonin Scalia Law School -- a ceremony that five SCOTUS justices will reportedly attend -- and some students and faculty are planning to protest the Koch brothers' funding of scholarships by wearing red tape over their mouths to symbolize their voices being taken from them. [Big Law Business] * Katherine Magbanua, the woman who is suspected of connecting Florida State University law professor Dan Markel's alleged killers, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, with the family of Markel's ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, has been arrested on murder charges. According to police, she has "received numerous benefits from the Adelsons since Markel’s murder." We'll have more on this later today. [Tallahassee Democrat] * According to Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida, Orlando-based firm Butler & Hosch violated the WARN Act when it closed suddenly in May 2015 and conducted mass layoffs of more than 700 employees without giving them 60 days of advance notice. The firm, which is bankruptcy, could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages. We may have more on this later today. [Orlando Sentinel] * Following the embarrassment that was former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner's light sentence in the sexual assault of an unconscious woman at his school, California Gov. Jerry Brown has broadened the state's legal definition of rape to include penetration with a foreign object, mandate prison time if the victim was unconscious at the time of the assault, and forbid judges from granting probation or parole in such cases. [Reuters] * "Frankly, USD has been a bit behind in that, in part, up until 2014, we had no problem with the bar exam. When you’re hitting in the high 80s or 90s, you don’t worry about much." Unofficial results from the South Dakota bar exam are out, and after years of declines in passage rates for graduates of South Dakota Law, administrators are ready to take action now that only about 50 percent of graduates passed the test. [Argus Leader] * "I was empty and then this woman walked into my life. I didn’t think it would happen again and it did. She is it." LGBT rights pioneer Edie Windsor, the plaintiff whose Supreme Court case rendered DOMA unconstitutional in 2013 and laid the groundwork for the high court to declare that marriage equality was a fundamental right just two years later, remarried in New York last week. Our very best wishes! [New York Times]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 04.28.16

* ASS Law is back in the news: Earlier this week, professors on the George Mason University Faculty Senate voted 21-13 to reopen the naming process on the already twice-renamed Antonin Scalia Law School. These professors must know that their actions have no impact on the administration's decisions... right? [BuzzFeed News] * Thanks to allegations of sexual harassment brought forward by courthouse personnel, Judge José A. Fusté of the District of Puerto Rico was allegedly forced by the First Circuit to "retire" from his position, effective June 1. If you're unable to read in Spanish, Google Translate has a version in broken English that may be slightly helpful. [El Nuevo Día] * Attention intellectual property attorneys, because your practice area just got a little more exciting. The Defend Trade Secrets Act passed in the House yesterday by a vote of 410-2, and that means the “most significant expansion of federal law in intellectual property since the Lanham Act in 1946” will likely soon become law. [WSJ Law Blog] * "Transitioning at a Biglaw firm, are you crazy?" Not only is it possible to transition in Biglaw, but it's possible to thrive as a transgender woman in Biglaw, and Sara Schnorr of Locke Lord had the full support of her firm. In fact, she was recently appointed to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. Congrats! [Big Law Business] * "Is nonlawyer ownership of law firms long overdue? Or a bad idea?" The U.K. and Australia are already doing it, and now the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services is seeking comments for an issues paper on the risks and benefits of nonlawyer law firm ownership. Email us or tweet us and let us know what you think. [ABA Journal]

By Staci Zaretsky