CFTC

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 03.28.23

* Mayday mayday! Georgia prosecutor has until May 1 to respond to Trump effort to quash grand jury report. Or, in other words, Trump has inadvertently set May 1 deadline for Georgia prosecutors to level charges. [Reuters] * Hold onto your hats, but a commodity with the word "crypto" in the title might have tried to hide from legal oversight. [Bloomberg Law News] * FTC looks to make it harder for companies to ensnare consumers in difficult to leave subscriptions, which is an immensely popular move so I'm looking forward to the partisan flack this will generate. [Corporate Counsel] * When analogies go wrong: Amgen asked the Supreme Court to think of their patents more like a steam engine, prompting Thomas to quip, "It seems as though you’re actually trying to patent the use of steam pressure...." [Courthouse News Service] * "Football, but without helmets" is apparently also fraught with concussion liability. [BBC] * A dive into why representation matters when you're illegally possessing classified documents. [Salon] * Trainee lawyer diverted $100K in client insurance payments to himself to cover gambling losses. [Roll On Friday]

By Above the Law
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.20.19

* Law firm expenses outpaced revenue for the first half of 2019 and there's no way that's going to come back and haunt us. [American Lawyer] * The DOJ is siding with Led Zeppelin in the Stairway to Heaven copyright fight. Good to know this DOJ has everything else under control. [Rolling Stone] * California has a new law that says police should only kill when "necessary" and consider the kind of dystopian world we live in where this needed to be spelled out in a law. [NPR] * Barr announces new BOP head to exploit Epstein's death for the sake of some boondoggle in prison spending. [Courthouse News Service] * The NRA tried to insert itself into Oliver North's deposition in an act of stunning chutzpah. They got denied. [Law360] * A follow-up on law student's suicide and his family's efforts to help others. [Good Men Project] * CFTC faces scrutiny for "being honest." [National Law Journal]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.17.16

* Ding ding ding, we have a winner: with a bid of $135 million, Univision has prevailed in the auction to buy Gawker Media's assets (held at the offices of Gawker's bankruptcy counsel, Ropes & Gray). [Politico] * The Ninth Circuit rules that the feds can't spend money to prosecute people whose actions comply with state medical marijuana laws. [How Appealing] * Protip for millennial law students: don't call your law professor by her first name. [WSJ Law Blog] * "Is $88,500 Salary Too Much for a Deputy General Counsel?" (Hint: no.) [Big Law Business] * Is it time to rethink antitrust enforcement, especially when it comes to Big Tech? [DealBook / New York Times] * Judge Timothy Dooley has been censured by the Alaska Supreme Court for his rude remarks in open court. [Alaska Dispatch News] * Hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen can't trade in CFTC-regulated commodities markets until 2018, as part of a settlement with the commission. [Bloomberg] * Sigfredo Garcia, one of the two men accused of killing law professor Dan Markel, isn't getting bond just yet. [Tallahassee Democrat; WCTV]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.12.16

* How would a Gingrich VP run impact Dentons? Because Gingrich getting a 4-month vacation is the most pressing question about the Trump ticket at this point. [The Am Law Daily] * North Carolina enacts legislation to keep police cam footage out of the public record in a move that isn't a cynical cover up effort at all. [ABC 11] * International arbitration panel rules against China's claims to South China Sea territory. It's like that apocryphal story about Andrew Jackson saying of John Marshall "let him enforce it" if Andrew Jackson was armed with nuclear weapons. [Huffington Post] * The Department of Justice is going to bat to protect the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule as plaintiffs beg judge to take a bat to the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule. [The National Law Journal] * In a pending gender bias suit, Bank of America denies having a "Bro's Club" culture. I'm fuzzy on the regulations, but I'm pretty sure in that statement BofA just forfeited its status as a "bank." [Law360] * Did you know prison laborers are planning to go on strike on September? Me neither, but there you go. [Occupy] * Straightforward review of the CFTC's proposed Regulation AT aimed at the practice of automated trading. [Morrison Cohen] * University of Houston Law Center professor and former dean Stephen Zamora died last week. He was 72. [UH Law Center]

By Joe Patrice
Law Schools

Non-Sequiturs: 05.31.13

* The new meme sweeping the Intertubes is “Old Economy Steve.” While not strictly law-related, it is a fitting meme for trolling recent law school grads entering the market. [The Atlantic] * After talking about the Atlanta battle of the (legal) bands, we learned that San Francisco is also getting into the act. [Law Rocks] * Speculating on George Washington’s approach to drone strikes. [Washington Times] * A look at how regulatory and tax policy changes affect the value of energy companies. [Breaking Energy] * E. Gordon Gee, Columbia Law ’71 and President of THE Ohio State University got in a little trouble for saying, “You tell the SEC when they can learn to read and write, then they can figure out what we’re doing.” So another guy gets in trouble for being honest. Gee also said that you can’t trust Catholic priests, which segues nicely into the next item. [Yahoo! Sports] * The Catholic Church’s top exorcist claims to have performed 160,000 exorcisms. After the jump, Professor Mark Kightlinger from the University of Kentucky College of Law eviscerates this claim with “math.” “Assuming he was ordained at the age of 21, he would have had to perform 2388 exorcisms per year for the past 67 years. That is more than 6.5 exorcisms per day every day (not taking into account the occasional leap year with an extra day). Perhaps he is just a really fast exorcist. Or perhaps he does mass exorcisms. I don’t have a view about how many demons might be out there but I am skeptical about whether one guy could cast out so many. Perhaps he needs to go back to the books and read about pride.” – Mark Kightlinger

By Joe Patrice
Blogging

Non-Sequiturs: 05.29.13

* America, you won’t have Michele Bachmann to kick around anymore! The political equivalent of comic relief announced that she will not seek another term. [CNN] * Eric Holder testified that he would support reform of the ECPA. Apparently this newfound love of electronic privacy doesn’t extend to the Associated Press. [IT-Lex] * Atlanta is soon to host its Battle of the (Lawyer) Bands. LawJam 2013 is set to rock Atlanta like a litigious hurricane on June 8. Last year featured bands like Mikey Mel & the JDs, so you have a sense of what you’re getting here. [Atlanta Bar Association] * The CFTC had no idea how to do its job? Say it ain’t so! [Breaking Energy] * So the sequester has an advantage! Cocaine is going to get cheaper! [Breaking Defense] * Paul Caron has acquired a 100 percent ownership share of the Law Professor Blogs Network. Congrats! [TaxProf Blog] * Woman acquitted of manslaughter responds in the best way ever. Video after the jump… [WESH via Bing]

By Joe Patrice