Charlottesville

* Lawyers for the estate of the helicopter pilot accused in a lawsuit of causing the crash that killed Kobe Bryant and others wants the case removed from Los Angeles. Pretty sure people know who Kobe Bryant is outside of LA… [Yahoo Sports]

* Lyft has settled a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice alleging that the ride-sharing service violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Tech Crunch]

* The Trump Administration is facing a lawsuit for failing to provide COVID-19 relief money to undocumented families. [Buzzfeed News]

* A lawyer for alt-right figure Richard Spencer has been allowed to withdraw from representing him in a case involving the 2017 Charlottesville violence. [Yahoo News]

* Check out this profile of a top Hollywood lawyer who wheels and deals while walking around 10 miles a day. That’s kind of the opposite of the Lincoln Lawyer… [Wall Street Journal]

Ed. note: We’re sure you already know this, but there’s a total eclipse today. If you’re planning to watch the eclipse, make sure you do so safely. Enjoy and have fun!

* More than 30 percent of law students are minorities, but only 15 percent of lawyers and less than 9 percent of partners are attorneys of color. Racial diversity in law firms seems to have flatlined, but some law firms are doing a little better than others when it comes to recruiting and retaining minority lawyers. We’ll have more on this sometime soon. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* Is “Google” undeserving of trademark protection thanks to genericide? “There is no single word other than google that conveys the action of searching the Internet using any search engine,” and perhaps that’s why Chris Gillespie, who lost his case at the Ninth Circuit when he attempted to have Google’s trademark invalidated, has applied to the Supreme Court for certiorari. [Ars Technica]

* Judge Jim Hinkle of Gwinnett County, Georgia, who was suspended after posting some controversial remarks about Charlottesville on Facebook — i.e., comparing “snowflake” counter-protesters to ISIS because they were “destroying history” — has officially resigned from the bench. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old accused of ramming his car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring numerous others, has been charged with five additional felony counts on top of the five he was already facing, one of which was second-degree murder. [CNN]

* Some law schools are doing more than others when it comes to helping students with mental health and substance abuse issues. While some law schools are offering students and professors an impressive suite of awareness, reporting, and counseling services, others are a bit behind the eight ball. [Daily Report]

* In what could very well be one of the first virtual law firm mergers, FisherBroyles and Ntellect Law, two cloud-based firms, have tied the knot, combining to form the largest law firm of its kind. Kevin Broyles, the firm’s co-founder, thinks the firm will join the Am Law 200 by 2018. [Am Law Daily]

* Leaders and prominent partners at Biglaw firms across the country are speaking out against President Donald Trump’s most recent comments concerning the deadly Charlottesville rally, where he blamed “both sides” for the violence that occurred. Has anyone among the leadership at your firm denounced Trump’s remarks? We’ll have more on this later. [Big Law Business]

* In case you missed it, James Alex Fields, the man accused of second-degree murder in the death of Charlottesville counter-protester Heather Heyer, was supposed to be represented by an attorney from the public defender’s office, but it seems there was a conflict of interest — a relative of an employee was injured in the car crash that led to Heyer’s untimely death. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

* Judge Jim Hinkle of Gwinnett County, Georgia, has been suspended thanks to his Facebook comments about the events that unfolded in Charlottesville. Hinkle compared the protesters “nut cases tearing down monuments” to ISIS, referring to them as “snowflakes” with “no concept of history.” Hinkle said he didn’t “see anything controversial” about his posts. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* Retired Judge Robert Echols, formerly of the Middle District of Tennessee and now a partner at Bass Berry & Sims, once donated about $3,000 to the Mary Noel Kershaw Foundation, which funds firearms training for the League of the South, a hate group tied to the violent Charlottesville rally. The firm has launched an internal investigation into the matter. [Tennessean]

* Austin Gillespie — d/b/a Augustus Sol Invictus, the DePaul Law grad who opened his own Florida solo practice, closed it via this unhinged memo, and later sacrificed a goat and drank its blood — was an organizer of the Charlottesville alt-right rally and is now running for Senate, again. [Am Law Daily]

* Credit where credit is due: Attorney General Jeff Sessions wins qualified praise for his forceful condemnation of the Charlottesville violence. [New York Times]

* Donald Trump needs all the legal help he can get — so he’s surely pleased and proud about daughter Tiffany Trump starting up at Georgetown Law this month. (More on this later.) [Washington Post]

* And wouldn’t it be incredibly awkward interesting to have Tiffany as a classmate in your Con Law class this semester? [New York Times via How Appealing]

* The ABA will reconsider its controversial, much-criticized changes to how law schools report graduate employment data. [Law.com]

* Taylor Swift prevails in her lawsuit accusing DJ David Mueller of groping her during a photo op. [Law360]

* Merger mania spreads — from Biglaw to boutiques. [Law.com]

* Tech company DreamHost will resist — a Justice Department effort to acquire information about visitors to an anti-Trump website set up to coordinate Inauguration Day protests. [Washington Post]

* An investors’ lawyer claims that his lawsuit against Duane Morris “could bankrupt that firm.” [Law.com]

* There are reasonable arguments for and against splitting up the Ninth Circuit, but the ABA’s position is clear: firmly opposed. [ABA Journal]

* James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old accused of ramming his car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring numerous others, has been charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count related to leaving the scene of an accident. [NPR]

* Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed in Charlottesville this weekend, was a paralegal at a small law firm where she managed the bankruptcy department. She was described as woman willing to stand up against “any type of discrimination.” We’ll have more on this tragic news later today. [New York Times]

* After being urged by Senator Ted Cruz to “prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism,” the Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the deadly white supremacy rally that occurred this past weekend in Charlottesville, as the events that unfolded there “strike at the heart of American law and justice.” [Independent Journal Review; The Hill]

* “Evidently that’s not going to happen.” Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is walking back comments that he made back in April about the likelihood of a Supreme Court justice (i.e., Justice Anthony Kennedy) retiring this summer. Maybe he’ll get his wish next summer. [Reuters]

* Classes are supposed to begin at Charlotte Law in three weeks, but according to a spokesman from the University of North Carolina system, the school’s temporary license to operate has expired. The dean of the troubled law school, on the other hand, says the license hasn’t expired. Hmm… [Charlotte Observer]