Chuck Grassley

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.26.18

* Chuck Grassley asking Justice Department to launch a criminal inquiry into Michael Avenatti and his client. So now Grassley cares about investigations. [Law360] * Does Megyn Kelly have a prayer in her looming battle with NBC? Personally, I don't think they should fire her -- they should make her sit in her office and do nothing for 40 hours a week like they did with Ann Curry. Curry did nothing to deserve that -- Kelly on the other hand.... [Law and Crime] * NYAG suit over Trump Foundation breaching charity rules during the campaign looks like it's got legs. [Courthouse News Service] * Justice Kagan doesn't completely blow off the idea of 18-year terms for the Court, which is something. [National Law Journal] * Georgia seeks an emergency stay of the temporary restraining order barring the state from disenfranchising absentee voters because injustice delayed is injustice denied. [Daily Report Online] * Lawyer couple disciplined for talking to each other. [Law.com] * Japan's letting the cryptocurrency industry police itself. This will end well. [MIT Technology Review]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.22.18

* Remember how Trump promised that he'd "fight for" the transgender community while he was campaigning? Perhaps he meant that he'd fight to erase them. The Trump administration is reportedly considering defining sex under Title IX "based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth." [New York Times] * Democratic senators in Washington are refusing to return their blue slips for Perkins Coie partner Eric Miller, a Ninth Circuit nominee, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is pissed. Slow your roll, Chuck. I thought we didn't care about blue slips anymore? [The Recorder] * About half of lawyers in the United Kingdom say they're not ready to deal with Brexit. That's okay. The United Kingdom isn't ready to deal with Brexit either -- and 40 percent of lawyers think their Biglaw firms will try to escape the UK because of it. [Am Law International] * In case you missed it, Paul Manafort showed up at the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday afternoon in a wheelchair, citing health concerns as his attorney requested an expedited sentencing date. Manafort seems to have gotten what he wanted, and will be sentenced there on February 8. [National Law Journal] * During his inauguration speech, the University of Virginia's new president, James Ryan -- a UVA Law graduate who once worked as a UVA law professor -- pledged that tuition would be free for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year. We wonder if that applies to law school tuition as well. [WTTF Fox 5]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.14.18

* Could it be? Will another Biglaw firm be dragged into this mess after Skadden? Michael Avenatti, lawyer to Stormy Daniels, thinks that special counsel Robert Mueller ought to take a look at Squire Patton Boggs, the firm that's been working hard to disavow its "strategic alliance" with Michael Cohen, the president's personal attorney. [Newsweek] * "[Y]ou can’t have one rule for Democratic presidents and another rule for Republican presidents." Chairman Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who recently suggested that any Supreme Court justice who was thinking about retiring do so right f**king now, claims that he won't hold any hearings or votes for a Supreme Court nominee during the lead-up to the 2020 election [Bloomberg] * The American Bar Association is planning to do away with its requirement that accredited law schools use a standardized admissions test to admit students. Will any law schools actually go so far as to admit students without any test scores at all? More on this later today. [Law.com] * The end of the latest Supreme Court Term is drawing near, and if you've been watching goings-on at the high court, you know what that means: justices seem to be more likely to injure themselves now than during any other time of the year. Cross your fingers and hope that no one else sustains any broken bones -- or worse -- before the end of June. [CNN] * Public law schools are usually cash cows for their associated undergraduate universities, but one law school is doing the complete opposite thanks to a dip in applications. But for a gigantic annual subsidy from main campus ($7.5 million), the University of Minnesota School of Law wouldn't be able to balance its budget -- and the school will need even more by 2020 ($12 million). Yikes! [Duluth News Tribune]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.11.18

* Senator Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee really, really, really wants any Supreme Court justice who's considering retiring any time soon to speed things up and retire immediately so their successor can be confirmed ASAP before the midterms. You hear that, Justice Kennedy? You apparently need to announce your retirement "now or within two or three weeks." [Reuters] * Quinn Emanuel may face an investigation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the agency responsible for overseeing attorneys in the United Kingdom, in the wake of allegations concerning a dismissed partner's inappropriate behavior. The firm reported itself to the SRA, because it takes the allegations "extremely seriously." [Legal Week] * Squire Patton Boggs is really trying to distance itself from Michael Cohen. Remember that strategic alliance they had? Psshtttttt, please, forget about that. Under the bus you go, my friend: "At all times, Cohen maintained his independence, was not an employee of the firm, and did not maintain files or bill clients through the firm." [The Hill] * The Federal Communications Commission is planning to kill net neutrality on June 11, one day before the Senate is set to vote on Congressional Review Act resolution that seeks to overturn the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules. [NPR] * Dr. Dre, the rapper, lost a trademark infringement fight against Dr. Drai, the gynecologist. These motherf**kers at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office act like they forgot about Dre. [Courthouse News Service]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.14.17

* 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]

By Staci Zaretsky