DLA Piper

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.04.17

* The White House announces ten new judicial nominations, including two for circuit courts (previously predicted in these pages). We'll have more on this later. [Washington Times] * King & Spalding joins Jones Day and Sullivan & Cromwell as a "feeder firm" for the Trump administration. [Law.com] * Will the Trump Justice Department's possible attack on affirmative action succeed? Law professors disagree. [How Appealing] * Michelle Carter, the woman convicted for basically texting her boyfriend into committing suicide, gets sentenced to 15 months. [ABA Journal] * White-collar criminal defense lawyers discuss what to expect from the grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. [National Law Journal] * The trend continues: fewer law school graduates, better employment statistics. [ABA Journal] * Elliot Katz, a leading lawyer in the self-driving-car space, motors from DLA Piper to McGuireWoods. [Law.com] * If you'll be online in the afternoon on Wednesday, August 16, join me and ABA Legal Career Central for a Twitter chat about career paths for lawyers, especially alternative careers. [American Bar Association]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.03.17

* NAACP issues travel advisory for Missouri. Having been in Missouri recently... yeah this makes total sense. [CNN] * Trump uses signing statement to tell Putin he's sorry the meanies in Congress want to sanction him. [NPR] * DLA Piper paying some of its associates more money. [Law.com] * Microsoft is moving its work to alternative fee arrangements. It's like what Uber tried to do... but with a much, much, much more successful company. [Law360] * Dr. Dolittle of Schiff Hardin. [Litigation Daily] * Iowa is reforming its juvenile justice system. [Courier] * The best footnotes of all time. [National Law Journal]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.21.17

* Congratulations to John K. Bush, who won confirmation to the Sixth Circuit despite his controversial undercover blogging. [How Appealing] * Team Trump is digging into the backgrounds of special counsel Robert Mueller's all-star team of attorneys, looking for discrediting dirt. [New York Times] * DLA Piper swallows up Liner LLP, a California-based boutique with 60 lawyers -- so, DLA's idea of breakfast. [Law.com] * Justice Alito defends his tenure on the Supreme Court cafeteria committee (in this hilarious piece by Jess Bravin). [Wall Street Journal via How Appealing] * Ex-Dentons associate Michael Potere, represented by a public defender, pleads not guilty to charges that he tried to extort his former firm. [Law360] * Is the relationship of President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions damaged beyond repair? [New York Times] * Is Charles Miller's move to Tarter Krinsky & Drogin the beginning of a partner exodus from Kasowitz Benson -- one possibly driven by the debacle of the Donald Trump representation? [New York Law Journal] * Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law gets censured by the ABA in the wake of sex-discrimination allegations. [ABA Journal]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.05.17

* While it's taken most justices about three to five years to get adjusted to life on the Supreme Court, it seems as if Justice Neil Gorsuch has already hit his stride over the course of just a few months. This gunner wrote one majority opinion, three dissents, three concurrences, and one statement during his first two months on the bench. [New York Times] * DLA Piper -- the first Biglaw firm to fall to a cyberattack -- has finally restored its email service after five days of going without it thanks to being the victim of the worldwide Petya ransomware attack. The firm still claims no client data was compromised by the hackers who gained access to their systems. [ABC News] * Ty Cobb of Hogan Lovells will reportedly be brought on to attend to Russia-related issues within the Office of White House Counsel. Cobb met with Trump last week, but wouldn't offer any comment on his prospective role except to say that he was on vacation. Enjoy your time off while it lasts -- working on Russia-related matters at the White House will certainly be no vacation. [Reuters] * Harvard Law School has established an endowed professorship to honor the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who graduated from the school in 1960. According to outgoing Dean Martha Minow, the professorship is "especially meaningful" because the justice "had a great love of learning." [Harvard Law Today] * Overworked and underpaid never paid? Public defenders working as independent contractors in Massachusetts aren't being paid in a remotely timely fashion. They sometimes go up to two months without receiving paychecks, and say that this has been going on for at least five years. [WWLP 22News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 06.30.17

* Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams pleads guilty to accepting a bribe, ending his ongoing federal corruption trial and his tenure as DA -- and sending him straight to jail, since Judge Paul Diamond denied bail. [ABA Journal] * The Trump administration moves forward on implementing the travel ban (and has reversed its earlier determination that being engaged to marry an American doesn't count as "a bona fide" connection to this country). [New York Times] * Colorado baker Jack Phillips, petitioner in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case that the Supreme Court will hear next Term, explains his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. [How Appealing] * DLA Piper, hit by a major ransomware attack earlier this week, endures its third consecutive day without email. [Law360] * And DLA isn't the only Biglaw firm with big weaknesses in cybersecurity, as Ian Lopez reports. [Law.com] * Lawyer turned television host Greta Van Susteren has been let go by MSNBC (after just six months). [Vanity Fair] * The tragic case of Charlie Gard comes to an end: the European Court of Human Rights declines to review prior court rulings refusing to let the terminally ill 10-month-old boy travel to the U.S. for experimental treatment. [Washington Post] * Drs. John Eastman and Sohan Dasgupta break down the Trinity Lutheran case. [Claremont Institute]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 03.13.17

* South Texas College of Law will not change its name to "Houston." If they're still looking at new names, here are some thoughts. [Houston Chronicle] * Legal sector losing jobs in latest labor report. And this wasn't even counting Preet! [Law360] * Chipotle gets big win in shareholder food poisoning case. [Litigation Daily] * DLA Piper saw revenue fall due to currency fluctuations. Don't worry, they still turned a profit by firing people. [Am Law Daily] * What's the ideal pay gap between your most and least compensated partners? [Law.com] * Lawyer's wife took welfare while he worked at Mayer Brown. [NBC Washington] * The "pants on fire" attorney tells his side of the story. [Associated Press via WPXI]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 12.12.16

* Duncan Lloyd, the Philadelphia assistant city solicitor who spray-painted "F*ck Trump" on a building while wearing an ascot and holding a glass of wine, will be able to keep his job after completing 40 hours of community service. We're sure many Americans feel that he has already completed his community service through his actions. [Philadelphia Inquirer] * Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who took a leave of absence from Greenberg Traurig to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump through the end of the election, has removed his name from consideration for any position in President-elect Trump's administration (but only after reportedly being offered three other positions that he didn't want). He'll now be returning to his law firm. [ABC News] * The struggling European and Middle East arm of King & Wood Mallesons has received "a number of indicative purchase offers" from other law firms. Biglaw behemoth Dentons is rumored to be a potential merger partner for firm's EUME branch, with DLA Piper and Greenberg Traurig ready to make lateral offers to partners. [Big Law Business] * Just because your law school isn't one of the best in the nation, it doesn't mean that you can't dream big. Case in point: The most recent winners of the prestigious Skadden public interest fellowships has been announced, and two of them will graduate from CUNY School of Law. We'll have more on the new Skadden Fellows later. [Skadden] * Dislike? A woman who wanted to serve her estranged husband with divorce papers via Facebook has been denied by a judge who noted that the social networking profile had been inactive for two-plus years, writing that to allow service would be "akin to the Court permitting service by nail and mail to a building that no longer exists." [WSJ Law Blog]

By Staci Zaretsky