* NBA Star Tristian Thompson has won a $52,000 default judgment against a paternity accuser. Seems like his lawyers were playing hard in the paint... [People]
* Exxon must face a lawsuit alleging that the company misstated its role in climate change. [Reuters]
* Georgia election officials, who were involved in Donald Trump's failed election litigation, have had their legal fees paid. [Salon]
* A Texas attorney has been sentenced to prison after defrauding elderly clients. [News-Press]
* A lawyer at Tesla has left to join an autonomous-driving start-up company. Hope she is on the "fast track" at her new shop... [NBC News]
* A California attorney has been busted for selling drugs and guns. Talk about a full-service attorney... [New York Post]
* A New Orleans lawyer is headed to federal appeals court in order to contest the constitutionality of mandatory bar dues. [Associated Press]
* A lawsuit suggests that the e-cigarette company Juul bought ad space targeted at kids on Cartoon Network and other outlets. [Reuters]
* An Oklahoma City attorney at the center of a triple homicide has been suspended from practice. [KFOR.com]
* Paul Weiss is facing a boycott of applicants over the firm's representation of Exxon. Pretty sure there are plenty of law school graduates still willing to work there. [Salon]
* Akie Abe, first lady of Japan, played Donald Trump so hard. She, evidently, pretended she didn't know how to speak English to avoid having to talk to our boor of a president. I'm telling you guys: World War III: this time the Axis powers are the good guys. [National Post]
* On this day that Trump turns over his press team, it's worth mentioning that the media's war against Trump is doomed to fail. Honestly, this first press conference with Anthony Scaramucci just emphasizes the point. The media asked him two questions in a bunch of different ways: 1. Will you be nicer to us than the last guy? 2. Why does this administration suck? The answers were "sure" and "we're great," respectively. [The Guardian]
* Walls don't just keep people out, they lock people in. Like East Germany before, the White House takes its first totalitarian step to... oh, they're just banning travel to North Korea. Honestly, that's a pretty solid idea. [CBS News]
* Kentucky was ordered to pay $222,695 in legal fees to people who had to deal with Kim Davis's BS. [Louisville Courier-Journal]
* Exxon fined $2,000,000 for "reckless disregard" for sanctions against Russia while current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in charge. In response, Exxon sued the U.S. Treasury Department, naming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as a defendant, arguing they had received a special carve-out. Everything is so dirty. [ABA Journal]
* Remember when Republicans cried and complained and sniggered that Obama was a "Muslim" whenever he would bring over a Guantanamo detainee for trial in the U.S.? The Trump administration just brought over a Guantanamo detainee for trial in the U.S. This administration is very much like Linkin Park, just do what the black guy did but with white faces and more guitar, and people will like it. [New York Times]
* Breitbart is fapping itself over Anthony Scaramucci, so I checked out Red State and found this gem: "Beating the filibuster just takes guts and a desire to win." The argument is that Republican leaders should not be afraid of a Democratic filibuster on health care, because if Republicans are strong they'll refuse to conduct any other business until health care gets a vote, and Democrats won't shut down the government to save Obamacare. Two points: (a) Republicans don't have 50 votes now, and (b) NOTHING would make Democrats happier than to shut down the entire Republican legislative agenda by making a principled stand defending the right to health care. But hey, if y'all think you have the "guts" to shut down the government in order to "win," by all means, bring it the eff on. [RedState]
* The Supreme Court takes on an issue of major importance to the patent bar (and the Eastern District of Texas): where can an infringement suit be filed? [How Appealing]
* And SCOTUS also grants cert to a case raising the scope of what prosecutors must disclose to the defense under Brady v. Maryland and a case about a criminal lawyer's erroneous advice to his client about immigration consequences of a guilty plea. [New York Times via How Appealing]
* Sheriff of Wall Street Preet Bharara loses another deputy to private practice: Katherine Goldstein, head of the S.D.N.Y.'s securities-fraud unit, will join several of her former colleagues -- Adam Fee, Antonia Apps and George Canellos -- at Milbank Tweed. [WSJ Law Blog]
* President-elect Donald Trump won't take office for a few weeks, but he's already inspiring new law school courses. [National Law Journal]
* And Trump might also trigger new lawsuits from state attorneys general seeking to rein in his administration. [New York Times]
* As for existing litigation between Trump and celebrity chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian, both the real estate tycoon and his adversaries are repped by big Biglaw names: Seyfarth Shaw and Steptoe & Johnson. [BuzzFeed]
* Speaking of Seyfarth, it's the firm representing ExxonMobil in litigation alleging anti-gay discrimination in its hiring practices -- litigation that continues even as CEO Rex Tillerson prepares to leave the company to head the Trump State Department. [Washington Blade]
