Free Speech
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Technology
Delaware State Police Pay $50,000 To Man Troopers Ticketed For Flipping Them Off
From the no-problem,-the-taxpayers-are-good-for-it dept. -
Courts
Public School Coach Forgot How The First Amendment Works. 6th Circuit Is Happy To Remind Him
Understandable mistake after Bremerton. - Sponsored
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.16.23
* Judge Edith Jones writes a letter to the Wall Street Journal blasting the Federal Circuit’s actions to sideline Judge Pauline Newman. [Wall Street Journal]
* Blind Side subject Michael Oher has filed to end the conservatorship of the couple he lived with. Oher alleges that he believed he was being adopted when in reality he handed over substantial financial rights and no one checked for almost two decades. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Black lawyer says he was handcuffed while a judge ordered him to produce documents or settle the case. [ABA Journal]
* Lawsuit claims that state law illegally favors Iowa wineries. In other news, Iowa has wineries. [DMR]
* Class action suits filed against Hawaiian utility companies over fires. [Law.com]
* ABA considering rule requiring law schools to adopt written free speech policies. No way this just turns into a cudgel for powerful interests to squelch protest under the moniker of “free speech.” Yep, no way at all! [Reuters]
* Former FBI agent admits taking cash from sanctioned Russian oligarchs. [Law360]
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Courts
Elon 'Free Speech Absolutist' Musk Threatens To Sue Nonprofit For Pointing Out He Seems To Like Hate Speech
He's about as good at free speech as he is with rockets. -
Courts
Texas' Bookban Is So Bad, Booksellers Say It Violates The Constitution
Weird priorities you've got there, Texas. -
Law Schools
Stanford Law School Trades Dignity And Principle For Trump Judge's Approval
Judge Kyle Duncan threw a tantrum and Stanford Law School sold out its own to please him. -
Courts
If It Looks Like A Bottle: SCOTUS Ruling On A Jack Daniel's Copy-Dog Is In!
In short: VIP is SOL for now. -
Courts
Does The First Amendment Protect The Right To Make Fun Of Trump's 'Alleged' Small Hands?
This is probably what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they thought of free speech protections. - Sponsored
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Law Schools
Weird How Quiet The 'Campus Free Speech Crisis' Crowd Has Been About CUNY Law School
It's almost as if their commitment to free speech was entirely one-sided... -
Technology
Montana Won't Be Able To Hit The Finisher On TikTok Without Addressing The Constitution
To think that there would be this much trouble over the dance app. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.18.23
* Fifth Circuit judge scolds attorney for “personal attack” because she accurately described the district court opinion as unprecedented. As Inigo Montoya would put it, “I don’t think that word means what Judge Elrod thinks it means. [Slate]
* After watching Disney’s experience beating up on Florida lawyers, Penguin Random House is starting to sue Florida school districts for banning books. [AP]
* Montana has banned TikTok in a reminder that “free speech” is now limited to punishing students for carrying mean signs during FedSoc events. [Wall Street Journal]
* Deutsche Bank paying $75 million to settle claims that the bank facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operations. Another win for Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Pottinger representing Epstein’s victims. [Reuters]
* Massachusetts US Attorney accused of abuse of power “to achieve a political goal epitomiz[ing] the type of ‘political justice’ that Congress intended to prohibit.” Too bad she wasn’t a judge taking free vacations from parties before the court… she’d be home free by now.[Law360]
* WilmerHale earned 5 percent of its total revenue from Meta, the company you remember as Facebook before they completely retooled to chase a creepy VR chat room that they’ve since killed after costing the company about $13 billion. Which is all to say that Wilmer may want to diversify its revenue streams at this rate. [Bloomberg Law News]
* A discussion of Shadow Docket by Steve Vladeck (affiliate link). [ABA Journal]
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Courts
People Annoying You On Facebook? Block Them. Unless You Are A Government Official, Maybe?
The Supreme Court will take any case to distract us from Clarence Thomas being bankrolled for the last 20 years, huh?
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Why Do AI And Legal Professionals Make The Perfect Partnership?
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Law Schools
Stanford Law School Defused Free Speech Crisis By Throwing Minority Students Under The Bus
And then backing that bus over the DEI dean. -
Law Schools
Stanford Law School Moderates May Be The Biggest Snowflakes Of All
Protecting the 'silent middle' from strong opinions might be the worst of all possible law school outcomes. -
Law Schools
Law School Students Make Critical Comments On Social Media And Now THIS Is A 'Free Speech Crisis'
Apparently 'free speech' extends to never stopping students from posting on Instagram. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.27.23
* “This is our third major financial crisis,” said Sullivan’s Mitchell Eitel describing his experience weathering the legal fallout of economic troubles. Remember the 50 years where we didn’t have major bank collapses? Maybe we were all onto something. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Supreme Court to hear more argument about law banning speech about illegal immigration and practically deployed to surveil journalists. [Courthouse News Service]
* “Utah governor: Social media law limiting minors’ access not ‘foolproof.'” I think he meant to say “constitutional.” [Axios]
* Purdue’s online law school seeks permission to send graduates to the bar exam. Because rather than regulate legal education to graduate lawyers who can practice immediately or require a comprehensive exam for any interested potential practitioner, we have BOTH. [Journal Gazette]
* Someone leaked Twitter’s source code online in latest development from clown car central. [Reuters]
* Shearman revenue down 10 percent and partner profits off 17.5 percent. No wonder they were so hot to merge. [American Lawyer]
* New York will take another stab at selecting a Chief Judge. [Law360]
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Technology
Middle School Sued After Getting Stupid About ‘Justice For Lil Pickle’ T-Shirts Worn By Students
Feel free to craft your own 'in a pickle' joke. -
Law Schools
Stanford Law Protects Their Speakers From ‘Institutional Orthodoxy And Coercion’ By Forcing Their Students To Undergo ‘Mandatory Educational Programming’
The letter was a full throated "If you don't like it, just have a counter speaker somewhere else". -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.20.23
* What say the Constitution about “True Threats”? I promise this isn’t a spinoff show about vampires and faeries. [The Daily Beast]
* The folks at Volokh aren’t too happy about how the Supreme Court reads its adequate and state ground doctrine. [Reason]
* You aren’t the only one suspicious that Clarence Thomas did a major rehaul of the 2nd Amendment. [Washington Post]
* If Donald Trump gets charged, it’ll take a while before the process really sets in. Bring a good book. [Reuters]
* A Virginia judge went out of his way to show that he knows the law when it comes to embyos. Slave law. This is 2023. [ABA Journal]