Freedom of Information Act

The roundabout way that the FBI and FOIA blew the lid off a police coverup.

* It’s officially time to be worried about voter intimidation — the lawsuits may not be enough to stop it. [Huffington Post]

* Huma Abedin gets some Biglaw muscle on her side: Karen Dunn of Boies Schiller. [Law and More]

* No, refusing to consider any Hillary Clinton Supreme Court nominee is not principled. [Salon]

* Texas official dropped a c-bomb on Twitter over Hillary Clinton. [The Slot / Jezebel]

* A little change in the Freedom of Information Act could lead to a lot more transparency. Eventually. [Slate]

Does the federal government do pointless things? That's what Justice Scalia seems to think.

* Hey, “regular students” with “regular backgrounds,” you may be able to get a job as a SCOTUS clerk, because Justice Clarence Thomas is the Supreme Court’s honey badger in that he doesn’t give a sh*t about rankings. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

* Because $1.05 bill wasn’t quite enough, Apple is asking for additional damages in its patent war lawsuit against Samsung. Ohh, come on, Judge Koh, it’s just an extra $535 million. Everyone else is doing it, come on. Just give us the money. [Bloomberg]

* The D.C. Circuit suit about White House visitor logs is kind of like a recurring issue we see with law schools, in that transparency here means “[w]e will disclose what records we want you to see.” [National Law Journal]

* Skadden is teaming up with local legal aid groups to start a pro bono initiative in D.C. We hear they’ll be handing out gift cards as a show of appreciation to those who sign up. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* Sumner Redstone recently donated $18M to BU Law. Will his successor be as charitable? From Columbia Law to Shearman & Sterling to media mogul: meet Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom. [New York Times]

* “The employment statistics really are the collective impact of individual choices.” And one of them was attending law school anyway, despite all of the negative media attention they’ve received. [Cincinnati Enquirer]

* Remember the Harvard Law student who ran for Student Government President and pledged to resign after rewriting the organization’s constitution? Well, he graduated, but at least he got a draft in. [Harvard Crimson]

Way back in 2008, Elie noted with derision the University of Michigan's "Wolverine Scholars" Program. He wasn't the only one. The initiative allowed Michigan undergraduates with very high GPAs to get into Michigan Law without having to take the LSAT. There's been much less fanfare about the end of the program than there was about its start, but we obtained some FOIA documents....

* We expected this would happen. The Osama Bin Laden death photos have been FOIA’d. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times] * Some Biglaw firms are freezing associate pay? Blimey! [Roll On Friday] * What is Monica Goodling — now known as Monica Krempasky, since her 2008 marriage to RedState founder Michael Krempasky — […]

Everybody has an opinion on whether or not the Obama administration should release kill shots of Osama bin Laden. It’s a tough question. And there are intelligent ways to disagree with the president’s opinion (see Jon Stewart’s impassioned plea). Or you could just call the president a pussy accuse the president of “pussyfooting” on Twitter, […]

There’s some good news this week for those people whose blood boils at the mention of Citizens United. The Supreme Court proved that it is not always sympathetic to the rights of corporations — and is even willing to have some fun at their expense. Chief Justice John Roberts penned a tongue-in-cheek opinion lambasting AT&T […]