* It's cliché to label this, "but their emails" right? [NY Times]
* R. Kelly wants to see this sex tape. Let's presume it's for defense purposes. [TMZ]
* Navigating the privacy waters between GDPR and CCPA. [Corporate Counsel]
* Gordon Caplan has a court date with Aunt Becky. [American Lawyer]
* While eDiscovery has been a thing for over a decade, a new study confirms that a lot of firms still don't understand it. [Legaltech News]
* The SPLC removed its founder...folks around the work they do think that was the right move. Meanwhile, prepare for years of white supremacists going "I can't be criticized because SPLC had a sh [New Yorker]
* Mississippi wants a law aborted next. [NBC News]
* "This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States." This is what John Dowd reportedly said in response to special counsel Robert Mueller when the possibility of issuing a subpoena for President Trump to appear before a grand jury was raised during a meeting with the president's legal team. [Washington Post]
* Unnamed Republican lawmakers have drafted articles of impeachment against Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and he seems pretty pissed. Not only did he refuse to comment on documents that "nobody has the courage to put their name on," but he countered that "the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted." [USA Today]
* Per ex-White House aides, Ivanka Trump is "involved in everything," so why hasn't she been called in for questioning by Robert Mueller yet? Not only would the president "go nuclear," but Mueller knows that "trying to interview Ivanka Trump would be like lighting a match to the highly combustible Donald Trump." [Politico]
* For what it's worth, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein isn't a fan of the fact that the Senate has been taking its sweet time to confirm his would-be colleagues at the Justice Department. The Criminal, Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions have leaders in vote-pending purgatory. [National Law Journal]
* Before he had clients like Donald Trump and Sean Hannity, Michael Cohen was a personal injury attorney, and some of his clients allegedly staged their car "accidents" in an effort to commit insurance fraud. Some of Cohen's clients are alleged to have not even been in the vehicle that was in the "accident" being litigated. [Rolling Stone]
* Now Ivanka Trump's hired Abbe Lowell. Hey, at least she doesn't think she has any potentially adverse interests to her husband. Yet. [National Law Journal]
* Elon Musk may be looking for in-house counsel for the burrowing company he claims has a government deal to start building underground highways and super trains. First step for this new attorney? Explaining that, no, he does not have a government contract to start building underground highways and super trains. [Law.com]
* NFL cheerleaders can't pursue antitrust action against entity that's already lost an antitrust action. Remember that? When Donald Trump bankrupted a football league because he's comically incompetent? [Courthouse News Service]
* Wells Fargo inadvertently released a bunch of client data and they want it back. One presumes these are real Wells Fargo clients and not the millions of fake ones. [Law360]
* ABA warns against weakening Medicaid. I'm sure that's going to do the trick with this crew. [ABA Journal]
* Has R. Kelly hired Bill Cosby's attorney? [Complex]
* An argument for Jeff Sessions keeping his job. [Litigation Daily]
* Kasowitz Benson may have gotten a minor "Trump bump" from other associates in the most recent edition of the Vault 100 law firm rankings thanks to Marc Kasowitz's representation of the president, but the firm's own associates don't seem to be too impressed. In fact, they listed "Trump" as one of the things they dislike most about the firm. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Despite protests from her lawyers that a deposition would "interfere with her ability to perform her duties [as an unpaid advisor] at the White House," a judge has ruled that Ivanka Trump may be deposed in the IP infringement suit that was filed by Aquazzura over the First Daughter's look-alike shoes. [CNN Money]
* No matter how many times we think we've dispelled this rumor, it keeps rearing its ugly head again and again. Word is somehow still on the street that Justice Anthony Kennedy will retire from the Supreme Court, as early as this Term or next. But... what if it actually turns out to be true that the justice who holds abortion rights in his hands will be leaving the bench? [Newsweek]
* Three months have passed since Trinh Huynh, an in-house attorney at UPS, was gunned down during her commute, and her accused killer has now been indicted on murder charges. Raylon Browning may have targeted Huynh, as surveillance footage indicated that he was following her. [Daily Report]
* After 69 years as a journalist -- 58 of them spent reporting on the high court -- Lyle Denniston, the dean of the Supreme Court press corps, will be officially hanging up his press pass after today. He'll be teaching a course at Baltimore Law this fall, but after that, he has no set plans. Congratulations on a remarkable career! You'll be missed. [Constitution Daily / National Constitution Center]
* Firing 46 federal prosecutors may have unleashed 46 incredibly qualified Democratic candidates on the midterm elections. [Politico]
* This... isn't even surprising. [Huffington Post]
* It seem incredibly unlikely this will ever happen, but it isn't a half-bad idea. [The Hill]
* Whaddya know, actions have consequences. Blows my mind too. [Slate]
* And the North Carolina Democratic Party's response is perfect. [The News & Observer]
* New York Attorney General Eric Scheiderman has Rex Tillerson in his sights. [Talking Points Memo]
* A look into Judge Gorsuch's feelings on immigration. [AP]
* Really? I mean, really? The “Hearing Protection Act” will loosen laws on gun silencers. [The Slot]
* The Supreme Court blocks the North Carolina special election until they decide whether they'll hear the case. [Talking Points Memo]
* If Trump opens up libel laws, he could find himself in hot water. [Gizmodo]
* Paul Smith's campaign against the gerrymander. [Slate]
* This is just glorious: former Senator Al D'Amato got kicked off of a JetBlue flight. [MarketWatch]
* At least Ivanka cares about ethics laws. [Fashionista]
* Charlotte School of Law will be open this semester. [ABA Journal]
* I'm sure this will be an even-tempered website, not at all prone to hyperbole and jumping to conclusions. [Business Insider]
* Fox News settles the sexual harassment claims against Bill O'Reilly. [New York Times]
* Biglaw's wishful thinking. [Law and More]
* Merchants take their desire to pass on credit card costs to consumers to the Supreme Court. [Big Law Business]
Based on our experience in recent client matters, we have seen an escalating threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) information technology (IT) workers engaging in sophisticated schemes to evade US and UN sanctions, steal intellectual property from US companies, and/or inject ransomware into company IT environments, in support of enhancing North Korea’s illicit weapons program.
* Claud "Tex" McIver, the Fisher & Phillips partner who accidentally shot and killed his wife and allegedly blamed the incident on a local Black Lives Matter protest, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter (a felony) and reckless conduct (a misdemeanor). McIver will now be retiring from the firm at the end of the year, instead of in 2017 as originally planned. [Big Law Business]
* "We keep being told that the administration was so surprised. Then you read what the government released. How can you possibly have been surprised?" Students at Charlotte Law are incredibly angry that the school was dropped from the federal loan program, and many feel like they were duped by the administration. Some students have even contacted local law firms to discuss filing suit against the school. [Charlotte Observer]
* "Your father is ruining the country. Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private." The unruly passenger who allegedly accosted future first daughter Ivanka Trump on a JetBlue flight to Florida yesterday is -- you guessed it -- a lawyer. Daniel J. Goldstein, a graduate of UCLA Law, once worked as a labor relations specialist at the U.S. Mint before moving to Brooklyn. His current place of work is unknown. [Forward]
* According to the results of an investigation by a law firm hired by the University of Oregon, law professor Nancy Shurtz committed "discriminatory harassment" by wearing a blackface costume on Halloween, in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policies. The report does not indicate if Professor Shurtz was punished, but she is no longer on paid leave and is not scheduled to teach this spring. [The Oregonian]
* Michelle K. Lee, the outgoing director of the Patent and Trademark Office, says the "interactions that we have been having [with the president-elect's transition team] are very positive," and that although Donald Trump's relationship with the denizens of Silicon Valley has at times been rocky, she thinks "any administration would have a strong and robust intellectual property system as a priority." [WSJ Law Blog]
* Alec Baldwin will be playing controversial Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione in a new TV series in development that was adapted from the lawyer’s 2015 book, Crooked Brooklyn (affiliate link). Not to worry, because we're sure that the actor will still be able to find the time during his shooting schedule to impersonate and infuriate President-elect Trump with his portrayals on Saturday Night Live. [Page Six / New York Post]
* The top ten most ridiculous lawsuits of 2016. [U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform via USA Today]
* Not the first homeless lawyer we've heard about, and surely not the last. [Instagram]
* Jonathan Adler: "Donald Trump has not even been sworn in yet, and it’s already becoming easier for public figures to sue people in the nation’s capital." [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Congrats to Kellyanne Conway on her future role as counselor -- or should that be "counsellor"? -- to President Trump. [Althouse]
* Why does defense lawyer Jon Katz smiles when he objects during trial? [Katz Justice]
* Ivanka Trump's incident at the airport has all the makings of a bar exam issue-spotter. [Instapundit]
* Another in-house lawyer with critical comments about the Great Pay Raise of 2016. [ABA Journal]
* Ivanka Trump has responded to a lawsuit filed by fashion house Aquazurra, which accused her of infringing upon the luxury brand's shoe designs. Trump repeatedly denied copying the shoe designs in question, and asked that the suit be tossed out like a pair of last season's pumps. Will this keep on kicking until after the election? [Huffington Post]
* A federal judge tossed a rather absurd suit that was filed against Starbucks, which alleged the company put a deceptive amount of ice in its cold drinks, writing, "If children have figured out that including ice in a cold beverage decreases the amount of liquid they will receive, the Court has no difficulty concluding that a reasonable consumer would not be deceived." [WSJ Law Blog]
* Bad Boies, bad Boies, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they finance you? The Boies/Schiller Film Group, a small film finance company started by law firm founder David Boies and Zack Schiller (son of law firm co-founder Jonathan Schiller), is fronting the cash needed for comedy movie based on reality show "COPS." [Law.com]
* Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug company once led by disgraced pharma bro Martin Shkreli, has been accused of retaliation following the alleged sexual assault of its chief commercial officer at the hands of its interim chief financial officer. For his part in this mess, Shkreli is accused of sexist and vulgar behavior. [DealBook / New York Times]
* "The allegations of the suit are ridiculous. We are confident that the suit will be dismissed in short order." Cassidy Recruiting is suing Holland & Knight partner Dean Schaner over a failed law firm placement, and it's seeking between $200K and $1M in damages, all because Schaner used another recruiter to join the firm. [Big Law Business]
* Ivanka Trump is getting called out on Instagram. Seems one of the shoes in her eponymous line is a dead ringer for Aquazzura's Wild Thing fringe sandal. [The Fashion Law]
* The billable hour actually makes law firms less competitive -- not that this revelation will stop firms from conducting business that way. [Lawyerist]
* When people attack Judge Jane Kelly because she used to be a public defender, they are really taking a crack at the Sixth Amendment. [Slate]
* All the things that in-house counsel really want from their outside attorneys. [Ten Things]
* A contested convention looks increasingly likely, and the GOP establishment is busy planning for that eventuality. [Bloomberg Politics]
* Our friends at Solo Practice U turn 7! Don't miss their anniversary special. [Solo Practice University]
* Word to the wise: when you start looking to House Of Cards for political tactics, you might be one of the bad guys. [The Slot]
* What it takes to pull off a career comeback. (Spoiler alert: it isn't easy.) [Law and More]
