Karen McDougal

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 09.25.20

* A company run by Evel Knievel's son is suing Disney because a character in Toy Story 4 allegedly resembles the late performer. Assuming Disney already has the license for Mr. Potato Head... [AP] * A black British lawyer has received an apology after being mistaken as a criminal defendant instead of a lawyer multiple times in a single day. [New York Daily News] * A New York attorney has been disbarred for sending "disturbing" emails to the New York City Bar Association and then failing to respond to ethics inquires. [New York Law Journal] * A defamation lawsuit filed against Tucker Carlson by Karen McDougal, an alleged paramour of Donald Trump, has been dismissed. [Hill] * A well-known immigration lawyer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has been killed following an altercation with a bicyclist. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] * An NCIS investigator has won a lawsuit for unpaid overtime pay. Since NCIS is entering its 18th season, everyone involved with that show probably deserves some overtime pay as well... [Bloomberg]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.19.19

* Eugene Scalia, a partner at Gibson Dunn, will be nominated as the next Labor secretary to replace Alex Acosta. If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s son. [NPR] * "I disagree with it." President Trump now claims that he was "not happy" with a crowd chanting "send her back" in relation to Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, at one of his re-election campaign rallies. This, after Trump tweeted that Omar and three other congresswomen of color should "go back" to their countries, despite being American-born citizens. [New York Times] * According to recently unsealed court records, per the FBI, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides were very much involved in a series of hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump, of course, has very publicly denied having knowledge of such payments. [USA Today] * The House of Representatives passed a bill to gradually hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. Don't get too excited, because this has little to no chance of passing in the Senate. [CNBC] * In case you missed it, you shouldn't really be surprised by the fact that a judge turned down bail for convicted sex offender and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He'll remain in jail until trial. [New York Law Journal] * Disgraced former Case Western law school dean Lawrence Mitchell (now known as Ezra Wasserman Mitchell) was quietly let go without a contract renewal at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, where he'd been working as a visiting professor, after an investigation into his alleged misconduct. [Cleveland Scene] * It's been five years since FSU Law Professor Dan Markel was murdered in his own home, and we're still waiting for his killers to be brought to justice. [Tallahassee Democrat]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.25.18

* Lanny Davis, lawyer to Michael Cohen, was instrumental in leaking the Trump/McDougal tape to CNN last night. It's now official: Cohen has turned on Donald Trump. Listen to it here. [CNN] * Michael Avenatti, lawyer to porn actress Stormy Daniels, says he's interested in discussing a settlement with Michael Cohen about his client's "hush agreement" to keep quiet about her 2006 affair with Trump. Avenatti says a meeting was scheduled, then canceled by Cohen's other lawyer, and now they're calling each other liars. This is all par for the course. [CNN] * A split three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the Second Amendment allows the open carrying of guns in public. This comes two years after the court ruled that the Second Amendment did not allow the concealed carrying of guns in public. You can expect this to be appealed to the Ninth Circuit en banc. [Associated Press] * Dentons has come out swinging with denials against a sexual harassment case that was filed by a business development specialist last month, claiming that not only is the suit without merit, but that it also "misappropriates" the #MeToo movement. We'll have more on thisinteresting development later today. [American Lawyer] * If you live in a two-lawyer household, should you be sharing client secrets? The Ohio Supreme Court is about to answer that question for us, since there's apparently no case on the books about anything remotely like this. [Big Law Business] * If you're thinking about applying to law school ahead of a career in politics, then you may have to work a little harder to -- wait, nevermind, you can go to pretty much any law school since having a J.D. seems to be the gateway to government. [U.S. News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.23.18

* As it turns out, this Supreme Court gig was Judge Brett Kavanaugh's from the start. According to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire released this past weekend, the judge received a call from the White House within hours of Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement announcement being made public. [National Law Journal] * But hey, at least law students say that Judge Kavanaugh has "great hair!" -- and the Trump team thinks this is a very important fact that the American public ought to know, so it's been republished on the White House website. [New York Times; TIME] * Per President Trump, taping client conversations is "inconceivable," "totally unheard of," and "perhaps illegal," but his legal team decided to waive attorney-client privilege on the secret recording made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen with regard to possible payments to a Playboy model Karen anyway. [CBS News] * Matthew Bresette, a T&E attorney who formerly served as the managing partner of Nutter McClellan's Hyannis, Massachusetts, office, recently resigned after being temporarily suspended from practicing law following his misappropriation of funds from the firm and funds from his clients' trusts. [American Lawyer] * Fordham Law School has helped one of its incoming students invoke the anger of an entire country. In announcing that Kei Komuro, who is engaged to Princess Mako of Japan, would be attending the school, he was referred to as her fiancé, even though their "betrothal ceremony has not yet been held." People are MAD! [New York Times]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 03.21.18

* The President apparently got around? Former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal has filed suit against American Media, Inc., owner of The National Enquirer, to get out of an agreement that's preventing her from discussing her alleged affair with Donald Trump, which reportedly occurred around the same time as the Stormy Daniels affair. [CBS News] * What's going on at Latham & Watkins in the wake its former chairman Lathaming himself over inappropriate conduct involving "communications of a sexual nature"? According to a source at the firm, "[e]veryone is shocked" and no one has any idea who will replace Bill Voge as chair. [American Lawyer] * "This is not what the impeachment power is for...." Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers are moving to impeach the Democratic state Supreme Court justices who ruled the state’s congressional map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered. [Huffington Post] * Dechert has settled an age and sex discrimination case filed by female staff members. There are no details of the settlement available, but if you recall, the firm countered the ex-staffers' claims by saying that technological advances had made their jobs redundant. [Legal Intelligencer] * On Monday, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed the most restrictive abortion bill in the country, banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation. Less than 24 hours later, Judge Carlton Reeves granted a temporary restraining order in favor of the state's lone abortion clinic. [Associated Press]

By Staci Zaretsky