Kevin Spacey

Spacey's lawyers have proven quite adept at (eventually) swatting away civil and criminal cases alike. But those lawyers didn't work cheap.

* Trump countersues in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit. He also asserts that the defamatory statements themselves are “privileged and protected under the doctrine of absolute presidential immunity.” For those of you studying for the bar, that’s what we mean when we say, “first eliminate the obviously wrong answer.” [New York Times]

* Rudy Giuliani interviewed in the January 6 probe. He’s gonna need to make some more Cameos! [AP News]

* Term limits for active status federal judges is a sensible, simple reform to maintain the integrity of the judiciary and disrupt the “race to the bottom” incentivizing the nomination of unqualified young judges. But if that’s NOT the system, then you all need to leave Judge Newman alone. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Amazon has some sort of blacklist to undermine IP attorneys, “while directing them to their own Amazon Accelerator Program and their ‘curated’ attorneys.” They’ve settled defamation claims already, but I’d imagine some state bar might be interested in knowing what, exactly, goes into joining that “curated” list. [Law.com]

* Chancellor laughs off Disney investor suit looking to make a case out of the company’s decision to oppose bigotry and, ultimately, drag Supreme Court dicta into a fight. [Law360]

* Kevin Spacey goes to court in wide-ranging sex offense trial. [Reuters]

* Attorneys in the Gates divorce also worked on the Bezos split-up. Maybe Gates read a good online review of the lawyer written by Bezos… [CNN]

* A Kevin Spacey accuser must reveal his name in order for his lawsuit to proceed. [Huff Post]

* The military promotion of the South Dakota Attorney General has been blocked because of his involvement in a deadly car collision last year. [ABC News]

* Coca-Cola is pausing its plan to incentivize the use of diverse attorneys after the general counsel that spearheaded the effort resigned. [New York Post]

* Check out this interesting article about which judges get their opinions affirmed or overturned the most at the Supreme Court. [Juris Lab]

* Apparently, the actor who played C-3PO in the Star Wars films dropped out of law school to pursue an acting career. This was probably the correct career choice. [Business Insider]

* A Manhattan attorney is alleging that his former law partner blackmailed him to stay quiet about his purported affairs. [New York Post]

* Kevin Spacey has settled a sexual assault lawsuit that had been filed against the actor. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Attorneys for Robert Durst agree that he wrote a note informing authorities about the location of the body of his friend. [Fox Business]

* A University of Illinois law professor accused of sexual harassment will not be returning to teaching duties next semester. [Chicago Tribune]

* The D.C. Circuit awarded more than $501M in damages to the family of Otto Warmbier, the student who tortured so badly in North Korea that he was left deaf, blind, unable to speak, and died shortly after he returned home. [New York Times]

* Trump’s DOJ has filed many emergency SCOTUS requests to bypass lower courts, but here are the ones to watch: the asylum ban, the DACA wind-down, the transgender military ban, the citizenship census, and kids’ climate change. [PBS NewsHour]

* Ex-district judge and U.S. AG Michael Mukasey says Bill Barr is “probably the best-qualified nominee for U.S. attorney general since Robert Jackson in 1940.” Mukasey has also linked “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to Islamic terrorism. [Wall Street Journal]

* Not even a weird video in character as Frank Underwood can help him now: Kevin Spacey has been accused of sexually assaulting a minor and is scheduled to be arraigned on a felony charge of indecent assault and battery. [Boston Globe]

* In case you missed it,after declaring war against the lack of diversity in the arbitration world, rapper Jay-Z managed to get the American Arbitration Association to commit to expanding its roster of black arbitrators. [Hollywood Reporter]

We cannot assume that because these men committed crimes, their lives are now worthless and any past achievements they've made -- or future ones they've yet to realize -- should be relegated to the trash bin.

Legal services are expensive. Duh. And sometimes clients do not want to pay their bills. Maybe the case outcome wasn’t what the client hoped for. Maybe the bill was significantly higher than expected. There are all sorts of reasons that attorneys just have to say, “Eff you, pay me.” The thing is, you normally associate […]