Legal Aid

* In college hoops corruption trial, it seems the defense wants to confuse having a “reason” with having an “excuse.” The judge is not here for it. [Law360]

* On the same theme, here’s an exploration of how billable hour pricing models encourage overbilling that doesn’t confuse identifying the impetus of bad behavior with excusing it. [American Lawyer]

* Dog Gone! DA drops animal cruelty charges in “authorities accuse lawyer of sex with dog” case, putting an end to the most bizarre of the charges. All the drug and firearm charges though… yeah, he had to plead guilty to those. But Snoopy’s honor is restored. [Trib Live]

* Google, a company worth billions, gets hit with $57 million GDPR fine, reinforcing that GDPR is a lot of useful bark but very little actual bite — at least for now. [NY Times]

* Legal Aid fighting back against law that lets private investors pay off people’s minor tax bills and then seize their homes. [Omaha World-Herald]

* Shutdown may start killing people directly — federal worker needs her insurance back to live. [Courthouse News Service]

* Ghost of former national Chief Justice upset according to psychic. [Legal Cheek]

* Paul Manafort loses evidence motion. He should embrace that feeling of loss. [Courthouse News Service]

* CNBC criticizes the Cohen case Special Master, Judge Barbara Jones, for charging $330K for document review. This is, of course, an entirely reasonable fee for a case of this import but CNBC has clearly let their bias flag fly. [CNBC]

* While America focuses, fairly, on children suffering institutional child abuse, please take a second to remember that cops straight up killed a teenager running from a traffic stop. One could say, “why was he running?” but I’ve seen the video of Philando Castile’s death — staying peacefully in a car isn’t necessarily safe anymore. [CBS News]

* The new awareness of widespread sexual harassment in the workplace may have another positive side effect: women are advancing to partnership faster than before. [American Lawyer]

* Dumb people are up in arms that the ACLU might shift its resources away from random Nazis toward other projects that don’t have hordes of self-styled rebel lawyers and downright crypto-fascist attorneys ready to defend them pro bono. This video, however, is exactly why the ACLU is right to reorient itself to focus on more pressing challenges. [io9]

* Trump proposes merging the Education Department with the Department of Labor. Do you know how hard he had to work to make this not his dumbest idea of the week? We’re going to have to build the Starship Trump just so America doesn’t focus on this nonsense. [NPR]

* NY’s Mayor is doing more to protect unfairly targeted immigrants than almost anyone in America and his policy has a glaring, awful hole in its provision of legal aid. [NY Daily News]

* Sometimes you fall for someone who is always jerking you around and the whole thing is just doomed from the start. That’s… probably how Norton Rose feels. [Big Law Business]

* Speaking of Chadbourne, Judge J. Paul Oetken has denied the firm’s motions to end the $100 million gender discrimination class action they’re facing. [Am Law Daily]

* Marcia Coyle points to the tragic coincidence that the Supreme Court is set to review a concealed carry case the day after yesterday’s shooting — mirroring their review of Sandy Hook legislation the day after the Orlando attack. It’s not really a coincidence… there are shootings every day now. [Law.com]

* A little preview of the hoopla surrounding the upcoming Bristol-Myers Squibb decision where the Supreme Court is suspected to crack down on class action forum choices. Because mom and pop stores like Bristol-Myers Squibb just can’t be bothered to litigate in all the places they sell drugs. [Corporate Counsel]

* Since the NBA Finals weren’t really competitive, maybe you can get your competitive sports fix from this Wilkinson v. Kessler showdown over football. [National Law Journal]

* That Jim Harbaugh is the face of legal aid will never stop being insane. [ESPN]

* Looks like Anna Stubblefield will get a new trial. [Slate]

* Prosecutors raid Jones Day. This is not a joke. [Am Law Daily]

* Jim Harbaugh’s gonna be pissed. [ABA Journal]

* Harvard Law grad sentenced in kidnapping case. [SF Gate]

* Judge Gorsuch doesn’t really buy legislative history because sticking your fingers in your ears and going, “na, na, na, I’m not listening” is always solid jurisprudence. [Corporate Counsel]

* Should privilege cover PR flacks? [Law360]

* Lawyers may hate numbers, but clients don’t. [Legaltech News]

* Florida wants to bolster its stand your ground law, because there’s never been any problems with it. [Washington Post]

* The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has extended a deadline to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request asking who the director of the agency is. That’s all they want. And the PTO asked for more time to respond! The absurdity of this reminds me of Apocalypse Now. [IP Watchdog]

* You’ve heard about Justice Ginsburg’s workout regimen. Well, Politico sent a reporter to do it and… it nearly broke him. [Politico]

* Divorce judge sued for allegedly spitting on a former Mintz Levin attorney. The New York legal community keeping it classy. [Law360]

* In totally unsurprising move, guy who thought the KKK was cool until he found out they smoked pot withdraws the government’s objection to Texas efforts to suppress minority voting. [NY Times]

* More law firms are changing their partner compensation models to create an even more competitive environment. There’s no way this can backfire and create a woefully dysfunctional partnership. Nope. [Law.com]

* The Jeffrey Wertkin case puts a spotlight on the whole whistle-blower unit. [Bloomberg]

* Winston & Strawn are going after laterals pretty hard. [Am Law Daily]

* Now might be a good time to make a donation to legal aid. [Litigation Daily]