Locke Lord

* Harvey Weinstein is bringing on famed defense attorney Ben Brafman who is conveniently not representing the New York Times at the moment. [Reuters]

* Appellate attorney spoke candidly about the lack of funding for his death penalty appeal, prompting the state quickly remedy the situation to avoid the specter of injustice. Nah, just kidding, they fired the attorney. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* Texas judge ordered to take a class on listening. There are probably a few other judges that could use a refresher course on that. [Texas Lawyer]

* There’s a new GC at the NLRB and he’s fired up and ready to begin dismantling the agency and turning a blind eye to the constituents he’s supposed to serve. [Law360]

* Election day swept some Biglaw lawyers into office. [National Law Journal]

* Locke Lord hit with £500,000 over a London partner’s “dubious” financial arrangements. [American Lawyer]

* Companies continue to delay sweeping information governance changes. But soon they might be unavoidable if clients want to keep discovery costs down. [Legaltech News]

* A $30 million lawsuit against Morgan Lewis for alleged conflicts will go forward. [Legal Intelligencer]

* ASS Law is back in the news: Earlier this week, professors on the George Mason University Faculty Senate voted 21-13 to reopen the naming process on the already twice-renamed Antonin Scalia Law School. These professors must know that their actions have no impact on the administration’s decisions… right? [BuzzFeed News]

* Thanks to allegations of sexual harassment brought forward by courthouse personnel, Judge José A. Fusté of the District of Puerto Rico was allegedly forced by the First Circuit to “retire” from his position, effective June 1. If you’re unable to read in Spanish, Google Translate has a version in broken English that may be slightly helpful. [El Nuevo Día]

* Attention intellectual property attorneys, because your practice area just got a little more exciting. The Defend Trade Secrets Act passed in the House yesterday by a vote of 410-2, and that means the “most significant expansion of federal law in intellectual property since the Lanham Act in 1946” will likely soon become law. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “Transitioning at a Biglaw firm, are you crazy?” Not only is it possible to transition in Biglaw, but it’s possible to thrive as a transgender woman in Biglaw, and Sara Schnorr of Locke Lord had the full support of her firm. In fact, she was recently appointed to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. Congrats! [Big Law Business]

* “Is nonlawyer ownership of law firms long overdue? Or a bad idea?” The U.K. and Australia are already doing it, and now the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services is seeking comments for an issues paper on the risks and benefits of nonlawyer law firm ownership. Email us or tweet us and let us know what you think. [ABA Journal]

* “My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale … You can only get it on Tidal.” Uh-oh! Kanye West and music-streaming service Tidal are facing a proposed $5 million class-action lawsuit over the availability of the rapper’s album, The Life of Pablo, on other streaming services when it was supposed to be exclusive to Tidal. [Rolling Stone]

* Eighteen-year-old Marina Lonina stands accused of livestreaming her friend’s rape on Periscope, and faces charges of rape, sexual battery, and pandering sexual matter involving a minor. The prosecutor alleges the teen hoped the broadcast would stop the rape, but she “got caught up in the likes” instead. [The Cut / New York Magazine]

* Given that “Americans are less likely to support the court when it is portrayed as a political body — as it is during confirmation proceedings — and not a legal body,” it may not be wise for Chief Justice Roberts to enter the debate about nominee Judge Merrick Garland, especially since the SJC’s chair has already criticized him. [New York Times]

* Think twice before you hack a Biglaw firm’s computers, because it’ll cost you a pretty penny. A former IT employee who wreaked havoc upon Locke Lord’s computer network by disabling and deleting hundreds of user accounts was sentenced to more than nine years in prison and ordered to pay $1.69M in restitution. [Courthouse News Service]

* He’s biased, but Dr. Arthur E. Snyder, the president of Indiana Tech, says there is a resounding need for a “different kind of law school” in Indiana. He calls out other schools for growing too large and having to perform layoffs, and says Indiana Tech Law is dedicated to remaining small (likely because no one knows it exists). [News-Sentinel]

* “[I]t’s hard to find anybody as handsome as Antonin Scalia.” Some would beg to differ, but as it turns out, legal scholar Bryan Garner can brown-nose with the best of them. [WSJ Law Blog]

* For the third year in a row, Cooley Law graduates have mostly failed the July administration of the Michigan bar. So much for it being a “highly prestigious” law school. [Crain’s Detroit Business]

* In a lawsuit filed against real estate database Zillow, a former employee claims she was subjected to the “most heinous acts of sexual harassment imaginable” and “sexual torture.” That’s just lovely. [LAist]

* Law firm merger activity is still going strong as 2014 winds down to a close. Aside from big-name tie-ups like Bingham / Morgan Lewis and Locke Lord / Edwards Wildman, other firms like Verill Dana also had the urge to merge. [Am Law Daily]

* “Does it really surprise me? Not all that much.” University of Memphis School of Law students are on high alert during finals time after one of their own was almost robbed at gunpoint across the street from campus this week. Yikes. [WMC Action News 5]

* In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Above the Law’s managing editor, David Lat, wrote a book called Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), and it’s been receiving rave reviews. If you dig clerkship lit, you should try to check it out. [National Law Journal]

* As mentioned earlier, the Sixth Circuit upheld same-sex marriage bans in four states. Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey’s dissent is a very fun read because it’s dripping with sarcasm. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Sentencing has been delayed for Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s friends during the pendency of the Yates case at SCOTUS. Like a grouper, a backpack may not be a “tangible object.” [National Law Journal]

* Bingham McCutchen and Edwards Wildman Palmer are planning to shed lawyers and staff members in anticipation of their proposed mergers with Morgan Lewis and Locke Lord. Ouch. [Am Law Daily]

* Weekend reading? ATL’s managing editor, David Lat, reviews Blindfolds Off (affiliate link), an interesting collection of interviews with judges about how they decide their toughest cases. [Wall Street Journal]

* Everyone, please stop what you’re doing. Jeffrey Toobin has discovered that law schools are in trouble, and he’s on the case. You can read more information about this new phenomenon here. [The New Yorker]

* Adam Tang, the man who drove a 26-mile loop around Manhattan in 24 minutes, was convicted of reckless driving without being present. Check out the video of his crazy drive, after the jump. [ABA Journal]

* The right to choose… to drive out of state? SCOTUS rejected an application to block Texas from enforcing a law requiring abortion doctors to have privileges at nearby hospitals. [New York Times]

* Patton Boggs should prepare for the day when Locke Lord is too busy washing its hair to go on a date. The would-be merger is just one of many “interesting opportunities” the firm is considering. [Am Law Daily]

* In case you were wondering about the type of people who are accepted into Greenberg Traurig’s residency program, the recent law grad profiled in this article went to Nova Southeastern. [Sun Sentinel]

* Law firm merger mania, mid-size Midwest edition: Chi-Town law firm Shefsky & Froelich is the just latest in a very well-known group to be gobbled up by a much larger firm, only to have its name completely disappear. [Crain’s Chicago Business]

* When it comes to law faculty hiring, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is or what you’ve got between your legs, so long as your résumé is covered in Ivy and you’re dripping with prestige. [National Law Journal]

* Ave Maria School of Law is in need of a new dean. It seems the man who created the school’s “Advanced Critical Thinking Department” engaged in deep thought before deciding to call it quits. [Naples Daily News]