Michelle Carter

The state of Massachusetts has created a duty, under criminal penalty, for minors and young adults to alleviate harmful psychological treatment.

It is impossible to deny that speech can cause harm, but direct regulation of harmful physical actions is preferable to indirect regulation of harmful conduct by censoring or criminalizing speech.

Are words that encourage others to commit suicide protected speech? The state of Massachusetts says no.

* “We take the allegations against Justin very seriously.” Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor of Virginia who’s embroiled in a sexual assault scandal, has taken a leave of absence from Morrison & Foerster, where he’s a partner, as the firm itself conducts its own investigation into the allegations. [National Law Journal]

* High revenue and even higher demand resulted in law firms posting their best results since just before the recession, with Am Law 50 and niche/boutique firms outperforming the rest of their industry counterparts. Unfortunately, all of this good news could come to an end in 2020… [American Lawyer]

* Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a former partner partner at Dorsey & Whitney and Gray Plant Mooty, has officially announced her candidacy for president, making her the fifth major player who’s a lawyer to join the Democratic race for 2020. [POLITICO]

* Thanks to the PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently learned that he’s not the only lawyer in his family. The show helped him discover that his third great grandfather — a 1786 law graduate of the University of Granada — graduated 210 years before he graduated from Miami Law. [Tampa Bay Times]

* “This should be up to the highest court in the land. And she should stay out of jail until this case runs it course.” A lawyer for Michelle Carter, the Massachusetts woman who was convicted for involuntary manslaughter in her friend’s suicide-by-text, has vowed to take her case to the Supreme Court. [Boston Herald]

* The White House announces ten new judicial nominations, including two for circuit courts (previously predicted in these pages). We’ll have more on this later. [Washington Times]

* King & Spalding joins Jones Day and Sullivan & Cromwell as a “feeder firm” for the Trump administration. [Law.com]

* Will the Trump Justice Department’s possible attack on affirmative action succeed? Law professors disagree. [How Appealing]

* Michelle Carter, the woman convicted for basically texting her boyfriend into committing suicide, gets sentenced to 15 months. [ABA Journal]

* White-collar criminal defense lawyers discuss what to expect from the grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. [National Law Journal]

* The trend continues: fewer law school graduates, better employment statistics. [ABA Journal]

* Elliot Katz, a leading lawyer in the self-driving-car space, motors from DLA Piper to McGuireWoods. [Law.com]

* If you’ll be online in the afternoon on Wednesday, August 16, join me and ABA Legal Career Central for a Twitter chat about career paths for lawyers, especially alternative careers. [American Bar Association]

Teen convicted for texting someone to death.

* In case you haven’t been keeping score like we have, these are the firms that recently raised salaries: Kilpatrick Townsend, Sutherland, Norton Rose Fulbright, Morgan Lewis (additional details), Troutman Sanders. If you’re worried you’ve missed any of our coverage on pay raises, you can check out our omnibus 2016 salary chart where we collect these stories. [2016 Salary Increase / Above the Law]

* “The plan was always to retire after this summer, retirement just came a little sooner than I’d hoped.” Olympic gold medalist Shannon Vreeland isn’t going to the Rio Olympics this summer; instead, she’ll be swimming in the completely the uncharted waters of law school at Vanderbilt. Will she be the new Aquagirl? [SwimSwam]

* Worried about Brexit? So are clients who have hired Mischon de Reya lawyers to make sure the British government doesn’t try to leave the EU without consulting parliament. “Everyone in Britain needs the government to apply the correct constitutional process and allow parliament to fulfill its democratic duty,” says a firm partner. [Bloomberg]

* Judge Richard Posner would like to sincerely apologize for saying that the Constitution isn’t worth the time judges have spent studying it. What he really meant to say was that he thinks the Constitution is so vague that judges are simply “do[ing] the best they can” to make the 17th century document applicable to our modern world. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it! You can’t think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don’t get why you aren’t.” Michelle Carter, the Massachusetts teen who walked her boyfriend through his suicide via text, will stand trial for involuntary manslaughter. [AP]

* “We saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and she just blew that tunnel up.” Massachusetts teen Michelle Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of her boyfriend after she texted him numerous times, encouraging him to kill himself. If you haven’t seen them, her messages are chilling. [Associated Press]

* “If you are a lawyer thinking about having sex with your client, you better think first.” Go ahead, argue that your client’s 30-day suspension from practice was “just” because the woman kept coming back for more. Maybe your judge won’t be as sarcastic. [Knoxville News Sentinel]

* If you’re starting law school, you probably haven’t heard about the biggest law firm bankruptcy in history, and you likely don’t know what the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal trial is about. Here’s a listicle of reasons to doubt the prosecution’s case. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Biglaw firms are rethinking their office space at the same time as they’re building up their posh amenities. At the end of the day, associates may be forced to move to cubicles, but it’s all for the clients’ benefit, so hooray for them. *golf claps* [Commercial Observer]

* Our congratulations go out to Alicia Ouellette, Albany Law School’s newest president and dean. We’re certainly hopeful that she’ll be able to handle the tenuous employment situation with the school’s tenured faculty better than her predecessor did. [Times Union]