Microsoft

* A judge has denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Amazon challenging the award of a lucrative Defense Department contract to Microsoft. Guess Jeff Bezos doesn’t have enough money already… [Verge]

* The FBI has purportedly seized a phone from a lawyer who has ties to Rudy Giuliani. [Salon]

* A lawyer connected to “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has resigned from the New York Bar. [Bloomberg Law]

* The family of a protester shot and killed by police during the Capitol riot earlier this year is filing a wrongful death lawsuit. [NBC News]

* A New York lawyer, who is accused of vanishing and leaving clients and their money in the lurch, allegedly forged his mother’s signature on loan documents. Guess the joke about lawyers being willing to throw their mothers under the bus might be true for some people… [Commercial Observer]

* Microsoft has asked that a lawsuit involving XBox controllers be submitted to arbitration. Would be amazing if they settled this matter with a videogame battle… [Videogame Chronicle]

* A pro-Trump lawyer is in hot water for seemingly suggesting that Vice President Mike Pence should be executed by firing squad. [Business Insider]

* Joe Biden has named a top lawyer for Facebook to the White House Staff Secretary position. [Vox]

* A federal appeals court has dismissed an election lawsuit filed by a Republican lawmaker against Vice President Mike Pence. [NBC News]

* A Supreme Court advocate reportedly doled out $100 to keep people quiet when he phoned into Supreme Court oral arguments from home. Hope he got reimbursed for that expense… [Wall Street Journal]

* A class action about Xbox controllers that allegedly “drift” has been beefed up. I used to blame controllers when I lost at GoldenEye as a kid… [Video Games Chronicle]

* Andrew Cuomo apparently has “no interest in going to Washington” to become Attorney General if Joe Biden is elected president. [Fox News]

* A Connecticut lawyer who served time in federal prison for fraud is seeking reinstatement to the Connecticut Bar. [CT Post]

* Law School Transparency is hosting an event on the future of the bar exam that you should all check out! [Law School Transparency]

* A black man who was allegedly led through Galveston, Texas, by a white police officer on horseback is suing the city for $1 million. [CNN]

* The Florida Bar says a lawyer acted so poorly, the judge had to “resort to a discipline strategy typically reserved to parents separating bickering siblings.” This sounds like so many depositions I’ve attended… [Daily Business Review]

* Sadly, it looks like they won’t be making a TV series based on the movie Lincoln Lawyer. Maybe they can just work plot lines into those car commercials with Matthew McConaughey. [Deadline]

* Megan Markle is facing setbacks in her privacy litigation against a British tabloid. [NBC News]

* A lawyer is in hot water after writing a will that named himself the primary beneficiary of a $1.7 million estate. That attorney could use an ethics refresher… [Washington Post]

* If you are looking on LinkedIn for legal freelance opportunities, be sure to check out this article. [Silicon Valley Business Journal]

* Microsoft is facing a class-action lawsuit alleging that some XBox controllers are defective. Gamers should receive damages for pain and suffering, gaming is a welcome diversion from COVID-19. [Screen Rant]

* Michael Cohen has been denied early prison release after indicating he will publish a “tell-all” book about President Trump. Guess Cohen doesn’t need to worry about confidentiality since his disbarment. [Business Insider]

* Colin Kaepernick’s lawsuit against the NFL alleging collusion between NFL teams will be allowed to go forward, at least to a full hearing. [Slate]

* A former NBC exec says the network threatened to smear Ronan Farrow if he kept investigating Harvey Weinstein. [Daily Beast]

* Proskauer settles lawsuit over the work the firm did for convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford… to the tune of $63 million. [New York Law Journal]

* A Mueller bombshell to drop by 5pm today? We’ll be watching. [Mediaite]

* Inside the fight to deregulate the U.K. legal market. [The Financial Times]

* Microsoft is doubling down in making sure its outside law firms (and other suppliers) provide paid parental leave for their employees. [Corporate Counsel]

* Bank of America is facing backlash after freezing accounts of people they suspect as being non-U.S. citizens. [Huffington Post]

* Amal Clooney, the acclaimed lawyer who is working a side hustle as a visiting professor at Columbia Law, left her apartment while wearing clothes. This is apparently a very big deal. Oh, did we mention she’s married to George Clooney? Because she is. [Daily Mail]

* Both Microsoft and the Department of Justice have asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a high-profile data privacy case even though oral arguments have already been heard due to the fact that a new law, the CLOUD Act, has made it moot. [Reuters]

* Villanova Law students got the day off yesterday to continue celebrating the Wildcats’ 79-62 win in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The team’s chaplain who delivers a prayer before every game is a lawyer. [Legal Intelligencer]

* “She’s created the impression that I’ve done something wrong and I haven’t even had final adjudication.” Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea of DePaul Law has canceled Professor Donald Hermann’s class in the middle of the semester after he used the N-word during a lecture. We may have more on this later. [Chicago Sun-Times]

* In the lead up to the release of the 2018 Am Law 100, the American Lawyer has been publishing articles about firms’ impressive financial feats. One of the latest articles is about Strasburger & Price’s 9 percent jump in net income — which likely means that Strasburger may have made it (at least into the Am Law 200). [American Lawyer]