* Umm. St. Louis might be bringing back trial by combat? Dead men tell no tales, I suppose. [STL Today]
* People are still couching casual racism as a 1st Amendment issue, despite the key examples occurring at private institutions that aren't bound by it. [Reuters]
* The Judicial Big 4: Here are some key SCOTUS jurisprudence areas you should be paying attention to. May the retention of your rights be ever in your favor. [NLR]
* Breaking: Brilliant legal minds exist outside of HYS apparently. Might be something President Biden (and people looking over summer applicant resumes) ought keep in mind. [WaPo]
* No shot, no problem: Virginia universities drop vaccine requirements. [The Hill]
* SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED! Indiana is a step away from removing a common sense restriction on gun ownership. [Newsweek]
* Florida is looking to pass a 15-week abortion ban. See what you started, Texas? [Politico]
* Missouri police chiefs support a lawsuit that will take a shot at pinning down the meaning of an ambiguous gun law. [STL Today]
* Decisions have been made. Market is open. Giddy is up. Who wants the Broncos?! [Denver Post]
* A former officer sued the Seattle Police Department for firing him because he punched a woman handcuffed in the back of a police car. [Publicola]
* In Virus Other Than COVID™ news, research on a potential cure to HIV is underway. [Biospace]
* There's general disillusionment with the legitimacy of SCOTUS and the rule of law or whatever, but no one is asking the hard-hitting questions. Will 1Ls still have to take Con Law 2? [Business Insider]
* Missourians going the "liberty or death" route are mad the federal government is trying to make them die less. [The Guardian]
* In a much needed move, California is passing legislation that makes stealthing illegal. Don't commit assault, folks. [The New Yorker]
* Even more bright-eyed students are ignoring the sage wisdom of this song. If only they knew about issue-spotting before Torts. [Reuters]
* Lawmakers are expected to unveil a proposal to add four justices to the Supreme Court. Hope they realize that 13 is an unlucky number... [NBC News]
* The Illinois Attorney General's Office is investigating a hack of its computer network. [Chicago Tribune]
* A new lawsuit claims a California man was jailed recently because he resembled his brother. Thankfully, I don't look much like my triplet brothers...to their misfortune...! [San Francisco Chronicle]
* A Missouri doctor was recently awarded $26 million in a wrongful termination lawsuit. [Bekcer's Hospital Review]
* An Ohio lawyer has been reprimanded for conduct that required a judge to order the Bart Simpson-esque punishment of repeatedly writing that he would uphold ethical standards. Hope he didn't tell the judge to eat his shorts... [ABA Journal]
* Britney Spears scored a small victory in her conservatorship battle with her father after a judge allowed her to hire her own counsel. Guess now "she is that innocent"... [Variety]
* President Trump has refused to say whether he will keep Attorney General Barr if Trump wins reelection. [CNBC]
* A medical device company will pay millions and submit to monitoring as a result of allegations that the company paid kickbacks to doctors. This would have been a boring ending to Love and Other Drugs... [Salt Lake Tribune]
* Bernard Cohen, the lawyer who argued Loving v. Virginia at the Supreme Court, and was instrumental in eliminating interracial marriage bans, has passed away at the age of 86. [U.S. News & World Report]
* A Texas attorney has been charged for allegedly using his smartphone to record a coworker in a bathroom. [New York Post]
* The Missouri lawyer couple in hot water for allegedly pointing guns at protesters is purportedly handing out autographs. Soon, we may see them on Cameo... [Yahoo News]
* A lawyer who got ejected from the Second Circuit last year is asking the Supreme Court to hear his case. Since the high court is conducting arguments by phone currently, maybe he'll just get hung up on. [New York Law Journal]
* A lawyer who stole $128,000 from a mentally ill client has been suspended from practice. [Bloomberg Law]
* Missouri has become the first U.S. state to sue China over the COVID-19 pandemic. Not sure this is a distinction to be proud of. [U.S. News and World Report]
* A Texas judge has been forced to take down a rainbow flag after an attorney filed a complaint and compared the symbol to a swastika and Confederate flag. [Hill]
* Attorney General Barr has called stay-at-home orders "disturbingly close to house arrest" and the Justice Department might take actions against states that go too far. [NBC News]
* Lawyers are having a difficult time determining if COVID-19 is an act of God. Maybe they should subpoena the Almighty to get more clarity... [Bloomberg Law]
* According to White House counsel Don McGahn in comments made at CPAC, President Trump has picked judicial nominees "he can relate to." Hmm, so maybe that's why he chose people like leading legal luminaries Brett Talley, Jeff Mateer, and Judge John Bush. [National Law Journal]
* Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his onetime aide, Rick Gates, face tax and bank fraud charges in a new 32-count indictment in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russian election interference investigation. Do ya feel like taking a plea and cooperating now? [Bloomberg]
* Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted by a grand jury on a Class D felony charge of invasion of privacy after allegedly tying up a woman he had an affair with, taking a nude picture of her, and threatening to release it. He doesn't intend to resign and called the Circuit Attorney on the case a "reckless liberal prosecutor." [USA Today]
* Look out, Biglaw, because the Big Four are coming for you. Accounting firm PwC, which already has more than 1,000 legal contractors, is planning to expand its Flexible Legal Resources offering into global markets. [American Lawyer]
* A Reed Smith partner's widow has asked the Seventh Circuit to uphold a $3 million jury verdict against GlaxoSmithKline for its failure to warn about an alleged risk of suicidal behavior on Paxil's labeling. Her late husband took his own life days after starting a generic version of the antidepressant drug. [Big Law Business]
* Donald Trump has said that he is willing to testify, under oath, to dispute James Comey's Senate testimony. The progressive stages of grief go something like this...
Denial: He'll never do it.
Anger: He SHOULD, lying orange f**k.
Bargaining: 'Course, he's crazy enough that he just might do it.
Depression: Like any of these spineless Republicans would prosecute him for the perjury he'd certainly commit anyway.
Acceptance: Donald Trump is going to be president for the rest of my life. [CNN]
* Deutsche Bank is standing by their man, and their man is Donald Trump [Levin Report]
* ACLU is suing Missouri to stop implementation of Voter ID law. [Election Law Blog]
* Uh oh, the police mistakenly left their latest young black shooting victim alive to tell his side of the story. [The Root]
* This week in white people. [CNN]
* Trump's social media director violated the Hatch Act. If Obama's social media director did that, it'd lead the news. If Hillary's social media director did that, there'd be Senate hearings. But it's Trump's so... people will treat it like the minor story it is. [Huffington Post]
* White victimization media is very concerned about bad language. Yeah, the same people who elected the most openly foul-mouthed president since recording devices were invented are very concerned that Senator Kristen Gillibrand has been dropping some F-bombs at events. And they seem giddy that Reza Aslan has been dropped from CNN after some Tweets where he called President Trump a "piece of s**t." I gotta agree with CNN here: insulting fecal matter is unprofessional. Most decent people would rather have a steaming turd representing America than the orange embarrassment we're currently stuck with, so Aslan seems way out of line. [Breitbart]
Ed. note: In observance of the holidays, Above the Law will be on a reduced publication schedule today and dark Monday, December 26th. We hope you don't have to bill too much more in 2016! Have a happy holiday!
* Be careful when shopping last-minute holiday deals on Amazon -- counterfeits are aplenty. [Slate]
* This terrible Missouri law makes school fights a felony. [Huffington Post]
* Some law professors have their panties in a twist over the University of Oregon's handling of a law professor's decision to wear blackface to a Halloween party. [Tax Prof Blog]
* Lessons from the North Carolina political shit show. [Salon]
* Google's employee confidentiality agreement is the subject of a lawsuit. [Law and More]
Proper trust accounting and three-way reconciliation are essential for protecting client funds and avoiding serious compliance risks. In this guide, we break down these critical processes and show how legal-specific software can help your firm stay accurate, efficient, and audit-ready.
* Following up on today’s Morning Docket item about the blind law student challenging the ABA for discrimination, a tipster brought to our attention the recent loss of Justice Richard Teitelman of the Missouri Supreme Court, who faced discrimination trying to find work out of law school because of his own blindness. [STL Today]
* Finding impeachable offenses for which Donald Trump could face charges is becoming a cottage industry. [Salon]
* A Drexel Law professor, Lisa McElroy (remember her?), on why 'Love Trumps Hate.' [Huffington Post]
* How the NCAA prevents students from using the legal process. [Vice]
* How many Twitter followers you have may now be relevant to trademark inquiries. [The Fashion Law]
* A fascinating new documentary raises interesting questions of security for lawyers. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* D'Oh! A look at Christmas criminal crackdowns. [Versus Texas]
* A law school peeping tom? Police have arrested and charged 30-year-old Yiyan Wang with 15 counts of voyeurism for allegedly videotaping women inside a bathroom in UConn Law's library. He allegedly placed his phone beneath the stall walls to film them. He is currently being held on $250,000 bond, and will face a judge in early November. [FOX 61 Connecticut]
* "Walmart is the new marketplace. It's where people go. It makes sense to be there." Look out, Missouri, because The Law Store is coming to a Walmart Supercenter near you. The firm has three locations now, and COO Kurt Benecke says the firm is priced to compete with LegalZoom, charging flat fees without any hourly rates. [Springfield News-Leader]
* Zucker Goldberg & Ackerman, a defunct New Jersey foreclosure law firm which laid off hundreds of its employees last year, is now suing Wells Fargo, with the bankrupt firm claiming that the bank's extreme delays in correcting its robo-signing problems and its refusal to pay $2.5M for work performed caused the firm to fail. [Wall Street Journal]
* "Justice shouldn’t be about the money in your pocket. Justice has to be the same for everybody, no matter your station in life, color of your skin or resources in your pocket." Jonathan Lippman, who recently retired as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, will lead Fordham Law's new justice initiative. Congrats! [Big Law Business]
* Judge Vicente Bermudez, a Mexican federal jurist who handled appeals in several cartel cases, including those of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the jailed leader of the Sinaloa cartel, and Miguel Trevino, the former leader of the Zetas cartel, was assassinated at his home on Monday. Descanse en paz, Su Señoría. [Reuters]
* The essential questions every in-house counsel should ask before they pick a law firm. [Forbes]
* Donald Trump's comments advocating punishment for women who have abortions have been turned into an attack ad. That didn't take much time at all. [The Hill]
* Read up on the lawsuit filed by the US Women's National Team filed against US Soccer alleging discriminatory wage practices. [Huffington Post]
* What are the best practices for answering emails when you are at home? [Corporette]
* Another reason to not have lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices. [Medium]
* Yup, this is real: Missouri lawmakers made quite the mistake. [Gawker]
* Are you preparing mentally for the possibility of a brokered convention? Then read up on the last person to emerge as the candidate from a brokered convention to win the presidency. [Slate]
