Nick Denton

The film is definitely harrowing, although it could have dug deeper into the issues.

* Are you ready to be tracked online, everyone? Senate Republicans voted yesterday to overturn internet privacy protections for individuals that were created by the Federal Communications Commission in October. “These were the strongest online privacy rules to date, and this vote is a huge step backwards in consumer protection writ large.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* Being forced to resign from your position isn’t so bad when you can land a sweet gig as a law professor. Barbara McQuade and Preet Bharara aren’t the only U.S. Attorneys who found new homes at law schools in the wake of their recent ouster by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Paul Fishman, the former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, is now a visiting fellow at Seton Hall University School of Law. Congrats! [Law.com]

* Mary Yelenick, the third Chadbourne & Parke partner to join the $100 million gender bias class-action suit filed against the firm, claims she was pressured to disavow the allegations in a letter signed by fourteen of the firm’s then-sixteen female partners. “At least two of the partners who signed the letter subsequently expressed to me that they hesitated, but felt great pressure to sign the letter,” she says. [Big Law Business]

* Gawker may be approaching a “potential settlement” with Peter Thiel relative to the tech billionaire’s vendetta against the website. The feud led to Thiel’s funding of several lawsuits against Gawker, including the one filed by wrestler Hulk Hogan which eventually bankrupted the site. Any deal between the parties would likely protect Gawker founder Nick Denton from any future Thiel-funded lawsuits. [New York Post]

* Illinois may be getting ready to puff, puff, pass some legislation that will legalize recreational marijuana. Senate Bill 316 and House Bill 2353 will allow adults to possess up to 28 grams of marijuana and regulate its sale, tax, cultivation, and use. The state already allows patients with certain ailments to use medical marijuana and decriminalized possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana last year. [Newsweek]

What this means is that the freedom of the press means whatever Peter Thiel decides it means.

* Sonia Sotomayor is proving she is a different kind of Supreme Court justice. [Guile is Good]

* Nick Denton gets a nice payday in exchange for a non-compete clause. [Wall Street Journal]

* Federal judge rules Ferguson School District violated the Voting Rights Act. [Huffington Post]

* Democrats are screwing up Obamacare — does this open the door to the single-payer option? [Slate]

* Even Mike Pence can’t keep a straight face when confronted with Trump’s “ideas.” [Salon]

* The battle over #sponsored posts continues. [Speechwriter-Ghostwriter]

* No maternity leave? No problem. Just learn the basics of an office birth. [Funny or Die]

The embattled media company has hired high-priced talent to help it through its troubles.

*  An in-depth look at the 2016 cert petitions that have been granted, and those still pending. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Ballerina Misty Copeland got married to a lawyer, Olu Evans. [People]

* Remember how awful forced arbitration clauses have gotten? The Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School is doing something about it in the financial services sector. [Center JD]

* Hope you aren’t expecting any good news related to attorneys and addiction issues, because there isn’t much. [Forbes]

* How is the practice of law evolving? [Prism Legal]

* One of Donald Trump’s former attorneys really doesn’t think you should vote for him. [Huffington Post]

* Nick Denton filed for personal bankruptcy. [Law and More]

* Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) is leading a filibuster to demand Congress actually act on gun control. Many Democrats and Republican Senator Pat Toomey have all spoken on the issue. [Slate]

* Music is the first order of business in a copyright trial — well, when the subject of the complaint is Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, it is. [Courthouse News Service]

* An analysis of the role of a human rights worker. [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* Gawker is under more legal threats, this time for writing an article about Donald Trump’s hair. [Law and More]

* But Nick Denton assures us, despite legal threats and filing for bankruptcy, the business will be just fine. [Gawker]

* Interesting piece by Donald Trump SCOTUS shortlister on how state high courts deal with the “Scalia problem,” that is, potential stalemates or ties. [Wall Street Journal]

* The Hulk Hogan verdict is looming over the latest addition to the New York rental market: for $15,000 a month, you can rent Nick Denton’s Soho apartment. [New York Post]

* A look at the Supreme Court dissents that attack the majority opinion. Spoiler alert: they mainly come from Justice Thomas. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* The FBI launched an intense investigation into foreclosure fraud in Florida after the financial collapse of 2008. Why did it only result in one conviction? [Vice]

* 7 tips for developing business out of being a social media influencer. [Law and More]

* Gawker asks judge to reduce or set aside the $140.1 million Hogan verdict. That’s nice to offer the judge avoid a humiliating reversal on appeal. And yet I’ve seen Wrestlemania, so expect the doomed judge to hit Nick Denton over the head with a chair while he isn’t looking before this gets better. [Capital New York]

* Ramon Fonseca assures the world that all of its operations were legal. Sure. I mean, cockfighting is still legal in Panama so this might not be the most ringing affirmation. [NBC News]

* The Stoli trademark battle may be headed to the Supreme Court. That’s absolut-ly crazy. [Law360]

* There’s an unauthorized Walking Dead theme restaurant out there in case you had a hankering for some possum and cheese whiz and there’s no Carl’s Jr. nearby. [Litigation Daily]

* Which Biglaw firms are making big bucks off baseball season? [The Am Law Daily]

* Eric Conn, dubbed “Mr. Social Security” arrested on federal charges that his immense success is due less to his legal acumen than “paying a doctor and a judge to rubber-stamp false disability claims using phony medical evidence.” Remember when he hired Miss Congeniality USA as a PR flack? Those were happier days. [ABC News]

* North Carolina releases its February bar exam results. So we know of at least 201 people who couldn’t let the championship game spoil their high. You may say, “well Duke students weren’t going to be devastated by the game.” Silly rabbit, Duke kids aren’t taking the February exam. [Bar Exam Stats]

* No matter what your right-wing uncle posts on Facebook, or what that drunken Bernie Bro tried to convince you of at a bar, no: Hillary Clinton is not getting indicted over her use of emails while at the State Department. Don’t believe me? Ask a law professor. [Media Matters]

* If you’re wondering what Mitch McConnell is thinking, overtly being an obstructionist over President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, you aren’t alone. But here is some insight as to why he is playing this political game. [Guile is Good]

* We told you the Gawker verdict was no damn good. [Gawker]

* Will it take a Cesar Chavez to takedown rideshare giants like Uber and Lyft? [Casetext]

* Now that Donald Trump is within striking distance of the GOP nomination for president, will that impact potential sanctions against these lawyers? [Wise Law]

* Columbia Law hosted a conference about Asian-Americans in the law, with our own David Lat, about demystifying the model minority myth and the “Bamboo Ceiling.” [Columbia Law School]

* Can you make pre-packaged marketing materials work for you? [Reboot Your Law Practice]

* Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill will be leaving public service and heading to Biglaw. She leaves the FTC effective March 31 and will then join Hogan Lovells. [Reuters]

* WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHER, WHEN THIS JURY’S PUNITIVE DAMAGES AWARD RUNS WILD ON YOU?!? Gawker was hit with an additional $25M in punitive damages yesterday in Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit, on top of the $115M award the jury had already slapped the media company with last week. That loud typing sound you hear is the appeals being furiously written. [Reuters]

* They were gonna grant you leave to file, but then they got high? The Supreme Court has puff, puff, passed on the opportunity to hear a challenge posed by Nebraska and Oklahoma to Colorado’s legalization of marijuana. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented, contending that the case fell within the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction. [NPR]

* This took longer than the iOS 9 download: Hot on the heels of the announcement of new Apple products, we got the news that the tech giant and its rival, Samsung, will face off next term before SCOTUS in a patent case that’s been going on since the iPhone 4 was still considered the latest and greatest in smartphone technology. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “Once you start seeing leading law firms offering this, it’s going to become more prevalent and pretty rapidly, because it’s going to be required to compete.” Lawyers with law school debt will probably jump at the chance for their firms to pitch in to repay their loans, but don’t forget, all of that assistance will be taxable as income. [U.S. News]

* “My job is to enforce the law, and starting today, DraftKings and FanDuel will abide by it.” In a settlement reached with New York AG Eric Schneiderman, the sports betting daily fantasy sites will cease operations in the state, and in exchange, the AG will hold off on additional litigation that could force them to pay restitution to their losers. [ESPN]

Did anything even happen if it isn't incessantly documented with pics and videos?

What are some easy steps that you can take to protect your privacy online?

Gawker pins Hulk Hogan to the mat in the latest round of this bitter legal battle.

* The slashing of the Quinn Emanuel summer program gets the Dr. Seuss (a great legal inspiration in his own right) treatment. And from what we hear, John Quinn likes this cartoon so much he wants to buy the image. [The Recorder] * Prosecutors subpoena a 3 month old girl to testify. When informed of […]

Meet Heather Dietrick, president and general counsel of Gawker Media, who's now spearheading Gawker's defense in the Hulk Hogan sex video lawsuit.

* With a sharp focus on the Supreme Court and the legal definition of equality, only one thing’s for sure with respect to this week’s anticipated rulings: at least one group of people is probably going to get screwed. [New York Times]

* And lest we forget, thanks to our society’s near slavish obsession with social media and knowledge on demand, we’ll salivate uncontrollably as we wait for those opinions while the justices blissfully ignore new technology. [New York Times]

* The Justice Department charged NSA leaker Edward Snowden with espionage, and now he’s pursuing political asylum in Ecuador with the assistance of legal counsel representing WikiLeaks. [NBC News]

* Biglaw firms are trying to strengthen their pricing power in a post-recession world, with average rate increases of 4.8% in 2012, and hourly rates soaring in New York City. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* There were some bright spots in the otherwise dismal NALP job numbers for the class of 2012. Biglaw hiring is up, and so are median starting salaries. Sallie Mae is pleased as punch. [National Law Journal]

* If you’re considering law school, ask yourself these questions before applying. You should also ask yourself if you’re cool with unemployment. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Richard Trenk, author of the “ham-fisted” cease-and-desist letter that’s been read around the world, has been honored as the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s “Knucklehead of the Week.” Congrats! [Star-Ledger]

* There’s no solace for people who have had to pay to have their mug shot “depublished” from the internet. Sorry, the First Amendment allows people to turn a profit off your misery. [Washington Post]

* This lawsuit over unpaid internships filed against Gawker will sting any gossip girl’s heart to the core. But really, isn’t the privilege of working for Gawker enough? This fangirl thinks so. [New York Post]

Thoreau admonished us that we cannot “kill time without injuring eternity.” But what did he know? That proto-hippie pond-fetishist could not have imagined today’s world, where our collective attention spans have shriveled to goldfish levels and so much actual productive white-collar labor can be, to an observer, indistinguishable from simply loitering in front of a […]