NLRB

* When the Supreme Court tried to deflect the heat from Clarence Thomas taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts, the justices signed an ethics pinky swear. Alito breached it within the month. [Slate]

* Corporate legal departments are hiring smaller law firms to save money. I swear we wrote this exact same story… the last time there was a whiff of rate hikes only to have everything return to normal in a year. [Corporate Counsel]

* Sam Bankman-Fried preparing to blame Fenwick & West for everything. [Fortune]

* Texas lawmakers unveil new anti-ESG laws to limit insurance carriers from considering environmental issues. You know… the environmental issues they’re being asked to pay for. I’d like to limit life insurers from considering my career as a crocodile wrestler too, but c’est la vie. [Bloomberg Law News]

* The family at the center of the opioid crisis can successfully shield themselves from liability because that’s what corporations do! [Courthouse News Service]

* NLRB goes after non-compete agreements and it’s honestly a little shocking that they haven’t always been going after non-compete agreements. [Law360]

* Chris Christie announcing a presidential run next week. Over/under on the number of times he mentions that he was a prosecutor in his kickoff speech? I’m setting the line at 9. [CNN]

* Sam Bankman-Fried allowed to carry flip phone. Cue the Eighth Amendment. Just give him a rotary phone and be done with it. [Reuters]

* Former inspector general revisits the Supreme Court’s “oops, I mean, we talked to the justices ‘about’ the investigation but I cannot say that they were part ‘of’ the investigation” effort, and ruminates on how unbelievably inept this is. [The Atlantic]

* George Conway is getting a divorce from Kellyanne confirming that marriage requires more than one person with a foot in reality. [CNN]

* Starbucks’ labor troubles have gone from venti to cento. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Law360 continues to be laser-focused on the former NY Chief Judge Janet DiFiore beat, uncovering seemingly misleading testimony used to justify her multimillion-dollar publicly funded security detail. [Law360]

* A collection of crazy law firm merchandise. [LegalCheek]

* The economy is about to tank and cost 10,000+ lawyers their jobs. Maybe someone should step up and do something about it? [Slate]

* Simpson and Skadden are advising WeWork on its IPO. Common sense is advising everyone else against it. [American Lawyer]

* Latest Circuit Court nominee is 11 years out of law school, frighteningly making him a model of experience. [National Law Journal]

* Recovering from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate is going to be a hell of a mess. [New York Law Journal]

* The short-sell attack on Burford Capital could spark more regulation… even if the whole thing was bogus. [Law.com]

* The idiot in charge of Barstool Sports stumbles into NLRB violation then demands AOC “debate” him. It’s not a debate dude. It’s a law that you broke. There’s not a gray area for contestation. [Variety]

* Easing older partners out the door presents all sorts of problems in eat-what-you-kill firms. [American Lawyer]

* Doctor saves juror’s life during med mal trial. [ABA Journal]

* Remember the cyclist who flipped off the Trump motorcade and then got fired from her job at a government contractor? Yeah, she’s suing over that BS. [Courthouse News Service]

* Do you want fries with that? NLRB’s top-notch customer service bends over backward to help McDonald’s avoid answering for labor law infractions. [Law360]

* South Korea’s former president gets 24 years in corruption case. [Reuters]

* State supreme court releases its opinion allowing Tarra Simmons to take the bar exam. [Seattle Times]

* Legal aid is moving into doctor’s offices to help pregnant women fight for their rights. [Slate]

* 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]

* The Hamilton Ponzi scheme ends in a guilty plea. Well, he had his shot. [New York Law Journal]

* You know who is really worried about the Paul Manafort case? Every lawyer who acts as a lobbyist and thinks, “uh oh… this criminal complaint reads a lot like my billable hour diaries.” [National Law Journal]

* Charleston School of Law didn’t have a very good bar exam. [Post and Courier]

* Womble completes its merger with Bond Dickinson. [American Lawyer]

* NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin’s term has ended. So gear up for the new Lochner-era! [Law360]

* Game-changing litigation moves. Probably not game-changing… game-adjusting. [Litigation Daily]

* Baker Botts files SCOTUS brief reminding them what wedding cakes look like. Someday we’ll look back on a case designed to create second class citizens and think, “oh right, that’s the one where the Supreme Court decided with the help of a picture book.” [National Law Journal]

* Pepe the Frog’s creator is going nuclear with his intellectual property challenges against the Nazi scum who’ve turned his character into a mascot. [Engadget]

* Trader seeks to withdraw guilty plea after government shows him evidence that he probably didn’t commit a crime. The more you ponder that sentence, the more troubling it is. [Law 360]

* There are more female equity partners than ever, which means still not very many. [Am Law Daily]

* BuzzFeed hires Roy Black in the defamation case over the Trump dossier. Specifically, this case is about the allegations in the dossier that Aleksej Gubarev hacked the Democrats, but that’s no fun, so let’s remember the dossier also talked about Russian pee parties. [Law.com]

* A review of the federal government’s merits and amicus arguments this Term and it’s an aggressive invitation to legislate from the bench. So much for railing against “activist judges”! [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Harvard University is hoping Trump’s NLRB changes labor law so they can crush unionization efforts on campus. Damn liberal, socialist colleges. [Labor Notes]

* Here’s one to make some of you feel very old: Toys R Us files for bankruptcy. [Huffington Post]

* 50 Cent is suing Reed Smith for malpractice. As they say, “Get Rich Or Sue Your Lawyers.” [Law.com]

* The federal government lags in cybersecurity because all the talent is going to the private sector. [New York Law Journal]

* Nothing says, “politics as usual” better than the South Dakota legislature declaring an “emergency” to overturn an ethics law. [Huffington Post]

* D.C. Circuit blocks state attorneys general from coming to the defense of the CFPB. [National Law Journal]

* Kellyanne scolds America for not remembering the Bowling Green massacre. Admittedly it’s easy to forget, what with it never happening and all. [CNN]

* Trump plans to roll back the protections put in place after the financial crisis. Presumably next week he’ll take action to eliminate airbags because, “hey my car isn’t crashing right this second, why does anyone need these?” [Wall Street Journal]

* NFL TE turned Wiley Rein associate Colin Cloherty has a hard time picking who to root for in the Super Bowl. [The Am Law Daily]

* The NLRB’s general counsel issued a memo recognizing college football players as employees, because they fit every conceivable definition of an employee. So obviously politicians — of one party anyway — are demanding his resignation. [Law360]

* Good news if you’ve made it to midlevel associate — survey says you’re happier than ever. [American Lawyer]

* Amal Clooney lost a case in Egypt, her client was one of three Al-Jazeera journalists sentenced to prison for their coverage of the 2013 uprising. Clooney warned the sentence sends a “dangerous message.” [People]

* More and more Pennsylvania firms are getting on-board with the $160k pay scale. [Legal Intelligencer]

* Chalk another victory up for the Amazing Schneiderman — that’s New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. This time, retail giant Gap Inc. has fallen in line. [Fashionista]

* A happy ending for David Powers, whose admission to St. John’s Law was revoked after officials there found out about a drug conviction. He’s starting at Pace Law today. [New York Times]

* When a client announces a new general counsel, law firms should consider that a wake-up call — or get fired. [Corporate Counsel]

* In truly horrific news, two Indian sisters were sentenced to be gang raped as punishment for their brother eloping with a woman of a different caste. The (hopefully) good news is the women have appealed to the Indian Supreme Court for protection. [Jezebel]

* What do in-house counsel need to know about the recent NLRB decision expanding the concept of joint-employers? [Law360]