North Carolina

A look at what's happening in North Carolina.

And you pro hac-ed in, too!

Not porny at all, dude.

Should you really need to pass the bar to be able to help someone file for divorce? Probably not.

* Justice Ketanji has stood out for her questions. Her decisions have fallen in line with the others thus far. [ABA Journal]

* A Texas judge could play a role in banning abortion pills nationwide: Quite a lot of intervention from the Lone Star state. [Reuters]

* Like voting? You should follow this one: North Carolina’s redistricting case is gonna have some spillover. [Reuters]

* The “Rust” prosecutor flaked. [NYT]

* Conflicts of interest are no joke in these parts. [NY Daily News]

* Want a popular policy done, but Congress is uncooperative? Enter Executive Orders. Joe Biden plans to issue one on gun background checks today. [Bloomberg Law]

* Can partisan gerrymandering get worse? Yes, yes it can. Today the North Carolina Supreme Court will reconsider the issue, which could have major repercussions for national politics. [Reuters]

* Supreme Court to consider whether the Constitution provides protection against anti-trans discrimination. And I am sure completely coincidentally, a vocally anti-trans federal judge finds himself in the news. [Vox]

* Court issues blow to California labor movement: an appeals court found ride share services can classify drivers as independent contractors instead of employees. [Huffington Post]

* It’s not that law school deans want to end rankings, it’s that they want to make them better. [Slate]

* Michael Cohen takes the stand: Donald Trump’s one-time fixer is singing to a New York grand jury. [Law360]

‘What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or ever rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.’ - Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations

Dude is giving everyone else a bad name.

* Employees fired for not praying at work. Good thing we have the Establishment Clau…nevermind. [Newsweek]

* Given this Court, it may be a bad time to be gay in Texas. [The Hill]

* North Carolina’s vigilantes aren’t getting the go-ahead from their police chief. [Fox]

* Not The Onion: After promising to do everything he could to protect a woman’s right to choose, Biden is nominating an anti-abortion judge for life. [Business Insider]

* Bound 2 litigate: Ye West sued over sampling this banger of a house track. Shouts out to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas! [Reuters]

Bout damn time!

* A lawsuit claims that candles made by a company owned by Gwyneth Paltrow exploded. Wonder if Serenity by Jan made similar products… [NBC News]

* The St. Louis lawyer, who was infamously photographed wielding a gun in front of protesters last year, has announced his run for a U.S. Senate seat. [Kansas City Star]

* The City of Sacramento has settled a lawsuit over a law that required people to stand during the national anthem. [Sacramento Bee]

* An appeals judge in North Carolina has been issued a criminal summons for allegedly nearly hitting protesters with an SUV. [ABA Journal]

* Since Above the Law has not had a “lawyerly lairs” segment in a while, wanted to relate that the home of the founder of 1-800-LAWYERS is on the market. [New York Post]

* A Long Island lawyer has filed nearly 100 lawsuits alleging that companies are falsely claiming their products contain vanilla. He should go after restaurants unfairly advertising they sell New York-style pizza and bagels… [Inside Edition]

* A Florida lawyer, who dressed as the Grim Reaper on beaches to promote social distancing, is facing legal setbacks in his lawsuit against Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis over COVID-19-related measures. [News Service of Florida]

* A number of court proceedings in Durham County, North Carolina, have been canceled because a substantial amount of local prosecutors are quarantining after being exposed to COVID-19. [WRAL.com]

* A Michigan funeral home recently settled a lawsuit that led to a major LGBT ruling at the Supreme Court. [Star Tribune]

* Massachusetts is paving the way for marijuana delivery, which may prompt legal action from retailers. Guess Mr. Nice Guy might soon be legal in the Commonwealth… [Mass Live]

Another state opts for the 'don't blame us for making you sick' approach to licensing.

* The feds are accusing a North Carolina tax lawyer of being a chronic tax cheat. If anyone can argue his way out of that pickle, it’s the accused tax lawyer. [Charlotte Observer]

* A prominent lawyer who was with Jeffrey Epstein days before his death does not believe Epstein committed suicide. [Fox News]

* The Vermont Attorney General is suing a facial recognition company over privacy concerns. [Hill]

* An Oregon man has been sentenced to 15 years for the 2009 killing of a federal public defender. [Oregonian]

* The New York Attorney General has asked Alex Jones to stop selling toothpaste he claims can fight coronavirus. [New York Post]

* Tesla is facing a lawsuit alleging that Model 3s didn’t have the advertised self-driving computer. These cars are so expensive, they ought to have a computer like Knight Rider. [Electrek]

* Settlement talks are underway to break up Cellino & Barnes into two separate firms. No news yet on which firm will keep the infamous jingle. [Buffalo News]

* A winner has finally been declared in the close San Francisco District Attorney race. [Washington Post]

* Woody Allen has ended his year-long lawsuit against Amazon involving Amazon canceling projects with Allen over MeToo allegations. [New York Times]

* A North Carolina attorney has plead guilty to tax fraud for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses, including plastic surgery, out of his business account. Can’t he argue that plastic surgery is a business expense? [Charlotte Observer]

* Hundreds of Penn Law community members have voiced dissatisfaction with the school’s new name honoring a donor. Hey, money talks. [Daily Pennsylvanian]

* A Queens attorney has been sued over extremely lurid allegations of sexual harassment. This attorney must not practice employment law. [New York Post]

Turns out, losing $3 billion in tourism revenue is bad for digestion.

* 16 states, including New York and California, filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump yesterday — yes, on President’s Day — challenging his declaration of a national emergency. [NBC News]

* Meredith Watson, one of the women to accuse Virginia Lieutenant Governor and MoFo partner Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, writes in an op-ed that she’s willing to publicly testify about the allegations. [Washington Post]

* North Carolina elections shenanigans: state investigators the allege Republican candidate engaged in a “coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced” absentee ballot strategy. [New York Times]

* Gibson Dunn is suing the Justice Department over their about face on online gambling. [Law.com]

* Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers really wants to bring medical marijuana to the badger state. [Huffington Post]

* Law schools in North and South Carolina have canceled classes for the foreseeable future so that students, faculty, and staff can evacuate the area and hunker down before Hurricane Florence arrives. Please be careful and stay safe, everyone. [Law.com]

* President Trump is eager to choose Emmet Flood to succeed Don McGahn as the next White House counsel. Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s former lawyers, is in Flood’s camp because he’s “battled investigations from the White House before—[and] that’s what will be coming.” [Wall Street Journal]

* Earlier this week, Bob Woodward said that former Trump attorney John Dowd told the president he couldn’t testify in the Russia investigation because he’s “disabled” and “can’t tell the truth.” That sounds just about right. [People]

* The University of California Berkeley School of Law may soon be doing away with almost all references to John Henry Boalt thanks to his racist views. Public comment on the issue will close on Halloween, and then Dean Erwin Chemerinsky may formally apply to dename Boalt Hall. Let’s see what happens with this one. [ABA Journal]

* “This is clear interference with an ongoing criminal investigation.” Representatives from the New York state tax department reportedly met with Michael Cohen’s attorney yesterday over the objections of Southern District of New York. [CNN]

* A family of conspiracy theorists: Donald Trump Jr. says he’s not worried about going to jail as a result of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, but “[t]hat doesn’t mean they won’t try to create something” that could put him in jail. [USA Today]

Reconsidering the case in light of Gill v. Whitford, panel decides that plaintiffs still have standing to challenge district map.

Yikes! This is pretty bad.