Pfizer

Can we have a good two weeks where we don't have to rely on the benevolence of people trying to maximize profits for once?

What's next? Not exclusively giving jobs to people with millionaire parents?

* Pfizer looking to get vaccinations approved for 5-year-olds. I just want to know if it will come in gummy form. [NYT]

* Moderna has a combo Flu+Covid vaccine in the works. Move over, Arnold Palmer! [CNBC]

* Celebrity barristers had stranger interpretations of American Independence than your favorite FedSoc con law gunner. [NYT]

* Barrett ascribes judicial differences to philosophic differences, not politics. Did no one tell her that the personal is political? [WaPo]

* There’s concern that voting rights are the next on the chopping block. Give this piece a look. [The Nation]

Per the prosecution, the partner got drunk on wine before spilling the beans.

With so many ‘evergreening’ patent strategies and the added complexity of biologics and biosimilars, the proverbial patent cliff is becoming a thing of the past.

* “Could a firm with a different business model suffer, potentially, if they don’t match the $180,000? Maybe.” Law firms may be competing for fewer students than in years prior thanks to decreased law school enrollment, but Biglaw’s new starting salary scale doesn’t seem to have made a big impact on the summer associate applicant pool — at most schools, OCI participation has held steady or risen only slightly since last year. [Law.com]

* “Are you listening? He just flat out lied. … [I]t could be bad.” In a text message that was included in a federal court filing earlier this week, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie claimed that the governor lied when he told the media none of his staff knew about a plan to block George Washington Bridge traffic. Uh-oh! [New York Times]

* “We’ll tell the council that there’s a giant need for affordable law schools like us, and we’re going to meet that need.” After learning it was unlikely his school would receive accreditation due to students’ poor qualifications, Dean Royal Furgeson Jr. of UNT Dallas Law shrugged it off, saying the school would “get a fair hearing.” [ABA Journal]

* Robert Schulman, a former partner at Hunton & Williams, has been indicted for allegedly trading on insider information ahead of Pfizer’s $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals, a client he represented in 2010 while at the firm. He, along with his investment adviser, will face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. [Big Law Business]

* Yet another Biglaw firm has partnered with a financial company to assist its attorneys with their law school debt. Miller Canfield is working with Social Finance (SoFi) to provide loan refinancing options to the firm’s associates to help “ease the financial burden” of their heavy six-figure debt loads. [Grand Rapids Business Journal]

* “They’re being terribly exploited.” Lichten and Bright, a New York labor law firm, has contacted hundreds of UFC fighters in an effort to unionize them and help get them benefits that other sports unions share, like health insurance, pensions, and the ability to negotiate the terms of their contracts with the mixed martial arts giant. [MMA Junkie]

* The deal to combine drug giants Allergan and Pfizer in an inversion was called off after the US Treasury announced new rules to limit the tax benefits of moving the corporate headquarters overseas. [Quartz]

* Should the IRS be going after the Pittsburgh Penguins for letting Sidney Crosby live in the owner’s house? [Bloomberg / BNA]

* Pretty sure Vivia Chen has covered all the options in her latest article exploring the benefits of having women leaders at law firms. [Careerist]

* Corporations may be taking an active role in opposing the recent spate of anti-LGBTQ legislation, but that still doesn’t make them people. [Reuters]

* “Jackie” from the Rolling Stone UVA rape article, which is now the subject of litigation, will have to testify in the pending action, despite her lawyer’s claim that revisiting the incident would be traumatizing. [Gawker]

* Is the Bible about to become the official state symbol of Tennessee? [NPR]

* Claiming to be a sovereign citizen is silly, and it certainly won’t insulate you from charges of chid sex abuse and kidnapping. [Jezebel]

* A federal judge just struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage. [Salt Lake Tribune] * After striking down Canada’s anti-prostitution laws, our neighbors to the North went ahead and approved a law school that functionally bans gays. What’s going on up there? Play keep away with the Stanley Cup for 20 years and they just lose their damn minds. [TaxProf Blog] * Chief Judge Alex Kozinski objects, but nobody wants to hear it. [Josh Blackman's Blog] * Professor Richard Sander won the right to examine law school race, attendance and grade information, in a bid to prove his central theory that affirmative action somehow hurts black folks. I guess the California Supreme Court is on Team Sander. [San Jose Mercury News] * Amy Schulman, the powerful general counsel at Pfizer, is out — and now there’s some interesting speculation as to why. [Law and More] * So now everyone’s writing legal opinions over Fantasy Football trades. [BigLaw Rebel] * Jim Harbaugh gets all his legal acumen from Judge Judy. Next thing you know he’ll be objecting to “What’s your deal?” for lack of foundation. [ESPN] * Speaking of Jennifer Lawrence, she can probably help with your International Law final. [The Onion] * There’s a rundown of the top patent law stories of 2013 on the web next month. And there’s CLE to be had! [Patently-O]

* An NSA review panel thinks the Chief Justice of the United States shouldn’t be the only one appointing judges to the FISA Court. We imagine John Roberts is pulling a Stuart Smalley. Don’t worry, you’re good enough. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Sadly, Amy Schulman, one of America’s most influential lawyers and best-paid general counsel, is out at Pfizer. After leading the charge against outside counsel’s hourly billing, we doubt she’ll head back to DLA Piper. [Corporate Counsel]

* Scott Bloch, former head of the Office of Special Counsel in the GWB administration, allegedly hated gay staffers so much he shipped them to Detroit. That settles it: he really hated them. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed a bill that would ban all private employers — except the government — from running credit checks on new hires. Let’s go rack up some credit card debt! [National Law Journal]

* Law schools are facing enrollment problems, but Boalt Hall and Santa Clara Law saw the size of their entering classes rise. Flooding the entry-level job market continues to be celebrated. [The Recorder]

* “Yes — I do share nose candy with these girls. For free. For my personal use, OK?” Pro se litigants say the darndest things. Good thing this guy got an attorney before things got worse. [Albany Times Union]

The SEC alleges that an attorney disclosed inside information after way too much wine.

* Though she be but little, she is fierce! Under Mary Jo White’s guidance, the Securities and Exchange Committee is now cracking down on financial fraud with a vengeance. [DealBook / New York Times]

* When a Biglaw firm’s chairman skeptically says, “Uh, OK, I mean, maybe,” with regard to a future increased demand for legal work, you know things are bad. We’ll have more on this later today. [New Republic]

* With Detroit’s downfall, vultures are swooping in left and right to snag clients. Firms retained thus far include Weil Gosthal, Arent Fox, Kirkland & Ellis, Winston & Strawn, and Sidley Austin. [Reuters]

* “I’m not a 100% sure this is legal.” Two law professors have come up with a revolutionary way for law students to finance legal education that sounds like it just might work. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Normally when Biglaw firms and legal departments go to court over contested litigation, something’s gone wrong, but this summer, they’re trying to do some good in the world. [National Law Journal]

* Soon, it’ll be known as Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School, but even with a new name, you’re still going to be Cooley, and there’s no recovery from that. [Lansing State Journal]

* In Greenwich, Connecticut, the fact that people buy homes where they want their kids to go to school isn’t a “complicated concept.” The schools’ racial diversity, on the other hand, is. [New York Times]

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