Rod Rosenstein

* ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FILED! Against Rod Rosenstein. Alternative headline: In stunning turn, Rep. Jim Jordan demands accountability as long as it’s not for years of systematic sexual abuse. [Huffington Post]

* That Shook Hardy attorney who argued that a woman got pregnant in a diabolical nine-month scheme to delay trial? Yeah, he’s been suspended. [Daily Business Review]

* The Fifth Circuit’s James Ho isn’t so much a judge as a political hack in a robe. That Orin Kerr Tweet from April was just the canary in the mine. [NPR]

* Facebook GC Colin Stretch will pursue his lifelong passion of becoming the moderator of the Facebook Alumni Facebook Group. [Corporate Counsel]

* Trump’s ethics expert will also be leaving the job that he’s ostensibly been performing. [The Hill]

* Shareholder class actions are on the upswing this year. Gather ye rosebuds while ye don’t have Judge Kavanaugh declaring Rule 23 a First Amendment violation. [National Law Journal]

* Roy Moore sues PAC over negative campaign ads. Discovery should be fun. [Courthouse News Service]

* Larry Nassar wants a new sentencing hearing. See, this is what happens when judges grandstand and rip up letters to advance their political career — they just give these guys an in to try and futz with the sentence. [ESPN]

* A full 85 percent of companies aren’t ready for the GDPR implementation deadline later this week, meaning… well probably nothing, but let’s freak out about it anyway. [Corporate Counsel]

* Jones Day’s Dana Baiocco tabbed by Trump administration to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to end Democratic leadership on that board. So get ready for exploding bottles and nails just sticking out of stuffed animals… because “freedom.” [National Law Journal]

* DOJ tests new investigative tactic of just telling suspected criminals everything before interviewing them. [Huffington Post]

* We’re deregulating banks again because that’s historically worked out so well. [Wall Street Journal]

* South Carolina has repealed its “disturbing school” law, which was really just a vague catch-all provision to allow cops to harass and imprison black kids. [ACLU]

* Paul Manafort looks to suppress more evidence. Hey it’s worth a shot. [Courthouse News Service]

* In sad news, groundbreaking attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree has passed away at 104. [Washington Post]

* According to Rudy Giuliani, special counsel Robert Mueller is planning to have the Russian election interference probe wrapped up by September 1 — but that end date is apparently contingent on President Trump agreeing to be interviewed. Ooooh, stay tuned, this might get good soon! [New York Times]

* Yesterday, President Trump demanded via Twitter that the Justice Department look into whether his campaign was “infiltrated or surveilled” by the FBI or DOJ for political purposes. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein said he’d be happy to “take appropriate action,” and promptly kicked the can to the Inspector General. [Axios]

* In the meantime, never mind the fact that he’s never once been contacted by Robert Mueller’s team, but Roger Stone says he’s “prepared” to be indicted as part of the Mueller investigation after they “conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business.” The Trump ally doth protest too much, methinks. [NBC News]

* NO-NO-NO-NOTORIOUS: Elena Kagan isn’t the only Supreme Court justice who’s shown support for the new law clerk hiring plan. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reportedly spoke highly about the plan during a recent meeting of the Federal Judges Association. Good luck to all future clerkship applicants! [National Law Journal]

* The millennials are here and make up 43 percent of all attorneys (psssstttt, they’ve been here for a while already), but the legal profession is just getting around to making the changes that this generation prioritizes. Law firms better hurry up and start providing all of the warm and fuzzy things they want. [American Lawyer]

* “This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.” This is what John Dowd reportedly said in response to special counsel Robert Mueller when the possibility of issuing a subpoena for President Trump to appear before a grand jury was raised during a meeting with the president’s legal team. [Washington Post]

* Unnamed Republican lawmakers have drafted articles of impeachment against Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and he seems pretty pissed. Not only did he refuse to comment on documents that “nobody has the courage to put their name on,” but he countered that “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.” [USA Today]

* Per ex-White House aides, Ivanka Trump is “involved in everything,” so why hasn’t she been called in for questioning by Robert Mueller yet? Not only would the president “go nuclear,” but Mueller knows that “trying to interview Ivanka Trump would be like lighting a match to the highly combustible Donald Trump.” [Politico]

* For what it’s worth, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein isn’t a fan of the fact that the Senate has been taking its sweet time to confirm his would-be colleagues at the Justice Department. The Criminal, Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions have leaders in vote-pending purgatory. [National Law Journal]

* Before he had clients like Donald Trump and Sean Hannity, Michael Cohen was a personal injury attorney, and some of his clients allegedly staged their car “accidents” in an effort to commit insurance fraud. Some of Cohen’s clients are alleged to have not even been in the vehicle that was in the “accident” being litigated. [Rolling Stone]

* “Please Stay, Justice Kennedy. America Needs You.” The editorial board of the paper of record has penned a moving letter to Justice Anthony Kennedy, pleading with him not to retire from the Supreme Court during a moment in history when the high court — and the country at large — faces “an institutional crisis.” [New York Times]

* Par for the course? In order to be hired for her job, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s top spokeswoman apparently had to swear fealty to President Donald Trump because she had criticized him during the 2016 Republican primaries. [Washington Post]

* House Republicans want to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a punishment that was last used against an executive branch employee 122 years ago. FYI, “[i]t’s not meant to use to go after officials who don’t share your policy views or your political goals,” so it’s not likely to happen, but good luck with that. [USA Today]

* T-Mobile has agreed to buy Sprint (again), and this time, they think that the Trump administration will allow the deal to go through because they want Make America’s 5G Great Again. To paraphrase what Sprint spokesman Paul would say, all law firms are great, but we wonder which ones are on this deal. [Wall Street Journal]

* The first lawsuit has been filed against Southwest Airlines by a survivor of the deadly flight where a passenger was partially sucked out of the window following an engine explosion. The suit was filed by Lilia Chavez, who “prayed and feared for her life” after she “witnessed the horror” of the disaster, and now claims she has PTSD. [ABC News]

* Judge Robert F. Chapman, senior judge of the Fourth Circuit, RIP. [Fourth Circuit]

* Because there is never a moment without drama in this administration, AG Jeff Sessions has told White House counsel Don McGahn that he’s probably going to have to quit if President Trump fires Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. [Washington Post]

* Meanwhile, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short says the president “has no intention of firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller.” Hmm… we’ll just wait right here until those firings don’t happen. *insert Jeopardy music here* [CBS News]

* “[T]here is no human being, on the planet, with more knowledge about federal criminal law than Michael Dreeben, and no one with more expertise than him.” Meet Michael Dreeben, special counsel Robert Mueller’s Supreme Court closer. He’s argued more than 100 SCOTUS cases, and is a force to be reckoned with. [ABC News]

* Hiring for the law school class of 2017 is “up,” with 75.3 percent of graduates employed in full-time, long-term jobs that require law degrees or are considered “JD advantage” positions — but you probably shouldn’t get too excited about that. The only reason the percentage of those employed is higher this year is because the class was 6 percent smaller. In reality, entry-level hiring has decreased. [ABA Journal]

* Which Biglaw firm did Wells Fargo turn to ahead of being hit with record fines that turned into a $1B settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency? That would be Sullivan & Cromwell, which “always [tries] to play absolutely straight with the regulators.” [American Lawyer]

* Riley Safer, a spinoff of Schiff Hardin, just elected its first managing partner, and she may be the first black woman to lead a national law firm. Congratulations to Patricia Brown Holmes as she leads the legal profession in the future. [American Lawyer]

* Michael Cohen has until 2 p.m. this afternoon to produce the names of his clients with proof of their relationship, lest his attorneys’ temporary restraining order over the alleged privilege of the “thousands, if not millions of documents” that were taken in the FBI raid upon his office get tossed. [New York Law Journal]

* In other news, President Trump wants to review all of the material that was seized by the FBI from his lawyer Michael Cohen before federal investigators are able to take a look at it — after all, as the president says, attorney-client privilege “is dead.” [Washington Post]

* Many partners at Allen & Overy are “dead against” the firm’s reportedly proposed merger with O’Melveny & Myers, which is probably just fine, considering the fact that O’Melveny “[has] no plans to merge [with A&O] and never [has].” [Legal Week]

* Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is supposed to make his debut at the Supreme Court later this month on April 23 to argue a case regarding sentencing guildelines on behalf of the United States government. We’ll see how things go if he’s already been fired by President Trump by the time oral arguments roll around. [CNN]

* According to Senate Republican Cory Gardner of Colorado, now that he’s struck a deal with President Trump that will undercut Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recission of the Cole memo, he’ll be happy to puff-puff-pass votes on all of the Department of Justice nominees he’s been holding up. [Washington Post]

* “[T]op tier firms [must] take a more ‘people-centric’ approach, and break the tyranny of the billable unit as the overriding priority.” This managing partner says that work/life balance and mental health for lawyers will never improve unless the legal profession addresses “onerous billable hour targets.” [Lawyers Weekly]

* President Trump may have a very busy Saturday night planned, because according to inside sources, he’s considering firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — or even Attorney General Jeff Sessions — in an attempt to take “aggressive action” against special counsel Robert Mueller. He could even fire Mueller, since he “believes he has the power to do so.” [CNN]

* Squire Patton Boggs ended its relationship with Michael Cohen on the same day his office was raided by the FBI, but sources inside the firm seem to have no idea why the firm’s relationship existed with Cohen in the first place. Cohen was supposedly there to “advance the interests” of Squire’s clients, but lawyers say they were generally kept in the dark about those alleged client interests. [American Lawyer]

* The Trumpiest of those who reside in Trumpland? Apparently that honor goes to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, but it’s worth noting that the justice “has not gone nearly as far as his Ginni in embracing fringy Trumpist dogma.” [Slate]

* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg swore in 201 new U.S. citizens in New York yesterday, much to their surprise. Here’s what one new American said about being addressed by Justice Ginsburg: “I felt so important. Sitting in front of somebody so special, I felt so special. I feel like I’m in my own country now.” [New York Daily News]

* Ieshia Champs, a 33-year-old single mother of five children, will be graduating from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University later this spring, and her inspirational graduation photos — which include all five of her kids — are going viral. A well-deserved congratulations go out to Ieshia from ATL! [The Grio]

* What’s behind the Supreme Court’s sluggish pace, and does Justice Gorsuch have anything to do with it? Only 18 rulings have been sloooooowly handed down so far this Term, and the world is still waiting for decisions to be made in some of the high court’s most contentious cases. [Reuters]

* House Republicans are so pissed the DOJ failed to comply with a subpoena deadline to turn over more than a million documents related to investigations of Hillary Clinton’s emails, alleged FISA abuses, and Andrew McCabe’s firing that there’s a “growing consensus” Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein could be held in contempt of Congress — or even impeached. [Washington Examiner]

* There may be a law school brain drain when it comes to a lack of applications from students at top undergraduate institutions, but the Law School Admission Council is reporting that the number of applicants with LSAT scores of 160 or higher is up by 21 percent since last year. We’ll have more on this interesting news later. [Law.com]

* In case you missed it, with an average deal size was $3.7 billion and a market share of about 24 percent, Skadden came out on top of Bloomberg’s law firm league table for global M&A deal volume in 2018’s first quarter. Congratulations! [Big Law Business]

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal services industry added 400 jobs between February and March. The entire profession now ranges from 1.2 to 1.3 million jobs, down from pre-recession highs of 1.8 million jobs. Sorry, but after about a decade, it’s looking like those jobs may be lost forever. [American Lawyer]

* Slater & Gordon, the world’s first publicly traded law firm, claims that it isn’t planning to conduct any layoffs in the wake of its latest operations review. The firm, which once found itself on the verge of insolvency and is now owned by a hedge fund, is no stranger to conducting massive layoffs. [The Australian]

* Andrews Kurth continues to lose lawyers left and right, with a group of up to 25 attorneys from its public finance group in Texas soon expected to defect to Orrick. How’s that merger talk with Hunton & Williams going these days? [American Lawyer]

* Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein will be delivering the commencement address at Campbell Law’s graduation ceremony this spring. At this rate, given how much the president likes him, let’s see if he’s still Deputy AG come May. [News & Observer]

* ASU Law is on track to receive a record-breaking number of applications for the upcoming academic year. According to LSAC, ASU is one of only four law schools in the country to have seen an increase in applications of 50 percent of more. [ASU Now]

* “Jane Doe,” the New Hampshire woman who won the $560 million Powerball lottery last month, has filed suit against the state’s Lottery Commission in an attempt to remain anonymous. Now that she’s a multimillionaire, she doesn’t want to risk the “significant invasion of privacy” of her name being released. [USA Today]

* “I’d like to see in the Constitution a statement that men and women are people of equal citizenship stature. I’d like to see an equal rights amendment in our Constitution.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is all in favor of amending the Constitution to benefit women. Are you? [Washington Post]

* Kashyap Patel, the “primary author” of the House Intelligence Committee’s secret memo, is no stranger to controversy. You may remember when he dropped out of this bachelor auction due to an issue with his license to practice or from this “Order on Ineptitude” after he was berated by a federal judge. [New York Times]

* Duke Law has a brand new dean, and she’ll be starting her job come July 1. Congratulations to Kerry Abrams — “one of the brightest stars in legal education” — on becoming one of the handful of women to lead one of America’s top law schools. [Duke Today]

* The DOJ wants former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s suit against special counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to be tossed, arguing that its only purpose is to “interfere with [his] ongoing criminal prosecution.” Yep, that was the whole point. [CNN]

* Ouch! One Am Law 100 Firm is experiencing that awkward moment when management decides to completely scrub the name of the firm’s major merger partner from all of its branding, just one year after the combination was consummated. [American Lawyer]

* She’s going to be 85 in just a few months, and like a fine wine, she just keeps getting better with age. No one should count on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retiring any time soon. [Associated Press]

* Speaking of Justice Ginsburg, you’re going to have to change up your State of the Union drinking games this year, because she won’t be in attendance. She’ll be on a Northeast law school tour instead — and she’ll be wide awake. [The Hill]

* The president wants “[his] guys” at the “Trump Justice Department” — but not Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, he wants Rosenstein out — to make public a classified memo on the Russia investigation, an act that the DOJ said would be “extraordinarily reckless.” [Washington Post]

* Don McGahn may have threatened to quit his job as White House counsel last summer, but because he decided to stick around, he’s been instrumental to the Trump administration in reshaping a much more conservative judiciary. [CNN]

* Just a few months ago, merger talks between Andrews Kurth and Hunton & Williams seemed pretty tepid, but now they’re heating up. We can tell because AK partners are being picked off by other firms like crazy. [American Lawyer]

* Justice is blind — and cheap: Stephen McAllister was recently sworn in as U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas, and he’s taking a humongous pay cut. The former Kansas Law dean earned more than $1 million by working three jobs, and his new gig pays more than $800K less. [National Law Journal]