Stormy Daniels

* R. Kelly’s attorneys are requesting to withdraw as his counsel and say it is “impossible” to properly represent him. Bet the lawyers hope they aren’t “trapped” in the courtroom… [Fox News]

* A prominent West Virginia attorney passed away this week following a car crash. [Metro News]

* The Department of Justice says it will defend former president Trump in a private defamation lawsuit. [Forbes]

* Stormy Daniels says her attorneys are cooperating with investigators looking into the operations of the Trump Organization. [Hill]

* A Boca Raton attorney was allegedly intoxicated around four times above the legal limit when she was involved in a car crash. Wild even by Florida standards… [Boca News Now]

* A lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of New York City fitness studios argues that exercise facilities should be allowed to operate despite COVID-19. Guess people soon might not have an excuse to stay away from the gym… [Pix 11]

* The Supreme Court has declined to get involved in the defamation lawsuit Stormy Daniels filed against Donald Trump. [Forbes]

* Two New York City lawyers, who allegedly torched an NYPD car last year, have purportedly been offered a plea deal. [New York Post]

* Check out this article on the cases Vice President Harris handled as the former California Attorney General. [Juris Lab]

* A lawyer is aiming to create the “Starbucks of pet grooming.” Wonder what a caramel macchiato is with dogs… [Newsday]

* A lawsuit has been filed following the Rose Bowl being played in Texas this year because of COVID-19. They should have a bowl game to resolve the dispute… [Fox News]

* President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has apologized to Stormy Daniels for putting her through “needless pain.” [Yahoo News]

* A Pennsylvania lawyer, who allegedly helped clients commit insurance fraud, has been disbarred. [Bloomberg Law]

* Robinhood is facing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a college student who allegedly killed himself after purportedly sustaining trading losses using the platform. [Hill]

* The Justice Department has dropped a lawsuit filed against a former aide to Melania Trump over a tell-all book published about the Trump Administration. That book must be a pager-turner… [Washington Post]

* A lawyer representing Alex Jones in a case about Sandy Hook conspiracy claims has asked to withdraw. This leaves a lot of questions. [Texas Lawyer]

* Devin Nunes and his lawyer may be facing court sanctions for questionable legal filings. [Raw Story]

* It appears that the new streamer Quibi may be facing some existential litigation. And my brothers were just telling me about this service yesterday! [Fox Business]

* President Trump’s lawyer is looking to get an attorneys’ fees award paid by a settlement related to Stormy Daniel’s questionable arrest at an Ohio strip club. [Law and Crime]

* New Mexico is invoking a riot law to control the outbreak of COVID-19 on Native American reservations. [New York Times]

* A judge who paid $25 a month to park in a lot co-owned by an attorney was not disqualified from hearing cases involving that lawyer. If that $25 fee was in Manhattan, there would be more to the story… [Virginia Lawyers Weekly]

* Michael Avenatti is suing Stormy for legal fees and remembering those names should serve as a reminder that impeachment as a concept six months ago and as a concept post-Ukraine revelations isn’t even in the same ballpark. [Daily Beast]

* Antonio Brown may not be an ideal litigant. [TMZ]

* A reminder that criminals are routinely too stupid to avoid a (digital) paper trail. [Courthouse News Service]

* A look at Pat Cipollone and his campaign to demean his office. [The Atlantic]

* Attention vapers: New York courts have got your back. [Law360]

* The Sixth Circuit could blow up the opioid suits under the foundational American doctrine of “big companies can’t do anything wrong.” [Law.com]

* In a very Silicon Valley kind of move, IP firm Harrity & Harrity opened an incubator for women and minority owned law firms. [American Lawyer]

* The most trusted corporate law firms. [Forbes]

* Eugene Scalia, a partner at Gibson Dunn, will be nominated as the next Labor secretary to replace Alex Acosta. If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s son. [NPR]

* “I disagree with it.” President Trump now claims that he was “not happy” with a crowd chanting “send her back” in relation to Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, at one of his re-election campaign rallies. This, after Trump tweeted that Omar and three other congresswomen of color should “go back” to their countries, despite being American-born citizens. [New York Times]

* According to recently unsealed court records, per the FBI, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides were very much involved in a series of hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump, of course, has very publicly denied having knowledge of such payments. [USA Today]

* The House of Representatives passed a bill to gradually hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. Don’t get too excited, because this has little to no chance of passing in the Senate. [CNBC]

* In case you missed it, you shouldn’t really be surprised by the fact that a judge turned down bail for convicted sex offender and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He’ll remain in jail until trial. [New York Law Journal]

* Disgraced former Case Western law school dean Lawrence Mitchell (now known as Ezra Wasserman Mitchell) was quietly let go without a contract renewal at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, where he’d been working as a visiting professor, after an investigation into his alleged misconduct. [Cleveland Scene]

* It’s been five years since FSU Law Professor Dan Markel was murdered in his own home, and we’re still waiting for his killers to be brought to justice. [Tallahassee Democrat]

* The Stormy Daniels documents are about to be released and that should be a big political story for about 5 minutes before Trump sends ICE to deport Nancy Pelosi or something. [Reuters]

* Because Europe isn’t America and still understands antitrust law, the EU has opened an investigation into Amazon for allegedly using market data it collects from sellers to then go out and undercut them. It’s a practice Elizabeth Warren recently broke down in baseball terms as, “you can be the umpire or you can own a team, but you can’t do both.” [Law.com]

* Alex Acosta tried to save his job by touting that he got Jeffrey Epstein jail time. Lawyers now claim that Epstein was having sex with underaged girls during his sentence. [ABC News]

* Can virtual law firms close the gender pay gap? Probably not a good sign when pay equity can only come from a knockoff brand. [American Lawyer]

* Neal Katyal is giving young associates real opportunities to better train the next generation of Supreme Court advocates. [National Law Journal]

* In moving tribute to Justice Stevens, the courts prepare to dismantle his landmark decision. [Law360]

* With all the problems in the world, state legislatures want you to know they’re all over that the Sharia law problem that literally no one has. [USA Today]

* Is Kirkland really worth twice as much as the next most valuable Biglaw firm? That seems like an inordinately massive gap. [American Lawyer]

* Young lawyer went to police station drunk, carrying cocaine. He’s no longer a young lawyer. [Legal Cheek]

* Michael Avenatti’s now charged with stealing from Stormy Daniels. Remember when fighting a partner over whether or not he deserved a share of billables was considered an Avenatti scandal? [Law360]

* Lawyers, especially criminal defense and legal aid attorneys, can take on the emotional burden of their clients’ troubles causing personal trauma just in case you needed a better argument to go into ERISA. [Daily Business Review]

* Qualcomm shellacked by antitrust ruling and Judge Koh went straight at the lawyers working in-house at the company. [NY Times]

* Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers have gone to court to get almost half a million in back pay from the producer. [Page Six]

* Roughly 70 percent of Biglaw declined to follow Milbank in raising salaries to the $190K scale. [American Lawyer]