T-Mobile

Renewed fight over industry consolidation.

* Donald Trump Jr. is going to have a closed-door hearing on a limited number of topics for a limited amount of time before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Should be an informative romp around the invocation of the Fifth Amendment. [POLITICO]

* The House Judiciary Committee will sue AG Bill Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn for refusing to comply with subpoenas related to receiving an unredacted copy of the Mueller report on Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and President Donald Trump’s possible obstruction of justice. [NBC News]

* “When it comes to corporate power, bigger is not always better.” In case you missed it, 10 states have filed suit to put an end to the Sprint-T-Mobile merger deal, claiming that consumers will be hurt price wise due to the lack of market competition. [Reuters]

* Alabama Law isn’t quite through with Hugh Culverhouse Jr. just yet. Professor Ronald Krotoszynski has some wise words to share over how untenable large class sizes would have been for a school that has tried to right-size since the recession severely impacted law graduate employment. [Washington Post]

* Ever since CKR Law started having trouble paying its partners, causing some to flee as a result, the firm has stopped growing at the speed it once was. Duh? [New York Law Journal]

* The New York Times has a list of the questions Mueller would like to ask Trump. Why are we hearing about it? Methinks the “he’s exceeding his mandate” noise is about to ramp up. Either that or the New York Times scored a coup with their [email protected] account. [NY Times]

* California Supreme Court opts for employee classification standard that critics claim could ruin the gig economy. That… sounds like a good thing. Happy May Day! [Law.com]

* Cleary is getting slapped with a harassment suit arising from conduct between two Williams Lea employees. What does Cleary have to do with this? Well, the employees work at Cleary, use Cleary equipment, and are directly controlled by Cleary. It’s the common law “walks like a duck” doctrine. [Law360]

* Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter is running for Senate in Minnesota as a Democrat because we’ve reached the point where even the W era is renouncing the GOP. [CNN]

* The lawyer social event of the season is upon us, and it’s called the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. At least a dozen firms are getting in on this fray. [American Lawyer]

* Justice Sotomayor will get “reverse shoulder replacement surgery” which… sounds like the wrong direction. [National Law Journal]

* DACA fight looks like it’s heading for the Second Circuit. [Courthouse News Service]

* DA candidate in Maine suspended from practicing law over sexual assault allegations brought by a former client who was living in the candidate’s house. [Sun Journal]

* “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]

Things are going to get big in telecom...

* Fifty-six years ago today, a group of African-American students sat down at the whites only section of a lunch counter. Can you even imagine the BS talking heads and think pieces would spew if that event happened today? [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* University of New Mexico Law School is ranked number 1… for public defenders and prosecutors. [Daily Lobo]

* Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick is going after T-Mobile “Binge On” service, which allows users to watch streaming content from approved providers without using their data plan, saying it violates net neutrality. [Tech Times]

* Oyez, oyez! Anyone got a million-plus to buy a multimedia history of the Supreme Court? [Wall Street Journal]

* All the Iowa caucus coverage making you excited? You’d probably enjoy Wonkette’s Game Of US America Elections: The Game. [Wonkette]

* Utah State Senator Todd Weiler wants to do something — anything, really, — to stop the terrible moral decline caused by PORN. [Popehat]

* Lawyers are stuck in a rat race, and it could kill you. [Law and More]

* Get updated on the best in the legal tech world, before the Legaltech conference. [CodeX]

* If you’re going to be in San Diego for the ABA Midyear Meeting, come out Friday to “Blawgs and Listservs: Legal Publications in the Digital Age” to see Craft Beer Attorney Candace Moon, bankruptcy and fraud litigator Kathy B. Phelps, and our own Joe Patrice discuss the state of legal publishing and social media, with moderator Jordan Maglich of Ponzitracker. [American Bar Association]

n the U.S District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Judge Matthew F. Kennelly recently held that plaintiffs alleging price-fixing in the text messaging market were not entitled to an adverse inference after failing to prove that defendants T-Mobile and CTIA destroyed emails in bad faith. Judge Kennelly also granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, as plaintiffs were unable to meet the elevated pleading burden for collusion to fix prices for text messages in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The plaintiffs had filed suit on behalf of customers who used pay-per-text-message services from Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. The Wall Street Journal published an article in September 2008, titled “Text Messaging Rates Come under Scrutiny,” inspired primarily by the antitrust investigation of Senator Herbert Kohl.[1] The day the article was published, a T-Mobile employee allegedly sent the text of the article via e-mail to both Adrian Hurditch, the company’s former Vice President of Services and Strategic Pricing, and Lisa Roddy, the company’s former Director of Marketing Planning and Analysis. Hurditch and Roddy e-mailed each other about the article; however, that e-mail thread no longer exists.

* The New York Court of Appeals put the hurt on defunct firms seeking unfinished business fees from former partners who left for greener pastures. Sorry, I didn’t follow ATL protocol: “Dewey think firms should collect unfinished business fees?” [Wall Street Journal Law Blog]

* We reported on the Tinder lawsuit yesterday. Here’s a collection of all the messed up texts involved. [Valleywag]

* Facebook’s lawyer is now calling the emotional manipulation study it recently conducted “customer service.” Dear Internet: Despite all your rage, you’re still just rats in a cage. [The Atlantic]

* So if you’re studying for the MPRE, blow jobs aren’t the preferred legal fee. [Legal Profession Blog]

* How did your last cell phone bill look? Because the FTC says T-Mobile knowingly added hundreds of millions of charges on. At least that girl in pink was cute, huh? [USA Today]

* BNP Paribas is confident it can pay its record fine. [Dealbook / New York Times]

* Meanwhile, Putin accused the U.S. of trying to use the BNP fine to blackmail France into turning its back on Russia. Because conspiracy theories are awesome. [Bloomberg]

* Lawsuit filed because right-wingers totally miffed that black people voted for a Republican. [Sun Herald (Mississippi)]

* According to a CNN poll, 67 percent of people who watched the debate thought Mitt Romney won, while only 25 percent thought Barack Obama won. Well, either way you slice it, there was definitely one loser: poor old Jim Lehrer. [CNN]

* If Barack Obama could’ve had his way, he would’ve put Osama bin Laden on trial to display American due process and the rule of law. We suppose that now he’ll just have to take credit for being the man who ordered the kill shot. [WSJ Law Blog]

* A handful of Biglaw firms advised on the T-Mobile and MetroPCS merger, but Telecommunications Law Partners, a boutique firm, showed up to prove it could hang with the big boys. [DealBook / New York Times]

* From boutique to Biglaw? Joseph Bachelder, an executive compensation expert, shuttered his 10-lawyer firm in favor of joining McCarter & English as special counsel in New York. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Remember Ellen Pao, the former Cravath associate who sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination? She now claims that the VC firm fired her. Of course, like everything else, KPCB denies it. [Bits / New York Times]

* A J.D. isn’t a hoax, but if law schools keep admitting huge classes, the degree will become one. The dean of UC Hastings Law thinks law schools should’ve reduced their class sizes a long time ago. [Huffington Post]

* The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Obamacare over three days in March. Let’s fast forward to June so we can see how Election 2012 is going to turn out. [Blog of Legal Times] * The Grinch definitely stole AT&T’s Christmas this year, and even a team of Biglaw superstars couldn’t save the […]

* Protip for Mark Hansen, AT&T’s lawyer: when you want a judge to save your merger plans, it’s probably not a good idea to demand that she make a ruling by a certain date. [Businessweek] * What’s going on in Cooley Law’s defamation suit against Rockstar05 (other than discussion of whether the school’s attorney understands […]

* With AT&T’s T-Mobile deal falling apart, in-house lawyer Wayne Watts could be heard singing, “it’s my merger and I’ll cry if I want to,” before more whining to the FCC. [DealBook / New York Times] * Build us a border fence, and then get the f**k over it. Arizona lawmakers are soliciting the public […]

* The AT&T/T-Mobile antitrust suit is so big that not even Big Government law can handle it. The DOJ is bringing in even bigger guns with a partner from Biglaw firm Munger Tolles. [Bloomberg] * Obama has nominated former Kozinski clerk, Paul Watford, to the Ninth Circuit. Way to go, because he’s kind of cute. […]

* Police suspect that a client may have been the one to plant a bomb in attorney Erik G. Chappell’s car. Stay far away from family law, folks. [New York Daily News] * “How come there’s not a school where people can go if they want to become trial lawyers?” How come you don’t know […]

* It took SCOTUS more than four hours to write one sentence. But oh, to be a fly on the wall last night when they decided to deny a stay of execution for Troy Davis. [New York Times] * AT&T wants to take the DOJ’s antitrust case to trial. This must be some sort of […]

* Opponents of New York’s gay marriage law are suing because the Senate kept negotiations in the closet. AG Eric Schneiderman has moved to dismiss the suit, citing a lack of fabulosity. [Wall Street Journal] * Seven states have joined the Department of Justice in asking to be crossed off the guest list for AT&T’s […]

* In November, the Supreme Court will decide whether our Fourth Amendment rights come subject to advances in technology. I, for one, welcome our new Orwellian overlords. [New York Times] * What do you get when two wireless carriers with craptastic coverage and service that goes down more than a porn star have plans to […]

* Sprint hopped in bed with Skadden to sue AT&T over its proposed merger with T-Mobile. Somewhere in America, the Verizon guy is cackling with glee. “Can you hear me now, b*tches?” [Bloomberg] * “I would love to dominate and humiliate and degrade you, privately of course.” Remember this guy? Six of the nine charges […]

Ed. note: Due to the Labor Day holiday, we’ll be on a reduced publication schedule today. We’ll be back to normal tomorrow. A restful and happy Labor Day to all! * More about the Delaware benchslap that we covered last week (including the news that Judge Peggy Ableman’s pajama party did not go forward as […]

* Paul Bergrin wants to represent himself in his racketeering case. They say that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, but that’s not the case when you’re considered the Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey. [Philadelphia Inquirer] * Hordes of Biglaw lawyers couldn’t stop the DOJ from trying to […]