Toys R Us

* Creditors of Toys ‘R Us claim that employees bilked the company of assets during the bankruptcy process. That must’ve been where all the video games went… [Law 360] * A lawyer involved in the Trump impeachment process has tested positive for coronavirus. [CNN]

* Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, which took place last night in Las Vegas, Nevada. [New York Times]

* “There’s only one prediction that’s entirely safe about the upcoming term. It will be momentous.” The Supreme Court’s October Term 2017 begins today, and it will be Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first full term. The docket features issues like voting rights, religion and discrimination, workers’ rights, and digital privacy, and Trump’s DOJ has radically flipped its position from that of prior administrations in many of the cases, which hasn’t happened in decades. [New York Times]

* Jeffrey Toobin wonders, “How badly is Neil Gorsuch annoying the other Supreme Court justices?” Based on the junior justice’s behavior thus far — from his seemingly politicized appearances to his domination of oral arguments to his dissenting jab at Justice Kennedy — the answer could very well be PRETTY BADLY. [New Yorker]

* You may have grown up, but you’re still a Toys “R” Us kid at heart, so you’ll want to know how much these Biglaw firms are charging Geoffrey the Giraffe for their representation in the toy store’s bankruptcy. Partners and of counsel are billing up to $1,745 per hour, and associates are billing up to $1,015 per hour. [Am Law Daily]

* Biglaw salary wars are heating up across the pond, with Clifford Chance having recently decided to boost pay for newly qualified associates to £87,300 (~$116,933.99) a year in total compensation. Other firms like Freshfields and Linklaters have also instituted salary hikes, while Slaughter & May has frozen associate pay. [Law.com]

* “This, all of this, allows me to prove my story is useful.” Reginald Dwayne Betts, the Yale Law School graduate whose dreams of being able to practice law after passing the bar exam were deferred thanks to a decades-old felony carjacking conviction, was finally admitted to the Connecticut bar. Congratulations! [Hartford Courant]

* Baker Botts files SCOTUS brief reminding them what wedding cakes look like. Someday we’ll look back on a case designed to create second class citizens and think, “oh right, that’s the one where the Supreme Court decided with the help of a picture book.” [National Law Journal]

* Pepe the Frog’s creator is going nuclear with his intellectual property challenges against the Nazi scum who’ve turned his character into a mascot. [Engadget]

* Trader seeks to withdraw guilty plea after government shows him evidence that he probably didn’t commit a crime. The more you ponder that sentence, the more troubling it is. [Law 360]

* There are more female equity partners than ever, which means still not very many. [Am Law Daily]

* BuzzFeed hires Roy Black in the defamation case over the Trump dossier. Specifically, this case is about the allegations in the dossier that Aleksej Gubarev hacked the Democrats, but that’s no fun, so let’s remember the dossier also talked about Russian pee parties. [Law.com]

* A review of the federal government’s merits and amicus arguments this Term and it’s an aggressive invitation to legislate from the bench. So much for railing against “activist judges”! [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Harvard University is hoping Trump’s NLRB changes labor law so they can crush unionization efforts on campus. Damn liberal, socialist colleges. [Labor Notes]

* Here’s one to make some of you feel very old: Toys R Us files for bankruptcy. [Huffington Post]