Travel Ban 3.0

Ed. note: We will not be publishing on Monday, February 19, in observance of President’s Day.

* Congratulations to my friend and former co-clerk, John Demers, on his long-overdue confirmation as head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. [Reuters]

* Which lawyers and justices take the lead on the most important Supreme Court cases? Adam Feldman has the answers, as always. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Professor Ilya Somin breaks down the recent Fourth Circuit ruling on Trump’s Travel Ban 3.0. [Volokh Conspiracy / Reason]

* A leading legal technology company, Kira Systems, is looking for a few good law librarians (to apply for its new job as a Machine Learning Knowledge Analyst). [Dewey B Strategic]

* Lawyer and activist Glenn Magpantay, executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), explains what’s at stake with the Dream Act. [Advocate]

* Stroock’s Joel Cohen draws lessons for lawyers from the buzz-generating new movie, The Post. [New York Law Journal]

* What role can expert witnesses play in #MeToo litigation? Lawyer Kat Hatziavramidis shares some insights. [Forensis Group]

* The Mrs. Palsgraf of the United Kingdom — a famous torts plaintiff named May Donoghue, who sued a beverage manufacturer after she discovered a decomposing snail in a bottle of ginger beer — is getting a statue erected in her honor. [Legal Cheek]

* Not as bad as sexually assaulting a student intern, but another Biglaw partner stands accused of making degrading, sexually charged comments to a junior attorney. [RollOnFriday]

* In advance of its Global Legal Hackathon (February 23-25), the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium welcomes a new member: Fasken, a leading Canadian law firm. [Artificial Lawyer]

* Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks that the people of Alabama should choose Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a write-in candidate to replace alleged pederast Roy Moore on the ballot for his former seat, but the AG has no desire to return to the Senate. [NPR]

* The Ninth Circuit has temporarily allowed part of Travel Ban 3.0 to proceed. While that means issuances of visas to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen will be restricted, there’s a catch. Applicants with concrete ties to the country will be exempt. [POLITICO]

* Wisconsin is so desperate to get lawyers to help indigent criminal defendants in rural areas that lawmakers have introduced new legislation that calls for the state to fund law school loan payments of up to $20,000 a year in exchange for the representation of these clients in need. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

* Newsflash: In-house legal departments are planning to spend more on outside counsel in 2018. This is the first time this will have happened in more than a decade. Hopefully Biglaw’s fee hikes don’t come back to bite them. [Corporate Counsel]

* After a two-month national postal survey, Australians have voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of same-sex marriage. Now it’s up to the country’s government to work out the details of the bill that will bring marriage equality down under. Congrats! [CNN]