Travel Ban

In-House Counsel Turn Their Nervous Eyes On The Courts

In-house lawyers try to navigate troubled courthouse waters.

Travel Ban 3.0 Blocked Again By Judge Derrick ‘Kiss My Backside’ Watson

Citing lack of evidence, Travel Ban 3.0 is temporarily stayed.

Non-Sequiturs: 10.06.17

* Salary hikes (in London). [Legal Cheek] * Travel bans and compelling interests. [Dorf on Law] * Speaking of SCOTUS, Adam Feldman reads the oral-argument tea leaves from the first week of the new Term. [Empirical SCOTUS] * And devotees of Justice Antonin Scalia might want to check out Scalia Speaks (affiliate link), a collection of the late jurist's speeches edited by son Christopher Scalia and former law clerk Ed Whelan. [Bloomberg BNA] * Did this court just gut her whole job description? [New York Law Journal] * It can be challenging for creators to protect their IP; could a small-claims court for copyright be the answer? [Copyright Alliance]

Morning Docket: 10.06.17

* The Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to toss the travel ban case on mootness grounds -- and to scrub the lower-court rulings against it from the books. [How Appealing] * Meanwhile, the District of Columbia won't take the fight over its concealed-carry law to SCOTUS, fearing that the Court might just make the situation worse if called to rule on gun rights. [Washington Post] * At age 86, Marty Lipton of Wachtell Lipton is still in the mix, issuing influential client memos on important issues of corporate law. [Big Law Business] * Does the emperor have no clothes robes? Zoran (Zoki) Tasic, a former Seventh Circuit staff attorney, calls out Judge Richard Posner over alleged errors in the judge's new book (affiliate link) about the treatment of pro se litigants. [How Appealing] * Support staff at Hogan Lovells seem to love the firm's buyout offers; the firm's voluntary-retirement program attracted even more interest than expected. (Expect more on this later.) [Law.com] * What does the future hold for the Obama administration's proposed changes to overtime rules? Senators seek guidance from Cheryl Stanton, the former Alito clerk and Ogletree Deakins partner who enjoyed smooth sailing at her recent confirmation hearings to serve as head of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. [Bloomberg BNA] * In other news about the fate of Obama-era regulations, it looks like the Trump administration will be rolling back the federal requirement for employers to include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, expanding exemptions for religious objectors. [New York Times]

Travel Ban 3.0: We’ve Finally Achieved A Patina Of Legalism To Cover The Bigotry

Can you put the bigot back in the bottle?

Is Mootness How The Travel Ban Dies?

New regulations could render the travel ban moot long before we get to its merits.

Trump Administration Pivots From Grandma Ban, Refocuses On Banning Refugees

I cannot fathom how the Supreme Court thinks there's going to be a clean way to allow any of the travel ban to survive.

When You Give The Travel Ban An Inch, It Tries To Take A Mile

I hope Roberts and Kennedy are watching what just happened here.

Morning Docket: 09.08.17

* The Ninth Circuit, President Donald Trump's judicial archnemesis, affirms Judge Derrick Watson's (modified) preliminary injunction against the "grandma ban." [How Appealing] * Donald Trump Jr. opens up to the Senate Judiciary Committee about that infamous June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer. [New York Times] * Consolidation continues in the legal-services world: Counsel On Call acquires e-discovery company DSicovery LLC (DSi). [ABA Journal] * The Trump administration sides with the anti-gay-marriage baker in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case that will be decided this coming Term by SCOTUS. [How Appealing] * ICYMI: Deborah Farone -- Cravath's chief marketing director for the past 14 years, and the "gold standard" in legal marketing -- is leaving Cravath to start her own consulting firm and to write a book on law firm marketing (to be published next year by the Practising Law Institute). [Law.com] * Cooley raids Wilson Sonsini for talent for the second time in three months, this time hiring emerging growth specialists Jon Avina, Calise Cheng, and Rachel Proffitt. [Big Law Business] * Legal research startup Casetext -- led by CEO Jake Heller, COO Laura Safdie, and VP Pablo Arredondo -- continues on its upward trajectory. [ABA Journal]

Ninth Circuit Thinks Government Argument Is Out Of This World

I'm pretty sure this judge isn't buying it, you guys.

Morning Docket: 08.18.17

* "It’s a terrible signal for this group to be holding their meeting at the Trump International Hotel and for a Supreme Court justice to legitimate it by attending. It just violates basic ethical principles about conflicts of interest." Justice Neil Gorsuch is under fire for speaking at an upcoming event at the Trump International Hotel just two weeks before SCOTUS will hear arguments in the travel ban case. [New York Times] * After 23 years, National Conference of Bar Examiners president Erica Moeser will be retiring from her job on August 21 and handing over the reins to Judith Gundersen, the NCBE's director of test operations. If you recall, Moeser once infamously -- and most likely, correctly -- said that plummeting bar pass rates were due to "less able" test takers. Enjoy your retirement! [Law.com] * With funding of almost $6 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies, NYU Law is launching the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, in an effort to assist state attorneys general who "don’t begin to have the resources to meet these challenges" fight any of the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle environmental protections and climate policies. [Washington Post] * Jacqueline B. Jones, the lawyer who called in a bomb threat to the federal courthouse on the day she was supposed to defend herself against being sanctioned, is set to plead guilty today to third-degree falsely reporting an incident. She faces jail time and up to $15,000 in fines. [Syracuse.com] * "The story's true. I'm not doing anything. I barely show up to work and I've been caught." The spokesman for New York's Office of Court Administration accidentally left a message for a reporter who was working on a story about his truancy on the job, laughing about how he "barely" showed up to work, just after lying and saying the reports were false. Oopsie! [New York Law Journal] * "In an era of alternative news and fake facts, the ABA should be the definitive source of real facts when it comes to the law." Check out the ABA's new online resource, the legal fact checker, a website where members of the public can learn about what the law says regarding current events in the news. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 08.11.17

* President Donald Trump rejects reports that he's considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller, while offering a less-than-ringing endorsement of his relationship with Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "It is what it is." [New York Times] * Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, whose house was the subject of a predawn raid by the FBI, parts ways with WilmerHale and goes back to his former lawyers at Miller & Chevalier. [National Law Journal] * Meanwhile, the Trump administration files its opening brief in the Supreme Court in the travel ban litigation. [How Appealing] * Georgetown Law launches a new con-law center, the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, led by star SCOTUS litigator Neal Katyal, former National Security Council official Joshua Geltzer, and former Justice Department official Mary McCord. [ABA Journal] * Some Democratic senators claim that the White House isn't consulting them enough about judicial nominations. [Politico] * The hype may exceed the reality on alternative-fee arrangements -- but not at pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, which takes an aggressive and innovative approach to AFAs. [Am Law Daily] * Settling the "pink slime" litigation cost Disney/ABC how much? [How Appealing] * Also not cheap: the costs of bad-faith discovery spoliation. [Big Law Business]

Non-Sequiturs: 07.26.17

* President Trump's personal legal team: "It's utter chaos. Sometimes it can be like no one knows who is in charge." [Washington Post] * Adam Feldman predicts that the travel ban is going down before SCOTUS. [Empirical SCOTUS] * The Trump tweets on banning transgender individuals from the military aren't the only bad news for the LGBTQ community today. [Washington Blade] * A nice win for the First Amendment and public access to court records. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * Ira Stoll wonders (with good reason): why did the New York Times account of this high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit name the law firm, but not the plaintiff? [Smarter Times] * Clerkships guru Debra M. Strauss, who has written for our pages on the topic, is out with a second edition of Behind the Bench: The Guide to Judicial Clerkships (affiliate link).

Morning Docket: 07.24.17

* Can the president be indicted? You betcha! "It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president’s official duties. In this country, no one, even [the president], is above the law." [New York Times] * According to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most notorious grandma of them all, the Trump administration was a little heavy-handed when it came to the travel ban from majority-Muslim countries, and its definition of close family was simply "too restrictive" for the high court to abide by -- which is why the "grandma ban" no longer exists. [Associated Press] * Why did Ty Cobb decide to join President Trump's legal team for the Russian election collusion investigation? Here's what he said, in his own words: "If the president asks you, you don’t say no. I have rocks in my head and steel balls." Well, that certainly explains it! [National Law Journal] * As the Supreme Court's junior justice, Neil Gorsuch has the unenviable task of serving on the cafeteria committee. It's a "truly disheartening assignment," especially since the vast majority of the people who are forced to eat there thanks to a lack of other options have described the food as poor, at best. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)] * A Cravath associate once said that Anthony Scaramucci, the Harvard Law grad who now serves as President Trump's new communications director, isn't one to "humble brag." But that won't stop him from helping the president with a few second-hand humble brags. During the press conference where he introduced himself to the world, he said Trump could "throw a dead spiral through a tire," "hit[] foul shots and swish[] them," and "sink[] 30-foot putts." This is all totally believable(?). [Law.com] * Leary Davis, founding dean of Elon Law and Campbell Law, RIP. [Roanoke Times]

Morning Docket: 07.20.17

* Buyer's remorse: Trump says he wouldn't have hired Jeff Sessions if he'd known Sessions would follow the law. [New York Times] * Your grandma is now officially part of your close family according to the Supreme Court. [SCOTUSBlog] * A fitting end to Trump's "Made in America Week"? Star of "O.J.: Made In America" may get out today (or... get approval to get out in a couple months to be more accurate). [NBC News] * White & Case slapped with record fine over conflict of interest. [Law.com] * Andy Pincus mouths off about CFPB arbitration rule: "quite an extraordinary moment to see this agency, notwithstanding the election, six months into the new administration, issue this very dramatic and far-reaching rule." You mean the election where Trump got 3 million fewer votes? Yeah, the CFPB may be more plugged into the will of the electorate than you are. [National Law Journal] * New York City has extended the right to counsel to tenants. Here's one City Councilman's statement on the measure. [City & State] * Second Circuit backhands federal prosecutors over foreign compelled testimony. [Forbes] * When GCs become propaganda mouthpieces... a look at what ISP GCs are saying about the need to repeal net neutrality rules. [Corporate Counsel] * Things that are a problem: Revenge Porn. Things that aren't a problem: Revenge Editing. Someone explain that to this college. [Chronicle of Higher Education]