Ty Cobb

* Waymo and Uber head to court in self-driving car battle. Uber’s characterizing Waymo’s allegations of industrial espionage as a conspiracy theory and hopes no one reads too much into the fact that Uber ran an industrial espionage group for years. [NPR]

* On February 2, Ropes & Gray was engaged by USA Gymnastics to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar. Hey gang, we all loved the movie, but Groundhog Day doesn’t mean you actually get a do-over on all the stuff you screwed up before. [American Lawyer]

* John Dowd and Jay Sekulow don’t want Mueller to interview Trump. Ty Cobb thinks transparency and cooperation are the best policy. The existence of this story suggests Dowd and Sekulow are winning the internal struggle. [Business Insider]

* The Supreme Court isn’t going to intervene to protect Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered districts… [Courthouse News Service]

* … So, Pennsylvania Republicans are looking into impeaching the state supreme court justices who ruled against them. [Daily Intelligencer]

* Is this the least qualified lawyer to helm a Gitmo case? He certainly thinks so. [NY Times]

* Speaking of Gitmo, there’s a fight brewing over the Defense Department’s recent decision to strip prisoners of their rights to own their own art. [Hyperallergic]

* When the Brits refuse to extradite to the U.S., maybe it’s time to reconsider prison conditions. [The Intercept]

* Katten Munchin opens up in Dallas. [Law360]

* Grumpy cat should be a little less grumpy after winning $710,000 in a licensing case. [Courthouse News Service]

* Remember that judge who gave a Stanford swimmer 6 months for a rape conviction? Yeah, he’s poised to get kicked off the bench. [NY Daily News]

* Can you get a DUI in an autonomous vehicle? A lot of people aren’t familiar with State of Oregon v. The Autobots. [Versus Texas]

* Ty Cobb is a lot less eager to meet with Mueller under oath than his client. [New York]

* Apparently “AI” is now a verb. That’s… awful. [Legal Week]

* Your summer associate lunch plans have taken a hit — Le Bernardin sued over everything from shortchanging employees to sexual harassment. [Le Bernadin]

* Your work email is probably in the Dark Web. It’s also probably on your firm website, but that doesn’t sound as menacing. [National Law Journal]

* New York will only do business with ISPs that adhere to net neutrality in a move that many states are expected to copy. I’m sure the states rights-loving politicians who worked tirelessly to kill neutrality will hail this as a triumph of federalism. [New York Law Journal]

* “Nothing about recent events or any of these actions of the special counsel has altered the president’s determination to support the special counsel and fully cooperate and that is where we are,” said White House lawyer Ty Cobb, twirling his mustache as he presumably wondered how to extricate himself from this situation. [Big Law Business]

* An Akin Gump partner who initially refused to testify before the grand jury in Paul Manafort’s case was ordered to do so under the “crime fraud” exception to attorney-client privilege. She’s (understandably) not responding to media requests for comment at this time. She’s already said her fair share. [National Law Journal]

* The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave Eighth Circuit nominee Leonard Steven Grasz, who happens to be a Husch Blackwell partner, a “not qualified” rating because its members were concerned he wouldn’t be able to follow precedent due to his “passionately-held social agenda.” [ABA Journal]

* Foley & Lardner is in merger talks with Gardere Wynne Sewell. Last we heard, the firm was in merger talks with New York boutique Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman. While the firm claims that a final decision on the merger hasn’t been made yet, they’ve already set up a new website. That’s probably just a coincidence. [Am Law Daily]

* Speaking of mergers, the one between Womble Carlyle and Bond Dickinson is now official, and the combined firm, Womble Bond Dickinson, is now one of the world’s 100 largest. More than 1,000 lawyers work for the new firm across 24 offices in the U.S. and U.K. As with most mergers, some layoffs could be ahead. [Chronicle Live]

* It’s Long Conference Day. For the unaware, this is arguably the most important day of the year for Supreme Court hero-worshippers, as the Court reads and evaluates around 2000 petitions and doesn’t at all phone it in (no matter what the statistics say) because they’re MAGIC! [Constitution Daily]

* Months into his new job — a job that requires a public financial disclosure — Ty Cobb hasn’t yet figured out if he made $5 million or $25 million at Hogan Lovells. Maybe Don McGahn is hiding that information from him too. [Law.com]

* Lawyer accused of flashing girl’s basketball teams. This is all just a big misunderstanding — if his buddies had shown up, it would have been obvious he was just they’d spelled out “Go Team!” on their balls. [Indy Star]

* Jared Kushner apparently used his private email for some White House business. It doesn’t sound like a big deal at all, but that’s not going to prevent everyone from freaking out about it. [Huffington Post]

* Convicted Hunton partner seeks probation in securities fraud case. The government is asking for 51 to 64 months in prison so at least the two sides are pretty close here. [Law360]

* NBC is developing a Supreme Court show following the clerks. It’ll be like The West Wing, except with standing and patent disputes! [Law.com]

* Speaking of the Supreme Court, in what ways are the top law firms making it to the Supreme Court? [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Maybe it’s just me, but your lawyer shouldn’t be giving interviews about he “relishes a challenge,” when your entire defense — to date — is that the case against you is a “nothing burger.” Right? [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* Remember Kim Davis? Her lawyer Mat Staver wants us to know that people who hate gays are persecuted like Jews in Nazi Germany. Yes… it’s exactly like that. [Huffington Post]

* Have equity partners become employees? [American Lawyer]

* Special prosecutor appointed to look into Richard Luthmann’s alleged use of spoof Facebook accounts to masquerade as various elected officials. Perhaps he should seek to vindicate himself through trial by combat. [NY Post]

* We already knew that trial by combat is allowed in New York, but what about “blood oaths”? According to the SDNY, those are enforceable too. America’s conversion into Westeros is almost complete. [Law.com]

* Philadelphia is suing Jeff Sessions over the administration’s efforts to frustrate the town’s “sanctuary city” status. [Philly.com]

* Speaking of sanctuary, Chief Judge Orlando Garcia blocked the controversial Texas sanctuary cities law. [Washington Post]

* NLJ hands out three lifetime achievement awards. [National Law Journal]

* 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]

* Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor, has resigned from his post as a partner at Hogan Lovells to join President Trump’s legal team as the investigation into the campaign’s possible collusion with Russia continues to expand. Cobb, who’s related to the baseball player of the same name, leaves behind more than 30 years of history at the firm to collaborate with Marc Kasowitz, which should be interesting, to say the least. Dat stache, tho… [Bloomberg; New York Times]

* In other news, yet another member of President Trump’s legal team, Jay Sekulow, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday in an attempt to solidify claims that his client, the commander-in-chief, had no knowledge of Don Jr.’s emails and meeting with the Russians, and that “there was nothing illegal to cover up” anyway. [Newsweek]

* Meanwhile, it looks like Trump’s lawyers knew about Don Jr.’s emails and meeting with the Russians more than three weeks ago, which makes the president’s assertion that he’d learned of it “a couple of days ago” all the more far fetched. In fact, per a recent FEC filing, President Trump’s reelection campaign paid $50,000 to Don Jr.’s criminal-defense lawyer, Alan Futerfas, on June 26, two weeks before the email scandal was made public. [Yahoo News; Daily Beast]

* “I think a politician or a public figure of note can have a Twitter account of public note which would not be deemed to be a public forum. But in the Trump Administration, what he says on his tweets are as much public in nature as a press conference.” Renowned First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams explains why the litigants who sued President Trump for blocking their Twitter accounts might just have a shot when it comes to winning their case. [Big Law Business]

* “I wouldn’t rent to u if u were the last person on earth. One word says it all. Asian.” An Airbnb host has been taken to task by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after canceling a UCLA School of Law student’s cabin reservation based on race. Airbnb must also develop a discipline system for discriminatory hosts. We may have more on this later. [The Recorder]

* While it’s taken most justices about three to five years to get adjusted to life on the Supreme Court, it seems as if Justice Neil Gorsuch has already hit his stride over the course of just a few months. This gunner wrote one majority opinion, three dissents, three concurrences, and one statement during his first two months on the bench. [New York Times]

* DLA Piper — the first Biglaw firm to fall to a cyberattack — has finally restored its email service after five days of going without it thanks to being the victim of the worldwide Petya ransomware attack. The firm still claims no client data was compromised by the hackers who gained access to their systems. [ABC News]

* Ty Cobb of Hogan Lovells will reportedly be brought on to attend to Russia-related issues within the Office of White House Counsel. Cobb met with Trump last week, but wouldn’t offer any comment on his prospective role except to say that he was on vacation. Enjoy your time off while it lasts — working on Russia-related matters at the White House will certainly be no vacation. [Reuters]

* Harvard Law School has established an endowed professorship to honor the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who graduated from the school in 1960. According to outgoing Dean Martha Minow, the professorship is “especially meaningful” because the justice “had a great love of learning.” [Harvard Law Today]

* Overworked and underpaid never paid? Public defenders working as independent contractors in Massachusetts aren’t being paid in a remotely timely fashion. They sometimes go up to two months without receiving paychecks, and say that this has been going on for at least five years. [WWLP 22News]