Ty Cobb

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 07.10.18

* A quick primer on the key Judge Kavanaugh opinions to understand before this grueling process gets underway. [Law360] * Dianne Feinstein hiring MoFo to vet Brett Kavanaugh. [The Recorder] * After briefly flirting with looking outside the two schools, the Supreme Court will remain exclusively for people who attended either Yale or Harvard (including Justice Ginsburg, who transferred from Harvard). [Washington Post] * Uber brings in top Justice Department attorney. [Wall Street Journal] * Harvey Weinstein spared fate of living on Riker's Island after judge lets him out on bail. Just like any random person accused of raping three women would be! [Mercury News] * The Young Lawyer Editorial Board scolds profession for slow progress on diversity. This drive has to start somewhere and it may as well be at the firms since it's increasingly clear that the law schools don't have the courage to do it. [American Lawyer] * Ty Cobb going to scum punk shows now. I have no joke for this. [The Hill]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.04.18

* Mueller requests 70 blank subpoenas! Which... actually doesn't seem like an inordinate amount in a case like Manafort's, but let's overreact anyway. [Courthouse News Service] * Ty Cobb absolutely demolishes Steve Bannon. [Vanity Fair] * Trump Place successfully won the right to drop Trump's name from the building. According to the Constitution, the building will now be called "Pence Place." [New York Times] * Wild lawsuit against the former president of Ohio Christian University, who allegedly pulled a Trump and fired the people investigating wrongdoing. That move seems to be coming back to haunt him. [Inside Higher Ed] * Young lawyers call for office overhaul. Ostensibly this is to make offices better suited to modern work styles, but it's mostly because law offices are generally all terrible and we're reaching for any excuse that might actually convince someone to renovate. [Law.com] * Firm plans IPO to raise $58 million. [International] * A copy of an intangible thing can be tangible rules NY Court of Appeals after, apparently, binging on edibles [Law 360]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 02.06.18

* 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]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 01.25.18

* 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]

By Joe Patrice
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 11.01.17

* "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]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 09.25.17

* 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]

By Joe Patrice