UFC

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 12.11.20

* A "robot lawyer" startup, that once focused on parking tickets, is now helping users file FOIA requests. Hope the platform can't write the Morning Docket... [TechCrunch] * A new lawyer for the Trump Campaign allegedly argued that Kamala Harris was not a natural-born U.S. citizen. [Forbes] * The Department of Justice is suing the State of Alabama over allegedly substandard prison conditions. [NPR] * Jerry Falwell, Jr. has dropped a defamation lawsuit he filed against Liberty University. [New York Post] * A federal judge has approved a class action of fighters suing the UFC for allegedly being a monopoly. They should have put a trial by ordeal clause in their contracts, may be quicker to settle this dispute in the octagon... [Bloomberg Law]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.29.20

* A federal judge may soon certify a class action involving the pay of fighters in the UFC. Maybe they should just resolve their differences in the Octagon... [Yahoo News] * A former judge in Texas has surrendered her law license after she faced charges for wire fraud and other crimes. [Texas Lawyer] * A Florida lawyer claims he was racially targeted for jogging late at night around his community. [NBC News] * Sanctions against an attorney involved in a case concerning Roundup have been overturned. [Bloomberg Law] * Bed Bath & Beyond is paying $1.49 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it illegally disposed of hazardous waste. Maybe the company will be able to negotiate a 20 percent discount... [CBS News]

By Jordan Rothman
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.11.16

* "Could a firm with a different business model suffer, potentially, if they don't match the $180,000? Maybe." Law firms may be competing for fewer students than in years prior thanks to decreased law school enrollment, but Biglaw's new starting salary scale doesn't seem to have made a big impact on the summer associate applicant pool -- at most schools, OCI participation has held steady or risen only slightly since last year. [Law.com] * “Are you listening? He just flat out lied. ... [I]t could be bad." In a text message that was included in a federal court filing earlier this week, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie claimed that the governor lied when he told the media none of his staff knew about a plan to block George Washington Bridge traffic. Uh-oh! [New York Times] * "We'll tell the council that there's a giant need for affordable law schools like us, and we're going to meet that need." After learning it was unlikely his school would receive accreditation due to students' poor qualifications, Dean Royal Furgeson Jr. of UNT Dallas Law shrugged it off, saying the school would "get a fair hearing." [ABA Journal] * Robert Schulman, a former partner at Hunton & Williams, has been indicted for allegedly trading on insider information ahead of Pfizer's $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals, a client he represented in 2010 while at the firm. He, along with his investment adviser, will face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. [Big Law Business] * Yet another Biglaw firm has partnered with a financial company to assist its attorneys with their law school debt. Miller Canfield is working with Social Finance (SoFi) to provide loan refinancing options to the firm's associates to help "ease the financial burden" of their heavy six-figure debt loads. [Grand Rapids Business Journal] * "They're being terribly exploited." Lichten and Bright, a New York labor law firm, has contacted hundreds of UFC fighters in an effort to unionize them and help get them benefits that other sports unions share, like health insurance, pensions, and the ability to negotiate the terms of their contracts with the mixed martial arts giant. [MMA Junkie]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 12.15.14

* Thanks to a former Skadden attorney's failed attempt to kill himself, police were able to retrieve a suicide note -- entitled "A Sad Ending to My Life" -- that revealed the lawyer's $5M Ponzi scheme. We may have more on this later. [Am Law Daily] * "I’m not one who believes there are too many lawyers in the country," says Dean Thomas Guernsey of Thomas Jefferson Law. Conveniently, only 29% of TJSL's '13 grads are working in full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers. Kudos! [U-T San Diego] * The government just paid the least amount of money to legal services contractors since 2008. As far as Biglaw firms are concerned, Curtis Mallet-Prevost posted "significant losses," receiving $2M less than it did in 2013. [National Law Journal] * Because not everyone wears gas masks, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to keep police from using tear gas on peaceful protestors in Ferguson without first issuing "clear and unambiguous warnings." [WSJ Law Blog] * Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main event of the evening! IT'S TIME! FIGHTING out of the blue corner, angry UFC combatants who are planning to use "renowned" antitrust firms to secure "hundreds of millions of dollars"! [Bloody Elbow / SB Nation]

By Staci Zaretsky