* “The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it.” Senate Democrats have issued a warning to the members of the highest bench in the land: “heal [thy]self” lest you be restructured to reduce political influences. [Fox News]
* In case you missed it, the Trump and McConnell reelection campaigns are trying to turn the controversial Supreme Court confirmations of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh into a fashion statement — for $35 or more, that is. [Washington Post]
* Rather than continue in her quest for justice against Jones Day using her real name, Jane Doe 4 has been dropped as a named plaintiff in the $200 million gender bias suit against the firm. [Big Law Business]
* According to the latest statistics from the
American Bar Association, the federal judiciary is unsurprisingly overflowing with white male judges, but at least women seem to be catching up. [Law.com]
* For the first time in history, women make up the majority of the first-year entering class at the University of Alabama School of Law. Roll tide! [6WBRC]
* Donald Trump Jr. is going to have a closed-door hearing on a limited number of topics for a limited amount of time before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Should be an informative romp around the invocation of the Fifth Amendment. [POLITICO]
* The House Judiciary Committee will sue AG Bill Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn for refusing to comply with subpoenas related to receiving an unredacted copy of the Mueller report on Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election and President Donald Trump’s possible obstruction of justice. [NBC News]
* “When it comes to corporate power, bigger is not always better.” In case you missed it, 10 states have filed suit to put an end to the Sprint-T-Mobile merger deal, claiming that consumers will be hurt price wise due to the lack of market competition. [Reuters]
* Alabama Law isn’t quite through with Hugh Culverhouse Jr. just yet. Professor Ronald Krotoszynski has some wise words to share over how untenable large class sizes would have been for a school that has tried to right-size since the recession severely impacted law graduate employment. [Washington Post]
* Ever since CKR Law started having trouble paying its partners, causing some to flee as a result, the firm has stopped growing at the speed it once was. Duh? [New York Law Journal]
* Lawyers for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford say that she's "prepared to testify next week" before the Senate Judiciary Committee on her allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, but not on Monday (an "arbitrary" date), and only under "terms that are fair and which ensure her safety." [CNN]
* Everyone and their mother and their dog who's been caught up in the Kavanaugh controversy has lawyered up. Patrick Smyth, one of SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh's former high school classmates who was reportedly at the party where Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was allegedly assaulted, has hired Kobre & Kim to represent him. [American Lawyer]
* "Cohen’s disavowal of Trump has triggered a series of events that turned once very good friends into permanent enemies." Michael Cohen has been chatting with Robert Mueller, and his conversations have focused on Trump's dealings with Russia, possible collusion, and whether he's ever discussed a pardon with Trump. [ABC News]
* When it comes to Wachtell, "[i]t may be the last true partnership," but that's not how 87-year-old "Poison Pill" creater Martin Lipton sees things. "If I wasn’t here tomorrow, the firm wouldn’t be any different," he says, because he wants to pass everything on to the next generation of lawyers in the future. [Big Law Business]
* $26.5 million can buy you lots of fancy things, including a law school. The University of Alabama School of Law will now be known as the Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law at the University of Alabama after Culverhouse donated the largest gift in the school's history. Congratulations and ROLL TIDE! [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
* For the first time in history, there are more women than men at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. Fifty-two percent of BYU Law's first-year students are women. According to the dean of admissions, applications increased by 6.7 percent this year, with a nearly 21 percent rise among women. [Daily Herald]
* The trial for Katherine Magbanua and Sigfredo Garcia, who are accused in the 2014 murder of FSU Law professor Dan Markel, was scheduled for October 8, but it's been delayed due to a defense attorney's medical treatment. [Tallahassee Democrat]
* In case you missed it, Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh refused to condemn President Donald Trump's attacks on the judiciary (specifically, his insults of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), refused to say whether he believed same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, and once again denied discussing the Mueller probe with anyone at Kasowitz Benson. What will happen today? [Washington Post]
* President Donald Trump has reportedly called Attorney General Jeff Sessions "a dumb Southerner" and an "idiot" without an Ivy League law degree who "couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama." This Alabama Law professor wonders what's so bad about a degree from Alabama Law. [New York Times]
* Per a new study from the American Bar Association, the sky is blue and women and minorities continue to face racial and gender bias within the legal profession. But, here are some tools to fight these problems. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Allen & Overy has published its 2018 gender pay gap figures, and it's the first U.K. firm to include data from its "overwhelmingly male" partners in its disclosures. A&O's median gender pay gap is 39 percent, a slight improvement. [Financial Times]
* It seems that the Justice Department no longer thinks that employers should be forced to consider job applicants with criminal histories, going against Obama-era guidance that the EEOC has been following since 2012. [National Law Journal]
* In an historic opinion, India's Supreme Court ruled that gay sex between adults is not a crime, casting aside an "irrational, arbitrary, and incomprehensible" colonial-era law that made the act a punishable offense within the country. [Times of India]
* Fire alarms sounded at Miami Law as smoke poured through vents into a student lounge, and some students evacuated their classrooms, but others ran back in to save their laptops. Well, obviously -- they're law students, after all. [Miami Hurricane]
