Wells Fargo

* Remember when Donald Trump lost that defamation case to E. Jean Carroll and immediately went out and repeated the same claims about her being a liar? Because E. Jean Carroll does and she’s seeking another $10M. [Law360]

* Complaints against federal judges jumped 22 percent last year. You don’t think this could be a knock-on effect from putting unqualified judges on the bench and blessing widespread financial ethical breaches, do you? [Legal Intelligencer]

* Wells Fargo piling up NLRB complaints to go with the $1B they had to pay over the Fed, Treasury, and CFPB complaints. [Bloomberg Law News]

* TikTok sues Montana over state’s performative ban. [Reuters]

* Federal judge temporarily blocks Mississippi law designed to give white state officials control over the court system but only in majority Black areas. This briefing is going to read like a timewarp. [AP]

* Expect the rest of the Magic Circle to reevaluate their U.S. strategies in response to A&O merging with Shearman. [LegalCheek]

* John Durham publishes report ripping all the wrongdoing that he could never substantiate during all the years taxpayers paid him to investigate. It’s the legal equivalent of “look, I know she was into me… no I never asked her out, but I stalked her for awhile and I’m positive she’d have totally been into me if I had.” In other words, the perfect document for the Fox audience. [Law360]

* Biglaw attorneys have taken to TikTok and their employers are worried about their online personas. Take the moral panic Biglaw had over the internet, and then Facebook, and then Twitter, and just insert it here. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Wells Fargo puts up a billion dollars to settle shareholder complaints that the bank misled them over its compliance with the orders entered after the last time the bank misled them. [Reuters]

* Law firms are leasing office space again. So much for using the lessons of the pandemic to cut overhead and maybe give clients a break. [American Lawyer]

* Ukraine’s top Supreme Court justice accused of taking massive bribe. Has Harlan Crow ever been to Kyiv? [Radio Free Europe]

This is sort of the whole job description.

Giving the worst job in American banking to a woman is the wrong way to make history.

* With numerous contempt of Congress charges swirling thanks to the inaction of Trump administration officials, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared that the nation is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. It was only a matter of time before this happened. [New York Times]

* Meanwhile, in the wake of Speaker Pelosi’s comments, President Trump now says that he’ll leave it up to AG Bill Barr to determine whether special counsel Robert Mueller will be permitted to testify before Congress. Frankly, he’s more concerned about Don Jr. now. [New York Times]

* C. Allen Parker, former Cravath presiding partner turned Wells Fargo GC turned Wells Fargo acting CEO, has done something very wise in his short time leading the troubled bank: He created a regulatory and compliance group. Smooth move! [Corporate Counsel]

* “I want my life back.” Jessica Crutcher has come forward as the formerly anonymous Mayer Brown partner behind the $20 million suit where she alleged that a bartender at a Houston restaurant raped her. [Texas Lawyer]

* Paul Manafort has officially been disbarred in D.C. after his conviction for “tampering with witnesses while on pre-trial release,” a crime of moral turpitude. This poor crook lost everything thanks to his association with Donald Trump. [Big Law Business]

* Conan O’Brien has settled a lawsuit that accused him of copyright infringement through joke theft, writing that he “decided to forgo a potentially farcical and expensive jury trial in federal court over five jokes that don’t even make sense anymore.” [Variety]

* President Trump claims that the FBI and the DOJ will be investigating the Jussie Smollett case because it’s an “absolute embarrassment to our country.” Meanwhile, in more realistic news, Chicago wants the Empire actor to pay $130,000 to cover the costs of the officers who worked on the case. [Wall Street Journal]

* According to Diane Feinstein, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, “the blue slip is essentially dead.” May the century-old tradition rest in peace. [Big Law Business]

* Jessie Liu, Trump’s pick for third-in-command at the Justice Department upon the recommendation of Attorney General William Barr, has withdrawn from consideration after facing conservative opposition for her association with the National Association of Women Lawyers, an organization she once led. [Reuters]

* C. Allen Parker, the former Cravath presiding partner who brought Biglaw the $180K salary scale and left the firm to become general counsel at Wells Fargo, will now serve as interim CEO and president at the troubled bank. Best of luck… [Corporate Counsel]

* In case you missed it, the NRA is planning to oppose renewal of the Violence Against Women Act due to provisions that would prevent people who have committed domestic abuse from obtaining firearms. That’s just swell. [The Hill]

* Roberta Kaplan, the founding partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink who represented Edith Windsor in the landmark Supreme Court case that obliterated the Defense of Marriage Act and co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, will be speaking at Harvard Law’s 2019 Class Day Ceremony. Congratulations! [Harvard Law Today]

* Because there is never a moment without drama in this administration, AG Jeff Sessions has told White House counsel Don McGahn that he’s probably going to have to quit if President Trump fires Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. [Washington Post]

* Meanwhile, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short says the president “has no intention of firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller.” Hmm… we’ll just wait right here until those firings don’t happen. *insert Jeopardy music here* [CBS News]

* “[T]here is no human being, on the planet, with more knowledge about federal criminal law than Michael Dreeben, and no one with more expertise than him.” Meet Michael Dreeben, special counsel Robert Mueller’s Supreme Court closer. He’s argued more than 100 SCOTUS cases, and is a force to be reckoned with. [ABC News]

* Hiring for the law school class of 2017 is “up,” with 75.3 percent of graduates employed in full-time, long-term jobs that require law degrees or are considered “JD advantage” positions — but you probably shouldn’t get too excited about that. The only reason the percentage of those employed is higher this year is because the class was 6 percent smaller. In reality, entry-level hiring has decreased. [ABA Journal]

* Which Biglaw firm did Wells Fargo turn to ahead of being hit with record fines that turned into a $1B settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency? That would be Sullivan & Cromwell, which “always [tries] to play absolutely straight with the regulators.” [American Lawyer]

* Riley Safer, a spinoff of Schiff Hardin, just elected its first managing partner, and she may be the first black woman to lead a national law firm. Congratulations to Patricia Brown Holmes as she leads the legal profession in the future. [American Lawyer]

* Wells Fargo has a new compliance officer. Imagine a job that easy. Just saying “no, for the love of God, don’t do that!” over and over again pretty much covers it. [Law.com]

* Post McDonnell, Shelly Silver still thinks we need more protection for political bribery.[Law360]

* Rockland County doesn’t think everyone’s a winner at Nixon Peabody. [New York Law Journal]

* Former congressman and convicted felon Michael Grimm paid off his nearly half a million debt to Biglaw. And he’ll probably be back in the House soon because Staten Island is the absolute worst. It’s where New York put its garbage. [National Law Journal]

* When access to justice includes a foreign sovereign. [Litigation Finance Journal]

* Literally EVERYTHING about the Obama years was done with one hand tied behind his back. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* A review of Gaslight Lawyers (affiliate link), the history of steampunk criminal trials. [Foreward Reviews]

Is anyone willing to vouch for more than a few dozen?

If you need a reason to get your ducks in a row with the handling of electronic information, here's your wake-up call.

Total unforced error.

* Now Ivanka Trump’s hired Abbe Lowell. Hey, at least she doesn’t think she has any potentially adverse interests to her husband. Yet. [National Law Journal]

* Elon Musk may be looking for in-house counsel for the burrowing company he claims has a government deal to start building underground highways and super trains. First step for this new attorney? Explaining that, no, he does not have a government contract to start building underground highways and super trains. [Law.com]

* NFL cheerleaders can’t pursue antitrust action against entity that’s already lost an antitrust action. Remember that? When Donald Trump bankrupted a football league because he’s comically incompetent? [Courthouse News Service]

* Wells Fargo inadvertently released a bunch of client data and they want it back. One presumes these are real Wells Fargo clients and not the millions of fake ones. [Law360]

* ABA warns against weakening Medicaid. I’m sure that’s going to do the trick with this crew. [ABA Journal]

* Has R. Kelly hired Bill Cosby’s attorney? [Complex]

* An argument for Jeff Sessions keeping his job. [Litigation Daily]

* Happy Comey Day! [Huffington Post]

* Legal operations teams are rampant, proving no one trusts Biglaw billing. [Corporate Counsel]

* Sessions ends DOJ settlements that give money to charitable causes — a common tactic in matters where identifying all specific victims would be difficult or impossible. This is played off as “helping victims” because nothing helps victims more than making sure the perpetrator feels no penalty for their wrongdoing. [ABA Journal]

* The “Mansfield Rule” tries to bring NFL thinking to a Biglaw problem. Now if we could just address all those junior associate concussions…. [Law.com]

* The American Immigration Lawyers Association is relocating its upcoming convention to get out of Texas. So the state has successfully built itself a wall — against tourism dollars. [Texas Tribune]

* DOJ asking Second Circuit to consider what Escobar means for Wells Fargo. In other words, it’s time to circle the wagons at Wells Fargo. [Law360]

* Norton Rose Fulbright considering merger. [Legal Week]

* The Republicans hold on to the House seat vacated by CIA director Mike Pompeo; state treasurer Ron Estes defeated James Thompson, a Wichita civil rights lawyer. [New York Times]

* So it seems the FBI did obtain a FISA warrant to monitor the communications of a Trump adviser (foreign policy adviser Carter Page). [Washington Post]

* In a time when many firms are closing offices, Adams and Reese is opening new ones, in Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale. [Law.com]

* The retirement buzz around Justice Anthony M. Kennedy persists — and stems from conversations Kennedy has had with people close to him. [Bloomberg and CNN via How Appealing]

* As for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has she been enjoying Opus One yet again? [New York Daily News]

* Yes, it’s possible for an in-house legal department to be too cost-conscious — just ask Wells Fargo. [Big Law Business]

* A professor accused of sexual harassment by a student and a staff member just lost his case before the Sixth Circuit. [Law.com]

* Speaking of things sexual… don’t write “sexual favors” in the check memo line when paying your taxes. [Billings Gazette]

It's a smart move for Allen Parker, and a great hire by Wells Fargo.

So if no improper behavior was found, why deprive these poor innocent executives of their hard-earned cash?

* Remember when Trump recaptured the news cycle from the string of blunders and Russian scandals that rocked his first month? That seems like just yesterday…. [Washington Post]

* What happens to lawyers after they publicly demean themselves appear on The Bachelor? [The Ringer]

* After a massive scandal, Wells Fargo is slashing executive pay in the name of accountability. Well, by “slashing,” they mean “the people who failed to pick up the fraud will still make millions,” but it’s the tokenistic thought that counts. [Corporate Counsel]

* JP Morgan replaced 360,000 hours of annual legal work with a robot that does the work in seconds. That sounds impressive, but when you control for Biglaw hour padding the software really replaced about 20 minutes of work. [Bloomberg Markets]

* Yahoo’s GC resigned over their cybersecurity kerfuffle. Most Americans greet the news by wondering, “wait, Yahoo is still around?” [NY Times]

* Salary increases may be nice, but it just intensifies senior skepticism over what young associates really bring to the table. [Law360]

* Gibson Dunn building its Houston office on with Latham laterals. [Texas Lawyer]

* Even with revenue down, Bryan Cave manages to get PPP up. [Am Law Daily]

There’s nothing Sen. Elizabeth Warren loves more than tearing into some corporate executive unlucky enough to have been dragged into a Senate hearing.

Internal ethics investigations rarely work if you let everyone cheat.

At least Wells Fargo is consistent.