Animal Law

* Matt Whitaker releasing opinion supporting Matt Whitaker. Well, that’s settled then. [Wall Street Journal]

* Tesla loses securities lawyer. They’d best take Elon’s Twitter machine away from him until further notice. [LA Times]

* I dunno, this still seems cheaper than an actual ticket. [Law360]

* Man with pet alligator calls Jungle Law to get his monster back. Are you unfamiliar with Jungle Law? Enjoy! [WDAF]

* Jones Day has hired 11 SCOTUS clerks which is supposed to be surprising except when the Court gets more Trumpist and every law firm but Jones Day gets less Trumpist, this is what one should expect. [National Law Journal]

* While Republicans continue to allege without evidence that Broward County broke election laws, it turns out a Republican stronghold allowed hundreds of illegal votes and no one seems to be too concerned about it. [Politico]

* No collusion! Michael Cohen’s shell company — the same one used to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels — received more than $1 million in payments from a company that’s been linked to a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. The same oligarch was sanctioned by the Trump administration for election interference. Special counsel Robert Mueller is on it. [New York Times; CNN]

* If President Trump does sit down for an interview with the special counsel, he could make history if he decides to plead the Fifth Amendment. No American president has ever used the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination while still in office. [TIME]

* Is your law school following the new law clerk hiring plan? It better be, if your graduates want a chance to clerk with Justice Elena Kagan. The former law school dean says she’ll “take into account” in her own clerkship hiring whether law schools and lower court judges have complied with the plan. [National Law Journal]

* A former professor and an alumnus from Charlotte Law School have added the American Bar Association to their suit against the defunct for-profit school, claiming in an amended complaint that the ABA negligently certified the school and “failed to act as a reasonable accreditor” — which makes sense. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* A 15-member panel comprised of Florida State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni want the name of their law school building to be changed. It’s currently named after former Florida Chief Justice B.K. Roberts, who worked to keep the University of Florida’s law school segregated. [News 4 JAX]

* Sorry, Tommy and Kiko, but you’re going to have to stay in your cages. The New York Court of Appeals refused to hear a habeus appeal on behalf of the chimpanzees, allowing a ruling that they are not legal persons and therefore have no legal rights to stand. At least the concurring opinion was a little less dour. [Reuters]

* The long, drawn out saga of the “Monkey Selfie” case has crossed another milestone with the Ninth Circuit ruling that the monkey can’t sue for copyright violations. Reached for comment, the monkey’s attorney expressed disappointment in the decision and hurled feces. [Courthouse News Service]

* Jones Day loses more partners to the lateral market. We assume they saw the Above the Law Law Firm Rankings and decided they had to get out. [American Lawyer]

* Colorado passes “secret prisons” reform bill… in secret. Hurray irony! [9News]

* Kimberly Yuracko named the new dean of Northwestern Law. [Northwestern University NewsCenter]

* Good news for DLA Piper: the Second Circuit upholds their malpractice victory. [Law360]

* K&L Gates adds firepower in Asia. That should serve them well until Trump hears a scary Pokemon Go story on Fox and cuts off all trade to Japan. [International]

* Checking in on the finale of the Global Legal Hackathon. So if you got a suspicious request for money from your practice management software the other day, it was probably hacked. [Legaltech News]