Non-Equity Partners

* Yes, it’s true: Jeff Sessions came thisclose to resigning as attorney general, after Donald Trump berated him following the appointment of special counsel Bob Mueller in the Russia probe. [New York Times]

* Bye-bye to blue slips? It wouldn’t exactly be “nuclear,” since their treatment has varied greatly over the years. [BuzzFeed]

* The State Bar of California tries to cut down the arguments in favor of a lower cut score on the bar exam. [ABA Journal]

* Technology platforms are driving an increase in transparency that’s having profound consequences for the employer/employee relationship (as I recently discussed on the podcast of Akerman employment-law partner Matt Steinberg). [Akerman]

* Embattled Equifax has turned to Phyllis Sumner and King & Spalding for much-needed legal help in the wake of its massive data breach. [Law.com]

* Statutory interpretation question: can you be both the victim and the perpetrator in a child pornography case? [How Appealing]

* The ranks of nonequity partners continue to grow; has this trend gone too far? [Big Law Business]

* Prosecution of individuals in cases of corporate wrongdoing (aka the Yates Memo), and Justice Department policy on enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states where it has been decriminalized — both are “under review” at the DOJ, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. [Law.com]

* Who recently made partner at Kirkland & Ellis, Covington & Burling, Goodwin Procter, and Curtis Mallet-Prevost? Here’s a nice round-up that highlights the names of the 112 associates who were promoted at these four firms. Don’t be too shocked by that high number; the vast majority of partner promotions were made at Kirkland, where 81 attorneys were welcomed into the ranks of the firm’s non-equity partnership. [Big Law Business]

* In what’s hailed as a victory for gay rights, Massachusetts expanded the legal definition of the word “parent” to be read “in a gender-neutral manner, to apply where a child is ‘born to [two people], is received into their joint home, and is held out by both as their own child.'” The state’s high court also allowed parentage laws to be construed to apply to members of same-sex couples without biological ties to the children. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Today, SCOTUS will hear arguments in a case challenging “judge-made law,” that is, what is and isn’t considered insider trading. If you trade on information received from a third party who received it from an insider, is that insider trading? Even Mark Cuban wants to know, writing in an amicus brief that “no one should be prosecuted for conduct that Congress is either unwilling or unable to define.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* The Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down a law that forced abortion providers to save fetal tissue samples from patients younger than 14 years old, on top of other broad restrictions. The court unanimously ruled that the law violated the state constitution’s “one subject” rule. In a separate concurrence, four judges would’ve struck down the law as an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to have an abortion. [Reuters]

* Much like America, the Supreme Court seems to have a problem with race this Term. The high court will be hearing three divisive cases having to do with racial slurs, racial rhetoric, and racial epithets, and the Court may very well be divided along ideological lines, resulting in 4-4 deadlocks thanks to the seat left vacant by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and the Senate’s refusal to give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing. [CNN]