Google / Search Engines

What did your top lawyers do that made in-house clients search for them over and over again?

What did your firm do last year that made people search for it over and over again?

This is not what GDPR meant by the right to be forgotten.

What did your firm do last year that made people search for it over and over again?

Mo offices, mo marketing complexity.

Please don't make me have to switch to Hinge.

* Eighty-three judicial ethics complaints against Brett Kavanaugh have been tossed out by the Judicial Council of the Tenth Circuit due to an “intervening event”: his SCOTUS confirmation. The Council, set up to fail by Chief Justice John Roberts, “[l]ack[s] statutory authority to do anything more.” [National Law Journal]

* The Senate passed the First Step Act in an 87 to 12 bipartisan vote, and now the sweeping criminal justice reform legislation will move on to the House for approval before being sent to the White House. This is a major victory. Thanks for the assist on this, Jared Kushner! [Washington Post]

* The tax man commeth, but not for Donald Trump. Judge Karen Henderson of the D.C. Circuit has denied a Freedom of Information Act request for the President’s IRS tax records, citing the agency’s confidentiality protections for all citizens. [CNN]

* Cross-border mergers are on the rise, and one firm has been responsible for the vast majority of them. In 2018 alone, with about 9,000 lawyers and counting, Dentons has completed more global mergers than all other U.S. firms. [American Lawyer]

* Brooklyn Law will have a new dean come July 1. Michael Cahill, who’s been serving as co-dean of Rutgers Law, will return to the place where he spent 13 years as a professor, associate dean, and vice dean. Congrats! [New York Law Journal]

* People and things in the legal profession dominated Google’s most searched for queries over the course of 2018, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford’s SJC testimony, Aaron Schlossberg, and taking some top spots. [ABA Journal]

Ed. note: We’re sure you already know this, but there’s a total eclipse today. If you’re planning to watch the eclipse, make sure you do so safely. Enjoy and have fun!

* More than 30 percent of law students are minorities, but only 15 percent of lawyers and less than 9 percent of partners are attorneys of color. Racial diversity in law firms seems to have flatlined, but some law firms are doing a little better than others when it comes to recruiting and retaining minority lawyers. We’ll have more on this sometime soon. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* Is “Google” undeserving of trademark protection thanks to genericide? “There is no single word other than google that conveys the action of searching the Internet using any search engine,” and perhaps that’s why Chris Gillespie, who lost his case at the Ninth Circuit when he attempted to have Google’s trademark invalidated, has applied to the Supreme Court for certiorari. [Ars Technica]

* Judge Jim Hinkle of Gwinnett County, Georgia, who was suspended after posting some controversial remarks about Charlottesville on Facebook — i.e., comparing “snowflake” counter-protesters to ISIS because they were “destroying history” — has officially resigned from the bench. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old accused of ramming his car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring numerous others, has been charged with five additional felony counts on top of the five he was already facing, one of which was second-degree murder. [CNN]

* Some law schools are doing more than others when it comes to helping students with mental health and substance abuse issues. While some law schools are offering students and professors an impressive suite of awareness, reporting, and counseling services, others are a bit behind the eight ball. [Daily Report]

* In what could very well be one of the first virtual law firm mergers, FisherBroyles and Ntellect Law, two cloud-based firms, have tied the knot, combining to form the largest law firm of its kind. Kevin Broyles, the firm’s co-founder, thinks the firm will join the Am Law 200 by 2018. [Am Law Daily]

There’s far greater trust with niche publications on focused verticals.

* Yikes! Thanks to its expensive legal battle with Hulk Hogan — one that’s been revenge-financed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel to the tune of millions of dollars — Gawker Media is exploring a possible sale of the company and has hired Mark Patricof of Houlihan Lokey to provide financial advice. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Maybe Harvard Law grads are a like Carrie Bradshaw after all — except their degrees cost more than their shoes: In addressing Harvard’s 2016 grads at the Law School’s Class Day, Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City admitted she had no idea why she was chosen as a speaker, and said she initially turned down the offer. [Harvard Crimson]

* Alan Koslow, formerly of Becker & Poliakoff, resigned yesterday after he was charged in a federal money-laundering conspiracy scheme. Koslow’s charge is the result of a three-and-a-half year undercover FBI sting. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. We may have more on this later today. [Orlando Sun-Sentinel]

* “Oracle shouldn’t ‘own’ programmers simply because they had taken the time to learn Java.” Google escaped an almost $9 billion copyright lawsuit with the help of a jury that concluded the tech giant had made fair use of Oracle’s Java programming language in the creation of its Android operating system for its phone business. [Big Law Business]

* Closing the gender gap, one job at a time: The OnRamp Fellowship, a program that pairs female lawyers who want to return to practice with the nation’s top firms in the hope of receiving an offer at the end of their one-year stints, has now expanded to in-house legal departments. Congratulations on your excellent work. [WSJ Law Blog]

How is your law firm’s group culture, and how can it be improved?

When using the Internet, focus on relationships and word of mouth first. Use analytics and data as tools to advance relationships and word of mouth on the net, not dictate all business development decisions.

How unprepared are Am Law 200 firms for mobile and responsive design?

Blowing off mobile while feeling secure that your business readers are using non-mobile devices is foolhardy.

A huge percentage of your audience is reading your site from mobile devices and that number is going nowhere but up. What can you do about it?

You cannot afford to sit on the digital sidelines. You either adapt to this new digital universe or fade away into that distant, analog sunset.

How can you use free online resources to initiate your legal research (before diving into Westlaw or Lexis)?

* Solicitor General Don Verrilli may be a frontrunner to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, but the competition seems to be stiff. Kamala Harris, anyone? [USA Today]

* FBI Director James Comey is annoyed by Apple and Google marketing their encryption prowess for privacy’s sake — it’ll “allow people to place themselves beyond the law.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* White & Case just hopped aboard the onshore outsourcing train with its announcement that it would open a services center in Tampa, Florida. The move will create about 100 jobs, but we’d love to know how many it’s negating. [Tampa Bay Times]

* Slater & Gordon, the world’s first publicly traded law firm, has been on an “acquisition spree” in England. Earlier this month, it picked up patent practice, and now it’s in talks with a litigation shop. [Am Law Daily]

* “Law school is a major gamble,” and people are more informed, but that somehow isn’t stopping people from applying. This is a great article to read if you’re still considering going all in. [New York Observer]