Surveillance

* We all know about pleading the 5th, but the 14th might keep Trump out of office. [Denver Gazette]

* Big Family is watching — because they care: Esther’s Law will make it easier for families to put cameras in nursing homes to make sure their family is safe. [Cleveland 19]

* New JD advantage job just dropped: helping clients confront their mortality. No, it doesn’t involve being a criminal defense attorney. [Insider]

* Doing the rights thing: New York’s Office of the Advocate for People with Disabilities is back. Get the word out! [Chronicle Newspaper]

* Pot of Avarice is back on the ban list: NY regulators say “gifting” weed doesn’t make it any more legal. [Law360.com]

* The first rule of Tax Law: If you’re rich, you don’t pay them. [CBS News]

* Biden prepares to sue Texas over SB8. What’s Sleepy SCOTUS™ gonna do next? [Wall Street Journal]

* United Airlines blesses religious exemption to COVID vaccine, but will put you on unpaid leave. Talk about living on a prayer. [CNBC]

* Prepare for “Do you know how fast you were going? Add me on Facebook.” at your next traffic stop, LA. [The Guardian]

* Prosecutor opts out of charging felonies that stem from minor traffic stops. Rest in Peace, Mr. Castile. [Yahoo]

* This is not a metaphor — John Quinn takes on Everest. [Big Law Business]

* A DOJ staffer got the ball rolling on the Mike Flynn investigation. [Wall Street Journal]

* Get your popcorn ready for next week’s Comey testimony. [Huffington Post]

* Financial advice just in case you get laid off. [Law and More]

* Paul Caron starts his term as Dean of Pepperdine University School of Law. [TaxProf Blog]

* Internet surveillance isn’t the future, it’s the present. [Katz Justice]

* Some big reasons why Trump will probably stick to well-worn tradition and select a federal appellate judge to fill Justice Scalia’s seat. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Class action against Chipotle over burritos containing over 300 calories. [Slate]

* Should lawyers learn how to code? Maybe not. Hell, I’d just be happy if someone showed me how Minecraft works. [Lawyerist]

* Police are spending millions spying on protesters because the Bill of Rights is merely advisory these days. [Washington Post]

* A look at “ageism in the digital era.” I’m sure no one will read it because it’s not properly Snapchatted. [Digiday]

* Law professors weigh in on Mike Pence’s night at the theater. Honestly, has anyone considered that they may have just been chanting, “Boourns“? [TaxProf Blog]

* The Pawnee Nation has filed suit against the federal government over oil-and-gas operations on tribal lands. If the last 400 years are any indication, they may be out of luck. [Pawnee Nation]

* University of Chicago 3L Joshua B. Pickar is a Rhodes Scholar. Congrats. [Rhodes Trust]

* A considered case for pardoning Edward Snowden by Timothy Edgar, who was on the team responsible during the George W. Bush administration for determining that most of the secret surveillance programs had a firm basis in law. [Lawfare]

* The Virginia Supreme Court denied an effort by Republican legislators to find Governor McAuliffe in contempt over an effort to restore voting rights to felons. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

* The “Urban Cowboy” threatens to sue New York City. Most importantly, he’s lawyered up with Richard Luthmann, the Staten Island lawyer who previously sought trial by combat. This should be fun. [Gothamist]

* An omnibus look at what the election means for the courts. Beyond Justice Peter Thiel, of course. [Law.com]

* Many University of Chicago professors have denounced the “no safe spaces” publicity stunt from a few weeks ago, but the law school has largely missed the point of the dispute stayed out of the fray. [WSJ Law Blog]

* You don’t see many paeans to the Lochner era, but here’s one. [Library of Law and Liberty]

* Oregon has settled with Oracle over the state’s troubled health exchange. [Oregonlive]

* Walking meetings improve productivity. Yeah, I’ve watched West Wing reruns too. [TaxProf Blog]

* ATL Editor Kathryn Rubino talks politics on the latest Today’s Verdict. [BronxNet]

* To excel as a lawyer you need to compete against yourself while still keeping your eye on the prize. [Katz on Justice]

* High school debaters around the country are debating U.S. domestic surveillance with more depth and nuance than Congress. Maybe they should set the bar just a little bit higher than that. [The Intercept]

* You want to organize against Airbnb? Get ready for some strange bedfellows. [Cityland]

* Judge Posner sees the bullsh*t behind Republicans’ strategy for (not) filling Justice Scalia’s seat. [Washington Post]

* Maryland Court of Appeals set a potentially dangerous new precedent in the case against the police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray. [Slate]

* A noteworthy ruling giving the green light to litigation financing. [Burford Capital]

* The growing movement to amend France’s self-defense laws to include domestic violence. [Jezebel]

* Even some Republicans are calling Indiana’s new abortion law overreaching, not that the statement stopped the bill from passing the legislature. [Huffington Post]

* Cops arrest a stormtrooper in Massachusetts. See, J.J. Abrams! This is what happens when you have a black stormtrooper. [Lowering the Bar]

* Litigation finance crosses a new threshold: Gerchen Keller announces that it now has $1.4 billion in assets. [Am Law Daily]

* Understanding how humans cocoon makes you a better lawyer. But cocoons apparently can’t cure Wilford Brimley’s “dia-beet-us.” [Katz Justice]

* Deep look at Rob Billot whose career as a corporate lawyer took a wild turn when he decided to take on DuPont for the last 16 years. [New York Times Magazine]

* The law of using submarines to spy. That damn caterpillar drive again. [Lawfare]

* Are you going to San Diego ComicCon? Are you willing to cosplay to participate in a mock trial? These folks want to talk with you. [The Legal Geeks]

* Americans lost their minds — one way or the other — over President Obama’s tears yesterday, but they’re a well-established part of advocacy to be handled lightly. Or you could just bawl over everything and see if that works. [Law and More]

* Let’s check in at the AALS Conference. Yep, everything seems perfectly normal over there…

That’s the CALI.org booth if you’re visiting the show (photo grabbed off Twitter).

* Stingrays — no, not the kind that killed the Crocodile Hunter, but the kind that are used to determine cell phone locations and intercept messages — have been deemed by a judge as too powerful for law enforcement to use without safeguards. [Ars Technica]

* On the ethics of misrepresentations in negotiations. [Associate’s Mind]

* You shouldn’t have to feel bad about billing 2,000 hours — even if everyone around you is billing 2,500. [Bashful Buffalo Marketing]

* The latest buzz from the world of family law: judge rules a divorced couple’s frozen embryos should be destroyed. [LA Times]

* The controversy surrounding the new documentary The Hunting Ground about sexual assault on campus features an incident at Harvard Law School. [Slate]