Morning Docket

* “Several Big Law firms treat nonequity lawyers as full partners for tax purposes” without giving them the share of profits the actual partners in the firm receive. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Texas loses bid to bar DOJ from sending monitors to ensure the state abides by voting laws. AG Ken Paxton — who settled outstanding felony charges against him earlier this year — argued that Texas was fully capable of keeping things legal. [Lawyer Monthly]

* Biglaw firms not as eager to give time off to vote as they were four years ago. [American Lawyer]

* Latham & Watkins sanctioned. [ABA Journal]

* New solicitor disciplined for making up emails… and without the help of generative AI. [LegalCheek]

* Supreme Court takes up challenge to Louisiana congressional maps or “the existence of the Voting Rights Act” depending on how much you want to keep it real. [Law360]

* The election may end, but uncertainty about Lina Khan’s work at FTC will remain. [Corporate Counsel]

* Car crashed into law firm office Halloween night. Too bad it wasn’t a DWI firm. [KOAT]

* Second Circuit affirms that “Thinking Out Loud” is not “Let’s Get It On.” You could say they didn’t even see any Blurred Lines when considering their similarities. [Law360]

* Considering potential Harris and Trump judicial nominations. [ABA Journal]

* Another Biglaw salary bump… in London. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Law firm converting a bar into their new office. One stop shopping! [KTAR]

* Class action targets company charging big transaction fees for school lunch payments. CFPB already found that the company has charged parents $100 million in “junk fees.” [NJ Law Journal]

* Eric Adams trial set for April. [Courthouse News Service]

* For you civil procedure fans: Florida resident sues Delaware corporation doing business in New York in..Northern District of Texas — Amarillo to secure a 1-in-1 chance of scoring a judge loyal to the plaintiff. [Reuters]

* After the Supreme Court blessed purging voters within days of the election, Iowa is following Virginia’s suit. [Courthouse News Service]

* YSL trial stayed true to form and couldn’t even get a plea deal done without bizarre and unnecessary drama. [NPR]

* Former first minister of Scotland apologizing for calling lawyer a “Tory f*ckwit.” Though, unlike American conservatives clutching pearls over the idea that one of their comedians was called garbage, the UK lawyer responded, “No offence is taken.” [RollonFriday]

* Profiling the lawyers on the Harris transition team, which is heavy on Biglaw. [National Law Journal]

* CFPB considering action against Meta over financial ads. [Law360]

* “Antitrust Zeal to Morph but Won’t Fade Under Next President.” In that Trump may use it to punish companies he doesn’t like and Harris will openly defy her most vocal deep pocketed donors?Not so sure about this, but here’s hoping. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Elon Musk ordered to appear in court today to discuss his $1 million election lottery. [Reuters]

* Above the Law alum Elie Mystal describes the parliamentary shenanigans that Mike Johnson could unleash to elect Donald Trump if the voters don’t. [The Nation]

* Kirkland lawyer sanctioned over courtroom behavior. [Law.com]

* Sixth Circuit considers throttling the internet. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Biglaw involvement in upcoming (or already here) election litigation. [National Law Journal]

* Ethics complaint against judge for string of events. [ABA Journal]

* Jaywalking legal in New York and literally no one’s behavior will change. [CBS News]

* David Boies thinks the Supreme Court doesn’t want a Bush v. Gore redux and the brutal reputation hit that carried. Which would be the prudent response of a credible institution, but after Dobbs, and Bruen, and Trump… some men (and one woman) just want to watch the world burn. [National Law Journal]

* Supporting his theory, the Supreme Court just declined to enter the fray to remove RFK Jr from state ballots, meaning Trump’s new brain worm buddy will continue splitting votes. [Law360]

* Jones Day is back on the MAGA train officially, putting in the hours to disenfranchise battleground state voters. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Lawyer disciplined for sending threatening letters to schools over COVID measures. [LegalCheek]

* Kamala Harris’s law school — UC San Francisco — sees an applicant surge. [Reuters]

* Interesting look at Susman’s approach to getting young attorneys meaningful trial experience. [Litigation Daily]

* Lawyer based her career off Bull Durham and it sorta works. [ABA Journal]

* Ready and rested Steve Bannon is out of prison. Check to see if he has any new tattoos! [NBC]

* Pay guarantees are back at firms unwilling to lose out on lateral partners thinking the grass may not be greener. [American Lawyer]

* Second Circuit upholds New York concealed carry law after Supreme Court showed Bruen buyer’s remorse. [ABA Journal]

* Subway sandwiches may no longer be footlongs or $5 and now a lawsuit claims they might be short of meat. [Reuters]

* New bid from Pennsylvania Republicans sets the stage for the Supreme Court to seize control of the election… if justices want to take it. [Vox]

* Ninth Circuit delivers victory to opponents of forced arbitration. [Law360]

* In unsurprising news, there’s a hefty statistical uptick in infant mortality following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. [Balls and Strikes]

* Freshfields eyes expansion. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Fifth Circuit rules union busting to be protected speech. [Reuters]

* Also, a Fifth Circuit panel of three guys trying to be Trump’s next Supreme Court nominee redefined how absentee voting works a week before the election. And even if it doesn’t go into effect right away, the confusion it causes might just be enough. [Slate]

* The task of training young lawyers in the AI era. [Artificial Lawyer]

* Delta going after Crowdstrike over global IT collapse. [Law360]

* Did not have “foreign aristocracy” on my Bingo card of people funding the lives of Supreme Court justices but here we are. [ABA Journal]

* Things aren’t getting better for Jackson Walker in wake of judge scandal. [Texas Lawyer]

* “Would you like e. Coli with that?” McDonald’s lawsuits begin. [Law360]

* Trump says that if elected he’d fire Jack Smith in least surprising news dump. [ABA Journal]

* Despite progress, convincing lawyers to buy in to technology remains a challenge. Never mind, that might actually be the least surprising news dump. [Law.com International]

* Court blocks acquisition that would’ve further consolidated the handbag market. [Reuters]

* Judgment insurance market suffers another loss… which will happen when insurance companies just start gambling. [Bloomberg Law News]

* “Constitutional sheriffs” — local officials who claim their office grants them the power to unilaterally override all the rest of the federalist system described in the Constitution have spent the last four years building ties with the election denial movement. [WIRED]

* Company charges big bucks for paralegal training and some students aren’t impressed. [Roll on Friday]

* Former OpenAI employee says the company “broke copyright law.” Except he’s not a lawyer and what he’s describing doesn’t really sound like a copyright violation. But the NY Times is suing OpenAI so… here’s a splashy profile about how OpenAI broke copyright law. [NY Times]

* Disciplinary authorities recommend suspending Montana Attorney General’s law license. Which would be significant if Montana’s AG dutifully acted as the state’s top lawyer as opposed to wasting taxpayer dollars filing frivolous lawsuits about how voter registration is unconstitutional. [Montana Free Press]

* Law firm leadership FOMO. [American Lawyer]

* Michael Avenatti may be out of prison sooner than expected. [Reuters]

* Elite firms cooling on California hiring. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Commission accuses judge of abusing contempt power to bully courtroom. Seems like a lot of that going around these days. [ABA Journal]

* Goldman and Apple to pay for CFPB violations. [Law360]

* Law school applications are up and some suggest it might be due to the end of the logic games section. Look, logic games were dumb but if the thing holding you back from applying to law school was not wanting to deal with one LSAT section then maybe law school isn’t your bag. [Reuters]

* Wait, the former CEO of a company that marketed itself with shirtless teenagers might be involved in sex trafficking? [Law360]

* Firms need to tell the truth about which partners are on salary. [Law.com]

* Law professor files ethics complaint against former legal counsel. [Columbia Daily Spectator]

* Georgia Supreme Court tosses contempt ruling against Young Thug attorney. [AJC]

* UK firms have upped billable rates by 40 percent over the last five years. [LegalCheek]

* Lawyers donate $27 million to Harris over the last two months. Sadly it did not stop the fundraising emails in their inboxes. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Central Park 5 have figured out what Dominion and Jean Carroll did — Trump is a defamation machine and you don’t have to take it. [NBC]

* Murdoch sues Perplexity for training on content which is dumb, but not as dumb as thinking the Wall Street Journal is good enough content to use for training. [Reuters]

* Goodwin pushes back against layoff narrative. [American Lawyer]

* Lawyer says trust accounts were needed to avoid becoming homeless. [ABA Journal]

* A government agency whose whole method of delivering results is now under siege? Which party could possibly be responsible? [Reuters]

* People having sex might not get pregnant if Joe Biden has his way. [Law360]

* Former Biglaw partner sentenced to 16 months in prison. What’s the matter number on that time? [ABA Journal]

* Prosecutor sues Georgetown over data breach in rare instance where a Georgetown graduate doesn’t want everyone to know about it. [Reuters]

* With a new film out there about Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, the Advocate has a deep dive into the famed lawyer’s life and times. [Advocate]

* Oklahoma is asking the Supreme Court to force the federal government to give back funding for medical services that it withheld after Oklahoma declared that it wasn’t going to allow those medical services. [Law360]

* Law school clinic working on Supreme Court case aimed at protecting the rights of… straight people? [Balls and Strikes]

* FTC’s new merger rules exemplify ongoing fight within the agency. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Biglaw firms building out alumni programs. [American Lawyer]

* The rate increases will continue until morale improves. [American Lawyer]

* Indian foreign intelligence official charged with attempting to assassinate New York attorney. See… this is why you have to be careful about rate increases. [Law360]

* Just when you thought the “bankruptcy judge living with an attorney practicing before him” story couldn’t get worse… this happens. [Bloomberg Law News]

* It turns out that, no, Ron DeSantis cannot threaten to prosecute TV stations for airing ads encouraging people to vote against his preferred ballot measure. [CNN]

* Man charged in the Trump golf course assassination plot asks Aileen Cannon to recuse herself on the grounds that Trump’s incessant praise of her creates the appearance of impropriety. Her rulings in the documents case remove all doubt about the impropriety but he’s showing respectful restraint. [Politico]

* Execution based on debunked science halted by Texas Supreme Court when a bipartisan group of state legislators sought to block the killing after the US Supreme Court shrugged on Thursday. [CBS]

* Former partner suspended for telling junior to lie to client. [Roll on Friday]

* Biglaw’s big billables slowing urge to reimagine pricing. [Bloomberg Law News]

* DA launching a secret investigation into a judge based on conspiracy theories she found online just one of the reasons she’s losing her law license. [9News]

* New records reveal that Judge O’Connor still holding a ton of Tesla stock as he presides over Elon Musk’s case against Media Matters. Respect the grift! [NPR]

* Legal market still terrible at representation. [Reuters]

* Biglaw discrimination suit ends as former associate abandons appeal. [American Lawyer]

* Defense contractors caught in massive bribery scheme will pay $1 billion in exchange for DPA. [Law360]

* Government AI caught $1 billion in fraud last year. And, no, that’s not just the aforementioned defense contractors. [CNN]

* Gorsuch’s new book presents factually inaccurate record to advance political agenda. Not really a shocker — in Bremerton v. Kennedy the dissent explicitly calls him out for his propensity for making up facts. [Politico]

* Biglaw firms are increasingly suing clients over unpaid bills. [New York Law Journal]

* Judge Reed O’Connor is overseeing the DOJ-Boeing settlement that raises real questions over the government offering a sweetheart deal to protect a company from a damaging trial over the deadly results of its greedy cost-cutting measures. So obviously O’Connor’s biggest concern is if the DOJ’s proposed independent monitor was chosen by DEI policies. [Reuters]

* Judge in trouble for ordering restitution that went to himself in case involving damage to his truck. Judges can’t preside over cases where they have a personal financial interest! Who does this guy think he is, a Supreme Court justice? [ABA Journal]

* Uncle Luke testifies that 2 Live Crew songs weren’t works for hire… unlike Miami football in the 90s, amirite? [Law360]

* Everything we learn about the RFK Jr-Olivia Nuzzi-Ryan Lizza situation is against our will. [Daily Beast]

* Fortress becomes big player in litigation finance. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Partners wonder “who moved my imported, artisanal White Stilton cheese?” [American Lawyer]

* Running a 5:30 am, 122-decibel looped recording of a woman screaming to prove a point ends in lawyers ordered to make door-to-door apologies. [ABA Journal]

* Trump makes another bid to move his NY criminal case to federal court. If at first you don’t succeed yadda yadda definition of psychosis. [Reuters]

* DOJ says its Boeing plea deal is the best it could get. Imagine what “trying” could accomplish? [Law360]

* Lewis Brisbois now with considerably less “Lewis.” [Bloomberg Law News]

* James Carville gives a shout out to Above the Law around the 48 minute mark of his latest podcast. [Politics War Room]

* Lilly Ledbetter dies at 86. [NY Times]

* Uh oh… SpaghettiOs: Woman arrested after cops found a “suspicious substance” on a spoon in her purse during a routine traffic stop — it was canned pasta sauce. [Lowering the Bar]

* Respect the LinkedIn hustle: FTX officer updates profile to reflect prison sentence. [CNN]

* What this tells me is that Roberts is still very, very annoyed with the Fifth Circuit’s nonsense. [National Law Journal]

* Speaking of forum shopping: “US Appellate Judge Urges Caution on Judge-Shopping Rule.” This is why, unfortunately, it’s become necessary for journalists to clarify “TRUMP Appellate Judge Urges Caution on Judge-Shopping Rule.” Without that context, this news story reads as though this isn’t a wholly partisan stance.

* The thing about loser-pays is that the winners can rack up some epic mini-bar charges along the way. [Roll on Friday]

* Nixon Peabody sues personal injury firm. [ABA Journal]

* If only some Supreme Court justices cared about miscarriages of justice as much as they care about jailing women after a miscarriage. [Dorf on Law]

* Judge Kindred texted with former clerk/inappropriate relationship/prosecutor about a case as he presided over it. This is distinct from the senior prosecutor who sent the judge nude photographs. Get it together, Alaska! [Reuters]

* Lawyer suspended for slapping another attorney on courthouse steps. [ABA Journal]

* Clarence Thomas spent Glossip hearing making up stuff about the record despite being corrected multiple times. These are not serious people. [Slate]

* You’ve got to Hawk Tuah and hire some IP lawyers for that thing. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Biglaw learning that just because that they’re not the answer to every hot market. [American Lawyer]

* Diddy accuses DHS of leaking grand jury materials. [Rolling Stone]

* Musk’s zombie Twitter will avoid classification as a gatekeeper product under EU regulation. Which seems like a backhanded acknowledgement that the company isn’t financially relevant any more. [Reuters]

* S&C dropped from FTX suit. [Law360]

* Justice Jackson spends ghost guns argument trying to figure out post-Chevron rules. Spoiler alert, it’s just Calvinball. [Law360]

* Confirming what we already knew… the FBI inquiry into Kavanaugh’s background was a sham. [ABA Journal]

* Disbarred lawyers have a plan. [Slate]

* CVS and UnitedHealth want FTC commissioners to disqualify themselves because they displayed bias in suggesting that maybe it’s bad to artificially inflate insulin prices.

* The Alex Jones reckoning is nigh. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Judges say social media amplifies personal risk. [Legaltech News]

* Davis Polk pushes UK trainee pay to new high. [LegalCheek]

* Supreme Court decides to keep R. Kelly trapped in a closet. [Reuters]

* Georgia Supreme Court reinstates 6-week abortion ban while it considers appeal. Dissent points out that the majority couldn’t come up with any basis for this outside of the underlying merits arguments. [Washington Post]

* Quantum computing will require upping your cybersecurity game. [Bloomberg Law News]

* 2 Live Crew are trying to get back the rights to their music — which other artists have had to do — but the label is making the novel argument that the group was making works for hire and aren’t eligible for the copyright clawback. [Law360]

* Most in-house counsel don’t see AI as “transformative.” Which is a weird word to survey because what does that even mean? [Corporate Counsel]

* Another Deshaun Watson lawsuit intercepted before trial. [The Athletic]

* Judge facing ethics inquiry for failing to be “patient, dignified or courteous.” [ABA Journal]