• A group of Mexican officials, legislators, and other political figures wants to create an “army” of lawyers to help Mexicans fight deportation under Trump by clogging up the system. (Christian Science Monitor)
• Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel signed a 15-year agreement renewing its lease on premises in midtown Manhattan, but for about 50,000 square feet less than it had previously, in a sign that firms are using space more efficiently, according to a report. (Wall Street Journal)
• K&L Gates has laid off a “substantial” number of secretaries and staff in a cost-cutting move. (Legal Intelligencer)
• Prosecutors in Panama say they’ve formally arrested partners of a law firm involved in last year’s “Panama Papers” leaks, in another scandal involving bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht. (Bloomberg)
• After a federal appeals court unanimously refused to reinstate his ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, President Donald Trump tweeted “SEE YOU IN COURT!” (Bloomberg via BLB) • Other twitter responses to the ruling. (Law.com) The U.S. Supreme Court has the final say on the ban, but other legal moves are possible before that. Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News Supreme Court Reporter, discusses what could come next. (Bloomberg)
Legal Market
• A decision by a firm to eliminate its bonus memo is often a precursor to “shortchanging” associates. Fortunately, it looks like that is not Cooley LLP’s intent. (Above The Law) Positive bonus vibes at Morrison & Foerster, among other bonus news. (Above The Law)
• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft saw revenue fall 2.5 percent in 2016 as partner exits and office closures made it a smaller firm. But a bigger focus on core clients and practices paid off with a 2.7 percent increase in profits per partner, ending three straight years of declines. (Am Law Daily)
• Texas legal recruiter Clint Johnson is en fuego. Johnson coordinated a mass hire of 23 partners for Winston & Strawn and Dorsey & Whitney’s rollout of new Dallas offices, and has done a lot of other work for Big Law firms. (BLB)
• Four Big Law firms are advising in the announced $17.9 billion acquisition by British consumer products giant Reckitt Benckiser Group plc of Illinois-based baby formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. (Am Law Journal)
• Ex-American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg admitted to taking part in two deals to make the insurer’s financial condition look better than it was as part of a $9.9 million settlement with New York that has dragged out for almost a dozen years, the state’s top lawyer said. (Bloomberg)
• Disruptive GCs, an initiative started by legal chiefs at Uber and Made.com, aims to lead a new generation of top-shelf legal clients. (The Lawyer)
Travel Ban Ruling
• White House policy adviser Stephen Miller said judges on a San Francisco-based appeals court who ruled against President Donald Trump’s travel ban took power that belongs “squarely in the hands of the president” in a “judicial usurpation.” (Bloomberg)
• Trump is said to be weighing a new immigration order, but his next legal moves are unclear. (Bloomberg)
• Fixing the existing order’s legal problems would be complicated. (Bloomberg)
• Opinion: The most striking thing about the executive order and the subsequent legal battle to preserve it was “blithering incompetence.” (Bloomberg View)
• As immigration advocates push for court-ordered delays in several cases to ensure a longer-lasting hold, a federal judge in Virginia said she’d rule as soon as possible on extending the block on the ban. (Bloomberg)
• Lawyers say the U.S. government has not complied with a judge’s order to provide a list of people detained at U.S. immigration or deported in the wake of Trump’s executive order. (Bloomberg)
President Trump’s First 100 Days
• Three things to expect from the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price. (National Law Journal)
• The Trump administration hasn’t said much about its planned rollback of Dodd-Frank regulations but it’s safe to assume it will target the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.(New York Times DealBook)
• Republicans argue that Dodd-Frank rules have harmed the economy by hindering lending to companies, but recent data tell another story. (Financial Times)
• What’s next for consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission? An interview with departing FTC consumer protection chief, Jessica Rich, about her 26 years at the agency and her outlook for future compliance and enforcement efforts under Trump. (National Law Journal)
Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts
• Last week’s jury verdict awarding Bio-Rad’s former GC millions in damages in a whistleblower-retaliation suit could spur similar GC claims at other companies, a managing partner at a defense litigator firm said in a Q&A. (National Law Journal)
• District Judge Amul R. Thapar was the nation’s first South Asian-American Article III judge and a surprise finalist on Trump’s list for the U.S. Supreme Court. He might one day be the first high court justice of South Asian descent. (Bloomberg BNA)
• Less laughter, less fear and fewer lifelines, among other things: Five ways last year’s death of Justice Antonin Scalia changed the Supreme Court. (National Law Journal)
• U.S. regulators Friday froze brokerage accounts holding more than $29 million in what they allege are illegal profits reaped by a Chinese national accused of insider trading ahead of Comcast Corp.’s April 2016 announcement that it planned to take over DreamWorks Animation. (Bloomberg)
• The American Association of Cosmetology Schools sued Education Secretary Betsy DeVos claiming that a gainful-employment rule implemented by the Obama administration shouldn’t be applied to beauty schools. (Bloomberg)
Laterals and Moves
• Two former Sutherland Asbill & Brennan lawyers who were law school classmates in Texas have formed their own Houston-based firm, focused on plaintiffs’ work. Sutherland recently merged with U.K. firm Eversheds to form Eversheds Sutherland. (Texas Lawyer)
Technology
• Attorneys working at major airports to help people detained at major airports by Trump’s travel ban used websites, social media and mobile devices, among other things. (Legaltech News)
• A California federal judge designated a coalition of five plaintiffs firms to lead class actions against Yahoo! Inc. related to massive data breaches that the firm disclosed last year. (The Recorder)
• Law firms and legal departments have very different reasons for using machine learning software. (Metropolitan Corporate Counsel)
• Coca Cola and Pepsi have already had to deal with fake news targeting their companies. Businesses shouldn’t wait to plan for such potentially damaging attacks on them. (Bloomberg View)
• The Pentagon is paying hackers to test its key internal systems for vulnerabilities — and they are finding weaknesses faster than expected. (Bloomberg)
• Groupe ADP, the operator of Paris’s airports, has begun testing new face-recognition software at Charles de Gaulle airport to get passengers through immigration faster after terrorist attacks on the capital doubled delays because of tighter security. (Bloomberg)
• Billionaire Narayana Murthy said he is calling off his governance fight with the board of Infosys Ltd., Asia’s second-biggest IT services company. (Bloomberg)
Legal Education
• Perspective: a recent report documents that law schools continue to substantially discount tuition for selected students with high LSAT scores, in a system that aggravates inequality, writes a law professor who clerked for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor. (Big Law Business)
Miscellaneous
• “I’m a lawyer, too, you stupid woman:” Two self-described lawyers fight over an arm rest on a flight to Spain. Video. (Daily Mail via Above The Law)
• The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released due diligence guidance to help companies identify and prevent legal and other pitfalls related to human rights, labor, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide. (OECD)
• Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee has been summoned again by special prosecutors in Seoul investigating allegations of bribery and embezzlement. Video. (Bloomberg)
Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.