• In his first press conference since July, President-elect Donald J. Trump introduced Morgan Lewis & Bockius partner Sheri Dillon as the lawyer tasked with ironing out any conflicts created by his myriad business interests before he takes office. It’s not often that a Big Law partner is thrust into the international spotlight like that. (BLB) But is that spotlight on a corporate law firm a good thing? (Am Law Daily) Publisher Chambers & Partners named Morgan Lewis “Russia law firm of the year” in 2016. (Slate)
• Opinion: Trump is getting a lot of flak for appointing his son-in-law to a White House job. But thanks to a 1993 D.C. Circuit decision involving Hillary Clinton, White House staff are exempt from the 1967 anti-nepotism law. (Law Newz)
• Partner promotions haven’t been a big news item in years past, but firms started touting the diversity profiles of their promotions last year. In 2016, a little less than 37 percent of all Big Law partner promotions went to women, up from around 27 percent the year before, according to recent data. Here’s a look at which firms promoted the most women. (BLB)
• Despite word of a settlement last year, lawyers continue to battle in litigation over allegations linking retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz to an underage sex scandal. (Law.com)
• The U.S. Senate took the first step toward repealing Obamacare in a razor-thin vote early Thursday, even as House leaders were struggling to line up support for a vote later this week. (Bloomberg)
Legal Market
• David Sanford, the employment attorney leading the charge in an equal pay class-action against Chadbourne & Parke, has become lead counsel on a gender discrimination suit against another law firm, Sedgwick, and he’s upping the stakes. (BLB)
• U.K. government ministers say privately that they expect to lose a landmark legal case on Brexit before the country’s Supreme Court and are already planning how to respond to such a ruling. (The Guardian)
• Volkswagen AG took a major step toward resolving one of the darkest chapters in its history Wednesday, agreeing to plead guilty in the U.S. to an emissions-cheating scandal and agreeing to pay $4.3 billion in penalties, while prosecutors announced charges against five individuals in Germany. (Bloomberg)
• Amazon Canada was hit by a $1 million fine in the country for misleading pricing practices, Canada’s Competition Bureau said. (Recode)
• U.S. prosecutors said portfolio manager Stefan Lumiere cheated investors at Visium Asset Management LP by inflating the value of distressed-debt holdings in the hedge fund’s credit portfolio, as his securities’ fraud trial began Wednesday. (Bloomberg)
• Energy’s drunken-sailor legacy: more than 230 exploration, drilling, production, servicing, transportation and storage companies have gone bankrupt since the start of 2015, affecting about $96.2 billion of debt, according to data tracked by Haynes and Boone. (Bloomberg)
• In a federal lawsuit filed in Michigan, 18 women and girls accuse a Michigan doctor of sexually assaulting them and they say U.S.A. Gymnastics and other organizations for which he worked did not address their concerns and prevent further abuse. (New York Times)
Transition to a Trump presidency
• New York lawyer Jay Clayton may not yet know Shira Pavis Minton, the SEC’s ethics counsel, but he may get very familiar with her soon. Because if Clayton is confirmed as Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, the Sullivan & Cromwell LLP partner will have to tread carefully to avoid potential ethics problems stemming from his role at Sullivan and conflicts of interest stemming from his marriage to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wealth manager Gretchen Butler Clayton. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts
• Trump said during his new conference Wednesday that he will make a decision about the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court within two weeks of taking office. Video. (Bloomberg)
• Potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee and current Eighth Circuit Judge Raymond W. Gruender’s conservative bona fides surpass the other frontrunners for the vacant seat on the court, at least by one measure. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
• Chris Christie continues to battle fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal in a New Jersey court room. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• The U.S. Supreme Court wants Michigan’s Department of Treasury to respond to petitions filed by Skadden Arps and several companies arguing that its retroactive application of a tax law violates the U.S. Constitution. The court also delayed a conference in a case concerning a similar tax law in Washington state. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
• The Supreme Court took up this challenging policy question Wednesday: How much is a school district obligated to educate a disabled child? (Bloomberg View) Robert Garda, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, discusses the case. (Bloomberg Radio)
• A Morrison & Foerster associate who recently finished a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship was to argue Wednesday against former solicitor general Seth Waxman in a major race discrimination case involving the National Collegiate Athletic Association. (The Recorder)
• Perspective: Two recent appellate court decisions illustrate the spectrum of gray that can enshroud the law in white collar criminal cases. (Collora LLP via BLB)
Technology
• The founder of Techdirt blog, Mike Masnick, vowed to fight a libel lawsuit against him by Shiva Ayyadurai, the man who claims he invented e-mail. The fight, though essential for freedom of press, could bankrupt the publication, Masnick said. (Ars Technica)
• Pressured by the Thai government, Facebook is censoring posts in the country, including by Andrew MacGregor Marshall, a British journalist who angered the Thai government with his book about the royal family. (TechCrunch)
• As Norway switches off its FM radio network this week, other nations have abandoned similar plans, leaving the Scandinavian country a lonely beacon of digital-only broadcasting in a world that’s rapidly moving on to music streaming and podcasts. (Bloomberg)
• Cowen & Co., the nearly century-old firm founded as a bond brokerage, is racing to become Wall Street’s leading provider of cannabis research, staking a claim to a $6 billion industry generally forsaken by financial institutions. (Bloomberg)
• Today’s context of rampant data security breaches calls for a “zero trust” network design that puts micro-perimeters around specific data or assets, allowing enforcement of “more-granular” rules. (Dark Reading)
Miscellaneous
• China’s automakers have tried and failed to break into the U.S. market for at least a decade. Guangzhou Automobile Group’s new “Trumpchi” line of vehicles, despite the catchy name, is unlikely to change that pattern. (Bloomberg View)
Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.