2016-12-06

• Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are teaming up to do a better job getting terrorist-related content off their online services, as they face pressure from governments who say they don’t do enough. (Bloomberg)

• An attorney at California IP boutique Durie Tangri, who was a 2013 graduate of New York University School of Law, is thought to be among the at least 36 people killed in a massive fire in an Oakland warehouse art colony. (The Recorder)

• After an unsuccessful run for U.S. president, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is now set to work as a “strategic consultant” for a corporate law firm, Pittsburgh-based Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. (BLB)

• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and U.K. firms Stewarts Law and Mishcon de Reya are said to have settled their investor clients’ claims against the Royal Bank of Scotland over a 2008 rights issue. Two other groups of thousands of investors have yet to settle in the case, for which total claims are around $5.1 billion. (Financial Times)

• Dozens of Volkswagen AG officials in Germany have hired U.S. criminal defense lawyers as the U.S. Justice Department ramps up meetings with managers to gather evidence that may lead to charges against executives. (Bloomberg via BLB)

Legal Market

• Aetna Inc.’s attempt to assuage U.S. antitrust concerns about its $37 billion takeover of Humana Inc. by selling assets to a smaller company landed with a resounding thud. (Bloomberg via BLB)

• Lloyds Bank has postponed a review of its roster of go-to law firms, amidst concerns that it is planning to pare the list in 2017. (The Lawyer)

• Perspective: A research and product development executive describes the frustration of being the only woman in a room full of lawyers: getting asked to get the coffee or make copies when the secretary isn’t available; not getting asked to go bowling with other firm lawyers, because last time out you bruised some male egos by winning a few games. (LegalZoom via BLB)

• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe is representing a national nonprofit medical marijuana access advocate that wants the U.S. Justice Department to force drug enforcers to correct allegedly false and misleading information about pot use on its website. (National Law Journal)

• U.K. firm Simmons & Simmons posted a 5 percent increase in first-half revenue. (The Lawyer)

• Chicago-based class action firm Edelson PC filed what it called a first-of-a-kind RICO suit aimed at illegal practices of so-called “professional objectors,” accusing three law firms of extorting millions of dollars in fees from both plaintiffs and defense attorneys. (National Law Journal)

Transition to a Trump presidency

• Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig and law firm Durie Tangri are teaming up to give legal support to any Electoral College members who want to refuse to vote for President-elect Donald Trump in violation of state law. The idea is to have a chance to keep Trump from taking office, said Lessig. (Politico)

• Whoever takes over as the U.S. Treasury official responsible for international tax matters under a Trump administration will have to manage an increasingly difficult relationship with certain EU member states at the OECD, said Robert Stack, whose term as U.S. deputy assistant secretary for international tax policy at Treasury ends Jan. 20. (Bloomberg BNA)

• In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election win, Google is looking for a policy manager for its outreach team to act as the company’s liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups. (Bloomberg)

Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed Monday to a request from U.S. House Republicans to freeze their litigation challenging the Obama administration’s arrangement for funding an insurance subsidy program under the Affordable Care Act. (The Recorder)

• Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s largest networking equipment maker, is suing its upstart rival Arista Networks Inc., a company founded by Cisco executives for alleged copyright violations in a California court. (Bloomberg)

• Searching for clarity in a murky area of law, the U.S. Supreme Court heard racial gerrymandering challenges targeting Virginia and North Carolina on Monday. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)

• In a case addressing recycling and reselling of used printer cartridges, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the first sale of a product exhausts the patent owner’s rights in it. (National Law Journal)

• The University of Kentucky is suing its own student newspaper to stop the publication of documents relating to a report of sexual assault and harassment. (Bloomberg View)

• The U.K. government’s lawyers had a tough first day in a Supreme Court case that will decide whether Prime Minister Theresa May can carry out her plan to start the process of exiting Europe as soon as March. (Bloomberg)

• Outside the London courtroom, police in riot vans faced a small crowd of protesters for and against Brexit — and one pro-Europe dog draped in an EU flag. (Bloomberg)

Laterals and Moves

• Equity partners at U.K. firm Addleshaw Goddard have voted to hire the former managing partner of the struggling European Union Middle East branch of King & Wood Mallesons. (The Lawyer)

Technology

• An Illinois tanning salon company reached a $1.5 million class-action settlement last week with customers claiming the company mishandled their biometric information — fingerprints, DNA and other often physiological characteristics that can be used to identify a human being. Could the case, under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, herald a new frontier for the plaintiff’s bar? Too early to say. (BLB)

• Drivers for Uber could face fines of as much as $780,000 each in Taiwan under draft rules proposed by three lawmakers, which allege that the ride-hailing company violates the rights of taxi drivers. (Bloomberg)

• The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers violated a man’s constitutional rights during a routine traffic stop by searching his smartphone and finding images of child pornography. (The Recorder)

• French billionaire Xavier Niel wants thousands of technology entrepreneurs, investors and inventors to base themselves in the Station F mega-campus for startups he’s building in downtown Paris — and he’s starting his search for them in London. (Bloomberg)

• Nixon Peabody CEO Andrew Glincher’s effort to attract the potential legal talents of the so-called millennial generation included hiring the firm’s first social media manager and chief innovation officer. (Forbes)

• Amazon.com Inc. Monday revealed its first small-format grocery store, Amazon Go. The online retail giant is mulling at least three formats as it looks for a way to expand into in-store food shopping. (Wall Street Journal)

• A plastic based on soft contact-lens technology may solve some of the biggest challenges facing electric vehicles by letting them recharge in seconds. (Bloomberg)

Legal Education

• A U.K. high court judge gave a greenlight to an Oxford graduate’s 1 million pound ($1.27 million) lawsuit alleging that “appallingly bad” teaching at the elite school kept him from becoming an international commercial lawyer. (Am Law Daily)

Miscellaneous

• You get three weeks of vacation, good work-life balance, and you don’t have to owe a lot of money to a law school: Why being the manager for a certain hamburger restaurant chain is better than working as a lawyer. (Thriller)

• Oakland officials said murder charges are possible in the aftermath of the warehouse fire that killed at least 36 people last week. (Washington Post)

• Millions of European Union citizens living in the U.K. will be required to carry identity documentation to prove they are entitled to remain in the country after Brexit, the British government said Monday. (Bloomberg)

• Leonard B. Sand, a New York federal judge known for his landmark 1986 ruling that Yonkers, New York, city officials intentionally segregated public housing and schools along racial lines, died at age 88.  Sand was portrayed in last year’s HBO mini series “Show Me a Hero,” about the Yonkers case. (New York Times)

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.

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