• $1.7 billion in legal costs: Wells Fargo & Co. warned Thursday of further regulatory fallout and a growing pile of customer lawsuits stemming form its unauthorized account scandal. (National Law Journal)
• Who’s the boss? Amazon.com was sued by Illinois delivery drivers who say the company failed to pay them overtime for hauling its goods. The judge will have to rule on whether they actually worked for Amazon. (Bloomberg)
• Partners at elite U.K. firm Linklaters voted to tweak the firm’s lockstep system, to give more flexibility for regular and transparent reviews of partner performance but without going as far as some of its London rivals have gone to reward star performers. (Legal Week)
• Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is offering its clients free business and leadership training at Harvard University, and has a special program for general counsel clients. (New York Law Journal)
• The ABA claims it never rejected the Trump “libel bully” article, but there’s evidence it did. (BLB)
Gender Bias
• The cold shoulder and worse. Women who file gender discrimination claims against their law firms say alienation and retaliation followed. (BLB)
• It took two months but Chadbourne & Parke has responded to Kerrie Campbell’s $100 million gender discrimination suit against her firm with 62 pages of denials and counterclaims. (Am Law Daily)
• Traci Ribeiro, the Sedgwick partner who sued her firm for gender discrimination, must make her case in arbitration, a San Francisco federal judge ruled. (Am Law Daily)
• On a positive note: More women are being promoted to partner at law firms, even if gender parity still has a long way to go, according to a new report. (WSJ Law Blog)
• Recent research offers new evidence that unfair distribution of origination credits contributes to pay disparity between men and women partners at law firms, according to a Harvard Law School scholar. (BLB)
Legal Market
• U.S. prosecutors are bearing down on generic pharmaceutical companies in a sweeping criminal investigation into suspected price collusion. (Bloomberg)
• Airbag maker Takata Corp. said it wants to avoid bankruptcy globally because a court-led restructuring could disrupt the supply of parts to automakers. (Bloomberg)
• Growth-starved U.S. companies have been gorging on super-sized, debt-heavy acquisitions for more than two years because alternatives are scarce. But history shows that more often than not, megamerger hopes aren’t fulfilled. (Bloomberg Gadfly via BLB)
• A former oil services firm executive accused by Tesla Motors Inc. of impersonating Elon Musk in an e-mail says the carmaker’s lawsuit should be thrown out because his message was too “goofy” to be believed. (Bloomberg via BLB)
Brexit
• U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May vowed to stick to her Brexit timetable after a court ruled that she needs Parliament’s permission to begin negotiations for exiting the European Union. A Clifford Chance attorney said of the ruling, “this is just round one.” (Bloomberg)
• The ruling was a big win for London-based firm Mishcon de Reya. (Law.com)
• When the U.K.’s Supreme Court hears the cases seeking to delay May’s plan, it will “the most important constitutional case that court will have heard,” a law professor said. (Bloomberg)
• If called on to vote, U.K members of parliament who disagree with Brexit — and that’s a majority of the House of Commons — should block the proposal. (Bloomberg View)
Trump v. Clinton
• Republicans likely “bullied” FBI Director James Comey into making his recent disclosure in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, said Paul Krugman, City University of New York professor, Nobel Laureate and New York Times columnist. Video. (Bloomberg)
• Although Comey apparently tried to stay out of the election, through leaks and tweets, people in his bureau appear to be helping Donald Trump. (Bloomberg View)
• What happens if no presidential candidate wins the necessary 270 electoral votes to take the election? A Q&A. (Bloomberg)
• “Rat’s ass case” and family disputes: Hillary Clinton’s early work as a litigator. (New York Times)
Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts
• Defense attorneys have filed a motion for a mistrial in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal. (NBC NEWS)
• Steven Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, discusses certain Republican Senators’ threat to fight to keep the U.S. Supreme Court at eight members if Hillary Clinton is elected. (Bloomberg Radio)
• Long-term Court “stonewall” a possibility. (New York Times)
• Takeaways from two IP cases the court is hearing this term, one on the ability to copyright cheerleader uniforms and one on so-called patent laches. (National Law Journal)
Laterals and Moves
• Steve Shapiro, the outgoing director for the American Civil Liberties Union, discusses his career as a lawyer, and his legacy at the ACLU. (Bloomberg Radio)
• Boies, Schiller & Flexner said it has hired outgoing deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations David Pressman as a partner in its New York office, where he will work on international disputes, litigation and arbitration, white collar defense and crisis management. (BLB)
• In its second big hire this week, Cooley said it has picked up digital currency experts Marco Santori and Patrick Murck from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. (Coin Desk)
• Canada-based WestJest Airlines named Barbara Munroe its new executive vice president and general counsel. (Travel Daily News)
Technology
• Google’s top legal official Thursday attacked European Union allegations that the company skewed shopping search results to favor its own services and said regulators have failed to see that the search-engine giant is competing head on with e-commerce giants Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc. (Bloomberg)
• Uber Technologies Inc. settled a lawsuit filed by two women who sought to hold the company responsible for alleged sexual assaults by drivers. (Bloomberg)
• Lawyers are increasingly using cloud computing software for their practices, which makes it crucial for them to understand cybersecurity best practices. (Above The Law)
Legal Education
• Law schools “dirty little secret”: Students are using the drug Adderall, an amphetamine blend prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as a performance enhancer in hopes of gaining a competitive edge in the cutthroat environment of legal education. (Law.com)
Miscellaneous
• Hug your attorney. Friday is “Love Your Lawyer Day,” in Florida at least. (Sun Sentinel)
• Two Las Vegas attorneys are accused in a federal lawsuit of racketeering and civil conspiracy for trying to defraud an insurance company out of more than $18 million. (Las Vegas Review Journal)
Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Gabe Friedman.