Hawaii

* I love some good parody and a good whiskey. What will SCOTUS think of a parody of whiskey? [ABA Journal]

* Take my food and I’ll take you to court! Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Postmates can’t arbitrate their way out of this one. [Reuters]

* Kirkland & Ellis is pulling Metallica’s strings advising this acquisition. [Bloomberg Law]

* To Life, Liberty, and a Right to A Stable Climate. [Bloomberg Law]

* The stakes are climbing against TikTok. I doubt a dance challenge will get to the root of this. [Ars Technica]

* So I guess we’ll just be allowing untraceable guns to roam the streets of America now. Thanks, Bruen! [The Hill]

* Prosecution of the Parkland shooter has brought conversations on the death penalty back to the forefront. [Politico]

* Black history month came early! Lawyers across the pond talk diversity. [Law.com]

* Conservatives are still pressed about being the real victims of cancel culture. Check out this hot take on the newest Yale controversy. [Newsweek]

* …I’d reconsider that 2 month rental in Honolulu if I were you. [Star Adviser]

* Troubling confession: Lawyer fined for warning school of a priest’s history of sexual misconduct. [The Guardian]

* Pig in the mine: California’s pork law is an unexpected proxy for the legal side of the culture war. [Cal Matters]

* Gauntlet thrown: Hawaii won’t make it easy for other states to criminalize abortion. [Huff Po]

* No laughing matter: Comedians claim Atlanta airport’s search practices use racial profiling. [AP]

* The right to cancel loans? You should read up on this cease and desist. [Business Insider]

* Focus, Gov: Hawaii law prevents Governor from moonlighting for Uber as a side gig. [Star Advertiser]

* While it is hard to beat learning torts in pajamas, law students still prefer the real thing. [Reuters]

* More ethanol in Des Moines, please! Iowa law mandates ethanol increase in fuel. [Times Republican]

* NY aims to prevent the use of rap lyrics in criminal cases. About time. [Digital Music News]

* Dark trendsetting: Overturning Roe v. Wade will have global spillover. [The Guardian]

* No faux zone: Hawaii 5-0 are cracking down on bootleg Super Bowl gear. [Hawaii News Now]

* A celebrity with a cause: Senators agree to revive law that boosts domestic violence protections after Angelina Jolie scolds them. [Reuters]

* Cali makes it easier for farmers to crop out their crops. [KSBY]

* Why did the mountain lion cross the road? Well, it’s not like there was an overpass! Some new Cali infrastructure aims to change that. [NPR]

* Looking for love this February? Protect your heart and pockets: money scams on Tinder are up. [MyPanHandle]

* A new lawsuit claims that King’s Hawaiian bread misleads customers into thinking the bread is baked in the Aloha State. Maybe someone can claim they were misled into thinking the Hawaiian bread contained pineapple… [New York Post]

* A Chinese lawyer has been sentenced to four years in prison for seemingly reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. [NPR]

* A South Florida attorney has been subject to an emergency suspension for erratic conduct, including verbal abuse that purportedly made some clients cry. [Daily Business Review]

* Federal health authorities have recommended that certain judges and lawyers be given priority for the COVID-19 vaccines. [Texas Lawyer]

* The Trump Campaign has filed another appeal at the Supreme Court seeking to overturn results of the election last month. If at first you don’t succeed… [Independent]

* The Supreme Court is allowing an antitrust case against the NFL to move forward. The XFL is still around to compete with the NFL…right? [Chicago Sun Tribune]

* A Texas lawyer has been disciplined for stealing LegalZoom referrals from the firm that employed her. [Texas Lawyer]

* The Attorney General of South Dakota was reportedly distracted before allegedly striking a pedestrian earlier this year. [Hill]

* The Surgeon General of the United States has pleaded not guilty to allegedly being in a park that was closed to slow the spread of COVID-19. [AP]

* A lawsuit alleging that Amazon did not do enough to protect its workers from COVID-19 has been dismissed. [CNN]

* A lot of billable hours may be recorded in the legal battles that may arise after the presidential election. [Fox News]

* The Department of Justice has backed a lawsuit against Hawaii over the state’s mandatory quarantine for out-of-state travelers. Maybe DOJ lawyers just really want to visit the Aloha state… [Fox News]

* A South Carolina lawyer has been disbarred for making numerous false and misleading statements on her bar application. [Bloomberg Law]

* A lawyer who walked out on a client during settlement negotiations is on the hook for a $300,000 malpractice verdict. [Legal Newswire]

* The Second Circuit expressed bewilderment while considering the bail request of two lawyers charged with firebombing an NYPD police vehicle during protests last month. [Law360]

* Bayer has agreed to pay $10 billion into a settlement fund to resolve thousands of lawsuits related to the weedkiller Roundup. And Bayer was able to settle the lawsuits without having to pay two plaintiffs’ lawyers a $200 million “consultation” fee. [NBC News]

* Out of the mouths of babes federal judges: “Those conclusions – that the president’s statements on national security are not always to be taken literally or to be trusted – are legal victories for his Justice Department….” Did you think you’d ever see a something like this written about the U.S. president? That’s our Trump! [USA Today]

* A good New Year’s resolution for the federal judiciary? Chief Justice John Roberts says that while progress has been made when it comes to protecting law clerks from sexual harassment, “[t]he job is not finished until we have done all that we can to ensure that all of our employees are treated with fairness, dignity, and respect.” [Washington Post]

* The American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union for federal employees, has filed suit against the government, claiming that requiring essential employees to work without pay during the shutdown — an “inhumane” practice for people who don’t know when their next paycheck is coming — violates the Fair Labor Standards Act. [CNN]

* Barbara Underwood really made a name for herself during her short tenure as New York’s first female attorney general. After she was thrust into the role, she quickly began her assault against President Donald Trump, eventually taking down his charitable foundation after alleging that he was using it as a front for his his private businesses and political campaign. [NBC News]

* Yet again, it’s time for women in Biglaw to celebrate fractional achievements for gender equality. According the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, 39 percent of new partners named at Am Law firms were women, which was a “slight uptick,” but “the numbers really haven’t changed that much in the last five years.” Hooray. [Big Law Business]

* It’s a new year, so you know there are going to be a bunch of interesting new laws. Here are just a few: In California, domestic-violence convicts can lose their gun rights for life; in Hawaii, physician-assisted suicide is now legal; in Virginia, legislators and their staff members must undergo mandatory sexual-harassment training; and in New York City, non-binary people can now list their gender as “X” on birth certificates. [Wall Street Journal]

* “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.” AG Jeff Sessions seems to have forgotten that Hawaii is actually a state and that when he was still a senator, he voted for the judge who ruled against Trump’s travel ban. Oopsie! [CNN]

* 21st Century Fox, the parent company to Fox News, will wind up paying out more than $85 million as a result of the network’s sexual harassment scandal. The sick thing about this is that the vast majority of the money will be paid to accused harassers Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly as part of their multimillion-dollar exit packages. [New York Times]

* Good news, everyone! Although it might have seemed like it, the Trump administration isn’t planning to ignore white-collar crime at this time. “Our aim is to motivate companies and individuals voluntarily to comply with the law,” says Trevor McFadden, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. That’ll work well. [Reuters]

* A Republican lawmaker wants to rename the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau to the “Consumer Law Enforcement Agency.” Along with the name change, a leadership change is being recommended. Rep. Jeb Hensarlin of Texas has proposed that the agency remain with a single-director structure, but that the president be able to say two of his most favorite words at any time, at will: “You’re fired!” [National Law Journal]

* “The people of Alabama who cherish the rule of law are not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama.” Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s suspension has been upheld by the state’s Court of the Judiciary. As a result, Moore will remain under suspension without pay for the rest of his term, effectively ending his career on the bench as he will be unable to run for reelection again due to his age. [ABA Journal]

* Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the nation’s first female Muslim judge and the first African-American woman to serve on New York’s highest court, was found dead in the Hudson River. We’ll have more on this later. [New York Daily News]

* The Ukraine-related activities of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are under legal scrutiny — and one of his daughters, lawyer Andrea Manafort, described some of her father’s actions as “legally questionable.” [New York Times]

* Hawaii says “aloha” to the Ninth Circuit in its challenge to Trump Travel Ban 2.0 — and seeks initial en banc review, bypassing a three-judge panel. [ABA Journal]

* So the filibuster is now dead for SCOTUS nominees; are blue slips for lower-court nominees next? [Roll Call via How Appealing]

* Melania Trump settles her defamation litigation with the Daily Mail, getting an apology, a retraction, coverage of her legal fees, and what her lawyer Charles Harder describes as “millions of dollars in damages.” [New York Law Journal]

* Biglaw firms aren’t the only workplaces with gender pay gaps; it’s an issue for in-house legal departments too, including Google’s. [Corporate Counsel]

* Seriously, North Carolina? After its half-hearted repeal of the “bathroom bill,” three lawmakers in the state want to ban gay marriage. [WNCN]

* Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit seems to be a fan of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s views on Chevron deference. [Law.com]

* And Justice Elena Kagan will be throwing a party to welcome Justice Gorsuch to the Court. [Washington Post via How Appealing]

* North Carolina lawmakers say they’ve reached a deal to repeal the state’s controversial bathroom bill. I wonder how those negotiations went: “Hey, this law is awful and is costing our state billions. Let’s get rid of it.” “Okay.” I mean that’s probably not how it went, but it’s how it should have gone. [Reuters]

* Five University of California law schools are sharing the wealth after an improper foreclosure verdict results in a big punitive damages award. The judge directed a portion of that money to go to the law schools — $4 million each — earmarked for consumer law education and direct legal services. [Law.com]

* Hawaii successfully converted the TRO on the Trump administration’s Muslim Ban 2.0 into a preliminary injunction. [Hogan Lovells]

* Seattle is the first city to sue over the Trump administration’s threats against sanctuary cities. [LA Times]

* Bridgegate results in prison sentences. Bridget Kelly was sentenced to 18 months, and Bill Baroni got 2 years. [New York Times]

* Doublespeak — the environment edition. [Politico]

* Is Sean Spicer is lying about whether the White House really wants former acting Attorney General Sally Yates to testify to Congress? [The Hill]

* Judge Andrew Napolitano is back at Fox News, and back to conspiracy theories. [CNN]

* “I’m guessing they have had a number of long days and potentially sleepless nights.” The government lawyers behind the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act have had a rough go of things. Who are they, which law schools did they attend, and which Biglaw firms did they work for before becoming Hill lawyers? [National Law Journal]

* Don’t forget about Merrick: A third of Democratic senators have pledged to vote against confirming Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch. At this time, it remains unclear as to whether there will be a united effort by Democrats to oppose his confirmation when the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on April 3. [Reuters]

* Guess who isn’t boycotting Hawaii? People who apparently have a vendetta against this federal jurist. Judge Derrick Watson of the District of Hawaii has been receiving death threats ever since he blocked President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on March 15. He is now receiving 24-hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service. [The Hill]

* The Second Circuit has upheld New York’s ban on non-lawyers investing in law firms. Personal injury firm Jacoby & Meyers argued that the state’s prohibition on non-lawyer investment violated lawyers’ First Amendment right to associate with clients, but the court found that connection to be “simply too attenuated.” [New York Law Journal]

* Ithaca may be gorges, but it can’t compete with the Big Apple with it comes to hands-on learning about issues dealing with cutting-edge tech. Cornell Law is launching a semester-long Program in Information and Technology Law at its Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City that’s slated to begin in Spring 2018. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Judge Edward J. McManus, the longest serving of any incumbent judge in the United States (and third-longest servng in the history of the United States), RIP. [N.D. Iowa]