➤➤ Want to get this daily news briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
WILD WEEK - Brace yourselves for a busy week on Capitol Hill. The confirmation hearing for Trump’s D.C. Circuit nominee Neomi Rao, tapped to fill the seat left vacant by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, convenes before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. On Thursday, the judiciary panel plans to vote on Bill Barr’s nomination to be U.S. attorney general. On Friday, President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen privately testifies before the House Intelligence Committee. Also on Friday, the man whom Barr would replace—acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker—testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, with Democrats expected to grill him about why he disregarded ethics recommendations to recuse himself from the Russia probe.
OOPS - Stereotypes die a slow death. Just ask women judges, who often get mistaken for paralegals and legal assistants on the job. Reporter Raychel Lean interviews women judges and other lawyers who’ve faced the faulty assumptions with aplomb.
SLOW BURN - If you’re stoked about the imminent prospect of recreational pot use in New York, mellow out. Dan M. Clark reports that the timeline for the change in the law looks like it’s been extended to June. Observers originally thought the issue could be wrapped up by March, when the state budget is due.
ON HOLD - A Louisiana state abortion-clinic law that had been set to go into effect today was put on hold at least until Feb. 7, as the U.S. Supreme Court justices review a challenge. The law, which requires doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles, was upheld by a divided Fifth Circuit. The administrative stay will give the justices more time to review the filings in the case. “This order does not reflect any view regarding the merits of the petition for a writ of certiorari that applicants represent they will file,” Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote.
EDITOR’S PICKS
Move Over Big Law. It’s Time for an ‘Alternative.’
It’s the Dead of Winter. Be Well.
Third-Party Funding for Arbitration Allowed in Hong Kong After 19-month Wait
Judge Warns Roger Stone This Is ‘Not a Public Relations Campaign’
Missouri Supreme Court Halts Another Big Talcum Powder Trial
NFL Secures Injunction Against 200 Unknown Defendants
DATA SNAP
A PIECE OF THE VALLEY – Fenwick & West grew up in Silicon Valley. But these days, competition for talent is tough on its home turf. As Xiumei Dong writes, Fenwick and peers in the San Francisco Bay Area have seen a number of high-profile departures that illustrate how the legal industry landscape is changing in tech’s heartland. Check out the data behind the story.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
PICK SIX - Six health care lawyers from DLA Piper New Zealand’s Auckland and Wellington offices have decamped to join a local insurance law firm Wotton + Kearney. John Kang reports that the team, led by partners Sean O’Sullivan and Adam Holloway in Wellington and Aimee Credin in Auckland, focuses on health care disputes, disciplinary matters and employment and commercial disputes.
