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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

LET’S MAKE A DEAL – New York state officials are barred, for now, from releasing President Trump’s state tax returns to House Democrats under an agreement, announced late Thursday, in DC federal court. C. Ryan Barber reports that the deal essentially gives U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols—a former Wilmer Hale partner who joined the bench just a few weeks ago—a bit of time to sort out jurisdictional issues before New York could release the returns and potentially render Trump’s lawsuit moot. Trump’s suit, brought by William Consovoy, confronts New York’s “Trust Act,” which opened a door for Congress to get Trump’s returns. House Dems, though, haven’t made such a request. The case is one of several pending actions that confront the secrecy of Trump’s financial records.

RESPONSIBLE? Capital One’s massive breach earlier this week involved data  stored on Amazon Web Services’ infrastructure and was purloined by a former employee of the web services company. So, Amazon’s got some exposure in all of this, right? Not likely, Frank Ready reports. Why? Contracts.

OCI PDQ – The Big Law on-campus recruiting season is underway. Law firms this week kicked off the 2019 cycle at several elite law schools, including Columbia and Penn. They’ll wrap up initial interviews on those campuses today with incoming second-year law student hoping to snag summer associate gigs. The recruiting process will pick up next week at Harvard, Virginia and Yale, among others, and will continue throughout August and early September at schools across the country. But things are a bit different this go around, with NALP deep-sixing its specific guidelines for when and how firms make summer associate offers. It’s unclear whether law firms will continue to give candidates 28 days to accept an offer, for instance.

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT –  Singer R. Kelly is set to be arraigned this morning in Brooklyn federal court on racketeering charges in an alleged ring to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with him. A status conference is scheduled for later today. The singer, who’s real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was arrested last month and faces charges in Chicago and New York. His lawyer, Douglas Anton of New Jersey, in a court filing on Thursday called the case “nothing more than groupie remorse and a misdemeanor.”

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EDITOR’S PICKS

Ohio National Fights to Avoid Arbitration as Commission Lawsuits Pile Up

LendUp Hires New Chief Legal Officer, Chief Risk Officer

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

BIG NAMES – Lawyers at Clyde & Co, Radcliffes Le Brasseur, Howard Kennedy and Kingsley Napley are representing defendants in the ethics case against Baker McKenzie, its former London head Gary Senior and others, Meganne Tillay and Rose Walker report. Baker McKenzie, former partners Senior and Tom Cassels and former HR director Martin Blackburn have been referred to the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal in England and Wales over how they handled an investigation into misconduct against Senior. They will be up against Daniel Purcell, a partner at Capticks, who is the lawyer for the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

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WHAT YOU SAID

“[I]t is fair to say that Roger Stone has no one but himself to blame for the fact that he was investigated by the Department of Justice.”

—  AMY BERMAN JACKSON, FEDERAL JUDGE IN D.C., ON STONE’S MOTION TO DISMISS CHARGES THAT HE LIED TO CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS LOOKING INTO RUSSIAN MEDDLING IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. THE JUDGE  GRANTED HIS LEGAL TEAM ACCESS TO CERTAIN REDACTED PORTIONS OF SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER’S REPORT.

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