Warrant: “A federal judge in San Jose has raised the bar for law enforcement agencies to collect the type of cell-tower data that is routinely used to trace suspects' whereabouts in criminal investigations. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California ruled that the Fourth Amendment applies to historical cell site information, meaning the government must obtain a search warrant to demand it from cell phone carriers,” NLJ affiliate The Recorder reports. Read Koh's ruling here.

Challenged: The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday filed a cert petition in United States v. Newman that asks the high court to reverse a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that restrains the ability of the government to bring insider-trading cases, NLJ affiliate The New York Law Journal reports. Read the petition here. The New York Times has more here, and Reuters here.

Spreading ire: The street band Spread Love is popular among D.C. tourists. Less so the office workers in downtown within earshot of the band. “The very spot that's proved so profitable for Spread Love to pull in tips has also earned it the enmity of employees at two major Washington institutions: the Treasury Department and the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom,” The Washington Post reports. Above the Law has earlier coverage here and here. Twitter commentary:

Law jobs: The law school class of 2014 had more success finding entry-level jobs than the class of 2013, according to employment figures released on Thursday by the National Association for Law Placement. “Nearly 87 percent of recent graduates had found jobs 10 months after graduation—a 2.2 percent increase over the class of 2013,” Karen sloan reports. That marks the first time the overall employment rate has increased since 2007. But the total number of jobs secured by recent graduates fell by about 1,200 because there were far fewer new lawyers competing for jobs.

Chuck v. Chuck: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” Sen. Chuck Grassley told Sen. Chuck Schumer Thursday in a Senate floor debate about the pace of judicial confirmations. Schumer drew a direct distinction between the 25 judges that the 2007 Democratic Senate approved and the mere five judges that the current Republican Senate has approved. Grassley defended his party, arguing that Schumer's figures obscure the disparate actions of the 2006 and 2014 lame-duck Senates and distort the Republicans' confirmation rate. The practical effect of the senators' floor spat is that Grassley blocked Schumer's request to immediately confirm three New York federal district court nominees whose votes have been pending since early June,” Mike Sacks reports.

Voting rights: The Washington Post looks at what's at stake in the suit over North Carolina's election law changes. “The legal battle represents more than simply plumbing the limits of the Voting Rights Act and the importance of minority turnout in the 2016 presidential campaign. It takes place in the midst of a renewed national conversation on race: tensions over shootings by white police officers, the slaying of nine worshipers in an African American church in neighboring South Carolina, the fight over Confederate symbols and tributes.” The Winston-Salem Journal reports on the state's closing arguments here.

New hire: The U.S. Department of Justice plans to hire a full-time compliance expert, NPR reports. “We're federal prosecutors, but part of what we have to do in our jobs is assess compliance programs,” Andrew Weissmann, who leads DOJ's Fraud Section, said. “That's not our bread and butter.” Reuters has more here.

Monkey business: Animal activists have argued that intelligent animals should have limited legal rights, and a Manhattan judge says that opinion may someday succeed, Reuters reports. But New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe denied the Nonhuman Rights Project's bid to get two chimpanzees used in research at a state university relocated to a sanctuary. The lawsuit claimed that because chimpanzees are highly intelligent, autonomous animals, they have a right not to be imprisoned against their will. Jaffe said that since no court had ever extended the right against unlawful imprisonment to animals, she could not go against the other courts' rulings that dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project's cases brought on behalf of other chimpanzees.