Wake Up Call: Judge Forced Akin Gump Lawyer to Testify in Mueller Probe

• President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, said Tuesday that his legal strategy remains unchanged in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s moves to indict the president’s former campaign manager and secure a plea deal from another former campaign aide. ( Bloomberg via BLB )

• A top Mueller lieutenant is former Brooklyn prosecutor and FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann, an expert at getting defendants to turn into collaborators--using either tactical brilliance or ruthlessness, depending on your point of view. ( New York Times ) A Washington, D.C., federal judge forced a former lawyer for Paul Manafort, Akin Gump partner Melissa Laurenza, to testify before the grand jury convened as part of Mueller’s probe, a report says. ( National Law Journal )

• Marc Kasowitz has kept a relatively low profile since stepping down this summer as Trump’s lead lawyer in the Mueller investigation, but he showed up at a recent midtown Manhattan fundraiser for Puerto Rico’s victims of Hurricane Maria, where he shook hands with attendees--including clients and lawyers from his own firm. “Now that I’m back in New York full time, I’m doing what I typically do,” Kasowitz told Big Law Business, saying he has returned to dedicating more than 90 percent of his time to his law practice. ( BLB )

• In their first appearance before Congress, top lawyers from technology giants Facebook Inc., Google and Twitter Inc. got an earful from critical senators, even ridicule by Democratic Senator Al Franken over Facebook’s failure to detect Russians were behind American political ads on its platform even though some were paid for in rubles. Their testimony continues today. ( Bloomberg )

• Drugmaker Mylan NV was already in political hot water over its controversial price hikes for the EpiPen allergy shot and other drugs. Now a top executive faces price-fixing allegations in a civil complaint by 45 states and the District of Columbia. ( Bloomberg )

• Three women in technical and engineering roles at Microsoft Corp. are suing the company for discrimination, seeking class-action status that would allow them to add 8,630 peers to their suit. ( Bloomberg )

Law Firm Business/Legal Market

• After reports that partners at Bryan Cave and Berwin Leighton Paisner are set to vote on a merger, Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner and Texas firm Gardere Wynne Sewell are the latest firms said to mulling a possible tie-up before the year is over. ( American Lawyer ) ( Legal Week )

• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s Houston office boosted its energy and construction practice by hiring commercial disputes litigator Charles Conrad and two associates. Conrad comes from rival Houston firm Coats Rose, where he was a director for six years. ( CDR ) ( Linkedin )

• Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., parent company of restaurant brands the Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana, said it hired Maria Chang Mayer as its senior vice president, general counsel and secretary effective Nov. 15. Mayer’s prior jobs include general counsel at U.S. subsidiaries of hearing aid manufacturer Widex A/S, and senior corporate counsel at legal and consulting services firm Carlton Fields. ( Business Wire )

• New York law firm Phillips Nizer LLP hired Christian B. Hylton, a former legislative attorney and acting general counsel to the New York City Council’s Land Use Division, as a real estate partner in its New York office. Hylton most recently comes from another New York firm, Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Goidel, P.C. ( PR Web )

• Michigan-based Amerisure Insurance said it hired Shannon Anderson as vice president and deputy general counsel. Anderson was previously assistant vice president and corporate counsel at Jackson National Life Insurance Company, and held prior jobs at the Dykema law firm and reinsurance giant Swiss Re. ( PR Web )

More on Russia probes

• Lawyers for social media giants told Congress they don’t yet have the technology to prevent Russia from using their networks to manipulate U.S. elections. But Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch said the company will double its safety and security staff to 20,000, including contract workers, by the end of 2018. ( Bloomberg )

• The House Intelligence Committee is scheduled Thursday to interview Ike Kaveladze, a Russian-born California businessman who attended a controversial meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during the height of the presidential campaign. ( Bloomberg )

• A Russian-controlled firm is balking at paying a $5.9 million settlement to the U.S. that let it avoid a trial which threatened to expose an intricate international money-laundering scheme. The company, Prevezon Holdings Ltd., is represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya. ( Bloomberg )

Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts

• The U.S. Supreme Court has set a Nov. 27 hearing in a dispute between two energy services companies over a fracking patent, which pivots on a challenge to the validity of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. With 25 briefs so far calling for the board to be scuttled on constitutional grounds, the U.S. solicitor general, law professors, nonprofits and a pharmaceutical company are arguing that the board should be maintained as a cost-effective way to challenge patents. ( The Recorder )

• A concert promoter admitted to his role in fleecing investors of more than $95 million in a Ponzi scheme where investors were told their funds were going to buy and resell blocks of tickets to popular concerts and musicals including the smash Broadway hit “Hamilton.” ( Bloomberg )

• American taxpayers who opted to disclose their offshore accounts to avoid prosecution paraded into a New York courtroom this week to testify against their former Swiss banker who is on trial for allegedly helping them evade U.S. taxes. ( Bloomberg )

Technology

• Amazon.com’s fight to operate the .amazon internet domain, pitting it against a nonprofit organization that coordinates internet addresses, will likely last until at least the spring of 2018. ( Bloomberg BNA )

• Researchers warned that Indiana’s system for catching voter fraud is 99 percent more likely to purge legitimate voters than illegitmate ones. ( Ars Technica )

• The co-founder of the Chinese private equity firm that has agreed to take over the U.K.’s Imagination Technologies Group Plc has been charged with insider trading by U.S. authorities. ( Bloomberg )

• The latest global company to cede Chinese censorship demands is German publishing group Springer Nature, a major academic book publisher, which blocked access in China to at least 1,000 articles. ( Financial Times )

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.