Rob Truman

Immergut deposed Monica Lewinsky for Ken Starr, was a US attorney under Bush, and was appointed to the bench by Trump during his first term. This is not some left-wing judge.

Federal judge blocks Trump's National Guard mobilization in Oregon "The President’s determination" that the Guard was needed "was simply untethered to the facts," Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, found. DOJ is appealing.

Highlighting that America’s “historical tradition” makes clear that “this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut on Saturday issued an order temporarily blocking President Donald Trump’s effort to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Oregon.

“repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance”

"They put her in hand shackles and in leg shackles, and around the waist as well, like she's some hardened criminal. She had tears streaming down her face, and she told me one of the ICE agents pulled out his cell phone, laughing, and took a selfie."

Excellent work by @404media.co, as always. Except, how did they miss including this classic scene which pretty well captures the spirit of so many of the excuses? youtu.be/4U9Yl5CXvcQ

A Rash of Bomb Threats Hit College and University Libraries At least 15 US colleges and universities received bomb threats targeting the library since Sunday as part of a nationwide swatting event.

For those reading this thread, I've pulled everything together in a single post.

There has been a rash of bomb threats targeting university and college libraries this week: bookriot.com/a-rash-of-bo...

Judge William Young's ruling against Rubio and Noem is a lesson for all in the Trump era Young lays bare the unconstitutionality of the Trump administration's student deportation efforts — and issues a challenge to America. Also: More court pushback.

NEW: Judge William Young's ruling against Rubio and Noem is a lesson for all in the Trump era.

Young lays bare the unconstitutionality of the Trump administration's student deportation efforts — and issues a challenge to America.

Today, at Law Dork:

Visa Chaos: A Graphic Narrative (opinion) A graphic narrative written and drawn by Rivi Handler-Spitz.

My friend Rivi drew a remarkable graphic narrative for Inside Higher Ed, in which she uses her illustrations to let six Chinese graduate students in the U.S. tell their stories of visa chaos, political fears, and uncertain futures.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

A screenshot from the summary of the argument in the PDF: “[N]o one can own the law. ‘Every citizen is presumed to know the law,’ and ‘it needs no argument to show . . . that all should have free access’ to its contents.” Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. 255, 265, (2020) (citation omitted). So too for judicial opinions. Id. (“[Judges] cannot be the ‘author[s]’ of the works they prepare ‘in the discharge of their judicial duties.’”). The same should be true of the headnotes at issue in this case, which serve a discrete and limited purpose as often near-verbatim summaries and verbatim quotes that faithfully and accurately describe a specific point of law from a judicial opinion. Individual headnotes are uncopyrightable because they lack the originality required for copyright protection, and the district court erred in finding to the contrary. And, because there are no or only a few other ways to concisely and precisely express the specific individual legal points stated in an opinion, the expression in a headnote cannot be distinguished from the underlying legal idea it aims to convey. The district court therefore also erred by rejecting the merger defense.

Another screenshot: But even if headnotes like those in Westlaw’s platform were copyrightable, the district court erred in concluding on summary judgment that Appellant ROSS Intelligence’s indirect use of those headnotes as inputs to train a new artificial intelligence (AI) legal research tool was not fair use. Instead, a correct application 2of the four fair use factors should have concluded that ROSS’s use was highly transformative and would not serve as a market substitute for headnotes.

A third: The district court came to that conclusion after analogizing the headnote author’s editorial judgment “to that of a sculptor.” D.E. 770 at 7. The court’s logic is: just as a sculptor takes an uncopyrightable block of marble and creates copyrightable expression by choosing what to cut away and what to leave in place, Appellees’ Westlaw creates protectable expression by taking a court opinion and “identifying which words matter and chiseling away the surrounding mass.” Id. The sculpture analogy, however, crumbles upon closer inspection. Its most fundamental flaw is the notion that a court opinion is somehow equivalent to an untouched, blank block of marble. Not so. The more accurate analogy is that a judicial opinion is the final product of a judge taking a block of marble and carefully, skillfully chiseling away the surrounding mass to create a host of precise details, each of which reveal a specific point of law or fact. The resulting opinion looks nothing like the initial block of marble; it is instead a highly sculpted work made up entirely of many discrete bits of expressive (but uncopyrightable) content that are very directly tailored to the specific case.2

Today we and other legal technology providers¹ filed² an amicus brief in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence.

It's simple: Headnotes cannot be copyrighted and ROSS's use was fair. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

—
¹˒ ² See below for these excellent orgs and those that helped!

🎶 Take a look, it's in a book 🎶

🥹 After nearly 20 years... Reading Rainbow is returning to motivate, help, and encourage kids to become avid readers with new episodes, new friends, new projects, and of course... new books! Make sure to follow the rainbow 📚🌈

#FollowTheRainbow

This club, this city, this community are made stronger by immigrants. @timbersarmy.org and 107IST are partnering with @timbers.com in supporting the work IRCO does and affirming: diversity is our strength. Solo el pueblo salva el pueblo. #SomosTimbers #RCTID

My dearest Martha, I send you all my love from this war-torn ravaged place, where our hardships surpass comprehension. Yesterday, a barista gave me a whole milk latte when I specifically ordered skim. Later, a young woman with strangely colored hair glanced at me disapprovingly.

Things Portland is currently ravaged by:

Pizza
Temperate, sunny weather
Coffee
Middling soccer
Sunsets
Farmer’s markets
Apples
Hiking trails
Thai food
Fresh hops
Harvest-ready vineyards

Things Portland is not ravaged by:

War

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Portland:

It’s been a busy week but did I miss the rioting mobs in Portland?

⭐⭐⭐We have a special edition of the Climate Litigation Newsletter in honor of the Climate Litigation Database 2.0 Relaunch in partnership with @climatepolicyradar.bsky.social. Huge thank you to everyone who attended the launch event yesterday!
View the newsletter here: mailchi.mp/law/sabin-ce...

"As Shah and Bender argue, the LLMs being integrated into library search systems that supposedly save people precious time may actually prevent the exploration, discovery, and information literacy development that these resources have long been meant to enable"

*slaps table* THANK YOU!

Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly. 1/

This autism press conference is an insult to science and medicine. It is a bunch of shameless male quacks shoveling bullshit at pregnant women, families and people with autism. This is a historic embarrassment for America and it is wildly dangerous.

Important story! Gift link!

The EPA's Office of Water has been told to stop publishing its research. They're studying PFAS and microplastics, how to best test drinking water for lead, and to test for naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater.

By Amudalat Ajasa and @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

This Libby update has completely borked the app. It has unverified both my library cards, won't let me re-verify them, and won't let me add a new card. It's basically turned the app into a piece of nonfunctional tech. I can't borrow anything.

holy shit not The Onion

(I hope he remembers to rotate and put the special juice on it for first week so it doesn't get infected)

Finalists Named for 2025 American Legal Technology Awards Finalists have been named for the 2025 American Legal Technology Awards, which honor exceptional achievement in various aspects of legal technology. The awards recognize achievement in various categor...

Congrats @thefordon.bsky.social on being named a finalist for the 2025 American Legal Technology Awards! www.lawnext.com/2025/09/fina...

Why You’re Thinking About “Reasoning” All Wrong How does AI reason. LLM reasoning. Differences between LLM reasoning and human reasoning. Does AI think like a human. Can AI be my lawyer. AI reasoning.

sort of related, have you run across this? I'm just re-reading it, and it is so, so good. www.wordrake.com/blog/youre-t...

This week: Become a verified Patent Center user to access the platform Announced last week in a news brief as part of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) ongoing efforts to protect customer data, identity verification will be required for all Patent Center users beginning September 11, 2025. Guest and unregistered users will no longer be able to access Patent Center. For a smooth experience, we encourage both current and future users to register early. In March 2025, we announced that customers can verify their identity through the ID.me verification platform. Utilizing ID.me boosts security and enables users to obtain same day verification and access to Patent Center, while simultaneously simplifying the verification process and reducing the wait time to access Patent Center. It’s important to note that the ID.me platform is not the sole identity verification method available to Patent Center users. Users maintain the option to mail a Patent Electronic System Verification form to verify their identity and gain access to Patent Center and accompanying features. For guidance on identity verification using ID.me and the self-enrollment process in Patent Center, please visit our Getting started – New users webpage.

Meanwhile, at the USPTO: Starting Thursday, "[g]uest and unregistered users will no longer be able to access Patent Center." Not clear what "access" means here. Does it mean you'll need to submit ID documents to view file wrappers? content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USP...

"It's shocking … did you consider not complying with this request?"

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-judicial-learning-curve Armed with Judge Sooknanan's restraining order, Flores arrived at the airport to search for A.R.M.D. and others. On the tarmac, she saw two ICE transport planes, their doors sealed shut. Nearby, she spotted a building and knocked on the door. Through the glass, she could see officers seated inside. Eventually, a young man answered the door. Flores explained that she had clients on one of the planes and a court order to stop it from leaving. While the young man disappeared inside the building to find his supervisor, Flores waited next to the door. She told anyone who entered or exited the building that they "were all complicit in violating a federal court order" if the plane left with her clients aboard. Eventually, when the young man returned, he told Flores that his supervisor was trying to contact ICE. But as Flores again tried to explain that she had a court order, another official stepped outside and "physically pulled the young man back into the building." Through the glass, she saw staff members "jeering and laughing." She repeated her earlier warning: If the plane carrying her clients took off, they were "all complicit in the violation of the judge's order."

As grim as this story may be, there's still much to be inspired by.

Look no further than this attorney for the children, who rushed to the airport to stop the planes. She stood near the tarmac, warning any officials she saw that they’d be complicit in violating a court order if the planes took off.