Welcome to Lookzy. Lookzy is the daily email newsletter that makes staying up to date as a BigLaw lawyer fun and easy (because your job often won't be). We cover the big stories your colleagues are talking about, digests of the day's big litigation and corporate news, salary/bonus/layoff developments and interesting law firm and law school news. We keep it topical and direct so that you can go back to billing.

In today's Lookzy:

• Is code free speech?

• Nuclear search and seizure

• Big deal month

• Partners want you back in the office

• Weird law of the day

Today’s practice tip of the day. Two words: strategic tension. Always make sure you’re on multiple matters with completely different teams. If things get too unpleasant on one matter, use the other matters as your excuse.

IS CODE FREE SPEECH?

On August 8th, the US. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency "mixer". With Tornado Cash, anyone could send funds to the protocol and then retrieve those funds anonymously from a clean wallet.

You could be a hacker who stole 100 ETH, for example, now somewhat richer but stuck: everyone knows which Ethereum wallet address did the hacking, so your ETH is tainted. If you send the 100 ETH to Tornado Cash, though, you can withdraw those funds to a clean wallet address and no one is the wiser as to the source of those funds or who owns that wallet.

The US Government alleges that the infamous North Korean hackers, the Lazarus Group, used Tornado Cash to launder hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. This appears to be a driving motivation behind the sanctioning, despite the protocol's popularity as a way to preserve a measure of privacy with popular cryptocurrencies, given that most are trackable on the blockchain.

Why is this interesting? Two reasons.

First, this is the first instance of the U.S. Treasury sanctioning a piece of code. No individuals were added to the SDN list with this action. Rather, a number of Ethereum wallet addresses were added to OFAC's SDN list.

Second, Dutch authorities today arrested a man suspected as being one of the developers of Tornado Cash. The exact reason for the arrest is still unclear. Many in the cryptocurrency community take the approach that publishing code, whether that means contributing to a mixer like TC or a decentralized exchange like Uniswap, is protected free speech under the First Amendment. See Bernstein v. Department of Justice. After all, Tornado Cash runs autonomously - the contract does not need any input from a human to run.

As the cryptocurrency industry grows, all eyes will be focused on how this case law develops; there is no shortage of examples of developers relying on their code being protected under the First Amendment to contribute to autonomous protocols which may be operating outside our current regulatory guardrails.

ECON SNAPSHOT

Partners care about this. And so should you: this is difference between special bonuses and layoffs.

THE VERDICT

Arguing today's litigation news

Nuclear search and seizure. A federal magistrate judge signed off on a warrant for the FBI to enter former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and search for classified documents taken from the White House, apparently including certain nuclear documents.

Limits to punitive damages. A Texas jury decided last week that Alex Jones must pay parents of a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre $45.2 million in punitive damages due to defamation. However, caps on punitive damages in the state may reduce this award to only $750,000.

Swing and a miss for LIV golf. A judge denied a temporary restraining order to three LIV golf players seeking to return to the PGA Tour due to failure to show irreparable (or any!) harm.

THE DEAL

Wheelin' and dealin' today's corporate news

Blowing up your August vacation. $63 billion worth of deals have already been announced this month, more than the $52 billion announced over the month of July. This is the best monthly M&A performance so far since 2021.

Flight canceled, rescheduled, delayed. After Frontier Airlines worked for months to acquire Sprit Airlines (a deal favored by management but disfavored by shareholders tempted by a potential deal with Jetblue Airways, a bigger player), shareholders formally rejected the acquisition. Everyone is always in a rush to get on Spirit.

Forbes for sale. Forbes is now working with Citi to sell itself after terminating a $630 million SPAC deal in June, run by a former Point72 executive.

BACK TO THE OFFICE

Work at Skadden and enjoying your days billing from home? Well, don't get too used to it. The Firm circulated a memo today allowing WFH for the month of August, but requiring all associates to work from the office every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday starting on September 12th. Hey--being able to go remote Mondays and Fridays could be worse, but let's see how long that privilege lasts.

WEIRD LAW OF THE DAY

In Alabama, it is illegal to operate a vehicle while blindfolded. We assume the incident that inspired this law would also make a great fact pattern in a torts class.

Alright, back to billing. That's all, folks!