* “Living in sin” is a sex crime in North Dakota, which is absurd really, since people who live together end up leaving the door open when they’re using the toilet and spending Friday nights bleaching their facial hair while watching Law & Order, which seems conducive only to latent resentment and bitterness. [Bismarck Tribune]

* Oh, Prince Charles. Like your mother, you live in a bubble, except that yours is full of tampons, horses and Duchy Originals. [Yahoo! News]

* We girls do like them bad boys. Or maybe she saw one too many Prison Break episodes. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* Janitor accidentally gets locked in a courthouse; sadly, this was no legal version of Career Opportunities (no girl) or From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (no co-conspirator), because he was there all by his own, lonesome self. [Poughkeepsie Journal]

Earlier this month, we began accepting nominations in Above the Law’s exciting Law Librarian Hotties Contest. We received some excellent submissions — librarians so hot that if you saw them in the stacks, you’d drop that Am. Jur. on your foot.

Now it’s time to announce the nominees. We’ll start with the women; the men will follow in due course.

Update: The male nominees have been announced. Check them out here.

To kick things off, some words from a librarian at the U.S. Supreme Court:

To quote President Bush, “As Sam [Alito] and I both know, you can’t go wrong marrying a librarian.” Good luck to all your contestants!

You may not agree with most (or any) of George W. Bush’s actions. But marrying Laura Bush — who did have a “real job,” as a librarian (sorry, Teresa Heinz Kerry) — was probably one of the Decider’s best decisions.

If you’d like to follow the president’s lead, and find a librarian of your own to marry, we have some candidates for your consideration. To “check out” (hehe) America’s hottest law librarians, take a peek at what lies after the jump.

It’s time for a new thread on associate compensation developments, since the last thread was some time ago.

There doesn’t seem to be much to report lately. But here’s some fodder for discussion: a recent post at the WSJ Law Blog, concerning a Crain’s New York Business feature entitled “The Business of Law Report.” Money quote:

Following on our “Good Time for 2Ls” post last week, there’s a story, “2nd-Tier Schools Merit a Second Look.” “With demand for lawyers skyrocketing, recruiting and hiring on local campuses ranging from New York Law School to Hofstra, Rutgers and St. John’s has become as important to many elite firms as visiting high-echelon schools. Firms are learning to appreciate the background and experience of many students at these second-tier schools.”

We see that Loyola 2L has already condemned this as a siren song, luring the unwary to the rocks of a tier two law school. But we suspect that his is a minority view.

A Report on a Business of Law Report [WSJ Law Blog]
Good Times for 2Ls [WSJ Law Blog]

Up in Cambridge, the students of Harvard Law School are trying to get those pesky undergraduates out of Hemenway gym.

But in New York’s Greenwich Village, the students of NYU Law School have a much more welcoming attitude towards college-age youngsters. In fact, that attitude may be TOO welcoming.

Yesterday a memo went out to all NYU law students from Yvette Bravo-Weber, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. It concerned the upcoming “Spring Fling” party, scheduled for March 8, and various changes being instituted this year — due to some, er, misbehavior from last year.

The memo is mildly amusing, due to the dry, clinical manner in which it discusses what we imagine was a bunch of drunken law students — and their underage guests — puking their guts out. You can check out the full NYU memo — with commentary from us, questioning the wisdom of these “reforms” — after the jump.

Yesterday brought some good news for Connecticut state court judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant, nominated to the federal district court for Connecticut.

From the Hartford Courant (via How Appealing):

The influential judicial screening committee of the American Bar Association has reversed itself on the nomination of Superior Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant to the federal bench, concluding that the judge it found not qualified a year ago is now qualified.

The chairman of the association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary said Tuesday that the new evaluation is the result of a routine re-examination of Bryant’s qualifications. That was triggered when Bryant’s nomination was resubmitted in January by President Bush after Congress adjourned last year without acting on it.

So Judge Bryant’s confirmation — which was never seriously in doubt, even back when she was deemed “unqualified,” due to the political support she enjoyed on both sides of the aisle — is now just a formality.

To refresh your memory, here’s some discussion of Judge Bryant’s earlier “not qualified” rating:

In confidential interviews, [ABA investigator Doreen] Dodson wrote, judges and lawyers described Bryant as “domineering and exasperated with lawyers,” “arrogant and unreasonable,” and “contentious and short-tempered.” Some also said she seemed overwhelmed by complex issues and wrote opinions that were hard to decipher. Dodson added that such complaints appeared consistently through her years on the bench.

Hmm… This description calls to mind a certain other jurist named Vanessa: Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore (at right), appointed by President Clinton in 1994, and recently discussed here.

Now, we harbor a healthy skepticism of the ABA ratings process. And we do acknowledge the concerns that have been raised concerning the anonymous nature of the earlier criticisms of Judge Bryant, which hampered her ability to respond to them at her Judiciary Committee hearings.*

But here’s a question on our mind, which we’ll just toss out there for all of you to debate:

If confirmed to the federal bench, might Judge Vanessa Bryant someday end up looking like the northeastern, Republican version of Judge Vanessa Gilmore?

* Speaking of anonymous criticism of judges, yes, we know: we are delinquent with our response to Judge Alex Kozinski’s open letter. Look for it tomorrow.

Opinion Reversed: Judge Is Qualified [Hartford Courant (via How Appealing)]
Dodd, Lieberman and Blumenthal endorse federal judge nominee [Associated Press]
Vanessa Lynne Bryant bio [Office of Legal Policy]

Earlier: The Honorable Vanessa Gilmore: A Delicious Judicial Diva

Yesterday we posted an interesting excerpt from Lincoln Caplan’s book, Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire, which discussed Sullivan & Cromwell. The excerpt concerned a closeted gay associate at S&C who committed suicide after being passed over for partner.

A comment on that post:

“Does this anecdote show anti-gay bias, or just that S&C partners are a**holes? The S&C lawyer who committed suicide was closeted.”

“Would the failure of partners to attend his funeral represent hostility towards gays? Or just general indifference by S&C partners to associates who don’t make partner?”

The “we’re not homophobes, just a**holes” line of defense probably won’t do wonders for S&C’s recruiting this fall. But one of you has brought our attention to an excerpt from later on in the book (pp. 160-61) that speaks more specifically to the issue of gays at S&C.

It concerns the late Jonathan Bowie, a partner at Skadden at the time of his passing. As one commenter noted, “Bowie was passed over for partner at S&C, that’s why he moved to Skadden. On a sad note, he later died of AIDS.”

From Skadden, by Lincoln Caplan:

Unlike the S&C associate from the earlier excerpt, Bowie wasn’t “very closeted” during his time at the firm. He had a boyfriend at S&C, and “people knew” about him. So his story, and his being passed over for partnership, may be slightly more revealing than the prior anecdote.

Note our use of the word “slightly.” It’s worth pointing out that the above excerpt contains no clear, objective evidence of anti-gay bias at S&C. People get passed over for partner for all sorts of reasons. The anecdote rests entirely upon perceptions of S&C held by lawyers at a different, rival firm. And it’s over two decades old; a lot can change over 20 years.

We just thought it was interesting (as did the source who sent it to us). So we’ve posted it here for your consideration. You can decide how much weight to place upon it.

P.S. We try not to miss a single news article about the litigation between Aaron Charney and Sullivan & Cromwell. But we did fail to mention this interesting Gay City News article, by Professor Arthur Leonard, which appeared late last week.

Professor Leonard analyzes S&C’s recent motion to dismiss Aaron Charney’s complaint. We never offered our own thoughts on that motion, but we agree with much of Professor Leonard’s thoughtful analysis.

Charney Litigation Heats Up [Gay City News]

Earlier: Brokeback Lawfirm: A Walk Down Memory Lane

Oh you Harvard Law School kids! We poke some fun at the (rather silly) proposal to rename the HLS sections, which are currently identified by numbers. And then we get grief for it in the comments, including a claim that we “have very little understanding of irony or satire” (even though the survey didn’t seem very satirical to us, aside from a single throwaway line about Hogwarts).*

Anyway, to satisfy any defensive HLSers, we’ll now publish a tip we received that makes the Law School seem slightly less ridiculous:

[I]t’s not the HLS administration’s idea to do this; it is basically the idea of a single 1L. I was at the student government meeting in which this idea was first proposed, and it came from a 1L section representative. Because 1L participation is strongly encouraged, no one wanted to shoot him down (even though many people thought the idea was silly).

Someone suggested sending out a poll to see if other students agreed, and if so, the student government would pass on the poll results to the administration. My hunch is that students will vote against it, and regardless the faculty/admin almost certainly would not support the idea. That’s the back story.

What a relief! Our faith in Harvard Law School’s wise (and super-hot) leader, Dean Elena Kagan, has been restored.

* That same comments thread also included an odd digression on whether there are too many undergraduates at the Hemenway gym. Funny — when we were in law school, undergrads in the gym were viewed as a GOOD thing…

Earlier: Wherein Harvard Law School Hits Itself Over the Head With a Silly Stick

* North Dakota legislators are not comfortable with these sitcom-like living arrangements the kids (and senior citizens) are doing these days. [MSNBC]

* If they think college students are vain, imagine how a study of law students would fare. [CNN]

* Hillary Clinton selects general counsel. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Is Big Food the next Big Tobacco? [ Law.com]

As you can see from our Programming Note, we stepped away from the computer at around 3 PM today.

Which is just about the time the Dow Jones decided to take a 200-point plunge. The Dow ended the day down 416.02 points, or 3.29 percent — in terms of points, the worst day since the market reopened after 9/11. (The S&P 500 fell 3.47 percent, and the Nasdaq fell 3.86 percent.)

Coincidence? We think not. Apparently the stability of world financial markets requires us to keep ourselves planted in front of our computer all day.

Check out the excellent coverage of the market meltdown over at our big sibling, DealBreaker. John Carney hung out and got drunk with a bunch of traders. This “reporting” thing sure sounds fun!

Update: Matt Drudge is also trying to take credit for the stock market plunge, by linking to this article, Did the Drudge Report Help Tank the Stock Market?

Moments of Terror: A View From The Trading Desk [DealBreaker]
NYSE: Pay No Attention To That Thing That Happened Right Around 3:00 PM. It Was Glitch [DealBreaker]
A Data Backup Jolts The Blue-Chip Average [Wall Street Journal]
Wall St. Slide Fuels Worries on Economy [New York Times]

* This is in no way an admission that MTV is somehow partially responsible for your laziness and/or learning disabilities. [New York Daily News]

* More Heidi Fleiss-inspired antics! I keep forgetting this kind of thing is illegal — there should be a carve-out for the C-listed and below. [Los Angeles Times]

* This mom-of-the-year is kind of like a low-rent Joe Simpson, although we’re pretty sure Jessica isn’t faking. [MSN]

* The lurid nature of this trial may make the “sex, lies & videotape” qualifier okay, but that was, like, 18 years ago. Conversely, why do we remember Peter Gallagher only from The OC? [New York Times]

* Utah is that boring. [QuizLaw; Denver Post]

The ATL front page has no post about associate compensation developments. That’s unacceptable.

So here’s an open thread for you to discuss the latest firms to announce associate pay raises. If anyone drops off the LIST OF SHAME — or if any major legal news breaks while we’re gone — this is the place to mention it.

P.S. Can someone please take a screenshot of the rumored Mintz Levin memo, and send it to us? We will then remove the firm from the next LIST OF SHAME. Thanks.

We’re stepping away from our computer for bit, to attend an event at Georgetown Law School featuring two of the best writers about the Supreme Court working today: Jan Crawford Greenburg, of ABC News, and Jeffrey Rosen, of The New Republic. It will be moderated by the brilliant Professor Neal Katyal (who also happens to be Jeff Rosen’s brother-in-law).

Both Greenburg and Rosen have just published new books about the Court. Rosen is the author of The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America, and Greenburg is the author of Supreme Conflict.

Before her book was published, we speculated that Jan Crawford Greenburg might unseat Linda Greenhouse as Queen Bee of the SCOTUS press corps. We suggested that the young and attractive Greenburg might play Eve Harrington to Linda Greenhouse’s Margo Channing. In light of the rapturous notices that Supreme Conflict has received, as well as its status as a New York Times-certified bestseller, we feel that our prediction is coming to pass. Watch out, Linda G.!

Some content will be posted while we’re gone. So please do check back soon!

Earlier: All About… Jan?

We love our tipsters. You’re the best research team anyone could ask for.

Several years ago, we read Lincoln Caplan’s excellent book, Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire. Unfortunately, we don’t remember as much from the book as we might like.

(Our memory problems, as well as our typing skills, have gotten worse with increased blogging. Someone should conduct research into blogging and what effect it has on your attention span, concentration, and overall brain functioning.)

Fortunately, one of you does have a better recall of the book’s contents. A tipster directed us to this interesting excerpt, from page 89 of Skadden:

Our source comments:

I thought that it was pretty amazing that a 1993 book about another law firm would have two separate references about Sullivan’s negative reputation toward gay attorneys. I’ve attached the first page from Skadden that mentions it; the second comes much later in the book (and is along the same lines, but a different occassion).

Very interesting. Perhaps proof that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

(Yes, David Braff: We know that you and several other gay partners are very very happy over at S&C.)

Update: Please don’t read too much into our bringing this excerpt to your attention. You can draw whatever conclusions you like from it.

We’re just agreeing with our tipster that it’s interesting. That’s all.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell (scroll down)

In the past week or so, the romantic exploits (and misadventures) of lawyers and law students have been in the news. Here are a few noteworthy links:

1. ‘ABORT’ SHOCK IN GIANT DIVORCE [New York Post]

Football star Amani Toomer (at right), a wide receiver for the Giants, is divorcing his wife, Dr. Yola Dabrowski. The parties’ divorce filings are full of salacious allegations, but here’s what jumped out at us:

Dabrowski’s papers complain that Toomer: … * Sabotaged her dream of becoming a lawyer by stealing her computer and files, making it impossible to study for her law-school exams and leading to her getting an incomplete for the term.

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the way to a law student’s heart — or the way to break her heart, as the case may be — is through her papers.

Another allegation:

[W]hen she didn’t want to have sex, Toomer acted “irrationally and outrageously” - once urinating on her clothes, and another time tossing her BlackBerry into the Hudson River.

Destroying your spouse’s Blackberry? Now you’ve thrown down the gauntlet. If The War of the Roses were updated for 2007, there would surely be a scene of Blackberry destruction.

2. Date Lab [Washington Post]

“Date Lab,” in which the Post sets up two people on a blind date and then writes it up, is one of our favorite guilty pleasures. This recent date, involving Pillsbury Winthrop associate Damon Colbert (at right), actually went fairly well. (The column is more fun when the dates are disasters.)

But the WaPo reader comments — “the two shallowest people in all of Creation,” “this Date Lab made me unbearably sad” — are kinda vicious. And we thought ATL commenters were harsh….

3. Page Six: Ready To Wed [New York Post]
Gillian Hearst Engaged! [Socialite Rank]

From Page Six:

LOVE is in the air for Hearst heir Gillian Hearst-Shaw and her yearlong boyfriend, Christian Simonds. Sources say the gorgeous brunette socialite and philanthropist was proposed to with “a blindingly huge diamond engagement ring” from Simonds. Her hubby-to-be, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, popped the question last weekend, following a romantic sleigh ride for two in the Berkshires. Mazel tov!

Page Six doesn’t identify his firm, but as Socialite Rank points out, Christian Simonds is an associate in the New York office of Lowenstein Sandler. Next time you make a disparaging remark about the New York office of a New Jersey law firm, ask yourself: “If my firm is so much better, then why am I not marrying a beautiful media heiress?”

4. Wendi Adelson and Dan Markel [New York Times]

Happy Anniversary to Wendi Adelson and fellow legal blogger Dan Markel, of PrawfsBlawg fame!

Last week we posted this photo, with captions:

“Speaking of asking people out, have you ever seen a tax law professor bust a move?”

“Well, now you have.”

For the record, these captions can be read in more than one way. Was Professor Paul Caron hitting on Professor Shari Motro (profiled here)? Or was it the other way around?

Within the legal blogsophere, Professor Caron is a total rock star. And what’s a rock star without groupies?

(Digression: Speaking of Professor Caron, he has prepared this handy list of teaching fellowships for aspiring law professors. It’s a great resource for those of you interested in legal academia.)

By the way, after we chastised Professor Caron for wearing a button-down shirt with a suit, the good professor wrote us as follows:

I showed my students your comment about the button down shirt and asked them to vote on whether your fashion sense was correct about button down shirts with suits — maybe it is a Midwest v. East Coast thing (or perhaps they were just sucking up to me), but the students voted 85% v. 15% in favor of the button downs.

Update/clarification: We can’t believe we even have to do this. But for the record, a “button-down shirt” refers to a shirt with a button-down collar.

Time for an ATL reader poll:

Earlier: Writing About the Law: A Correction, and Photographs

Former Sullivan & Cromwell associates take many different career paths. Some join smaller firms or go in-house; some file lawsuits against S&C; and some join government service.

Last week we wrote about the high-powered William A. Burck (OT 1999/Kennedy), who has had his ticket punched by some of the legal world’s top employers: Sullivan & Cromwell, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District, and the White House Counsel’s office. We announced that Burck was leaving the White House for the U.S. Department of Justice, but we didn’t have information on his new post at the DOJ.

We now have that information, courtesy of some Justice Department tipsters. Burck will be serving as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General, Alice Fisher. From an internal memo that was circulated on Friday by Fisher:

Bill will be responsible for overseeing and advancing the legislative agenda of the Criminal Division, supervising the Office of Policy and Legislation, and representing the Division before the United States Sentencing Commission and the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure of the U.S. Courts.

In our prior post about this move, we noted the incestuous nature of conservative legal circles. One of our tipsters had this to add:

Re: incestuousness, note that Dabney Friedrich (nee Langhorne) — a former colleague of Bill Burck at the White House [whose nomination to the federal bench was discussed in the same post] — is married to Matt Friedrich, Alice Fisher’s former Chief of Staff/Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in Crim (and now a member of AG Gonzales’s staff).

Whew! Did you get all that?

In light of how well Republicans groom their young lawyers (figuratively and literally), we share this commenter’s interest in learning about high-powered young LIBERAL lawyers. We realize that it’s tougher when your party doesn’t control the executive branch, which is home to so many plum executive appointments (and doles out plum judicial ones). But still, we’re curious. We welcome your comments and emails.

It’s not terribly exciting; but if you’d like to see it, Alice Fisher’s memo announcing the arrival of Bill Burck appears after the jump.

Check out this exchange of correspondence.

Job Application Etiquette: The Polite Rejection Letter
[Fortune’s Legal Pad via Overlawyered]

* Southern Poverty Law Center’s getting it done. [CNN]

* NLJ reports that Camp 6 at Gitmo shows little improvement for cleared prisoners. [Law.com]

* Bobby Brown has to stay downtown (until he throws down about nineteen thou’). [CNN]

* Barry Bonds won’t cooperate in steroids investigation. [Sportsline]

* Anna Nicole Smith’s mom appeals. [CNN]

This is a continuation of our prior post, Brokeback Lawfirm: The New York Magazine Piece (Part 1), which discussed the first half of Robert Kolker’s New York magazine article about Aaron Charney.

Our discussion picks up on page three (web pagination) of Kolker’s piece. At the top of that page is this fabulous graphic, entitled “Notes on a Scandal”:

It’s arguably a little derivative of an earlier New York Observer graphic (discussed here). But the textual elements are new, and some of the featured individuals are different.

The illustrations are amusing. They’re perhaps the most “pro-Charney” part of the whole article, since they’re so unflattering to the S&C lawyers, who are drawn to resemble animals. H. Rodgin Cohen looks like a frog, and Alexandra Korry looks like a chimp.

Our further thoughts on the article appear after the jump.

* Maybe you read this over Sunday brunch. I was going to make a crack about barely educated sorority girls in schools I’ve never heard of in states I’ve barely heard of, but then I thought of this, or this, or this. You know who should shed some light on this? Tyra. [New York Times]

* As culturally valuable as Britney’s hair? [Yahoo News]

* Man was “more than” friends with Man’s Best Friend. (You also don’t need to explicitly define “cheating” to know he was also cheating on his girlfriend… although that’s the least of her concerns.) [Bay City Times]

* Because we’re not all Wiki fans. [Conservapedia via Discourse.net]

They should have induced delivery by Baker Botts associate Alexandra Walsh, so she would have popped out her baby girl in the middle of trial, before the jury (and preferably during the strongest part of the government’s case, for maximum distraction value).

Delivering a baby in open court would have created a magnificently dramatic scene. And it would have generated an unbreakable bond between defense counsel and the jurors that would have guaranteed acquittal for Walsh’s client, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. After you’ve watched a woman give birth, can you really send her client to the Big House?

Alas, the Libby defense team took a more conventional route. Alex Walsh didn’t go to court last Friday, reporting instead to a Washington-area hospital, where she delivered a baby girl.

More details about Walsh, from CNN:

Walsh — a 2001 graduate of Stanford Law School — was named by Washingtonian magazine last year as one of the “40 top lawyers under 40.” She has focused on white-collar criminal law and appellate cases.

If you go back to the Washingtonian listing, you learn that Walsh, after graduating from Stanford, “was hired to clerk for appeals-court judge Merrick Garland and then Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer.”

A member of the Elect with an interest in trial work? Impressive!

Congratulations, Alexandra, on the birth of your baby girl!

Verdict: It’s a girl; Libby defense counsel delivers baby [CNN Political Ticker]
40 Lawyers Under 40 [Washingtonian]

We’ve now finished reading Robert Kolker’s interesting and highly detailed New York Magazine article about Aaron Charney (a piece that we’ve been anticipating for weeks). And we do have a few thoughts on it — besides admiration for Ted Partin’s elegant, black-and-white headshot of a trim-but-borderline-emaciated Aaron Charney, at right.

On the whole, the piece is well-researched and thoughtful. It doesn’t contain THAT much new information for people who have been following this case as slavishly as most ATL readers have. But it’s well-written and engaging, a good read.

Also, it’s commendably balanced. In your reactions to it, some have you attacked it as pro-S&C, while others have criticized it as pro-Charney. This strikes us as evidence of the article’s evenhanded nature. You can view it as either pro-S&C or pro-Charney, depending upon your point of view and what you choose to focus on within the piece.

More detailed thoughts, after the jump.

We’ve given it almost no coverage here at ATL (largely because it doesn’t seem very amusing). But yes, in case you haven’t heard, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is being tried on perjury charges.

The jury has been deliberating for over two days. And they’ve just lost a member:

The presiding judge dismissed one female juror in her 70s, an art curator, after she disclosed to her peers that she had come into contact over the weekend with information about the case of Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. The foreperson reported it this morning to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who interviewed the jurors and decided the female juror had not intentionally sought to ignore his orders that all 12 jurors avoid contact with media coverage and any other information about the Libby case.

So having contracted the informational cooties, she had to be booted. According to the Washington Post, “Libby and several defense attorneys wore broad smiles at the news of the woman’s removal.”

But why were they so pleased? This juror seemed to be an independent-minded sort:

The juror, who had white-blonde hair and wore large, stylish black-frame glasses and took extensive notes, distinguished herself from her peers at one point during the trial. On Valentine’s Day, the jury filed into the courtroom’s jury box at mid-afternoon, wearing identical red T-shirts with a white heart. She was the only juror who had not donned a T-shirt.

Might this juror have turned into a legal as well as fashion holdout? We’ll never know.

Juror Dismissed in CIA Leak Trial [Washington Post]
Libby Juror Booted; Deliberations Go On [Associated Press]

Yup, we watched the Academy Awards ceremony last night. We sat through the whole damn thing. As always, it was overlong. But at least we were struck by inspiration.

It’s only a matter of time before the Aaron Charney story gets turned into a Lifetime Original Movie. And when it does, we have a recommendation for who should play powerhouse partner Alexandra Korry:

Watching this video clip of Meryl Streep’s red carpet arrival last night makes the Korry-Streep resemblance even clearer. It’s all about the lank hair. Furthermore, their heads have exactly the same oval shape, and their facial features are very similar.

To be sure, Streep usually sticks to feature-film work, rather than made-for-TV movies. But she has done SOME television work over the years, for which she has received Emmy and Golden Globe Awards. And wouldn’t the award-fodder role of Alexandra Korry be juicy enough to tempt Meryl over to the small screen?

(No, it’s NOT too similar to Streep’s Oscar-nominated turn as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. Miranda was icy, feminine, feline. In contrast, Alexandra Korry’s professional success rests upon her acting manly and tough, “like one of the boys.” According to Bob Kolker’s NYM article, Korry is regarded as “brutal” and “very profane.” Those are not adjectives one would apply to the quietly cruel Miranda Priestly.)

Oscar arrival: Meryl Streep [WFAA.com (video)]
Meryl Streep [IMDb]
Alexandra D. Korry bio [Sullivan & Cromwell]

Two more firms drop off the LIST OF SHAME. First, we received this information about Nixon Peabody, on Friday afternoon:

Email came out today, but i do not yet have access to scan it. NYC was bumped to 160, Boston/Wash/CA bumped to 145, Long Island bumped to 115.

Second, over the weekend, Vinson & Elkins announced:

Vinson & Elkins New York matches market. V&E DC adjusts salary in DC for fourth through eighth year associates. Texas offices stay the same. No memo. A voicemail on Sunday.

Sorry, Texans: It’s looking like BigTex is staying put, at least of now. But hey, look on the bright side: in light of your low cost of living and state taxes (or lack thereof), you make out like bandits.

Now that V&E, Dickstein Shapiro, and Hunton & Williams have matched, here’s the latest, official LIST OF SHAME (ranked by Vault 100 placement; AmLaw 100 placement indicated parenthetically):

43. Baker & McKenzie (3)
50. Fulbright & Jaworski (36)
77. Bryan Cave (56)
82. Reed Smith (33)
83. Dorsey & Whitney (68)
86. McGuireWoods (65)
90. Baker & Hostetler (73)
92. Mintz Levin (91)
100. Seyfarth Shaw (66)

Yes, this list is New York-centric (because we have to draw the line somewhere; NYC generally leads the charge on pay raises, and we can’t write about every legal market under the sun). Please feel free to discuss other cities in the comments to this post.

As always, if you see any errors in this list, please email us (with supporting documentation, if any). Thanks.

The New York Magazine piece about Aaron Charney, which we have been eagerly awaiting, is finally out. The article, by Robert Kolker, looks long and juicy (hehe). We haven’t read it yet, but we’re about to. You can check it out for yourself by clicking here.

In the meantime, check out this quasi-artsy, black-and-white, dramatically lit photograph of Aaron Charney. It was taken by Ted Partin. The caption reads: “Aaron Charney at home.”

So THIS is what Aaron Charney’s bedroom looks like. But where are the omnipresent pictures of his mom and dad?

It’s a strangely seductive picture, isn’t it? Aaron’s bedsheets look inviting — they’re practically crying out, “Roll around in us!” They look very high-end; we’d be surprised by a sub-400 thread count.

Do you remember our reader poll — still open, actually — entitled What Should Aaron Charney Do Next? One of the choices was “Pose nude for Playgirl,” but it has received only 9 percent of the vote thus far. In light of this vaguely racy photo, we respectfully suggest that the figure should be higher.

We’ll have more to say about Bob Kolker’s article after we’ve had the chance to read it. Check back soon.

Update: More thoughts on the article appear here and here.

The Gay Flannel Suit [New York Magazine]

Earlier: ATL Reader Poll: What Should Aaron Charney Do Next?

We’ve always admired Harvard Law School. It struck us as a place of high seriousness. It didn’t succumb to the latest trends in legal education. It didn’t train philsopher-kings; it trained LAWYERS, dammit.

So what if its students were kinda miserable? They got the best, most rigorous legal education money could buy. In short, HLS was bad-ass.

But recent events call into question our veneration for Harvard Law School. The Law School seems to be getting squishy on us. They have revamped their 1L curriculum, to place greater emphasis on touchy-feely topics like “international law.” And now we learn this (from an HLS tipster):

HLS is considering renaming the sections, previously assigned numbers (Sections 1 through 7), with actual names. Just when I think people can’t get more ridiculous…

See attached PDF for a Student Government survey. I like how they would consider naming sections after prominent donors!

Here’s our favorite question from the survey:

Our tipster suggested “porn stars, Care-Bears, and favorite sections of the MPC.”

Not bad; but we have two more ideas. Section names should facilitate healthy inter-section rivalry, as well as “trash talking.” Here are our suggestions:

1. Feeder Judges: You might as well name the sections after things HLS students actually care about. That’s why naming them after random dead alumni (see option F) is so stupid. Who wants to be in the “Jonathan Witherspoon IV Section”?

Naming sections after feeder judges makes much more sense. It lends itself well to assertions of team spirit:

“I’m in the Boudin section. Judge Boudin sent all of his clerks to the Court this Term. He rules!!!”

“I’m in the Kozinski section. He sent all his clerks to the Court too. And the Ninth Circuit is way cooler than the First Circuit — what a backwater!”

2. Celebrities With Legal Problems: The beauty of this section-naming scheme is that the category is continually expanding. The well never runs dry. And it’s terribly fun. Who wouldn’t want to be in the “O.J. Simpson Section” or the “Winona Ryder Section”?

Once again, there’s excellent trash-talking potential:

“We’re in the Michael Jackson Section. We’re the Kings of Pop — and of Torts!”

“Too bad you can’t keep your hands off teenage boys. We’re the Anna Nicole Smith section. Sure, we sleep around. But at least the people we sleep with have undergone puberty!”

If you’d like to see the HLS Student Government survey, we reprint it in full after the jump.

As Coco Chanel once observed, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” A new feature over at Gawker, called Altarcations, is like Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, but for civilians.

The arrival of Altarcations reminds us of how far behind we are with LEWW. We continue to whittle away at our backlog, and we hope to be all caught up by the end of this week (seriously). Here are the couples under consideration for the weekend of January 20-21:

1. Kristina Daugirdas, Nicholas Bagley

2. Susan Marber, Herbert Fixler

3. Ariana Rose, William Komaroff

Scores and full reviews for these newlyweds, after the jump.

* “Hi, I’m Mac.” “And I’m a European antitrust regulator.” … “What have you done with PC??” [MSNBC]

* There’s never been a better time to be a 2L. In related news, being a 1L is still hell. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Speaking of 2Ls, Loyola 2L should monitor this case on anonymous posting, currently being litigated in New Jersey state court. [Law.com]

* Al Gore wins another popular vote, this time receiving an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” after extensive litigation and recounts. [CNN]

* Al Sharpton’s genealogy traced back to slaves of Strom Thurmond’s family. [CNN]

This email has been making the rounds of law firm associates around the country. By the time it reached us, the lengthy forwarding chain included these endorsements (among many others):

“Priceless.”

“Brilliant!”

“This absolutely made my day.”

“Funniest dial-in screw-up in the history of civilization.”

Here’s the original email (with merciful redactions by us):

From: [redacted]@cravath.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 5:25 PM
To: [A long list of recipients at top law firms and investment banks]
Subject:

Please use the following dial-in information for a drafting call tomorrow at 2 PM EST.

Dial-in: (888) 939-2662
Password: 212 474 [xxxx]

[redacted]
Corporate Associate
Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP

To enjoy the full experience, pick up your phone and dial the number yourself: 1-888-939-2662.

It will only take you a minute. And it’s a toll-free call.

But if you don’t have the time, read our transcription of the message that awaits you, after the jump.

* Jurors become instant BFF over testimony of an intimate and sexual nature. [Los Angeles Times]

* Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

* Turns out you actually can’t dance if you want to. [Newsday]

* As kids, my brother and I were familiar with only this constitutional amendment because of the “Second Amendment = Two arms” mnemonic aid. (We knew other things, okay?) [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Faux fur is, more often than not, real fur. As in real dog fur. So who is going to cast the first stone (or, rather, paint bucket) at Anna Wintour now? [San Francisco Chronicle]

* It’s getting hot in herre. [MSN]

* “Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.” One thing’s for sure — if you’re being tried for a crime, you’re SOL. [PrawfsBlawg]

The mini-scandal that erupted after it was reported that Fulbright & Jaworski partner uttered “the n word” during a recruiting event at Duke Law School has pretty much blown over.

Much wind was taken out of the racist sails when it came to light that the partner said the magic word while “recount[ing] a story about Leon Jaworski’s defense of an African-American man in a murder trial in Waco, Texas in the 1920s.” The partner uttered the racial epithet “in an effort to display the depth of racial hostility that Jaworski and his client faced.”

In case you’re still interested in this story — and we understand completely if you’re not — an account of yesterday’s meeting, between Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers and law students at Duke, appears after jump.

For all of the references in his introductory remarks to being “dignified,” Judge Larry Seidlin was anything but. We’re mortified.

Words don’t do him justice. Just watch this video clip of his ruling in the Anna Nicole Smith matter:

Some highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be):

(1) Judge Seidlin’s theatrical sigh, around the one-minute mark;

(2) the start of the full-blown breakdown, at about two minutes;

(3) the judge’s tear-suffused repetition of “I want her to be buried, I want her to be buried”; and

(4) Judge Seidlin’s wannabe poetic conclusion: “It’s a long order. It’s a long order.”

We take back what we said yesterday. Please, television execs, for the love of God: Do NOT give this man his own TV show.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Anna Nicole Smith (scroll down)

Here’s some (belated) news about notable moves at the Department of Justice and the White House:

New Arrivals at the DOJ:

We enjoy breathlessly reporting on the meteoric career trajectories of attractive women. And attractive men, too.

Over at Main Justice, two handsome gents have come onboard:

* The fresh-faced Thomas Dupree, Jr., formerly a partner in the Washington office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has joined the Justice Department as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division.

For those of you outside the Beltway, being a DAAG is a big deal. Dupree, who is one of Washingtonian magazine’s 40 top lawyers under 40, will oversee a staff of over 200.

* William Burck (above right, accepting bedsheets from anti-Cindy Sheehan protesters in Crawford, TX) — a former Kozinski clerk and member of the Elect (OT 1999 / Kennedy), who should have been nominated as a White House hottie — is leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Burck, who served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary, is heading over to the DOJ’s Criminal Division. We don’t know the title of his new post; if you do, please drop us a line.

This marks a return for Burck to the DOJ, since he previously served as an assistant United States attorney in the magical Southern District of New York. Being at the Criminal Division means that he’ll get to work with the fantabulous Alice Fisher — one of the few DOJ divas who could hold her own against Shanetta Cutlar.

* Elizabeth Petrela Papez (at right), a blonde beauty and Kirkland & Ellis partner, is heading over to the Office of Legal Counsel (aka the Finishing School for the Elect). She will be serving as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General.

DOJ Internal Promotion:

* Papez is filling a spot that was vacated due to a promotion. DOJ wunderkind Steven Engel — like Bill Burck, a Yale Law School grad / Kozinski clerk / Kennedy clerk (OT 2001) — has been promoted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the OLC. Steve Engel is married to another member of the Elect: Susan Engel (OT 2001/Scalia), yet another partner at K&E.

Conservative legal circles are so incestuous, aren’t they?

White House Internal Promotion:

Actually, make that REALLY incestuous:

* Bill Burck’s shoes in the White House are being filled by Brent McIntosh (previously described in these pages as “strappingly handsome”). McIntosh is, like Burck, another Yale Law grad and former Sullivan & Cromwell associate.

McIntosh is being promoted from within. He previously served in the White House Counsel’s office. He is a former law clerk to two conservative legal heavyweights: Judges Dennis Jacobs (2d Cir.) and Laurence Silberman (D.C. Cir.).

White House Departure:

* Dabney Friedrich, who served as associate counsel to the President, will be nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to the Legal Times.

(Dabney Friedrich was previously featured in a photo caption contest at Underneath Their Robes. Alas, due to her lack of familiarity with the movie American Pie, the “band camp” reference had to be explained to her by others.)

Bush to Nominate Former White House Associate Counsel to D.C. Court [Legal Times]

Forget about Biglaw, kids. If you want to make some serious dough, there are better ways. And we’re not talking about i-banking, hedge funds, and venture capital.

If you want to make not just hundreds of thousands, but many millions, follow this easy, five-point plan:

1. Become governor of a small Southern state.
2. Become President of the United States.
3. Get fellated by an attractive young intern; get impeached.
4. Leave office.
5. Hit the lecture circuit; rake in $9 to $10 million a year in speaking fees.

Sure, step #3 isn’t essential to the plan. But why would you want to skip it?

Update: If you, like this commenter, miss having Bill Clinton as president, we have a suggestion for you: VOTE FOR HILLARY!!!

Senator Hillary Clinton is proud of her husband’s record while in office. And unlike Al Gore, she is embracing rather than distancing herself from that record — which strikes us as a shrewd move.

For Clinton, New Wealth In Speeches: Fees in 6 Years Total Nearly $40 Million [Washington Post]

What’s more thoroughly trashed: Aaron Charney’s Biglaw career, or his computer hard drive? You be the judge.

Patricia Hurtado and Lindsay Fortado, of Bloomberg News, have filed an excellent report about yesterday’s court proceedings in the litigation between Aaron Charney and his erstwhile employer, Sullivan & Cromwell. Here’s an excerpt:

A former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer who destroyed his home computer’s hard drive after being sued by the law firm must be questioned under oath about how and when he did it, a New York judge said.

The judge, Bernard Fried, ruled today after being told Aaron Charney, the lawyer, had computer professionals wipe the computer’s memory clean, took it home, smashed it with a hammer and threw it away. Charney’s attorney Michael Kennedy described the destruction of the computer’s hard drive to the judge.

Thanks to our time in the discovery salt mines, we know that computer forensic experts can pull off all sorts of miracles when it comes to data recovery. But in our non-expert opinion, it sounds like the Charney hard drive is history.

In this case, it’s not a matter of recovering a purportedly “deleted” file that still resides somewhere within the computer’s memory. Thanks to the hammer smashing and trashing, what’s needed here is a physical miracle, of the water-into-wine variety.

Another juicy tidbit from the Bloomberg News report: Charney was told by S&C, during settlement discussions, that they would “crush him like a bug” — delicious!!!

But bug-crushing is a tad cliched. Couldn’t the S&C lawyers have been more creative? Maybe they could have told Charney, “We will shred you into little bits, like a redlined draft merger agreement that has been superseded by a later version.”

More from Hurtado and Fortado — hey, we like the ring of that — after the jump.

Update (12:05 PM): Please note that we’ve appended a few additions and corrections to this post since it was originally published.

Dickstein Shapiro can be removed from the LIST OF SHAME. Their memo appears after the jump.

And here’s an open thread, in which you can discuss the latest associate compensation developments. It’s a perfect space for speculating, as some of you are already doing, about whether today might be the day for some Texas law firm announcements.

Please continue to send us announcements by email. As we’ve previously stated, we keep the identities of our tipster confidential (unless attribution is requested). Thanks!

A pair of Volokh Conspirators, Professors James Lindgren and Randy Barnett, at last week’s NYLS conference on writing about the law. Inset: Professor Cameron Stracher, who organized the symposium.

In our write-up of the NYLS conference panel on law reviews, we offered the following fashion commentary:

Professors Barnett and Stracher are both rockin’ the “downtown auteur” look: black or dark blue suit, dark collarless shirt, no tie. Not bad in a vacuum, but unfortunate that they’re on the same panel with the same look (except as to the color of their shirts).

Professor Barnett has taken issue with our observations. He claims that he was wearing a crewneck shirt, while Professor Stracher was wearing a turtleneck — and that “a world of difference” exists between the two.

We pulled out our photographs of Professors Barnett and Stracher. Professor Barnett is clearly wearing a crew neck — the same crew neck he’s wearing in his website photo, it seems. But we couldn’t tell the type of Professor Stracher’s collar (above inset).

So we looked up Professor Ann Althouse’s more detailed photograph of Professor Stracher (together with yours truly). Yep, that’s a turtleneck (although a relatively short one).

We apologize to Professor Barnett, and we regret the error.

In addition, Professor Lindgren wanted to clarify his choice of a button-down shirt (for which we criticized him). He explained that he has several levels of sartorial formality, and he deliberately chose a button-down because he viewed the NYLS conference as calling for a moderate rather than extreme level of formality. Given the fairly laid-back nature of the proceedings, we can see where he’s coming from.

For true legal-media-and-academia groupies, additional pictures of top legal journalists and law professor bloggers appear after the jump.

* The war on terror on trial in Miami. [The Nation via How Appealing]

* Death for South Carolina cop-killer; I wonder if the fact that he gets to choose between the chair and the needle in SC helps the constitutionality any. [CNN]

* 100 years for U.S. soldier in Iraq rape-murder case. [CNN.com]

* Speaking of concerns about the death penalty, Maryland’s new governor wants it done away with in that state. [Jurist]

* Aaron Sorkin: heavy recycler of tv actors and fictitious law firms. [WSJ Law Blog]

Remember that editorial cartoon from “Bench & Bar,” the journal of the Kentucky Bar Association? Some lawyers objected to the cartoon as offensive and inappropriate for the Association’s journal.

We viewed it as non-offensive, but only moderately humorous (capable of inducing a chuckle, but not a belly laugh). You seem to agree, according to the poll results shown at right.

We’re pleased by these results. Delicate sensibilities can be a liability for lawyers — and blog readers, too.

Some additional thoughts on the cartoon from Walter Olson, with whom we recently had lunch, are available here.

Earlier: Trial Lawyers Need To Lighten Up a Little

* I remember the days when wearing a t-shirt with “Porn Star” was considered edgy and ironic. But at least I never thought of my t-shirt as speech; if the principal had reprimanded me, I would have gladly changed into my “Talk Nerdy To Me” back-up tee. [De Novo]

* The guy does deserve some credit for perseverance and creativity, but let’s not overlook the proactive proctor, who also deserves a nod for going way beyond the call of duty. [Legal Profession Blog]

* This struggle should make you tokers grateful for your regular supply. [New York Times]

* With women’s tennis divided between mannish Valkyries (Amelie, Venus, Serena) and hot “’Ova”’s (Maria and her ilk), the women’s game has never been more high profile… So who cares if that extra pay could be construed as compensation for the guys’ extra sets? [Yahoo News]

* The content in question has been removed from, and the lawsuit already added to, the Wiki article. That remark about Tiger Woods, however, is still an unfortunate fact. [Fox Sports]

Judge Larry Seidlin has awarded custody of Anna Nicole Smith’s (rapidly decomposing) body to attorney Richard Milstein, guardian for Smith’s 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. From the AP:

Blubbering as he announced his ruling, a judge said Thursday he hopes Anna Nicole Smith will be buried in the Bahamas, but he left the decision up to the guardian of her baby daughter….

The judge choked up frequently and wept as he explained his decision.

Now will someone please give Larry Seidlin his own TV show, so real-life litigants don’t have to put up with him? If breaking down on camera isn’t a recipe for a successful television career, we don’t know what is. Just ask Anderson Cooper.

Update: It looks like Anna Nicole Smith will be buried in the Bahamas, next to her son Daniel Smith. From TMZ.com:

After shredding each other for the past four days, Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead simultaneously announced, without any seeming anger toward each other, that Anna Nicole Smith will be buried in the Bahamas.

The announcement came just a few minutes after Judge Larry Seidlin decided that Dannielynn’s court-appointed guardian should mediate the dispute.

The wishes of Stern and Birkhead are relevant because Milstein was directed to make his decision about where to bury Anna Nicole Smith in consultation with the parties to the case.

Judge Gives Smith’s Body to Baby’s Guardian [Associated Press]
Hatchet to Be Buried With Anna? [TMZ.com]

Here’s an update on the Britney Spears-Kevin Federline legal drama. The emergency court hearing that was supposed to take today, requested by K-Fed to discuss custody of their two children, was canceled.

The reason, according to various media and tabloid reports, is that Spears is back in rehab. She has reportedly checked back into Promises rehabilitation center (which she had fled earlier in the day).

Earlier this week, Spears was photographed sporting a shaved head. Here’s some food for thought from a tipster:

So Britney Spears shaved her head. People think it’s because she’s crazy. But some have speculated it is because her ex-husband threatened to subpoena hair samples from her. And hair samples can show drug use going back years. Like backdated blood samples.

Is this comparable to obstruction of justice? Is it like shredding documents when you’re afraid you might be under investigation, or those documents might be subpoened? Is it a form of spoliation of evidence?

Thoughts?

Britney in rehab for 3rd time in a week [Reuters]
Britney Back in Rehab [TMZ.com]
Federline Court Appearance Canceled [Associated Press]

Divorces can get pretty darn ugly, be they personal — e.g., Britney Spears — or professional. Here’s an interesting story about Pillsbury Winthrop, from the Recorder:

At least eight lawyers who left Pillsbury last year are being asked to return a portion or all of their 2006 earnings to the firm within 30 days — but most say they have no intention of paying back anything, even if it means going to court.

The attorneys received letters this month claiming they had been overpaid, demanding repayments of about $30,000 to $100,000. One letter, obtained by The Recorder, explains that the ex-partner in question received a distribution greater than their actual share of the firm’s profits at the time they departed….

Reactions from ex-partners who received the letters ranged from “insulted” to “furious.” Many questioned the firm’s accounting, the fairness and enforceability of the demands, and why they are being singled out, since not all partners who left last year got a letter.

If the ex-partners stick to their guns, the firm will have a difficult time recovering this money. Given the amounts at stake — relatively modest, by Biglaw standards — it may not be worth (1) the litigation costs and (2) the attendant bad publicity and airing of dirty laundry.

We don’t know the identity of the partners in question. If you do know, or have any other information about this controversy, feel free to share.

Ex-Pillsbury Partners Vow to Fight Firm’s Demand for Money [The Recorder via WSJ Law Blog]

In reacting to our worshipful coverage of Shanetta Y. Cutlar, Chief of the Special Litigation Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, some of you have questioned her “diva” status. It has been suggested that while Shanetta Cutlar may have the temperament of a diva, she lacks the talent or ability of one.

We disagree. And we think the latest information we’ve received about SYC establishes that when it comes to office politics and Machiavellian maneuvering, few are the equal of Shanetta Y. Cutlar.

Just like the divine Anna Wintour, Shanetta Cutlar is a shrewd and savvy woman, who knows how to “work it.” She has risen to a position of power and prominence within her profession, through a potent combination of smarts, charm, and good old-fashioned ruthlessness.

From a former employee of the Special Litigation Section:

Shanetta started with the Special Litigation Section (SPL) as a intern. Within ten years she worked her way up, managing to slide, wiggle and charm her way into the prominent position of Section Chief.

As she quickly moved up the ladder, passing one superior and mentor after another, Shanetta kept a mental tab of each and every accounting in which she felt she was wronged and treated unfairly as a line attorney. Upon taking her throne, she instantly placed her strategic plan into motion, and quickly begin to execute her hit list.

She had the current head secretary placed into the file room until she received a new, hand-selected head secretary. Rumor had it that the exiled head secretary treated Shanetta “mean.” Wow…

Our tale continues, after the jump.

We now have some reliable intelligence about yesterday’s Vague and Unsubstantiated Rumor About Paul Hastings.

Here’s the original rumor:

“Apparently today an entire department at Paul Hastings LA (attorneys, assistants, etc.) got escorted out of the office by security. No concrete details have surfaced yet.”

As it turns out, reality is considerably less exciting than, say, the sacking of a half-dozen U.S. Attorneys. Here’s what actually happened:

“Sources confirm that a group of secretaries was terminated. No attorneys were laid off, and it wasn’t department-wide.”

More detail from a tipster at the firm:

PH went to 4:1 ratio of attorneys to assistants nation-wide; it used to be 3:1. Headcount was eliminated mostly in LA and DC offices. No attorneys were eliminated. Pretty funny rumor though…

The partnership has not explained why they made the switch. Maybe it’s to reduce salary to pay for our bonuses next month? LOL.

The funniest/sickest part was that the announcement came at approximately the same time the memo regarding firm revenue (up 21%) and PPP (up 22%) was distributed.

Crappy timing indeed. And one assistant for four lawyers strikes us as suboptimal, too — at least for private practice.

(When we were at a firm, we shared an assistant with one other lawyer. It wasn’t until we entered government work that we shared an assistant with four other attorneys.)

Earlier: Breaking: Vague and Unsubstantiated Rumor About Paul Hastings!

While we were in line at a coffee shop yesterday, footage from the Anna Nicole Smith case was playing on a television above the counter. The customer in front of us turned around and said: “That judge is CRAZY.”

We agree. Judge Larry Seidlin, of Broward Circuit Court, has to be the most ridiculous judge to preside over celebrity litigation since Judge Lance Ito.

If you haven’t been following the litigation, here’s a good CNN write-up:

Judge Larry Seidlin, with his distinctive Bronx honk, down-to-earth approach and plain language, is as much a part of the show in Broward Circuit Court as the case he is presiding over.

Seidlin is hearing arguments over the status of the earthly remains of recently deceased tabloid fixture Anna Nicole Smith. But arguments over child custody and paternity have made their way into the courtroom.

Some legal observers, and even one of the participants, say Seidlin has allowed the proceedings to become a circus.

E.g., Jeffrey Toobin, of CNN and the New Yorker:

“This may be the most ridiculous legal proceeding I have ever watched,” Toobin said. “This judge is one of the least competent judges I have ever seen. He is letting this thing meander all over creation, mostly because he seems to enjoy being on television.”

Court TV’s Lisa Bloom concurs, observing that it’s all “wearing a little thin.”

But legal affairs reporters aren’t the only ones with low opinions of Judge Seidlin:

According to the Miami Herald, 22 percent of the lawyers responding to the 2004 Broward County Bar poll found Seidlin unqualified.

A blog of the Justice Advocacy Association of Broward concludes that Seidlin is, among other things, a victim of “his inner comedian.”

We’ve all seen judges like this (and we’ve all laughed, with exaggerated loudness, at their jokes). CNN suggests a motive for Judge Seidlin’s hamming it up in the Anna Nicole Smith proceedings:

The judge’s offbeat folksiness combines the directness of a Judge Judy with the touchy-feely common sense of a Dr. Phil. He could be auditioning for his own television show….

“He’s very entertaining, there’s no question about it,” [said Court TV’s Lisa Bloom]. “But it’s not about entertainment. At Court TV we keep in mind that these are real people here.”

This is confirmed by TMZ.com, which reports that “Judge Larry Seidlin’s dream is to become a judge on a TV courtroom show” — and notes that his surname “is extremely similar to Judge Judy Sheindlin.”

Here’s a telling fact: Judge Seidlin is a former New York cabbie. You know when you climb in a cab, with a splitting headache, and just want to sit back with your eyes closed — but the cabbie insists on talking your ear off? Judge Seidlin sounds like he was one of THOSE cabbies, back in the day.

Please, Your Honor — spare us. We’re not interested in your thoughts on the war in Iraq (referenced in a lengthy spiel on Wednesday).

Just drive. Thank you.

P.S. Not all taxicab drivers turned judges are so problematic. See, e.g., Thomas Hardiman (W.D. Pa.) — who drove a cab before going to law school. But Hardiman, of course, is a federal rather than state judge.

If Anna Nicole Smith Case Is a Circus, Judge Is Ringmaster [CNN]
All Rise!!! Judge Seidlin Says He’s Ready for TV [TMZ.com]

More legal troubles for controversial celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton, aka Mario Lavandeira. The latest lawsuit against him, filed by Universal City Studios, asserts copyright infringement, arising out of Lavandeira’s publication of a topless photograph of Jennifer Aniston (taken from allegedly stolen footage from “The Break-Up”).

The complaint is fairly straightforward. The most amusing part of the filing is an exhibit to the complaint: the topless Jennifer Aniston pic, with a strategically situated “Redacted” stamp:

During our time in commercial litigation, we got to know the “Redacted” stamp very well — perhaps too well. But we never saw the “Redacted” stamp used in quite such an interesting way.

We suspect that the Court will order an in camera examination of the unredacted photograph. Especially if the case winds up before Judge Manuel Real.

Lawsuit Over Topless Aniston Photo [The Smoking Gun via Drudge Report]

We have to step away for a bit. In the meantime, here’s an open thread to talk about a topic that never gets tired: associate compensation.

We can’t keep track of the different “lists of shame” that have been developed. But if you can, please propound them in the comments.

To provide some fodder for additional discussion, we reprint an interesting email from a tipster about Seyfarth Shaw. Check it out, after the jump.

When we first posted about a Fulbright & Jaworski partner using “the n word” in a recruiting event at Duke Law School, we left open this possibility:

[U]nless the story was about, say, the partner’s pro bono representation, in a civil action for damages, of a hate crime or police brutality victim who was attacked and called “the n word,” it was hugely inappropriate….

We’re glad we left ourselves that escape hatch. We now have more context about the incident, thanks to an email from the Fulbright & Jaworski executive committee:

Dear Colleagues:

Because you may hear about or be asked about a recent situation at a law school where attorneys participated in training interviews of students, we want to bring it to your attention. One of our lawyers recounted a story about Leon Jaworski’s defense of an African-American man in a murder trial in Waco, Texas in the 1920s. During the retelling, in an effort to display the depth of racial hostility that Jaworski and his client faced, the attorney used a racial term that characterized what the district attorney in the case said about the defendant. After review of the situation, all involved concluded that such terms, although recounted without ill intentions, are inappropriate for our firm, which values diversity and strives for inclusiveness.

We are addressing the situation, and Steve Pfeiffer and other senior partners are en route to meet with the students. One of the other attorneys who participated in the training session acted immediately when the incident was called to his attention and responded with an electronic letter of explanation and appropriate apology. Any inquiries should be directed to the firm’s Hiring Partner, Gerry Lowry.

Executive Committee

Here’s some further evidence suggesting that the Duke law school community may be overreacting. Per a current law student at Duke:

This partner was relating what another person said in the context of telling a story. Now everyone is piling on him. The student [who voiced the complaint] has been goaded on by some super liberal professors.

Interesting. As we’ve previously stated, we welcome any and all information about this incident. Thanks.

Earlier: Breaking: Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops the N-Bomb During A Recruiting Interview!
Stepping in Deep Duke-y: More Details, Please

* Bad faith in a Chapter 7 filing forfeits the right to convert to Chapter 13. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* Statute of limitations for a Section 1983 action based on false arrest begins to run when claimant is detained pursuant to legal process. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* South Dakota abortion ban bill fails in state Senate committee. [Jurist]

* 300,000 lawyers can’t agree on anything. [WSJ Law Blog]

We had a blast at last week’s Writing About the Law conference, at New York Law School. And we weren’t the only ones. Here’s a (rather belated) round-up of conference coverage from the blogosophere:

1. Social life of a blawger [Overlawyered]

As you can see from his post, Walter Olson was a social butterfly at the conference. We enjoyed sitting next to him at lunch, where we talked about — what else? — his famous neighbor in Chappaqua, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let the conversation begin!

2. Blawgers are Dirty Swingers [QuizLaw]

Dustin wasn’t even at the conference, but he used Walter Olson’s post as the jumping-off point for this entertaining write-up. Even Ann Althouse was amused — despite being the subject of the line, “One night with Ann Althouse is all I ask, man. It’s all I ask.”

(Back off, Dustin — she’s with us.)

3. At the “Writing About the Law” conference [Althouse]

Speaking of Professor Althouse, here’s her account of the proceedings. It’s a multimedia extravaganza. In addition to several photos, it includes an amusingly awkward video. Technology is swell!

4. “Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part I
“Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part II
“Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part III

A trio of substantive write-ups of various panels, from Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog.

Despite his brilliance, the lanky Professor Solum shares our tendency towards typos. Is referring to the Duke lacrosse team rape case as “the Dukie case” a Freudian slip?

5. Ripped From The Headlines [Soloway]

Photographs from the conference (including a profile shot of us typing away on our laptop).

6. Live-Blogging the NYLS Symposium on Writing About the Law [TaxProf Blog]

A linkwrap by Professor Paul Caron (who has duly noted our comments on his shirt selection).

7. Is John McCain’s website suggestive of NAZI iconography? [Volokh Conspiracy]

Professors Jim Lindgren and Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy both spoke at the conference, but haven’t really blogged about it. This VC post, from Professor Lindgren, includes a brief shout-out to Professor Althouse: “It was a pleasure to see Ann Althouse at the New York Law School conference yesterday.”

Here’s a picture we took of these two professors, mugging for the camera:

Longtime readers of ATL may recall how, in an installment of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch back in September, we took a detour from the lawyers to discuss the rather curious wedding announcement of two non-lawyers. The digression was triggered by a reader email:

Check out the Chandra Collier/Juris Kupris wedding announcement. It seems completely out of place. Neither family is from New York. She went to Indiana. He is a fitness trainer. The announcement is very, very short.

Why was it included? The picture. He looks like a male model.

Based on the photograph that accompanied the announcement (above right), we disagreed:

Male models — the runway models, not the catalog ones — tend to be skinnier (the “male waif” look is still in). We think Kupris looks more like the shirtless guys they put on the covers of Harlequin romance novels.

We now retract that assessment, based on more recent data. Tonight, while flipping through the current issue of New York magazine, we were amused to come across Mr. Kupris, featured in an article on the eating habits of fashion folk. In the accompanying photo, he’s runway-model thin — which makes sense, since the poor boy barely eats:

We stand corrected. Please don’t accuse us of not acknowledging our mistakes around here!

The Fashion Week Food Diaries: The Male Model and Personal Trainer [New York Magazine]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Juris Kupris (scroll down)

We must confess: we’ve never been huge fans of the bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich. And we don’t like dogs. In America, these are felonies.

But we’ve finally found a BLT we can enjoy. Say hello to The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times!

From Jim Oliphant’s inaugural post:

Hey look, it’s a blog.

Not exactly revolutionary at this point is it? So why would Legal Times do it, other than, of course, to slavishly follow journalistic convention.

That’s the cynical reason. The real reason is the opportunity this medium affords us, one that despite the wretched excess of blogs polluting the net remains very real, particularly in the areas this publication watches.

Check out that droll opening line, sans exclamation point. Admire the meta-ness of it all: blogging about their decision to start a blog.

The Legal Timesfolk are off to an excellent start as bloggers. Check out these two juicy posts (picked up by How Appealing):

1. Seller is Relocating, about how Justice Alito has put his New Jersey home up for sale (we’ll probably do a Lawyerly Lairs post on it); and

2. The Chief and Microsoft, about the rare oral argument “oopsie” from Ted Olson.

Delicious. We’ve added BLT to the ATL blogroll, and we expect to visit early and often.

The BLT is Served [The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times]

* When I was in college, we played old-fashioned, provocation-free Assassin, where everybody (or at least anyone who signed up and paid the $10 fee) was a potential victim. Let’s see if this gimmick is next. [New York Daily News]

* Once again, drugs and alcohol save the day. [Legal Profession Blog]

* If this is interesting to you, you should see my casebooks — my margin notes and artistic highlighting reveal true creative genius (and a crush on that guy in admin law). [Brett Marston via Is that Legal?]

* Yay! I would have made so many more high school memories. [Hartford Courant via How Appealing]

State court judges are still icky. From the Legal Reader:

A former Orange County Superior Court judge collapsed in court Tuesday upon learning he was being sentenced to 27 months in prison for possessing child pornography on his home computer.

Ronald Kline fell into his attorney’s arms as Judge Consuelo B. Marshall was announcing his sentence shortly after noon. Court proceedings were temporarily halted and paramedics summoned.

Kline, 66, was revived and the hearing resumed a short time later.

We agree with John’s take:

He’s not only a perv, he’s a wimp. I wonder how many people he sentenced to 27 months — or more — while he was on the bench? Did they faint?

In other words: Your Honor, get a pair. And don’t play with them under your robe — that’s unwise, too.

OC Judge Collapses as He’s Sentenced to 27 Months for Child Porn [Legal Reader]

As noted by several commenters to this thread, Hunton & Williams — #43 on the AmLaw 100, and #70 on the Vault 100 — has taken itself off the LIST OF SHAME.

We’ve posted their memo — which they endearingly marked “CONFIDENTIAL” and “FOR INTERNAL DISTRIBUTION ONLY” (cute, guys) — after the jump.

This morning we wrote about the recent scandal at Duke Law School, in which a Fulbright & Jaworski partner uttered “the n word” during the course of a recruiting event. We published an email from Dean Katharine T. Bartlett to the student body about the incident.

Unfortunately, there’s still so much that we don’t know. To those of you with knowledge of the underlying events, here are a few things we’re curious about:

1. What type of event was this — a meeting, a one-on-one interview, etc.? Was the complaining student the only one who heard “the n word”?

2. In what context was “the n word” uttered? In other words, what exactly was the “story” that the partner was telling to the student(s)?

3. Who was the Fulbright & Jaworski partner who said this racial slur?

These are just a few representative questions. We’d love to get ANY additional information about the incident, no matter how trivial. Thanks in advance for your tips.

Update: We now have more details and context about the incident — and it’s not as bad as it initially sounded. See here.

Earlier: Breaking: Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops the N-Bomb During A Recruiting Interview!

We have conducted no investigation whatsoever into this juicy rumor, which we just received by email:

Apparently today an entire department at Paul Hastings LA (attorneys, assistants, etc.) got escorted out of the office by security. No concrete details have surfaced yet.

Now our “investigation” will begin. If you know anything about this — whether there’s any truth to it, and if so, why these folks are getting the boot — please email us, ASAP. Thanks.

It looks like there’s going to be a status conference tomorrow in Sullivan & Cromwell v. Charney. Here’s the docket entry:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to travel up to New York for the festivities. If you work at 60 Centre Street or nearby, and might be able to attend the proceedings, we’d be most grateful for your report.

In other Brokeback Lawfirm developments, Lavi Soloway has gotten his hands on a copy of the transcript from the last Charney v. S&C hearing. He parses it in this post. Here’s a highlight:

THE COURT: That’s a settlement meeting between Mr. Charney and persons respresenting Sullivan & Cromwell?

MR. ALTERMAN: Sullivan & Cromwell themselves before we were involved.

THE COURT: With Mr. Charney?

MR. ALTERMAN: With Mr. Charney and another witness.

THE COURT: That’s my question.

MR. ALTERMAN: And another witness represented by counsel, a secret settlement meeting when they offered him a sum of money.

Lavi Soloway wonders: “Who was the other witness? Was it Gera Grinberg, represented by Gallion & Spielvogel?”

Discussion about the “secret settlement talks” reminds us — we’ve been meaning to pat ourselves on the back. On February 2, we feverishly speculated that settlement discussions were ongoing between the parties.

When S&C’s lawsuit against Charney became widely known, it looked like we were wrong. But as it turns out, we were right, at least in part. The parties WERE in the process of trying to settle the case during the second half of that week. It wasn’t until after the talks failed, and Charney found counsel for himself, that the parties wound up at 60 Centre Street (first for a TRO hearing before Justice Charles Ramos, and then for later proceedings before Justice Bernard Fried).

White Shoe Diaries: The Charney Transcript [Soloway]
WebCivil Supreme [New York State Unified Court System]

Truth be told, we find the stock options backdating story a little boring. But every now and then, it results in mildly interesting news.

From the Recorder:

A fourth-year associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe inadvertently disclosed a sensitive document about stock option backdating that the firm has spent the last five months fighting to keep under seal.

The document — a complaint in a shareholder derivative action against former executives of Mercury Interactive Corp. — contains explosive allegations against the executives and quotes extensively from e-mails in which the executives allegedly discuss backdating their own stock options….

The complaint, Morillo v. Abrams, 1:05-cv-50710, had been filed under seal on Sept. 22 as part of a confidentiality agreement with the executives’ lawyers — but without judicial approval. The Recorder and two other news organizations have been trying since then to unseal the complaint and its supporting exhibits.

But a Dow Jones News Service reporter discovered Friday that Orrick associate M. Todd Scott had inadvertently filed the complaint publicly with a motion to stay the derivative action in October. The Wall Street Journal posted the complaint on its Web site over the weekend and wrote a story about it on page A-4 of Tuesday’s print edition.

Whoops! There goes five months’ worth of legal battles.

Our personal view is that filing under seal is greatly overused, even abused. But if you’re going to file under seal, then file under seal.

(We do feel bad, however, for Mr. Scott. We’re guessing he was operating under inadequate sleep. And when associates are exhausted and overworked, mistakes will get made.)

Oops! Orrick Associate Lets Slip Mercury Backdating Document [The Recorder via Law.com]

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about Judge Richard Posner’s opinion in the “Giftes” free speech T-shirt case.

Thanks to the commenter who brought the two drawings in the opinion exhibits to our attention. We reprint them after the jump. And we look forward to seeing them in the august pages of the Federal Reporter.

The email reprinted below, from Dean Katharine T. Bartlett, just went out to everyone at Duke Law School. It was forwarded to us by a source at the school.

Yes, we know: the partner who pulled a Michael Richards used “the n word” in the context of telling a story, in which the racial epithet was uttered by a character in the story. He didn’t use “the n word” to refer to any student or interviewee.

We don’t know the nature of the story being told by the partner. But unless the story was about, say, the partner’s pro bono representation, in a civil action for damages, of a hate crime or police brutality victim who was attacked and called “the n word,” it was hugely inappropriate for the partner to use a racial slur in this context (or, for that matter, any other context).

>>> Kate BARTLETT / 11:21 AM >>>

To The Duke Law School Community:

The purpose of this letter is to address a recent incident of concern arising out of a law firm recruitment visit to Duke. A Duke student reported that a partner from Fulbright & Jaworski who was meeting students on campus told a story in which “the n word” was attributed to one of the characters in the story. Understandably, the use of the word offended the student.

Upon learning about this episode, pursuant to the Law School’s Anti-discrimination Policy, http://www.law.duke.edu/career/pdf/discriminationcomplaintform.pdf, the Career Center staff immediately asked the student if they could approach the employer to investigate the incident. The student agreed, and Tia Barnes called the recruiting manager to say that this was a serious situation that needed to be promptly addressed.

The hiring partner called back within minutes, clearly upset at the behavior of his partner. Shortly thereafter he reported back that he raised the issue to the highest levels of the firm, that the firm was taking internal measures dealing with the individual involved, and that the offending lawyer will not be permitted to return to Duke to meet with students.

The offending lawyer admitted his use of the word in question and reportedly recognizes that it was wrong to do so. The firm also sent an official apology to the student through us, as the student wished to remain anonymous.

As part of its remediation efforts, a partner at the law firm has asked to come to Duke to meet with students to describe the incident, to apologize to the community publicly, and to explain the measures that the firm has taken. Bruce Elvin has arranged for this meeting to take place tomorrow, February 22, at 4:30, in Room 3041.

This situation is ongoing, but to help the community better understand what has occurred thus far in the face of stories circulating on the grapevine, we asked for the student’s permission to describe what happened and to write this letter, and the student agreed. As is understandably often the case, the student still wishes to remain anonymous, and we have done our best to respect that wish, particularly given the importance of ensuring that our follow-up to incidents of this sort encourages students in the future to come forward to report such incidents, and does not discourage them from doing so.

This incident creates an opportunity to restate that the law school does not tolerate offensive or discriminatory conduct behavior by employers, whether occurring during interviews, mock interviews or summer employment. Pursuant to our policy, complaints of such behavior are investigated and we evaluate the response by employers to determine if their remedial action in response to the behavior is adequate. If you experience such behavior, please let us know either in person or by using the complaint form referenced above.

I appreciate the strong feelings this incident has raised and seek to work with the community as an ongoing matter to facilitate communication about how to make our climate here free from discrimination in the career services context and in all other dimensions of our Law School.

Katharine T. Bartlett
Dean and A. Kenneth Pye Professor of Law Duke University School of Law

Update: We now have more details and context about the incident — and it’s not as bad as it initially sounded. Details here.

Last week we wrote about how John Jay Osborn, a law professor and author of The Paper Chase, sniffily dismissed One L, by Scott Turow. “One L is competent,” he said. “But it doesn’t have a HEART.”

Now a prominent blogger has come to Turow’s defense. In this Times Select column, grande blogress diva Ann Althouse defends Turow — and, in the words of a tipster, “cattily trashes John Jay Osborn, author of the Paper Chase, for his suggestion that law profs not teach via the Socratic method in order to make students ‘happier.’”

Money quote, comparing Osborn’s “The Paper Chase” to Turow’s “One L”:

I preferred the memoir [of One L], the account of an ordinary man as he encounters some interesting, fallible human beings who did the work that both Osborn and I do now.

Though none of the law professors I know are much at all like Kingsfield, Osborn chided us law professors for making our students so unhappy: stop calling on them; listen only to volunteers; don’t dictate how they should think; let them tell their own stories.

Law should connect to the real world. But that doesn’t mean we ought to devote our classes to the personal expression of law students. The cases we read for class are always based on factual disputes that arose in real life….

So law is not abstract unless one makes the mistake of turning it into an abstraction. We law professors tend to worry about seeming like Professor Kingsfield. But we ought to worry less about that prospect and more about preserving and respecting our own tradition of teaching from the cases.

The students who come into our law schools are adults who have decided that they are ready to spend a tremendous amount of time and money preparing to enter a profession. We show the greatest respect for their individual autonomy if we deny ourselves the comfort of trying to make them happy and teach them what they came to learn: how to think like lawyers.

Good stuff (even it it’s not as catty as we had hoped). It’s worth noting that Professor Althouse, whose own excellent blog is less academic than many other law professor blogs, is not opposed to “personal expression.” It’s just that she believes, and rightly so, that there’s a time and place for everything.

P.S. Random aside: Professor Osborn’s daughter, Meredith, is a Harvard Law grad now clerking on the Ninth Circuit.

P.P.S. We had the pleasure of meeting Professor Althouse at the NYLS conference last week (see photo at right).

More photographs from the conference, of superior quality, are available at Althouse and Soloway.

‘A Skull Full of Mush’ [Times Select]
At the “Writing About the Law” conference [Althouse]
Ripped From the Headlines [Soloway]

Earlier: John Osborn to Scott Turow: “Game On, Bitch”

The LIST OF SHAME has been whittled down to thirteen firms (ranked by Vault 100 placement; AmLaw 100 placement indicated parenthetically):

43. Baker & McKenzie (3)
50. Fulbright & Jaworski (36)
58. Vinson & Elkins (39)
70. Hunton & Williams (43)
75. Nixon Peabody (64)
77. Bryan Cave (56)
82. Reed Smith (33)
83. Dorsey & Whitney (68)
86. McGuireWoods (65)
90. Baker & Hostetler (73)
92. Mintz Levin (91)
95. Dickstein Shapiro (80)
100. Seyfarth Shaw (66)

The latest departure from the list: Kelley Drye & Warren. Their pay raise, which will be reflected in the March 15 paychecks, is retroactive to January 1. Bonuses for 2006 will be paid on February 28 (which strikes us as late; but better late than never).

The complete KDW announcement email appears after the jump.

* The standard for predatory-bidding claims is the same as that for predatory-pricing claims, and Ross-Simmons didn’t meet it. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* A certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court does not toll the 1-year statute of limitations for seeking federal habeas relief from a state-court judgment. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* Juries can’t punish defendants for harm done to nonparties. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* James Brown to finally be buried. [CNN]

* But the fight for the right to bury Anna Nicole Smith continues. [CNN]

On our recent trip up to New York, we dropped by the Orion — the luxury high-rise apartment building that celebrated plaintiff Aaron Charney calls home. We previously profiled Aaron’s apartment in these pages, for our Lawyerly Lairs column.

We briefly entertained the thought of entering the building, going up to the reception desk, and telling the doorman we were here to see Aaron Charney. Maybe he would then invite us up for a visit, and we could check out the extensive collection of parental photographs decorating his pad.

But then we thought that such an action might put us on the receiving end of a temporary restraining order. And Aaron is no stranger to TRO practice, having been slapped with one by Sullivan & Cromwell earlier this month.

So we just loitered outside the building for a while, and took a few photographs. Here they are:

More pics after the jump.

* Filet-O-Fish creator never got a dime off his religion-inspired fish sandwich, yet remains grateful for all he did achieve. That is the spirit of Lent (which starts tomorrow!). [Cincinnati Enquirer]

* No one disses Nike. [The Guardian]

* Inventor of the Electric Slide says Teri Hatcher is doing it all wrong. [MSN Technology via Sivacracy.net]

* Flasher invokes the “These pants always do that” affirmative defense… [IndyStar.com]

* …while Peeping Tom sticks with the less creative “What? This is the women’s bathroom?” defense. [The Milwaukee Channel]

* EMI and Warner Music — on again! [The Daily News]

If you’re getting tired of our stories about the DOJ’s Shanetta Cutlar and S&C’s Alexandra Korry, we have a new name to add to our rotation of delightfully high-powered, imperious females. Meet Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore (at right), of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Whisper her name out loud: “Vanessa Gilmore.” Doesn’t it even SOUND diva-licious? If she weren’t a federal judge, couldn’t she be a character on “Dynasty”?

But we have reasons other than the sound of her name for declaring this rather attractive jurist to be a judicial diva. From a helpful tipster:

I’d like to bring another judicial diva to your attention: Judge Vanessa Gilmore of the Southern District of Texas. You probably have already read about Judge Gilmore’s ruling in the Enron broadband case vacating Howard’s conviction. I’m not sure she’s a match for Shanetta Cutlar, but she’s no slouch either when it comes to divadom.

[R]umors about her include:

* She has thrown her keys in open court at an attorney (I believe it might have been an AUSA) for calling her “ma’am”;

* She ordered an AUSA to have John Ashcroft personally write her a letter explaining the DOJ’s reasons for seeking the death penalty against one defendant but not others [the Williams case, discussed in more detail below];

* When she didn’t like the particular font counsel used, she told him that she threw his motion in the trash without reading it, and then she ruled against him;

* During trial she is happy to make findings contrary to stipulations of the parties; and

* She encourages ex parte contact with the court and attempts to prevent record-making: any discovery “motions” must be way of a one-page letter to the court. She will then have a hearing which she considers an “oral motion to compel.” She will happily rule without actually seeing any of the discovery propounded.

More about Judge Gilmore, including a discussion of how she got benchslapped by the Fifth Circuit, after the jump.

P.S. We welcome colorful anecdotes about strong personalities within the legal profession regardless of their race, gender, etc. It just so happens that lately we’ve been getting information about women. If you want to tell us about your workplace abuse at the hands of a man — e.g., Eric Krautheimer, of Brokeback Lawfirm infamy — we’re all ears.

Back by popular demand: the LIST OF SHAME.

Since the last publication of the list, one week ago, there have been some changes. Baker Botts has matched market in New York, so they are kinda-sorta off the list — “kinda-sorta” because we don’t think they’ve raised in other offices, including their Texas offices.

(Some of you have bitched about that, in poesy as well as prose.)

Thelen Reid is off the list, as of today. They were so eager to be removed from the LIST OF SHAME that they issued a press release touting their associate pay raises.

So here’s the latest list. If you see inaccuracies, please email us (with supporting documentation). Thanks.

40. Baker Botts
43. Baker & McKenzie
50. Fulbright & Jaworski
58. Vinson & Elkins
70. Hunton & Williams
75. Nixon Peabody
77. Bryan Cave
82. Reed Smith
83. Dorsey & Whitney
86. McGuireWoods
90. Baker & Hostetler
91. Thelen Reid
92. Mintz Levin
95. Dickstein Shapiro
98. Kelley Drye
100. Seyfarth Shaw

Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP Increases Associate Salaries [Thelen Reid (press release)]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of associate base salaries (scroll down)

A detailed excerpt, plus a link to the full opinion, can be accessed here (via How Appealing). Money quote:

[T]he picture and the few words imprinted on the Brandt T-shirt are no more expressive of an idea or opinion that the First Amendment might be thought to protect than a young child’s talentless infantile drawing which Brandt’s design successfully mimics. Otherwise every T-shirt that was not all white with no design or words… would be protected by the First Amendment, and schools could not impose dress codes or require uniforms without violating the free speech of the students, a proposition sensibly rejected in the Blau case.

“[T]alentless infantile drawing”? Judge Posner, that was way harsh.

You had to rule against the plaintiffs based on the caselaw; fine. But did you really have to insult their artistic abilities? Kids are like district judges: their feelings are easily hurt.

(If you’re not familiar with this bizarre but amusing litigation, read our earlier post, available here.)

Rulings of Note from the Seventh Circuit [How Appealing]

Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: Gifties v. Tards

Oops, we forgot to post our write-up of the final panel of Friday’s conference at New York Law School.

Afternoon Panel (2:15-3:30): Beyond the Bluebook: The Future of Writing About the Law

“In a world increasingly dominated by blogs and online publications, does traditional legal scholarship have a future? Will legal scholars abandon the traditional law review to write for a popular audience, and if so, why? What will this brave new world look like?”

Panelists and Moderator:

* Bernard Hibbitts, Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Editor in Chief of Jurist.
* Rosa Brooks, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center and op-ed columnist, Los Angeles Times.
* Jack Balkin, Professor, Yale Law School and Founder and Director of the Information Society Project.
* Lawrence B. Solum, Professor, University of Illinois College of Law and author of Legal Theory Blog.
* Rodger Citron (Moderator), Assistant Professor of Law, Touro Law Center.

For those of you who are interested — which, we realize, is probably a small, wonky group — a brief discussion appears after the jump.

Is there anything to do in lovely Charlottesville, Virginia, other than hump like bunnies? A recent study suggests the answer to this question is “no.”

Over at the University of Virginia Law School, student bodies are gettin’ busy. The Virginia Law Weekly, UVA’s student newspaper, recently administered a sex survey. It was taken by approximately half of the law school — an impressive response rate. The survey revealed the following:

[A]lmost 64% of law students are currently involved in a sexual relationship, and most of us (52%) are having sex at least once a week. But even though a full 70% of students report that they are either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their sex lives, apparently that’s not enough. Fifty-nine percent of respondents told us that they want to have sex more often.

Please, kids — let’s not get greedy. After all, you’re in LAW SCHOOL. And you need to leave yourselves SOME time to hit the books, so you can land that coveted Wilkinson clerkship.

Additional highlights from the survey, from TJ’s Double Play:

* Who are the nine dudes and two girls who are awesome? And by awesome, we mean slept with more than 30 people.

* About 30 percent of both law school men and women have cheated on a partner. Finally, gender-equity. Plus, since we’re going to be lawyers, screwing people is what we do best.

* Sixty-five percent of law students do not think oral sex is sex. In that case, We would love to not have sex with you.

* The average law school guy has had six partners and the average girl has had five, well beyond the national average of about three. Again, screwing people is what we do best.

* 1Ls make up fifty percent of the law school’s virgins. Explanation: $3100 a week at your summer job will work wonders for your sex life.

* Thirty percent have had anal sex, which just goes to show that the butt is the new oral. See, The Bottom Line.

For more titillating tidbits, read the full post at TJ’s Double Play, the Virginia Law Weekly article, or the underlying raw data.

UVA Sex Survey [TJ’s Double Play]
2007 Sex Survey Results Show Busy, Insatiable Student Body [Virginia Law Weekly]
UVA Law Sex Survey Raw Data [Survey Monkey]

The associate pay raise story seems pretty played out at this point. We’ve certainly grown tired of covering it.

But in case it still interests you, here are two links (the second is old; we found it while cleaning out our inbox):

1. Atlanta-Based Firm Raises Salaries Twice in Two Weeks [Fulton County Daily Report]

“Troutman Sanders has matched the $130,000 starting salary for associates that earlier this month became the new top rate at several big Atlanta firms, said the firm’s managing partner, Robert W. Webb Jr.”

2. McKenna Long joins latest round of pay raises [Fulton County Daily Report]

“McKenna Long & Aldridge has joined the latest round of associate pay increases. The firm has raised starting salary in Atlanta to $130,000, effective Feb. 1, said William Clifford, a spokesperson for the firm. The firm has 55 associates in Atlanta.”

The firm also raised pay in its Denver office from $115,000 to $130,000 and raised pay in its California and Washington offices from $135,000 to $145,000. Bonuses will remain the same, said Clifford.

And here’s an open thread, in which you can say whatever still needs to be said with respect to associate compensation.

C’mon, folks — let’s debate appropriate base salaries for senior versus junior associates, once more with feeling!

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of associate base salaries (scroll down)

We sure do love pro se litigants. Like the guy who filed this notice of appeal. Or the loon who filed this lawsuit against Arm & Hammer. And, of course, there’s Aaron Charney (although he now has counsel).

Today we introduce you to Michael Melnitzky, who served as the principal art conservator at Sotheby’s for almost three decades. From the NYT:

[W]hen his wife filed for divorce in 1994, Mr. Melnitzky became something else: a litigator. A prolific one. And although he has no law degree and only himself as a client, he has never been busier.

Through a series of self-fashioned lawsuits and appeals, issues that might have been settled with his divorce have gone on for 13 years, 3 years longer than his marriage.

He has sued virtually everyone involved: one of his former lawyers, his wife’s lawyer, three banks, five judges and a psychiatrist appointed by the court to evaluate his mental health. In unrelated cases, he has sued a neighbor, a thrift shop, the city and his former employer. And he has almost always lost.

Unlike so many pro se litigants, Melnitzky is neither incarcerated nor impecunious. But in terms of his psychology, he fits the pro se profile:

At a recent hearing, an opposing lawyer called him a “serial litigator” who was turning the legal system into a “hobby” at the expense of the people he sued.

Mr. Melnitzky takes exception to such characterizations, as he does to the mention of obsession.

“It’s not an obsession; it’s a cause,” he said. “Would you call the fight against Nazis an obsession?”

Melnitzky is a Holocaust survivor. But despite that fact, we respectfully question whether it’s appropriate to compare the worldwide struggle against Fascism and genocide to litigation over a watch collection (even a very nice one — it includes timepieces by Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin).

The Marriage Lasted 10 Years. The Lawsuits? 13 Years, and Counting. [New York Times]

What do you think of this cartoon, by cartoonist Jim Herrick, which appeared in last month’s Kentucky Bar Association magazine — and is now the subject of significant controversy?

We chuckled over the cartoon (although we didn’t quite guffaw). We don’t find it offensive in the least, and we think it was perfectly fine for the Kentucky Bar Assocation to run it.

But considering that we find almost nothing offensive, we may not be the best people to ask. What are your thoughts?

Trial lawyers find nothing funny in cartoon [Louisville Courier-Journal]

* Are we really gonna let this guy spend 10 years in jail for a BJ? [New York Times via How Appealing]

* Bizarre Anna Nicole Smith saga continues to be so. [CNN]

* Portland lottery winners fight for their right to party. [CNN]

* XM gets Sirius about making profits; will the merger be allowed by regulators? [Washington Post]

* Parker Posey’s character in “The House of Yes” would appreciate this. [AP via Yahoo!]

Here are the latest news articles about the litigation between gay M&A lawyer Aaron Charney and his former employer, Sullivan & Cromwell:

1. Sullivan Associate Is a Right Charney [TheLawyer.com]

Scroll down to the second item. It includes a shout-out to ATL — and quotation of an anonymous ATL commenter. Might you be the person they’ve quoted?

(Also, can someone explain the article title to us?)

Update: Thanks for all of the enlightening responses.

2. Two Cases Cast Light On Charney [Gay City News]

An interesting, highly substantive article from Professor Arthur S. Leonard (whom we had the pleasure of meeting at the recent NYLS conference on writing about the law). Professor Leonard discusses two recent state appellate court decisions that were both decided in favor of the plaintiffs. Money quote:

Aaron Charney’s allegations against Sullivan & Cromwell describe similar sorts of incidents, although it seems from his complaint that the number and severity of incidents are somewhat less than [the plaintiffs in the two other cases] alleged against their employers.

On the other hand, Charney is suing under New York City’s human rights ordinance, amended in 2005 to make clear that courts interpreting the city law are not bound by rulings from other jurisdictions, and are expected to give a liberal reading to the law’s protections, especially regarding claims of retaliation.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Brokeback Lawfirm (scroll down)

As a legal blog, we’re all about due process and notice.

Hence this post. You are hereby notified that the nominations period for our law librarian hotties contest will close tomorrow, Tuesday, February 20, at 5 PM (24 hours from now).

To find out how to nominate a librarian hottie — include yourself, since self-nominations are welcome — click here. Thanks!

Earlier: Above the Law Hotties: Law Librarians!

Happy Presidents’ Day, everyone!

* Huge corporations can have crappy lawyers, too. [Times Select (pass-through link) via How Appealing]

* A warning for Sullivan & Cromwell: “[A]**holes breed like rabbits. Their poison quickly infects others; even worse, if you let them make hiring decisions, they will start cloning themselves.” [Law.com]

* But not every S&C partner is an a**hole. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Benjamin Wittes dissents from Jan Crawford Greenburg re: President Bush’s influence on the Supreme Court. [The New Republic (subscription)]

* Controversy over the Thursday Night Massacre (of U.S. Attorneys) continues to reverberate throughout Washington. [Washington Post]

The title of our recent photo post should have been “Tier TWO Law Students Are Hotter.” According to several commenters, the pictured students are from St. John’s Law School, rather than New York Law School. Since we didn’t chat with these students about their law school — we erroneously assumed the conference attendees were all from NYLS — we will take these commenters’ word for it.

For the record, St. John’s is a tier two law school. It’s ranked #80 by U.S. News — again, for whatever those rankings are worth. You can debate that in the comments if you like.

Here was the other comment that caught our eye:

As one of the people actually pictured above, I want to let everyone know that Lat took our pictures under false pretenses. We specifically asked him if he was from NYLS and if he was taking our pictures for publicity purposes—and he said that he was. What a liar. I’m glad that the bloggers here are so honest and reliable.

We have multiple responses:

(a) We have no way of verifying whether this commenter is in fact one of the pictured students. But we can tell you that we NEVER represented ourselves as (i) from NYLS or (ii) a publicity photographer.

Subject us to a lie detector test; ask the videographer if he kept his recording equipment running after the end of the panel, and grab his footage; seek whatever verification you can. We did NOT claim to be publicity photographers from NYLS. If this commenter is in fact one of the pictured students, he or she misheard us.

(b) Considering the equipment we were using — a small, crappy, non-professional camera — one would have to be a MORON to mistake us for a publicity photographer. There was a REAL publicity photographer at the various events — a woman with a large, fancy camera — who made herself conspicuous throughout the day. The flash on her camera annoyed John Osborn at the luncheon talk.

(c) Another reason no one would confuse us for a publicity photographer is that we were typing vigorously on a laptop, rather than taking photographs, during all of the panels. The ACTUAL publicity photographer, mentioned above, was running around the room with her top-of-the-line camera, crouching and clicking, crouching and clicking. Which is what publicity photographers do.

(d) No publicity photographer would chit chat and hobnob with conference attendees as much as we were doing. It would be gross dereliction of photographic duty.

(e) Assuming arguendo these allegations are true — which they are NOT — it would be irrelevant.

Here’s why. Let’s say we HAD been a publicity photographer from NYLS. Where would these pictures have ended up? In the photographer’s private wank collection?

No. The photos would have wound up ON THE INTERNET. A publicity photographer who keeps his pictures in a drawer, instead of making them publicly available, would be a pretty poor publicity photographer.

So if this commenter is in fact one of the pictured students, we have an apology to offer:

We’re sorry you misheard us. And we’re sorry you’re an unobservant moron.

That’s all. We will not say anything further about this “controversy.” Thank you.

* Beer and baseball, not as intertwined as you’d think. [Sports Law Blog]

* Boring as it may be, is class really the place for a boner? [Feminist Law Professors]

* They should have gone with the special brownies instead. [Austin Daily Herald]

* The only place this should be happening is Hollywood. Actually, disregard that comment—this item is that disturbing. [The Oregonian]

* What kinds of rights have you been expecting from $200 NY-LA flights? [Yahoo! News]

Take heart, Loyola 2L. New York Law School, which is distinct from NYU Law School, is a Tier 3 school, according to U.S. News & World Reports (for whatever the rankings are worth).

But the law students we saw at today’s conference at New York Law School were way cuter, on the whole, than our law school classmates.

(Please do not construe these comments as sexist. Our praise extends to the guys as well as the gals. One of the men looks like Aaron Charney!)

The proof is in the pictures:

Two more photos appear after the jump.

The will of Anna Nicole Smith, aka Vickie Lynn Marshall, is now available. You can check it out here (PDF).

We haven’t read it yet; right now we’re in another panel at the NYLS conference. But we welcome your thoughts on it in the comments to this post.

To get things started, the CNN article about the will is available here.

Anna Nicole Smith’s will is revealed [CNN]

We just got back from a most engaging luncheon talk at the NYLS legal writing conference by John Jay Osborn, a law professor at the University of San Francisco and author of the 1973 novel, The Paper Chase (which led to a movie and television series).

Here’s the Westlaw headnotes version of John Osborn’s talk:

Law students, you need to rediscover and take back your narratives. Law school is all about forcing you to give up your narrative and play by someone else’s rules. Don’t let them do that to you.

Osborn covered a number of topics during the course of his remarks — legal education, law and literature (especially Bleak House), the trajectory of legal careers, the genesis and evolution of The Paper Chase. Great stuff.

Here are a few money quotes. On Scott Turow’s One L, which someone raised in Q-and-A:

“One L is competent,” he sniffed. “But it doesn’t have a HEART.”

Osborn, a former associate at Patterson Belknap, left the legal world for a year to write. He encourages lawyers not to be afraid of trying new things or stepping off the treadmill:

“The nice thing about the law is you can go away and come back… Don’t be afraid to go off and do different things. They’ll ALWAYS take you back. They ALWAYS need associates.”

Finally, Osborn shared with us a great quote from John Houseman, the actor and producer who won an Oscar for his work in The Paper Chase.

Some folks wanted Houseman to perform a scene in The Paper Chase that he didn’t like. He refused, declaring: “I’m too old and too rich to put up with this bulls**t.”

Author of The Paper Chase Joins USF School of Law [USF School of Law]

We are huge fans of the delicious Alexandra Korry, the high-powered Sullivan & Cromwell partner who figures prominently in Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell, the lawsuit brought by gay lawyer Aaron Charney against his former employer.

In the course of our writing about this case, numerous comments have been made about Korry, a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer renowned for her brilliance and her toughness. Here’s what the S&C website has to say about this magnficent M&A diva:

Alexandra Korry joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 1986 having done stints in journalism and commercial banking. She was elected a partner in 1993.

Interesting! We’re guessing Korry gets her (alleged) pirate’s mouth from her time in journalism, and her business acumen and shrewdness from her time in banking. Back to the S&C site:

Ms. Korry has extensive experience in representing U.S. and non-U.S. clients in a wide variety of mergers and acquisitions transactions, focusing on strategic investments, negotiated acquisitions and dispositions and joint ventures. Among her representations are Microsoft, UBS, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Eastman Kodak, Koninklijke Philips Electronics and Siderca.

Ms. Korry is active in a variety of community organizations, including the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, and is a retired member of the Board of Visitors of Duke Law School.

In light of her involvement with all of these charities and non-profit groups, we’re guessing the answer is yes to this commenter’s question about the Dalton School. Perhaps her kids are or were students there?

Okay, we’ve heard the official law firm take on Alexandra Korry. Now, let’s hear from ATL commenters.

Check out their collected remarks, after the jump.

We’re at the next panel of the day at the New York Law School conference on legal writing.

Morning Panel #2 (11:00–12:15): Lost in Translation? Writing About the Law for a Non-Legal Audience

“Writing about law for a lay audience poses its own unique challenges. What is lost and what is gained by having to translate complex legal concepts into concise news reporting, incisive commentary or compelling drama?”

Panelists and Moderator:

* Adam Cohen, editorial board member, The New York Times.
* Jamie Heller, Deputy Managing Editor, The Wall Street Journal Online.
* Richard Sweren, writer and co-executive producer, Law & Order.
* Dahlia Lithwick, Supreme Court reporter, Slate.
* Brandt Goldstein (Moderator), Visiting Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School.

Discussion after the jump.

Right now we’re in the audience for this panel at the NYLS conference on writing about the law:

Morning Panel #1 (9:30-10:45): Just Cite It! The Traditional Law Review Structure

Law reviews have been attacked as irrelevant and their student editors criticized as incompetent, yet legal scholars still need to publish in law reviews to get and keep their jobs. What role does the traditional law review play, what role should it play, and should it be continued?

Panelists and Moderator:

* James Lindgren, Professor, Northwestern University School of Law and Cofounder of the section on Scholarship of the Association of American Law Schools.

* Randy E. Barnett, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center and senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the Goldwater Institute.

* Ann Althouse, Professor, University of Wisconsin School of Law and author and blogger.

* Paul Caron, Professor, University of Cincinnati School of Law and Publisher and Editor of TaxProf Blog

* Cameron Stracher (Moderator), Codirector, Program in Law & Journalism and Publisher, New York Law School Law Review.

Commentary after the jump.

Here’s the morning thread for discussion about associate compensation. We’d like to launch the discussion by quoting from a great reader email we recently received:

I am writing this (from an anonymous account of course) to plead and beg for you guys to give us some senior associate love. All these threads about compensation and raises seem to be mostly geared to and contributed to by juniors (or, gasp, law students). Meanwhile, we 5th, 6th+ year associates sweat and slave away silently… taking on massive amounts of responsibility, ruining our personal lives, and, of course, doing the firm’s job by providing essentially ALL of the training to completely clueless juniors…. And what do we get for it, NADA!

To get to the point, I would LOVE YOU GUYS if you could start a new Skaddenfreude thread devoted to how SCREWED seniors (and ok, mid-levels I suppose) are w/r/t compensation at Biglaw. As I’m sure you know, the “compression” that happens at the higher levels is just plain ridiculous. Why on earth am I getting paid only 50K more than a kid straight out of law school!?!? And bonuses are compressed too!?! The value difference should be pretty obvious — but that doesn’t seem to matter to firms because all they care about is recruiting first years out of law school! And then they scratch their heads, totally confused about why the seniors are leaving in DROVES.

Well said. And there’s more, after the jump.

We’re up in New York right now for a symposium on legal writing at New York Law School. Topics to be covered include both legal academic writing, for student-run law reviews, as well as writing about legal affairs for a lay audience (e.g., through legal journalism and blogging).

The comfortable, well-lit classroom that we’re in right now has excellent wireless internet access. So we will be blogging, both about the conference and non-conference subjects, throughout the day.

P.S. We think this conference will be very worthwhile. We’re only applying the “Dubious Conferences” tag because we’re quite proud of it, and don’t get to use it enough.

Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond [New York Law School]

* MySpace suit dismissed in Texas. [AP via How Appealing]

* War powers battle heating up between Articles I and II. [CNN]

* WSJ Law Blog: Pay the judges? [WSJ Law Blog]

* 26 Americans indicted in Italy CIA rendition case. [CNN]

* A tongue-in-cheek wrap-up of Libby trial highlights. (Warning: not real news!) [The Onion]

* My issue with this decision is, what can’t be used as a sex toy? [Dorf on Law]

* We’ll give the FDA tobacco if they leave love alone. (They can keep the Viagra though). [MSNBC]

* Can your Valentine’s Day top this? [East Valley Tribune via Quizlaw]

* Autobiographies don’t always lead to redemption. But they may lead to movie options. [Los Angeles Times]

We have to step away from the computer for a bit. We’re about to miss the Chinatown bus up to New York, our oh-so-glamorous mode of travel.

But we’re leaving this open thread about salaries to keep you entertained in the meantime. And content will be posted at ATL in our absence, so do check back soon.

To kick start the compensation conversation, here’s some scuttlebutt about DLA Piper. Check it out, after the jump.

This is a continuation of our earlier post evaluating the fashions on display last week, at the New York Supreme Court hearing in the litigation between gay lawyer Aaron Charney and his former employer, Sullivan & Cromwell.

We gave out the big awards — e.g., Best-Dressed Lawyer — yesterday. But there are still a few style prizes that have not yet been announced.

Discussion and photographs, after the jump.

Two quick pieces of news. First, multiple sources at Baker Botts in New York confirm that “Baker Botts NY has gone to market — retroactive to January 1.”

Second, we have some information about Munger, Tolles & Olson — the super-prestigious L.A. firm with a knack for scooping up SCOTUS clerks. We reprint the info after the jump.

In response to yesterday’s post about Aaron Charney’s fabulous new apartment, two comments were made that caught our eye:

“Looks like Charney is going to default both on his complaint and his mortgage. Plus there’s no way he gets $820k for his condo in this market when he has to sell it. I’d say poor kid, but he brought it on himself.”

“Maybe Charney can sell the movie rights to his story or something now, since a multimillion dollar settlement ain’t happening. Alas, that movie has already been done (‘Philadelphia’). Oh well, there’s always Playgirl magazine, I’m sure they’d be happy to have him pose.”

This got us thinking: What should Aaron Charney do next?

Time for an ATL reader poll:

Update: We dislike the idea of dignifying this with a response, but we assure you: We are NOT Loyola 2L.

Check out this very interesting interview, conducted by LX.TV, with celebrity divorce lawyer Raoul Felder (who was, interestingly enough, an assistant U.S. attorney before he ventured into matrimonial law).

Some questions that Felder answers in the course of the interview:

1. What time does he start work?

(Digression: We’re fascinated by the work habits and schedules of highly successful people. We’re becoming firmly convincted that true superstars can get by on relatively little sleep. See, e.g., Richard Posner.)

2. Who fights nastier in a divorce: men or women?

3. What are the three rules of signing a prenuptial agreement?

4. How do you define a “schmuck”?

You can watch the interview, and admire the understated elegance of Felder’s cufflinks, by clicking below:

Raoul Felder interview (highlights) [LXTV.com]
Raoul Felder interview (uncut) [LXTV.com]

As we’ve discussed in these pages, certain concerns have been raised with respect to the diva-licious Shanetta Y. Cutlar’s management of the Special Litigation Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. But figuring out how to deal with the Shanetta Cutlar situation is a bit tricky.

We recently learned of one possible solution:

Check out this DOJ posting, seeking a Director of the Professional Development Office in the Civil Rights Division.

When Albert Moskowitz was [eased] out as chief of the Criminal Section [of the Civil Rights Division] last year, he was put in this position. After a few weeks, he left for the Criminal Division.

I wonder if Shanetta Cutlar has been advised to apply for this opening.

This “Director of Professional Development” gig sounds quite cushy — a veritable sinecure at the DOJ. It carries with it a six-figure salary and job responsibilites that are vague and touchy-feely. It sounds like the perfect place to stick a senior official that you want to remove from her current position, but in a discreet, non-controversial, face-saving manner (i.e., without firing her or asking her to tender her resignation).

Our curiosity was piqued, so we did some follow-up. Discussion continues, after the jump.

Time for a quick plug for our law librarian hotties contest, which is currently underway. From an informed reader:

Apropos of your contest (and Valentine’s Day): Are you aware that February is Library Lovers’ Month?

No, not until this email — so thanks for the factoid! It makes our hot law librarian contest even more compelling.

We’ve received a number of great nominations already, including multiple submissions on behalf of three nominees who are looking like frontrunners. We’ll continue to accept nominations at least through the upcoming holiday weekend.

Remember, the contest is open to ALL law librarians, not just law school librarians — per this correction / clarification. And yes, if you’re a hot law librarian, feel free to nominate yourself.

To find out how to nominate a librarian hottie, click here for the submission guidelines. Thanks!

Earlier: Above the Law Hotties: Law Librarians!

But it was much more fun to speculate that he was pulling a Judith Miller, hiding out because of his role in Brokeback Lawfirm.

As it turns out, there’s pretty much no doubt that Aaron Charney leaked the Goldman Sachs / Sullivan & Cromwell reviews to Peter Lattman and the Wall Street Journal (as if there was much doubt before). The newly available S&C motion to dismiss states, on page 8, that at the February 1 TRO hearing before Justice Charles Ramos, “Charney admitted that he had the stolen documents described in the Wall Street Journal.” Unless someone else stole the documents, and Charney just happened to stumble upon them and pick them up, his confession to possessing the stolen documents is tantamount to an admission that he stole the documents.

As for Peter Lattman and his story about the Microsoft antitrust case in Iowa — which is now “DOA,” as Lattman puts it, since the parties have settled — we do feel bad for Lattman.

The poor guy spent a week in “snowy, subzero Des Moines.” And he’s not even running for president.

Microsoft Settles Iowa Antitrust Class-Action :-( [WSJ Law Blog]

Earlier: And Lindsay Lohan Really Was Suffering From ‘Exhaustion’
Brokeback Lawfirm: The S&C Motion to Dismiss

This is not huge news; but since some of you were asking after it in the comments, here you go.

From a helpful tipster:

Here’s confirmation of the JD-Dallas raise. Sorry it didn’t come sooner. As you can see, JD-Dallas went to $150K, which interestingly enough is now ahead of JD-Chicago.

http://www.jonesday.com/careers/usa/students/summer/compensation/

The link is actually helpful in more ways than one, since it includes base salary information for entering associates in numerous Jones Day offices. The firm is admirably transparent when it comes to associate compensation.

Please feel free to use this post as the morning open thread for salary discussions.

Jones Day - Careers - Compensation [Jones Day]

* Lawyer was grand jury leak in BALCO case. [MSNBC]

* Justice Kennedy: Pay the judges! [Law.com]

* Notre Dame’s Coach Weis testifies in gastric bypass malpractice case. Tom Brady may testify. [CBS Sportsline]

* Judge allows burial of Anna Nicole Smith. [MSNBC]

* Should you marry a lawyer? [WSJ Law Blog]

A picture is worth a thousand words:

We previously praised Anna Schneider-Mayerson’s great reporting. But we must also give props to the graphics team at the Observer, whose handiwork is shown above. Nice work, guys!

Random observation: David Braff and Eric Krautheimer look much younger in this photo montage than in their S&C headshots. Heck, Krautheimer looks halfway cute. But the expression on his face says, “I’m a nasty, sadistic SOB.”

Associate Gets Crushed Beneath White Shoe [New York Observer]

We just woke up from a nice little nap, to see that we’ve been given a delightful gift from the WSJ Law Blog: a copy of Sullivan & Cromwell’s motion to dismiss. To access it, click here (PDF).

Please post your thoughts on it in this open thread. We haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But one of you advises us by email:

Dude! You’re “one commentator”! (page 7 of complaint). But they wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of citing the name of the web site!!!

No name-check. Oh well. Are the Paul Hastings and S&C lawyers too embarrassed to admit that they read this fine website?

(But hey, we’re just lowly bloggers — we’ll take what we can get.)

P.S. Here’s the language in question:

Charney’s propensity toward wholesale disclosure was succinctly summarized by one commentator, who on February 2, 2007 stated as follows “Plaintiff Aaron Charney…. is usually an INSTANT emailer…. In the past he has been very cordial and chatty with us.”

S&C Files Motion to Dismiss Charney’s Lawsuit

Things have been pretty quiet on the associate salary front. Not much in the way of news today.

Some of you Texans are getting impatient. Here’s a new open comment thread, which you can use as a forum for your compensation complaints and queries.

* Fans of “The Office” (what BBC version?) will rejoice at this play-by-play of potential litigation related to each episode. Ladies, whenever you cringe at the memory of a loser ex-boyfriend, just think of Jan, Michael’s otherwise competent and attractive boss, who somehow ends up vacationing with him… at a Sandals resort. [That’s What She Said via WSJ Law Blog]

* I guess this means that now every idiot can use this “trademark.” Wouldn’t it make more sense to trademark “Weirdness Factor”? [The Smoking Gun]

* If David’s fashion rundown gave you a headache or put you to sleep faster than Norah Jones’s music, then don’t read this. [De Novo]

* In this quirky show you have surely never heard of, a bunch of misfits conspire to break into Mick Jagger’s home. One character suggests perhaps starting a hedge fund instead. “What’s a hedge fund?” another misfit asks. To which misfit #1 shrugs, “I don’t know.” [Conglomerate]

* I was never one to participate, but even I admit that you always need oral. [First Movers]

In Lawyerly Lairs, a recurring ATL feature, we check out the luxurious homes of prominent figures within the legal profession. If you share our addiction to real estate porn, this is a column you’re sure to enjoy.

In recent editions of Lawyerly Lairs, we’ve visited a $2.8 million mansion in Cambridge, MA, home to celebrity law professors Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk (“Feldsuk”); a $20 million Park Avenue pad, recently sold by Cravath partner John Beerbower; and a $29 million townhouse, owned by Columbia Law professor Hans Smit (and resided in by his son, Simpson Thacher partner Robert Smit).

Today we look at a residence which, while not as lavish as these spreads, should still be of great interest to ATL readers. It’s the Hell’s Kitchen apartment of celebrity litigant Aaron Charney. It’s in a high-rise, luxury condominum building called the Orion (pictured at right).

Join us after the jump, won’t you?

Fred Fielding, the former name partner of Wiley Rein & Fielding who is now settling in as White House counsel (for the second time), has brought in some reinforcements. They come from his former shop, Wiley Rein & Fielding (now known simply as Wiley Rein).

Three former Wiley Rein-sters, a partner and two associates, are joining Fielding over at the White House. They are:

1. Kate Comerford Todd