To be perfectly honest, we're getting tired of writing about the new U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. But judging from the number of comments on our earlier posts -- 1,153 and 575, as of this posting -- you're not tired of reading and talking about them. So, onward.
In our last post, we wrote about law schools freaking out over their falling rankings. The schools we specifically mentioned, whose administrators sent out defensive messages to the student body on the subject, were the University of Buffalo (down from 77 to 100), the University of North Carolina (from 36 to 38), the University of Iowa (from 24 to 27), and the University of Minnesota (from 20 to 22).
To this list of law school lamentation, please add Case Western, which went from 53 to 63 (memo posted in the comments, but independently verified by us) [FN1]; and the University of Miami, which fell from 70 to 82. One UM student had harsh criticism of Dean Lynch's message (PDF):
Here's Dean Dennis Lynch's blast to University of Miami students, attempting (complete with a cornucopia of grammatical errors -- maybe this is indicative of the problem?) to explain away a nearly 25% drop in the rankings over the last three years (resulting in an institution now perilously teetering on the edge between Tier II purgatory and Tier III oblivion).
I'd direct your attention to his trumpeting of UM's "ranking" on the oh-so-often cited 'Law Dragon' survey. With someone like this in charge -- to say nothing of UM's past glory, like professors getting arrested for solicitingprostitutes -- the real wonder is how UM is even ABA accredited, let alone ranked on U.S. News.
Self-hatred much? We love our UM tipsters, but maybe they need to find themselves some good therapists.
Not every administrator at a law school that slipped in the rankings viewed sending out a school-wide email as such a hot idea. From a future law student, who won't graduate law school until 2011, but who's already an ATL tipster (call us Socrates -- we like to corrupt the youth):
I was at the U of Illinois College of Law admitted students weekend. In the 2009 USN&WR ratings, Illinois Law "fell" from #25 to #27. So, the dean of admissions spent the first 15 minutes of a 30 minute break-out session ostensibly about "Campus Housing Options" talking about the rating decline.
He said that "at some schools, like Minnesota and Iowa, the students are so freaked out about this that the administration sends out emails immediately to calm them down, but we're not going to do that here, because you know it will be on AboveTheLaw.com in 30 seconds after I hit 'send.'
Well, we're not that fast. But thanks for the compliment and shout-out.
* A politically incorrect theory to explain the growing pay gap between male and female JDs. Opines Jane Genova: "No one likes The Professional Woman -- not women, not men, not children, not animals, not even The Professional Woman." [Law and More]
* Thoughts on the ethical and tax considerations of winning an NCAA tournament office pool. [TaxProf Blog]
* Lawsuit of the day last week: verdict reached in the suit brought by ex-Sonnenschein partner Douglas Rosenthal against his former firm. [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]
Dominating today's news cycle is the Treasury Department's plan to reform the nation's system of financial regulation. For some thoughts on the proposal, check out what John Carney has to say over at our sibling site, Dealbreaker (in posts here and here).
This regulatory reform proposal comes at a grim time for Wall Street, characterized by some as "the worst financial crisis since the 1930s." It feels like we're at the end of an era. Wall Street profits are sinking fast, venerable investment banks look endangered, and financial-sector layoffs could claim 20,000 more jobs in the next two years, in New York City alone.
This is generally viewed as bad news for Biglaw, considering how much large law firms depend on the financial services industry for work. But could it perhaps be a boon for lawyers, if their standing in the city's financial pecking order falls at a slower rate than that of Wall Street Masters of the Universe?
A reader drew our attention to this interesting Sunday Times article:
The collapse of a major financial institution is usually an occasion for hand-wringing and tut-tutting over potential job losses, lower consumer spending and missed mortgage payments.
In New York City, it’s also seen as an opportunity. For many of the city’s middle class, especially those in the creative class, who have felt sidelined as the city seemed to become a high-priced playground for Wall Street bankers, the implosion of the brokerage house Bear Stearns raises a tantalizing possibility: participation in an economy they have been largely shut out of.
Wonders our tipster:
"Some New Yorkers seem to be looking forward to the collapse of Wall Street and their huge salaries in the hopes that prices deflate a bit. Does this return lawyers to the top of the financial food chain? Or do those huge partner salaries take a dive along with Wall Street?"
For some law firms and lawyers -- e.g., those that are heavily dependent on securitization and structured finance work -- the Wall Street retrenchment is definitely unwelcome. But for others, especially those focused on countercyclical practice areas like bankruptcy, the bust could be a boom.
Take a look back at this post, in which one Biglaw partner described the plight of lawyers in New York as follows:
"Face it, [lawyers] have no status. We go to these [elite private] school functions [for our kids], and this well-heeled group looks right through you. They won't give you the time of day. You're just one step ahead of the doorman."
So could there be, for lawyers, a silver lining to this economic cloud? Will lawyers move up a notch or two in the Gotham caste system thanks to the recession? Or are they too closely linked to Wall Street and its sinking fortunes to benefit significantly from any social and economic realignment?
It's a little surprising, since the past year has been good for Cardozo. Their bar passage rate is now the third-highest among New York law schools. One of their graduates is currently clerking for Justice Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court.
And, most importantly, their Law Revue is turning out delightful videos. If you share our love of Project Runway, you'll enjoy this good-natured spoof (film by Ryan B. Finkel). It's a little long, and somewhat uneven -- but on the whole, it's well-done and quite fun. The film is expertly put together, with the actual Project Runway footage elegantly interspersed into the fake footage, and the performances -- especially those by the Heidi Klum and Chris March impersonators -- are hilarious and compelling. Check it out below (plus links to two videos from last year's show).
So what's responsible for Cardozo's USNW&R decline? The booting of littering-and-loitering law students from the fifth-floor faculty lounge? Rampant "expensive umbrella" and iPod theft? Your guesses are welcome.
Several readers have written in to inquire about the status of the BAR/BRI class action litigation. Here's the latest update on the lawsuit website:
Over 85,000 Claim Forms representing claims for over 120,000 BAR/BRI courses have been received and processed by the Claims Administrator. However, several objectors appealed from the Court’s Order granting final approval of the Settlement. A total of seven Notices of Appeal of the Settlement were filed....
NO CLAIMS CAN BE CALCULATED OR PAID UNTIL THERE HAS BEEN A FINAL RESOLUTION OF ALL APPEALS.
On January 25, 2008 Class Counsel met with attorneys for the objector-appellants and defendants' counsel under the auspicies of the Ninth Circuit Mediation Program. After a full day of mediation, the parties could not reach a resolution that would allow for a dismissal of the appeals and distribution of the Settlement Fund. Further updates will be posted on this website.
So don't hold your breath waiting for that check. But for some class members, you may have another source of relief.
Spring! Cherry blossoms, opening day, and pedigreed lawyers uniting in marriage. We're pleased to be back with another installment of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, featuring these three impressive couples:
* Media mogul smackdown: Barry Diller (pictured) prevails over his former mentor, John Malone, in Delaware Chancery Court. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal (subscription) via WSJ Law Blog]
* HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, under DOJ investigation, calls it quits. [AP]
* Questions raised about 9/11 lawyer Peter Napoli, of fen-phen fame (or infamy). [New York Times]
* A round-up of Monday morning action at the Supreme Court. [SCOTUSblog]
* A look back at the inception of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping: Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson wouldn't sign off on the requests, so they had to be rerouted to AG Ashcroft. [New York Times]
* A preview of the "fleeting expletives" case, by Julie Hilden. [FindLaw via How Appealing]
Every now and then, it's healthy to be reminded of the triviality of your daily preoccupations. From the New York Times:
[T]wo men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii.... think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.
Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.
That's nice to know.
[Plaintiffs] Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Alas, this valiant effort to save human civilization may be frustrated, thanks to something as pedestrian and technical as.... jurisdiction:
James Gillies, head of communications at CERN, said the laboratory as of yet had no comment on the suit. “It’s hard to see how a district court in Hawaii has jurisdiction over an intergovernmental organization in Europe,” Mr. Gillies said.
And that's the story of how, for want of personal jurisdiction, mankind was lost.
(For the record, CERN denies that what they're doing is unsafe, citing multiple scientific reports that have evaluated their activities from a safety standpoint.)
* Was Barack Obama a "real" law professor at the University of Chicago? Or just a pseudo-prof? [Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic]
* Speaking of Obama, why didn't he save more for retirement? Professor Mankiw speculates: "Maybe he is expecting vastly higher tax rates in the future, when the accumulated savings will need to be withdrawn and taxed." [Greg Mankiw via TaxProf Blog]
* Speaking of law profs, should they reveal their political leanings to their students? [PrawfsBlawg]
* The IRS on YouTube. Is "Linda Stiff" her real name? [TaxProf Blog]
* "£295/hr for a junior associate? You mean that 25 year old girl who finished her training contract 3 weeks ago?! If it is true then Geeklawyer is undercharging chronically." [GeekLawyer]
* Courtesy of Slate, Hillary Death Watch. Today they peg her chances of winning the Democratic nomination at 12 percent. [Slate]
(But don't forget Monica Crowley's quip about HRC: "She's like Glenn Close at the end of Fatal Attraction. You think she's dead, and then she sits bolt-upright in the bathtub.")
With respect to our earlier post, about a rumor that Latham & Watkins represents the Church of Scientology, we have our doubts. See this comment (at 2:53 PM).
But here's some bad news about Latham that appears to be more reliable. From the WSJ Law Blog:
[Samuel A. Fishman (pictured)] has pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and is slated to be sentenced in June....
The criminal information and papers from the U.S. attorney’s office say Fishman, 51 of New Jersey, was a lawyer in the corporate department of a major U.S. law firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. SEC documents show a Samuel A. Fishman was a lawyer at Latham & Watkins....
The criminal information says that, upon discovering the scheme, the law firm reimbursed its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses. The information says Fishman was the billing partner for a number of the firm’s institutional clients, including clients in banking, utilities, telecommunications and entertainment.
From 1993 through 2005, it says, Fishman mischaracterized on invoices certain expenses, such as non-reimbursable meals and parking fees, as reimbursable expenses, such as photocopying and express mail, amounting to more than $200,000 of mischaracterized expenses. He also sent client invoices that inflated actual costs to the firm, amounting to $100,000 of non-existent expenses, the information says. It says that he also falsely represented personal expenses, such as hotel bills, as reimbursable business expenses.
In case you're wondering, Samuel Fishman is a 1981 graduate of NYU Law School. See here. Harvard Law School's two-day winningstreak for Lawyer of the Day has been broken.
Update (4:20 PM): Here is the firm's official statement about the Sam Fishman matter, from David Gordon, managing partner of Latham's New York office:
"As reflected in the statements from the U.S. Attorney's Office, our firm discovered the issues relating to Mr. Fishman in 2005, immediately acted to protect our clients fully, and disclosed the matter to appropriate law enforcement authorities. Mr. Fishman resigned from the firm at the time the issues were discovered. Since that time, we have cooperated fully with the investigation."
What is it about Florida that causes its lawyers and litigants to misbehave so egregiously? Just last week, the Florida Supreme Court sanctioned colorful attorney Jack Thompson. And now they've expressed their displeasure (PDF) with pro se litigant Julio Mora.
What did Mr. Mora do to upset the court? From its opinion:
Mora has filed pro se pleadings containing scandalous and obscene language. Specifically, in his “Petition to Inhibit Jurisdiction From this Very Supreme Court of Injustice,” Mora maintained that through its show cause proceedings with DOC, the Court has proven itself “to be a pack of incompetent cowards, without balls, testicles, courage or valor.” Further, Mora urged this Court to
"take this case and the ultimate decision, if ever, and please shovel it to the chief justice and every other justice’s a**hole, in order to have a common place to store the justices’ crap, together with the justice crap from their’s mind, properly disposed through the sewer system, in order to prevent the contaminants to reach the citizen of Florida, and also kiss Julio Mora’s the idiot seeking justice, kiss his a**hole every time the justice will retire going to their den. . . . Please kiss my a** one more time."
The court declined to grant Mora the requested relief. Instead, it sanctioned him, directing the clerk of court to reject any future filings from Mora "unless signed by a member of The Florida Bar."
In a court of law, it's the parties who do the ass-kissing -- not the judges.
How about.... a powerful and glamorous client, with deep connections in Hollywood? Reported over at Radar Online:
Recently, Radar reported on Scientology's short-lived attempt to beat its Guy Fawkes mask-clad antagonists "Anonymous" at their own game: scary YouTube videos. A clip posted by a Sciento associate under the name "AnonymousFacts" displayed the names and personal information of several supposed Anonymous members and accused the group of violent threats and terrorism. YouTube quickly took the video down and suspended AnonymousFacts. But the hassle for at least one of the three men shown didn't end there.
A little more than a week ago, Jonathan (he asked his last name not be repeated again), who'd joined a Facebook group called "I Support Anonymous" and attended their protests, answered a knock at the door of his parents' L.A.-area home, where he lives while attending community college. A mustachioed man in a suit and claiming to be from the law firm of Latham and Watkins was holding a "file" and asked to speak to Jonathan's parents by name, he recently told Radar. He told the mystery man his parents weren't available and offered to take the package for them. "No," the man said. "I can't legally give this to you." Jonathan shrugged and told him to come back later. That's when things got weird.
Later a friend of the family came over and said Mr. Mustachio was hanging out in front of the house and had asked her if she was Jonathan's mom. When she said no, he waited until Jonathan's parents did arrive, then handed them the file and said, "This is a courtesy letter. No charges are being filed yet. But your son may be involved in terrorist activity." And then he left. Inside the package was a letter accusing Jonathan of terrorism and a DVD copy of the YouTube video, he says.
Sounds like a pretty fun assignment for a junior associate -- anything to get out of the office. But the "Church" denies this ever happened:
A Church of Scientology spokesperson says the group does employ various lawyers across the country to deal with what she tells Radar are "acts of violence, terrorism, and death threats," but adds, "It is not true that lawyers from any firm representing the Church have visited anyone. If anyone is suggesting otherwise, that is false."
We've contacted Latham for comment. We'll let you know if and when we hear back from them.
Update: We have our doubts about the firm's involvement. Writes a commenter:
It is highly unlikely that the person hounding this kid is actually from Latham. Scientologists have a policy (called the "Fair Game" policy) that allows them to lie, cheat, impersonate, physically threaten/assault, etc. if it will further the aims of the "church". Although that policy was ostensibly cancelled at some point (in name only), scientologists continue to live by it in practice. It's pretty much guaranteed that the man with the file was not from Latham but was instead a scientology poser.
Seriously--would an associate from Latham actually serve papers on anyone? F**k, no. We use process servers!!
We feel bad for Latham. Some imposter is going around making it look like they represent the Church of Scientology. And their lawyers have mustaches.
Further Update: Or maybe Latham DOES represent the Church of Scientology? See here. (Gavel bang: commenter.)
We have reiterated our inquiry to Latham concerning whether or not the firm represents the Church of Scientology. We'll let you know what we find out. (They did not respond to an earlier request for comment on this subject.)
Here's a photo of President Bush and his White House Counsel -- Fred Fielding, former senior partner at Wiley Rein (fka Wiley Rein & Fielding), dressed up as the Easter Bunny -- at the White House Easter Egg Roll earlier this week:
Quips our tipster: "One can only hope Fielding isn't splitting hares. Or giving hare-brained advice."
Okay, you're groaning. Think you can do better? Then enter the ATL caption contest. Same rules as before:
We welcome your suggested alternative captions, in the comments. Assuming sufficient response, we'll take our favorites, incorporate them into a poll, and hold a caption contest.
We doubt we'll receive as many submissions as we did for our last caption contest. But we're going to limit the entries this time: we're closing the comments if and when we hit the 100-comment mark. So if you'd like to enter the contest, don't delay. Thanks.
Update (2 PM): Okay, we'll let it get up to 200 comments. We especially appreciate suggested captions that are in some way law-related. What makes this picture relevant to ATL is the fact that the man in the bunny suit is President Bush's chief lawyer (and a former name partner of a leading D.C. law firm).
If we just wanted to post a random, funny photo of the president with the Easter bunny, we would have used this one.
Update (4:50 PM): You seem to be having a lot of fun with this, so we will keep the comments open indefinitely. But in picking the finalists, we will focus on comments that have a connection to the legal profession (as opposed to comments that are more politically oriented or simply random).
Update (3/31/08): Thanks for all the excellent entries. The comments section is now closed.
Here is today’s Job of the Week, brought to you by our friends at Lateral Link. Even if the U.S. capital markets may be slowing down, the overseas markets are still busy, and many firms are looking for U.S.-trained attorneys. Lateral Link has positions throughout Western Europe and Asia. These positions qualify for Lateral Link’s $10,000 placement bonus.
Position: U.S. Capital Markets Associate
Location: London, UK
Description: The London office of this U.S- based law firm seeks a U.S.-qualified capital markets attorney with at least two years of experience.
Requirements: Candidates must possess excellent academic credentials as well as strong organizational, research, writing and analytical skills.
Firm Description: This New York-based law firm ranks among The American Lawyer's top 100 law firms based on gross revenue. The firm specializes in project finance, capital markets, and leasing and structured finance. Practice areas include antitrust, emerging markets, municipal bonds, tax, litigation, real estate and corporate.
Job Code: 8005
For more information about this and other international positions, please check out Lateral Link.
As we reported earlier this week, the latest U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are out. And some schools are flipping out over their falling rankings. A tipster at the University of Iowa College of Law writes:
[B]elow is an email the Iowa law students received yesterday from Dean Jones about the new US News & World Report rankings. Apparently our dean is setting up small group meetings with the students. No faculty. No other administration. Methinks this may be somewhat of a divide and conquer strategy. These meetings may be in part a result of the newly formed Facebook group "Stop the Bleeding at Iowa Law."
My favorite part, though, is that the "faculty" have dubbed their concern about the rankings "Project Apollo." Well, if they're not going to do anything about it, at least they can come up with a secret, clever code name, so it looks in hindsight like they've been planning D-Day part 2. Bravo profs and administration, you've really impressed me this time.
For the return on investment -- a Biglaw job for $13k a year in tuition (for the top of the class) -- many students were OK with the shortcomings of this law school. [But] with T3 looking over our shoulder, some fellow students are contemplating jumping ship....
It's hard to justify leaving for debt-ridden T25 greener pastures when L. Rev. and a market-paying job in the City are likely. No one likes to be on the Titanic, though.
The message sent to the Buffalo student body by interim dean Makau Mutua, after the jump.
Update (10:50 AM): Add the University of Minnesota Law School to the list of institutions whose deans are sending out school-wide emails about their declining rankings:
Students at the University of Minnesota Law School received this email today from the two interim co-deans. It's pretty hilarious that they try to claim we are still a top 20 school even though we are now ranked #22. It's particularly amusing that they have decided to "address the particular factors that caused a decline this year."
The email from the school's two interim co-deans, after the jump.
* Defense contractor accused of supplying ancient arms to Afghan army and police.... [CNN]
* While Defense Secretary Gates orders review of nuclear arsenal after accidental shipments to Taiwan.... [Washington Post]
* And AG Mukasey vows to crack down on corruption in wake of PR governor accusations.... [MSNBC]
* Meanwhile, 11th Circuit grants bail pending appeal to former Alabama governor, who claims to be the victim of a politically-motivated prosecution. [New York Times]
Today's Lawyer of the Day has a political connection. He's a superdelegate to the Democratic convention, as well as an Obama supporter. From the AP:
Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila indignantly denied wrongdoing Thursday and gave no sign he would abandon his re-election effort after being charged with campaign finance violations that carry a penalty of 20 years in prison.
Acevedo, a superdelegate to this summer's Democratic convention, accused U.S. prosecutors of pursuing a politically motivated indictment alleging that the governor and a dozen other people conspired to illegally pay off his campaign debts.
"I am going to defend my rights and protect the dignity of my family and of the people of Puerto Rico who support me," the governor said in a statement hours after the FBI arrested most of those named in the indictment in San Juan, Philadelphia and Washington area.
Fun factoid: Governor Acevedo is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the alma mater of Eliot Spitzer, another governor -- make that ex-governor -- facing possible legal trouble. This means that HLS has given us two Lawyers of the Day in a row; yesterday's LOTD was card-counting queen Jane Willis.
(In Harvard's defense, Governor Acevedo just got an LLM there. He received his JD from the University of Puerto Rico.)
* Sad news: "Jeffrey Epstein's accuser, Maximilian Cordero, has broken it off with boyfriend - lawyer - blogger William Unroch." [Dealbreaker]
* Justice Kennedy: "There are all kinds of nuts who can get 90 percent on the bar exam." At ATL, we call them Lawyers of the Day. [Althouse]
* Delhi to... $33K! And the senior lawyers in India are making out like bandits. Two hundred grand goes a lot further in Mumbai than Manhattan. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Proof that Hillary truly is a badass. [Blogonaut]
Posted below is the European fee schedule of Allen & Overy. At current exchange rates -- approximately $1.55 to the Euro, and $2.00 to the British pound -- this means that partners bill out at about $1,050 an hour in Paris, and $1,190 an hour in London. Says a source: "Twelve-hundred bucks an hour for a partner in London? Ridiculous."
On the other hand, if a $1,200-an-hour partner can solve your problem in six minutes -- with a well-placed telephone call, or an absolutely brilliant judgment call -- maybe she's worth it. Perhaps you should be more worried about $600-an-hour junior associates (to say nothing of $350-per-hour paralegals).
Inspired by the example of the generous Hamptons-based design firm which is now offering its stagings service at a discounted price to current/former/soon to be former Bear Stearns employees (staging is cleaning and prepping a house to be shown for sale), I have decided to offer a discount on sessions to all current/former/soon to be former Bear Stearns employees. The discount is equivalent to the current value of a share of Bear Stearns stock. That is to say, $2.
I approached this decision with some trepidation. You see, in my experience finance guys usually want things in their asses. I do not offer anal play on demand. Consequently the majority of my clients are lawyers.
Over at Dealbreaker, the commenters had some interesting reactions:
"One of the few times I'm actually glad I chose law instead of finance . . ."
"lawyers already take it up the ass on a daily basis from bankers, so they probably get their fill in the office."
"so what? a chick's tongue up there is a wondrous thing."
Unless you've always wanted an Australian accent. From the Telegraph:
A New Zealand man who claimed he was raped by a wombat and that the experience left him speaking with an Australian accent has been found guilty of wasting police time.
Arthur Cradock, 48, from the South Island town of Motueka, called police last month to tell them he was being raped by the marsupial at his home and needed urgent assistance.
Cradock, an orchard worker, later called back to reassure the police operator that he was all right.
"I’ll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he’s pulled out. Apart from speaking Australian now, I’m pretty all right you know. I didn’t hurt my bum at all."
Wombats are very considerate; they use lots of lube. We learned that on Animal Planet.
[Cradock] pleaded guilty in Nelson District Court to using a phone for a fictitious purpose and was sentenced to 75 hours’ community work....
Wombats are native to Australia and are not found in New Zealand. Although powerfully built and about the size of a small pig, they are very rarely dangerous. There are three species: the widely distributed common wombat and the much rarer southern and northern hairy-nosed wombats.
Now wasn't that informative? You can bill 0.1 hour to "Professional Development" for reading this.
Thursday, March 27, 2008 1:00 PM - By Kashmir Hill
We don't know if there are many public defenders regularly reading ATL. For those who do, we salute you for putting up with clients like this one:
Earlier this year, burglary and rape suspect Joshua Beadle got himself into deeper trouble by spitting at the judge.
This week, while shackled and outfitted in a special hooded spit mask, he talked himself into nearly two years in jail after threatening to kill Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee.
"You mark my word, Judge Coffee," Beadle shouted as he was led from the courtroom to a holding area. "I promise you, Lee Coffee, I'll kill you and cut your (expletive) head off."
The incident occurred Monday after a hearing in which his appointed attorney, Greg Carman, had asked to be removed from the case because Beadle had threatened to kill him earlier this month.
Generally, threatening to kill people is not the most effective technique for getting your way. Death threats against judges: not cool and not protected speech (when it comes to federal judges).
The following sequence reminds us of a parent reprimanding a little boy:
When Beadle, 23, continued talking after the judge ordered him to be silent, Coffee threatened to hold him in contempt for every word he uttered.
Beadle ignored the judge's admonishment, said everyone was treating him as if he were stupid and then began making threats to the judge.
Coffee stopped counting at 70 words and held Beadle in contempt for 10 days per word for a total of 700 days in jail.
Did Beadle consider holding his breath until the court would take him seriously?
At least he's courteous to court clerks:
In January, Beadle spit toward the judge, but instead hit a court clerk's computer. Through his nylon-and-mesh spit mask, he apologized to the clerk on Monday and assured her that his intended target was the judge.
We have a strange obsession with Linda Greenhouse, the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. When we spotted her recently at Jennifer 8. Lee's D.C. book talk for The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, we practically leapt out of our seats in excitement. [FN1]
If you're a fellow LG groupie, and if you're at Yale Law School, here's some good news. As one tipster excitedly chirped to us, "Linda Greenhouse is going to be a Yale Law sort-of-professor!" From the Yale Daily News:
After 30 years covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winner Linda Greenhouse will take a new post as a journalist-in-residence and senior fellow at Yale Law School starting next January, the Law School announced Wednesday.
Greenhouse, who accepted a buyout from The Times last month, will return to the law school from which she earned a Master of Studies in Law degree in 1978 to conduct her own research and give lectures and seminars, although it is not yet clear whether she will teach a formal course. She will also be involved with the Law School's Supreme Court Clinic and will help pioneer its new Law and Media Program.
More details in the YLS press release. Surely this can only help Yale maintain its sizable lead over #2 Harvard and Stanford in the U.S. News rankings. (Yale has an overall score of 100, with Harvard and Stanford almost ten points behind, at 91.)
As you may recall, Linda Greenhouse received a cool $300K in her Times buyout. It's a pittance compared to Biglaw bucks, but a princely sum in the world of journalism.
And now Greenhouse will be supplementing this with a draw on the well-endowed coffers of YLS -- we're guessing low six-figures (for what doesn't sound like very much work). She'll probably begin work on another book, too, for which she can expect a good-sized advance. Her last book, Becoming Justice Blackmun, was a national bestseller.
Linda Greenhouse to Linda Greenbacks!
[FN1] The use of "we" is especially appropriate here because Kash and I attended this reading together.
So far, almost 1,000 ballots have been cast in this week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on where you'd most want to work, and it's clear that some firms are trying to win those votes.
Front-runner Latham has announced a "no layoffs" promise, and Ropes & Gray has upped the ante on the cool factor with revelations of card sharking partners. Speaking of cool, let's not forget that Quinn Emanuel's firm retreat is in Switzerland. Switzerland.
But while the firms work the vote, how do they work you? Are your assignments handed out by a careful administrator, or overseen by a mentor? Or is there a free market where you choose your own adventure?
Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:30 AM - By Kashmir Hill
Disney World is one of those places that's magical through the eyes of a 5-year-old, but the realization of one of Dante's circles for adults. The long waits, the overpriced tickets and food, the body odor of foreign tourists, and the fear of being viciously attacked for cutting in line:
Aimee Krause says Victoria Walker accused her of cutting into the line at the Mad Tea Cup ride last year at Disney World, MyFOXOrlando reports.
Walker, an Alabama native, could face 15 years behind bars if convicted of battery with a deadly weapon.
Krause has now filed additional charges claiming her children were also attacked.
“She came from behind just screaming,” Krause told MyFOXOrlando. “Next thing I knew she kicked me in my left leg, threw me to the ground and at that point I was pinned between the teacup and the saucer and she continued to beat up on my body.”
In the incident report, Krause claimed Walker tried to choke her with a lanyard she wore to hold water bottles around her neck, MyFOXOrlando reports.
One more reason not to wear a lanyard leash. We wonder if a lanyard has been defined as a deadly weapon before.
We agree with the Washington Post's assessment. Attacking a woman and her children is a terrible thing. But we do hate people who cut in line. Maybe Walker will plead temporary insanity, brought on by the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, and whatever crazy drug he had in that hookah.
* Clear Channel and private equity firms sue banks they claim are balking on financing their buyout deal; injunctive relief secured. [WSJ Law Blog; AP]
* Lilly settles Zyprexa litigation with Alaska. [New York Times]
A few more firms have joined the 18 Week Club. New and improved parental leave policies, from WilmerHale and O'Melveny & Myers, appear after the jump.
We admit we can be a little idiosyncratic in terms of which firms' announcements we highlight. For more comprehensive information, check out Justin Bernold's handy-dandy, continually updated tables of maternity leave and paternity leave policies at different firms.
* Not as coveted as Miley Cyrus tickets, but some people will pay good money for access to a Supreme Court oral argument. Is this kosher? [Rumors Daily]
* Would you take tax advice from Wesley Snipes? If so, drop by "New Tax City" for a free consultation. [News Groper]
* Supreme Court Fantasy League? Sounds like fun to us. Dibs on Nino! [Southern Appeal]
* Kinda contrarian, which may explain why we like it: a defense of commercial outlines, by Professor Dan Markel Eric Johnson. [PrawfsBlawg]
* "All I was going to do was talk. It wasn't for sex. I am 93, you know." [Tampa Bay Online]
* High-profile Miami attorney Ben Kuehne, previously discussed here, lashes back against the government. [Daily Business Review]
Picking our Lawyer of the Day was easy. Today the winning hand belongs to Ropes & Gray partner Jane Willis. From the Boston Globe:
Jane Willis was always a standout student. Her reputation as a math whiz was well known at Phillips Exeter and Harvard, where she graduated in 1991 with a lofty recommendation from Lawrence Summers.
But no one suspected how Willis was using those skills, and she wasn't about to tell. Even as a partner at a high-powered Boston law firm, she has kept her curious back story to herself.
"Sounds weird to say, but it just never came up," Willis says, sipping a draft beer in a hotel bar not far from her office at One International Place.
She likes beer? Ick. Why not some fine wine or top-shelf liquor? But Jane Willis is not your ordinary Biglaw partner:
She might still be mum if not for 21, the new movie about MIT's celebrated blackjack team. Willis, it turns out, was a member of the card-counting cadre that beat the casinos and, later, inspired the best-selling book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. In the film, which opens Friday, Kate Bosworth's character is based on Willis.
How cool is that? We like the casting of Bosworth; there's definitely a resemblance (see photos; Willis is on the left).
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:45 PM - By Kashmir Hill
We reported yesterday about the University of Chicago Law School cutting off access to ATL internet in the classroom. A University of Chicago student sent along the e-mail from Dean Saul Levmore explaining the anti-internet policy, and said that we "should absolutely post the full text of Levmore's asinine email."
Check it out in its entirety after the jump. Here's an excerpt:
Few things should be as important to our community as regaining and establishing our common sense that the classroom should be a place for learning and interaction. Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding.
Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated. I confess that as I have researched this subject, I have been made aware how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings. I have promised myself that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at University meetings.
So tempted to shoe shop... Must finish blog post... We wonder how long Dean Levmore will keep his Blackberry promise. It reminds us of the Seinfeld "master of my domain" episode. How long can he hold out? Anyone want to make a wager? What's the over / under?
(Poor Dean Levmore, by the way, is also taking flak for Chicago's drop -- just from #6 to #7, but some commenters are apoplectic -- in the latest U.S. News law school rankings.)
Results of our poll, plus selected reader comments and the full text of Dean Levmore's message, after the jump.
1. Latham makes the "no layoffs" pledge. Just like Milbank, Latham has promised that it won't be laying off lawyers in response to the current economic crisis. From an LW tipster:
Last Wednesday, managing partner Bob Dell gave his State of the Firm address via videoconference. Dell went over the firm's great financial success for 2007 (firm revenue went up a whopping 23%, far exceeding all other major firms).
He also addressed the challenges ahead for 2008. He specifically addressed the issue of layoffs. He said multiple times that he believed it would be a bad business decision to lay off associates. Latham made that mistake in 1990 and Dell said the layoffs hurt their profitability after the recession was over. Dell said "there will be no layoffs" and that it was not even on the table for discussion.
The firm is definitely slower, but things have picked up a little bit. Firm pace is around 100% [based on 1900 billables] for the first time this year for March. It's not going to be a banner year like 2007, but I don't think that it will be a disaster, either. Dell did note that it would be challenging and that "partners would be making a lot less money." I thought that was a bit of candor that was welcomed (and unexpected).
Dell also stressed that the firm was diversified and well positioned to handle any coming recession, even if it deepens. He also felt that Latham was well positioned to take advantage of the post-recession period as well.
So that's the good news. Considering how phenomenally well the firm fared last year, the partners can afford to take a hit if necessary to avoid layoffs.
The rich get richer. Movie stars who already earn millions of dollars per picture get showered with freebies, like award show "gift bags" worth thousands of dollars. Similarly, students at top law schools, who already have their pick of $160K job offers, get wined and dined by leading law firms. There IS such a thing as a free lunch, if you go to the right law school.
Of course, the quality of the fare will vary. From a tipster at a top 25 law school (according to the latest U.S. News rankings):
This isn’t that exciting of a tip, but the flyer just kind of freaks me out. What’s up with that graphic?
See you ‘round the taco table!
We were similarly troubled by these Alpo-stuffed creations, which didn't strike us as very taco-like. But then we recalled that tacos can be soft as well as hard.
Which got us wondering: What is the difference between a soft taco and a burrito? We found enlightenment here and here.
A Massachusetts judge, as well as ATL readers, previously concluded that a burrito is not a sandwich. But a soft taco, insofar as it is "open" -- i.e., with exposed fillings, like a traditional sandwich -- may present a closer case.
By and large, you're a pretty gloomy bunch. Forty-three percent of respondents are afraid that their firm will have layoffs. Among respondents who are Class of 1999 or more senior, this number spiked to 66%. Among law students, 53% of respondents are afraid their firms will have layoffs.
Respondents in the Bay Area, New York and Chicago were the most concerned, with 56%, 48%, and 46%, respectively, fearing layoffs. In contrast, only 19% of respondents in Philadelphia said they were afraid of layoffs at their firms. In other markets, layoff concern ranged from 31% to 38% of responses.
Most respondents thought their law firms would provide at least some support during a layoff:
* 54% thought their firm would provide a severance package.
* 53% thought their firm would provide ample notice so they could find a new job.
* 38% thought their firm would help them move between departments to stay busy.
* 20% thought their firm would help them relocate to another office.
* Another 20%, however, were not sure if their firm would help them, and 15% thought their firm simply wouldn't help them during a layoff.
While most respondents expect some support from their law firms, the most popular response to an anticipated layoff is to simply switch firms:
* 53% of respondents said that they would talk to headhunters about switching firms or going in-house to protect themselves from a slowdown.
* 42% would talk to friends at other firms.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:15 AM - By Kashmir Hill
There's an interesting behind-the-scenes story in an appeal heard by the Supreme Court this week. The appeal concerns a South Carolina drug dealer and the definition of a felony. For details, see this AP story.
What we find interesting is the former paralegal serving jail time who got SCOTUS to accept the case. We previously named him our Jailhouse Lawyer of the Day. Here's a recap:
Jailhouse lawyer Michael Ray has accomplished something rarely achieved by even the most experienced of attorneys on the outside: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a case for one of his fellow inmates.
Legal experts estimate the high court accepts less than 1 percent of the thousands of cases it receives each year. The Court's action was even more extraordinary in this instance, because the appeal was drawn up by a prisoner who earns 29 cents an hour and does not even have a college degree, much less a law school education.
"This is basically a once-in-a-lifetime for a good criminal defense attorney, so you can imagine I'm on cloud nine, with my background," the 42-year-old Ray said with a laugh during a recent phone interview from a federal prison in Estill, S.C.
I mean, really, who needs law school? It's just a whole lot of debt and time spent surfing the net. There are so many other law-related, no-law-degree-needed opportunities: jailhouse lawyer, ATL guest blogger...
(You do need an actual law degree to go before SCOTUS, though. Stanford Law School professor Jeffrey L. Fisher argued the case this week.)
But Ray's not on cloud nine anymore. Read why, after the jump.
Relax, folks. We are aware that the 2009 law school rankings of U.S. News & World Report have leaked, in advance of their official Friday publication date. They're all over the blogosphere and the message boards (links collected below).
We've been sitting on this item for a little while -- coordinating with our other posts this morning, taking into account our traffic patterns, etc. There is a method to our madness.
Ideally we'd hold this item even longer (which would allow us to do a more detailed write-up). But it's clear that you're all dying to talk about the rankings RIGHT NOW. And we don't want to get any more emails and comments of the "why aren't you writing about U.S. News" variety.
So here you go. Rankings and discussion, after the jump (i.e., click on the "Continue reading" link below).
We linked to it yesterday in passing, but thought we'd draw your attention to it in a dedicated post. Check out TheLawyer.com's report on the 2007 financial performance of the top 50 U.S. law firms (ranked by revenue):
The top 50 US firms last year generated a total of $46.8bn (£23.4bn) in revenue - an increase of more than 16 per cent on the 2006 total of $40.27bn (£20.14bn)....
2007 was one of the strongest on record for the majority of US firms, despite the turbulence that rocked the market in the summer and which continues to do so. The average profit per equity partner (PEP) at the leading group of US firms showed smaller, although still significant, growth. In 2006 the average PEP among the top 50 US firms was $1.55m (£842,391). Last year that rose by 11 per cent to $1.72m (£860,000).
Here's the discussion of one of the most closely watched metrics, profits per partner:
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft was second only to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in terms of posting the biggest fall in PEP. The former was down by 6.2 per cent, although despite this drop it hung on to its place in the top five best performers on PEP overall, with $2.72m (£1.36m). Here, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz remains out of reach of any other US firm with a PEP of $4.48m (£2.24m)
And what will this year look like? You already know the answer to that question:
Ward Bower of US legal market consultancy Altman Weil says the numbers confirm that 2007 was the best ever for top firms in terms of both productivity and profitability.
"Don't expect to see that in 2008," he added. "Some of those same firms are off 10 to 15 per cent on the revenue side for the first two months of this year."
For additional data, plus a table of the top 50 U.S. law firms and their 2007 financial results, see here.
* An account of Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Supreme Court argument. Depressing detail: he rented his morning coat. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
* Conservative legal celebrity deathmatch: U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement v. Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz. [Concurring Opinions]
* The Obamas release their tax returns, revealing Biglaw-esque income. Do they give enough to charity? [TaxProf Blog via Instapundit]
* We linked to this site, a helpful resource to aspiring law clerks, around the time of its launch. But now it's been redesigned, with a pantsuit-clad hottie at the top of the page. So feel free to visit again. [SoYouWantToBeALawClerk]
* An ATL PSA: please help a newly blind tax law professor. [TaxProf Blog]
* If you're here in D.C. and looking for something to do this Friday night, March 28, here's an idea. It's a fun event, and it's for a good cause. Hope to see you there! [AEF - APABA]
The New York Times is on a bit of a "bully" kick lately -- using their "bully pulpit," if you will. They recently ran this 1100-word article, by Pulitzer Prize winner Dan Barry, about an Arkansas teen who has been subjected to bullying at school for years -- sometimes to the point of physical violence. (Gawker glibly summarizes it as a piece about "a random kid, Billy Wolfe, who gets knocked around a lot.")
Sure enough, it has a legal angle to it:
The Wolfes are not satisfied [with the school's response to their complaints about their son being bullied]. This month they sued one of the bullies “and other John Does,” and are considering another lawsuit against the Fayetteville School District. Their lawyer, D. Westbrook Doss Jr., said there was neither glee nor much monetary reward in suing teenagers, but a point had to be made: schoolchildren deserve to feel safe.
One ATL reader who drew this article to our attention is definitely on the side of the parents: "I'd like to see a post about the tort and criminal aspects of the case. Seems like the school's gonna get creamed."
This reader is probably not alone in feeling sympathy for Billy Wolfe. We'd guess that victims of schoolyard bullies are disproportionately represented among the ranks of lawyers, especially lawyers at top law firms. What do revenge-seeking nerds do after high school? They grow up to become lawyers, so they can acquire wealth and power, and lord it over their used-car-selling ex-tormentors at twentieth high school reunions.
But the Times didn't stop there with its fixation on bullying. A second Times article, in today's paper, discusses bullying in the workplace. How long before Nick Kristof writes an impassioned column on the subject, after traveling to Arkansas and hanging out with poor Billy for a week?
The latest major law firm to enhance its parental leave policy: Dewey & LeBoeuf. Remember the holiday party car controversy? All is forgiven. Eighteen weeks, plus Denim Day? You couldn't ask for anything more.
Actually, maybe you can. From a male tipster at the firm:
D&L just went to 18 weeks for parental leave: 8 weeks of medical leave for a birth mother, 4 weeks of childcare leave, and an additional 6 weeks of primary caregiver leave. This means that birth mothers get 18 weeks, adoptive primary caregivers get 10 weeks, and a parent who is not the primary caregiver gets 4 weeks.
So beleaguered working dads still only get a month. Can I humbly suggest that the next big perk should be non-primary caregiver parents to 8 weeks? We still lose sleep and have to deal with, ah, a moody home environment...
Sure, that would be nice -- but first things first. Don't look a fringe-benefit horse in the mouth.
For a table listing the maternity leave policies of various large law firms, prepared by ATL survey guru Justin Bernold, click here. For a compilation of paternity leave policies, click here.
The Dewey & LeBoeuf cover email and memo, after the jump.
University of Chicago Students got an e-mail from Dean Levmore today announcing that the Law School will be turning off internet access in classrooms beginning next quarter.
We express our deepest sympathies for Chicago students who will have to check ATL for updates between classes. Perhaps we can arrange for some kind of carrier pigeon system for urgent news.
We're wondering how many of you currently have internet access in the classroom. Is cutting off access to the web a trend at law schools? A number of law professors have complained about laptops undermining learning.
We're obviously biased in favor of maximum internet access for all; perhaps you feel differently. So let us know your views via commentary, and take our poll on whether internet should be allowed:
As many of you may recall, from our prior coverage of him, Jonathan Lee Riches is in a South Carolina prison until 2012 for wire fraud and conspiracy. He's killing his time by filing a ridiculous number of ridiculous lawsuits in courts across the country, nicely summarized in this overview of his oeuvre, in the Fulton County Daily Report:
Thirty-nine percent of the 491 cases filed so far this month in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia have been filed by one man: Jonathan Lee Riches.
Among the defendants to his 192 suits are former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his wife, Silda; the firms Pepper Hamilton and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Hooters of America; Norwegian Cruise Lines Inc.; and investment banker Bruce Wasserstein. Riches' celebrity targets include actors Anne Heche, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones; musicians Cyndi Lauper and Eddie Van Halen; and Braves pitcher Tom Glavine.
Riches has alleged that Eliot Spitzer "used the fines [from corporate convictions] to pay for prostitutes," that the MacArthur Foundation froze Riches' inmate account and funneled the money to Spitzer; and that Pepper Hamilton took a $1 million retainer from him and other inmates, but used the money to gamble on the New York Giants.
We wonder if the suit against Cyndi Lauper was about the mental anguish suffered when "Time After Time" gets stuck in your head.
Federal district courts across the country are annoyed at the waste of their man hours and money in processing the complaints. Is he crazy or crazy like a fox? He's garnered a great amount of media attention, as detailed in his Wikipedia entry (and we've written about him extensively in these pages). We surmise that he may be setting himself up as a media commentator on frivolous lawsuits.
Some of Riches' prior complaints have been dismissed, including a $662 trillion suit filed in the Northern District last summer against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. The suit alleged that Vick was attempting to "kidnap" Riches' mind and to force him to lose weight, and demanded that the $662 trillion be delivered -- in "British gold" shipped via truck -- to the front gates of the prison where Riches is incarcerated.
Noting that a trio of other Riches' suits -- in federal courts in Michigan, South Carolina and Florida -- had been dismissed as frivolous, Senior U.S. District Judge Willis B. Hunt Jr. dismissed the suit against Vick in August. He cited 28 U.S.C. §1915(g), the "Three Strikes Rule," which says a prisoner is prohibited from bringing federal civil actions in forma pauperis if, while incarcerated, he has had three other suits dismissed on the grounds of frivolity, malice or failure to state a claim.
There is, however, an exception. The prisoner may file, the statute says, if he's in imminent danger of physical injury.
"[T]his Court finds that none of Plaintiff's farcical assertions in the complaint, including his claim that Michael Vick threw snowballs at his car, qualify as a claim of imminent danger of serious physical injury," Hunt writes in Riches v. Vick, No. 07-13940-J.
Don't worry. We are amused, but we promise not to bring him on as a guest blogger at ATL.
* Respondents had several reasons to applaud Latham: "Prestige", "Friends there are happy", "Awesome firm, awesome people", "They rock", "Prestige, substantive work, great litigation practice", and "Top notch clients and matters; kick ass bonuses; selective hiring in a good way (need good grades plus a good; personality); Vault top 10 without the stuffiness of originating on the east coast; good growth but no risk of Brobecking (great management + tons of funds).....should I go on?" Or, as one respondent summed it up: "ass kickers."
* At Wachtell, with 2007 profits per partner of $4.48 million, money played a key factor in respondents' enthusiasm for the firm: "100% bonus", "money", "it's all about the cash", "I want the compensation!", "money honey" and, of course, "CASH."
* "Money" was also a big plus for Cravath (even though their profits per partner were a mere $3.3 million). Voters also noted "Prestige, training, can go anywhere else afterwards."
* "Prestige" and "Exit opportunities" also won several votes for Skadden, who also had more than $2 billion in revenues last year. (Their SideBar program is pretty cool, too.)
* "Bonuses and work" were praised at Kirkland & Ellis, as was stability: "They're well positioned for the credit crunch and M&A downturn. And the pay's better, of course."
* Sullivan & Cromwell was also coveted for "good work, and $$$$" as well as "reputation." With profits per partner of $3.13 million, that "$$$$" is appealing at multiple levels.
* Paul Hastings surged in popularity as respondents complemented their labor & employment practice and their compensation structures in Atlanta and Chicago.
* In an incendiary match-up, Davis Polk was heralded as "da bomb", while Boston heavyweight Ropes & Gray was declared "the bomb."
* Among the Magic Circle firms, Allen & Overy supporters declared "Great offices, european attitude" while Linklaters was called "the best globally, both in equity and debt."
* Debevoise won several votes for its combination of "prestige and culture".
* Litigators were torn between Quinn Emanuel, where "hard core litigators with a great reputation" create an atmosphere where "[p]ersonality, quirkiness, and fun seem prevalent," and Williams & Connolly, as "the best litigatio[n] shop. Period."
So of these fourteen juggernauts of practice, prestige, and sweet, sweet profits, who would you most like to work for?
Cast your vote in today's ATL / Lateral Link survey, after the jump.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:40 AM - By Kashmir Hill
Young New Hampshire lawyer Daniel Hynes, who is just 27, has earned a place among our Lawyers of the Day for extorting hair salons.
Feel free to use the Power of the Law Degree to ensure that your landlord heats your apartment adequately. But using it to threaten beauty parlors... that's just wrong. From the Concord Monitor:
A Manchester lawyer who threatened to sue a Concord salon for pricing haircuts differently for men and women and then took money to settle the matter was found guilty of theft by extortion.
A jury took about 1½ hours to convict Daniel Hynes, 27, on Wednesday. Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Baker said Hynes sent letters to at least 19 salons in the state.
One arrived Dec. 20, 2006, at Claudia's, the North Main Street hair salon owned by Claudia Lambert. In the letter, Hynes said prices should be based on the time a cut takes or on the length of hair, instead of on gender. He wrote: "I demand payment in the amount of $1,000 in order to avoid litigation," according to court documents.
Since he was not representing a client, Mr. Hynes defended his right to extort by citing the First Amendment and the right to petition the courts. We are surprised it took the jury an hour and a half to deliberate on this.
Hynes would have been wise to enlist a female friend to play his client in this fiendish plot. His reasoning comes across as a bit weak:
In one court document, he argued that the price structure that he saw as discriminatory had caused him stress and mental anguish, despite the fact that prices for men were less than those for women. He said he was being denied an "inherent benefit in being treated equally." He pointed to a woman's right to vote and said he benefits from her right, even though he is a man.
If Mr. Hynes is not disbarred, we'd like to talk with him about how we can get a haircut for under $100.
Late last week, several readers here in Washington reported unusual activity at the Howrey offices:
"Howrey is doing a film shoot in the lobby of its DC office... Multiracial attorneys in suits everywhere... Looks serious."
"I was in the building where Howrey's DC offices are today. There was some filming with a lot what seemed to be Howrey attorneys. At one point, a large group ran through some doors, talking on their cell phones. Hopefully, it'll provide something entertaining to watch on YouTube...."
As long as they don't take it down as soon as they put it up (or we link to it).
One tipster decided to do a little reporting:
"A few minutes ago, I walked through my building's lobby to go out and get lunch. On the way, I was surprised to find the lobby lit up like a movie set. A few dozen young folks in suits -- many of them holding cell phones -- stood in a big group, listening to some guy shouting some directions. I chatted up the security guard at the front desk, who told me that Howrey was shooting a commercial."
"From what I can tell, the whole scene will make for a fairly lame ad: 'Hire Howrey -- we stand around in suits, smiling and cell-phoning.' Perhaps the worst-case scenario would be Howrey trying to play off of the Verizon cast-of-thousands ads...."
"On my way back, I noticed that they have stacks of life-sized photos of people up against the wall. Maybe they decided to replace their associates with cardboard stiffs? (Some would say that, at Howrey, they did that years ago.)"
We contacted Howrey for comment -- about the filming, not the extent to which they staff matters with cardboard stiffs -- but they did not get back to us.
There are already about a half-dozen major law school ranking schemes out there. So why not create one more?
The folks over at Vault, already famous for their super-influential law firm rankings, have tried their hand at ranking law schools. Not surprisingly, given Vault's focus on the world of large law firms, even their law-school rankings are Biglaw-centric. From the press release:
Vault solicited employers' points of view by surveying law firms across the country on which schools produce the best associates. With 58% of law school graduates entering private practice, and no other firm-determined rankings, Vault's law school rankings fill an important gap with their emphasis on employability.
Nearly 400 hiring partners, associate interviewers and professional recruiting staff rated law schools on a scale from 1-10 based on how well their graduates are prepared to achieve success in the firm environment.
The Vault top 10 law schools, plus links and commentary, after the jump.
* Noted SCOTUS litigator Carter Phillips (right) promises Tony Mauro that he will drop the F-bomb and S-bomb before the Supreme Court. [Legal Times(subscription)]
For some of Lawyers of the Day, things eventually get better. For others, however, they only get worse.
For Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his law-student lov-ah, Christine Beatty, they've gotten worse. From the AP:
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit's youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.
Former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, 37, who also denied under oath that she and Kilpatrick had a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.
The evidence against Mayor Kilpatrick and Ms. Beatty is extensive. It's not just a handful of cryptic text messages that are equally consistent with innocent activity (e.g., "where r u"). Rather, we're talking about almost 14,000 texts, many of them sexually explicit. mr mayor, u r fckd. ttyl.
Or maybe not? Mayor Kilpatrick does have some top-flight counsel. He's represented by superstar litigator Dan Webb, a former U.S. Attorney for Chicago with over 100 jury trials under his belt, who now serves as chairman of Winston & Strawn. If anyone can get Kilpatrick out of this mess, it's Webb.
(But Webb can't work miracles. He was unsuccessful in defending another prominent politician, former Illinois Governor George Ryan, against various federal corruption charges. Governor Ryan was convicted at trial, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed on appeal.)
Researchers at the University of Calgary have conducted a sociological study of 670 attorneys working in law firms to measure the impact of having children on work productivity. The researchers spend a good amount of time raving about billable hours, which made measuring productivity a breeze for them. Yay for billable hours!
We do not think it is groundbreaking news that mothers are less productive than non-mothers (measured in terms of billable hours). The results regarding fathers are interesting, though:
The results suggest that mothers with school-aged children are less productive than non-mothers, whereas fathers with preschool-aged children are more productive than non-fathers. While time spent on household and childcare tasks significantly reduces women’s productivity, we find little support for the benefits of family resources or working in a family-friendly firm for women. Rather, fathers seem to benefit more: family resources are positively related to their productivity and family-friendly benefits allow them more time for leisure.
The study finds that family-friendly firm policies are more beneficial for men than for women. We hear the frustrated sighs of women echoing through cyberspace.
This unexpected finding, however, may be a boon for female attorneys without children:
One surprising finding is that childless women may be more productive than women with children and their male colleagues (with or without children).
The moral of the story for law firms: hire more childless women.
Disclaimer: We note that this study was conducted in the Great White North. We still think it's relevant, though.
Last season, Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball’s all-time home run king, batted .276 with 28 home runs and 75 runs scored. Bonds also reached base 48 percent of the time—the best in all of baseball.
This season, however, Bonds is unemployed. The San Francisco Giants, his former team, prefer to play journeymen outfielders Dave Roberts and Rajai Davis. The Washington Nationals, meanwhile, seem to prefer outfielder Elijah Dukes, who has nearly as many lifetime arrests (6) as Major League home runs (10). Stranger still, the New York Mets claim to be content beginning the season with Ryan Church, Angel Pagan and Endy Chavez playing their corner outfield positions. Last season, the Church/Pagan/Chavez combo had 438 more at bats than Bonds, yet combined for eight fewer home runs, not to mention a lower combined batting average.
Bonds recently told the media that he is “working out” and “training,” in hopes of playing for some team this season. With recent notification that prosecutors must revise their perjury indictment against him, Bonds for the moment is free from any legal conflicts. In addition, Bonds is relatively healthy, not to mention just 65 hits shy of the 3,000 milestone.
So what's going on here? Read more, after the jump.
With JPMorgan quintupling its offer for Bear Stearns earlier this morning, it seems like an appropriate time to discuss last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey, which asked you whether you were afraid the recent Bear Stearns collapse would hurt your career.
Twenty-seven percent of you said yes. New Yorkers were the most concerned, with roughly one third of respondents opining that the Bear Stearns collapse would hurt their careers. A quarter of respondents in Los Angeles and Atlanta and a fifth of respondents in Washington, DC said the same. In Boston and Philadelphia, seventeen percent of respondents were afraid the Bear Stearns event would hurt their careers, while in the Bay Area, the number fell to an unlucky thirteen percent. Respondents in Chicago, Dallas, and Houston were generally unafraid.
Concern was most pronounced among the newest lawyers and those closest to partnership. Twenty-eight percent of respondents in the Class of 2007, and thirty percent of respondents in the Classes of 2000 and 2001 were afraid that the Bear Stearns collapse would hurt their careers. A whopping fifty percent of respondents who graduated before 2000 shared this concern. Law students are also more likely to be frightened, with 43% of law students responding that they were afraid that the Bear Stearns event will hurt their careers.
Additional discussion, including selected comments from survey respondents, after the jump.
As we can see from thecomments, you're already all over this NYT story. We linked to it in Morning Docket, but here's a little more. Andrew Ross Sorkin writes:
JPMorgan and Bear were prompted to renegotiate after shareholders began threatening to block the deal and it emerged that several “mistakes” were included in the original, hastily written contract, according to people involved in the talks.
One sentence was “inadvertently included,” according to a person briefed on the talks, which requires JPMorgan to guarantee Bear’s trades even if shareholders voted down the deal. That provision could allow Bear’s shareholders to seek a higher bid while still forcing JPMorgan to honor its guarantee, these people said.
When the error was discovered, James Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, who was described by one participant as “apoplectic,” began calling his lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to seek a way to have the sentence modified, these people said. Finger pointing over the mistakes in the contracts began as bankers blamed the lawyers and vice versa.
We don't have much to add to Ted Frank's excellent observations. Here's an open thread for anti-Wachtell schadenfreude.
(They're big boys -- and they send their clients big bills. So the WLRK folks can take a little snark and ribbing from the ATL commentariat.)
Update (11:40 AM): Actually, did Wachtell make a mistake? If so, what exactly was their error? Over at Dealbreaker, our colleague John Carney wonders: "How do you 'inadvertently include' a provision everyone is talking about?" (Gavel bang: commenter.)
It sounds like Gibson Guitars is pissed that people prefer Guitar Hero remote controllers to real guitars. Gibson is seeking revenge on the hugely popular video game through official legal channels:
The Guitar Hero series has sold more than 14 million units in North America and raked in more than $1 billion since 2005.
Gibson said the games, in which players use a guitar-shaped controller in time with notes on a television screen, violate a 1999 patent for technology to simulate a musical performance.
Gibson wants the games off store shelves and is suing everyone: game publisher Activision, game developers MTV/Harmonix/Viacom/Electronic Arts, and game retailers Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, Amazon, Toys 'R' Us and Kmart.
This post is a public service announcement. Buy Guitar Hero while you can. Or better yet, buy Rock Band, and invite us to come play with you.
Some ATL readers may find our Lawyer of the Day posts frivolous, but there are valuable lessons in each one. Texan lawyer Adam "Bulletproof" Reposa has many lessons to impart.
Lesson one: how not to show one's displeasure with a judge's ruling. From the Austin American-Statesman:
Adam Reposa, 33, was held in contempt of court by County-Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland for his "intentional and contumacious conduct during the court's review of the plea bargain offer to his client before jury trial."
Reposa, who could not be reached for comment, "made a simulated masturbatory gesture with his hand while making eye contact with the court in response to an objection by the state to his interference with the court plea bargain inquiry," Breland wrote in a judgment of criminal contempt of court filed March 11.
While we may understand the desire to use the "jerk-off" gesture with a judge who uses the word "contumacious," we strongly advise against it.
Lesson two: how not to manage your media relations, as reported by a local broadcaster.
When Reposa's law office was contacted by phone, the person answering said she was instructed by Reposa to tell the media a vulgarity, which won't be printed here.
We advise "no comment at this time" as a much more respectable way of saying f**k off.
Lesson three: how not to market your legal services. First, do not register with your state bar as "Bulletproof." Second, do not make terrible YouTube videos.
While we are tempted to make the "jerk-off" gesture, instead we will end with "no comment at this time."
Despite the recent turmoil in the economy and the stock market, all appears to be well at Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy. A tipster provided us with the highlights of chairman Mel Immergut's "State of the Firm" address from last week:
1. Primary caregiver leave is now 18 weeks paid.
2. Blackberries will get replaced every two years instead of three.
3. "We're not getting fired."
It appears that Milbank has effectively made a "no layoffs" promise. It learned that lesson the hard way:
Mel stressed that in the last downturn, they had slowed hiring, and then found themselves at a loss for mid-level associates when things picked up later. So the plan is to continue to hire new people (our summer program is the largest to date at 100+) and retain, but not really hire laterals.
Will other firms make a similar pledge? We'll see.
* A cool job opportunity for a college senior or recent undergraduate with an interest in the law: work for noted Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein. [SCOTUSblog]
* A cool job opportunity for C students with a "sick sense of humor": work for the Rockstahl Law Office in Twin Falls, ID. [Idaho State Bar - Job Announcements (top entry for 3/20/08)]
* A lesson in how to open a judicial opinion, from Judge Alex Kozinski. [Southern Appeal]
* A tip for legal bloggers: don't fetishize pageviews. [Law and More]
* A guilty plea from Hottie Scruggs (pictured). [WSJ Law Blog]
For the record, here's some follow-up on two Bay State lawyers previously discussed in these pages, who have been cleared of the charges against them. At least to some extent.
First, remember Carl Stanley McGee (right), who was arrested after being accused of going down on a 15-year-old boy? Earlier this week, Florida prosecutors decided to drop the case.
Apparently the teen had trouble identifying McGee. But maybe he also learned that it's bad form to complain about getting a BJ. Unless teeth are involved.
Second, remember the handsome Gary Zerola (below right), named a "Most Eligible Bachelor" by People magazine, and accused of rape and attempted rape by three different women? One of the cases against him went to trial, and he was acquitted (back in January; we missed the news when it came out).
A second trial is currently underway. In that case, as reported in today's Boston Herald, Zerola's defense team argues that the victim wanted to shakedown their client for $150,000.
The third incident, which is the one that we wrote about, has not yet gone to trial.
Can't we all just get along? This is our second story today about an associate claiming discrimination by her law firm. No wonder Kirkland & Ellis has adopted a new mandatory arbitration policy.
An associate in the employment, labor and benefits section of the Boston firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination charging that colleagues discriminated against her because of her gender and status as a wife and mother.
Mintz, Levin associate Kamee Beth Verdrager also alleges in her MCAD filing against the firm and ML attorneys Robert M. Gault, Donald W. Schroeder and David Barmak that she was the target of retaliation when she complained about the treatment accorded her by certain members of the employment section and that she was subsequently demoted and placed on probation.
Commenting on behalf of the firm, Public Relations Director Gina Addis said that "the reality is from time to time allegations like these are made against all businesses, including law firms. Our firm has and will deal with any such allegations in the ordinary course and at the appropriate time and in the appropriate forum."
More discussion, including highlights from Verdrager's complaint, after the jump.
1. Playgirl Magazine invites Spitzer to pose: If Eliot Spitzer weren't the scion of a super-rich New York real estate family, maybe he would take Playgirl up on this offer.
The markets are closed today for Good Friday, which is why it's a reduced-publication day here at ATL (and our sister sites, Dealbreaker and Fashionista). We're ready for the holiday weekend to begin -- and so are most of you, we're guessing. We have a few more posts to publish, but things are winding down around here.
To start the holiday weekend off on the right note, here is a heartwarming tale: lawyer couple saves family from fire! Hopefully this will improve the standing of the legal profession in the eyes of the public. Read the full story over at Newsday.
We're not sure where Helene Horowitz works (and some cursory online searching didn't yield an answer). But Kenny Horowitz (pictured) is a real estate associate at Curtis Mallet.
ATL salutes Helene and Kenny Horowitz for their heroism. Maybe they can get pro bono credit for this?
A Haitian woman is suing one of the world's largest law firms for $75 million, claiming that the firm used her only as window dressing because of her race, fired her for complaining about it, and finally blacklisted her in the New York law community.
Caroline Memnon, who is black, says in the lawsuit that despite her $125,000 salary as an associate at the New York office of London-based Clifford Chance LLP, she was never given any real work....
After firing her in 2002, Clifford Chance, known at the time as Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells, "surreptitiously 'blackballed' [her] within the community of New York law firms," the suit says....
"We believe this claim to be without merit and will be contesting the case," a Clifford Chance spokeswoman said.
Did Clifford Chance "blackball" her? Or did they just give her a less-than-stellar job reference, which employers are certainly entitled to do? [FN1]
Two other law firms, Chadbourne & Parke and Manatt Phelps & Phillips, both offered Ms. Memnon employment and then withdrew their offers, according to the lawsuit....
[Ms. Memnon] was hired by Sullivan & Worcester's New York office and began working in February 2007. Sullivan & Worcester terminated her employment that March, though she billed 143 hours in her first three weeks there, which is above the firm's expectation of 150 hours a month, the suit says.
The shortness of her stay at Sullivan makes one wonder if other issues are at work here. Could Caroline Memnon be another Charlene Morisseau -- although probably less fabulous, since the divalicious Morisseau is in a class by herself?
[FN1] Does anyone else remember that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David "recommends" someone for a job with Richard Lewis? Larry intends to make the recommendation a tepid one -- "recommend," in scare-quotes -- but Richard doesn't pick up on that. Law firms may be more attentive to such nuances.
Here is today’s Job of the Week, brought to you by Lateral Link. Since the beginning of March, over 400 new attorneys have been accepted into the Lateral Link network. If you are not already a member, you can join to take advantage of their unique member benefits.
Position: In-House Counsel (Financial Services)
Location: Dallas, TX
Description: The Company is seeking an exceptional attorney, with 4-10 years of experience with either a top-tier law firm or leading financial services/money manager/investment advisor, to join the in-house legal team in its Dallas office. This is a unique opportunity, outside of Wall Street, to broaden your skill set within a complex, best-in-class, alternative asset manager. The attorney will work in one or more of the following areas depending on his/her expertise, areas of interest, and the firm’s areas of need:
· Investments (public and private equities, bonds, loans, ISDA/derivatives)
· Fund formation and fund marketing (both registered and exempt funds)
· Bankruptcy and distressed investments
· Regulatory and Compliance (’33 Act, ’34 Act, both ’40 Acts)
The Company offers world-class compensation and benefits. The cash compensation package is made up of competitive base pay and a performance bonus (well in excess of law firm compensation). The Company also offers a generous profit-sharing plan allowing employees to share in the success of Company’s funds. Health insurance is industry-leading, with no insurance premiums or deductibles. The Company’s talented professionals share a passion for excellence, commitment to teamwork, and pride based on the firm’s track record in the alternative investment industry. The culture is entrepreneurial and not hierarchical, professional yet informal and fun. The Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Job Code: 8291
For more information, please see position #8291 on Lateral Link.
Today is Friday, when we present for your consideration quirky queries about style, grammar, and usage. E.g., how to pronounce "substantive"; is a marked-up document a "blackline," or a "redline"; and do you prefer "pleaded" or "pled" in legal writing.
This latest poll may seem a little edgy (especially since today is Good Friday). But it actually presents a serious and legitimate question now facing Second Circuit judges (and their law clerks). Legal research reveals a split of authority; the courts have been inconsistent.
For background, read this post, including all the updates and comments. Now, the question:
We now know the identity of Dean Elena Kagan's mystery hire at Harvard Law School. From the HLS press release:
Anne Alstott, an expert on federal income taxation, corporate taxation and tax policy as well as on social welfare policy, family policy, and feminism and economic justice, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as a tenured professor, Dean Elena Kagan ’86 announced today.
Alstott is presently the Jacquin D. Bierman Professor of Taxation at Yale Law School, where she has held a tenured professorship since 1997 and the Bierman chair since 2004. At Yale, she has taught federal income taxation, corporate taxation, and subjects related to taxation and social policy. She has won three awards for outstanding teaching.
We took two courses from Professor Alstott (Tax and Advanced Tax), and she truly is an amazing teacher. Sadly, this can't be said of every professor at YLS. Great scholars, yes; great teachers, not necessarily. (Of course, this complaint is not unique to Yale; it can be said of many leading law schools.)
In addition to being admired for her scholarship and teaching, the rather attractive Professor Alstott was the object of many law student crushes. Interestingly enough, Harvard and Yale seem to have traded comely young profs. In 2006, Professor Christine Jolls left HLS for YLS.
Random tidbit: Rumor has it that Professor Alstott, known today for her liberal, pro-redistribution views, was once a staunch conservative. She was previously married to L. Gordon Crovitz, the uber-conservative former publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
Congratulations to Professor Alstott on her new appointment, and to Dean Kagan and Harvard Law School on their exciting hire!
Update: While we're on the subject of Harvard Law School, if you have any thoughts on their new public service initiative, pursuant to which the school "will pay the third year of tuition for all future students who commit to work in public service for five years following graduation," feel free to opine in the comments.
We mentioned the program in Morning Docket earlier this week. But based on how many emails we've received about it, it seems some of you missed the shout-out.
Further Update: Professor Brian Leiter analyzes Professor Alstott's move, and its significance for the HLS tax faculty, over here.
This must be the most profanity-laced piece of transcript since Aaron Wider's deposition. It's the transcript from the sentencing hearing at which Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny (E.D.N.Y.) was attacked by the defendant, before the court reporter and defense counsel tackled the assailant.
The transcript was prepared by Ron Tolkin, the court reporter involved in the incident, from an audio recording. Even the heroic Mr. Tolkin can't simultaneously (1) kick the a** of a kid decades his junior, and (2) transcribe the proceedings for posterity.
Excerpts appear below. For the full transcript, see the link at the end of this post.
Update: Another choice excerpt, pointed out by several of you in the comments:
To read the full transcript, click here (PDF). If you do, the "press it in" discussion might be confusing (and sound completely filthy). An E.D.N.Y. source clarifies:
["Pressing it in" refers] to the CSO, Marshalls and Deputy discussing how to activate the panic button. In the old E.D.N.Y. courthouse, you push in, but in the new one, you pull out.
Thursday, March 20, 2008 2:30 PM - By Kashmir Hill
This Florida attorney pops up in our pages often enough to have his own category. We're only a few months into 2008, but Jack Thompson is already on the shortlist for Lawyer of the Year.
We're awarding him a second Lawyer of the Day distinction for today's sanction [PDF] from the Supreme Court of Florida. But we're placing him in the Hall of Fame, making him ineligible for consideration in the future, out of fairness to competitors.
The court is requiring him to get "qualified counsel" in the Florida Bar's case against him. The court directs the Clerk of Court to reject any future filings "submitted by John Bruce Thompson, unless signed by a member in good standing of The Florida Bar other than himself."
In addition to poor judgment in filing coloring books and gay porn with the court, Thompson lacks the the art of sweet talk:
In one of these filings, he references the “children’s picture book for adults” and reiterates that he “sent a pleading chocked full of pictures to illustrate his verbal points, since the Court seemed unable to grasp the words.”
ATL practice pointer: Don't insult the intelligence of your judges. In writing. In a filing to the court. Also, do not model your legal language on dialogue from the movie Dirty Harry.
In the conclusion to his latest response, Thompson states, “This Court has been foolish indeed. It’s [sic] bizarre, idiotic show cause order indicates that it is not done being foolish. Fine. Enter the order you want. Make my day.”
In today's Morning Docket, we wondered about what Milberg Weiss's new name would be, now that Mel Weiss is on his way to becoming a convicted felon. The answer came more quickly than expected. From the WSJ Law Blog:
The firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Shulman LLP, then Milberg Weiss Bershad LLP, then Milberg Weiss LLP, will now be known just as Milberg LLP. According to a Milberg insider, the name change was announced at a staff meeting this morning, at which Mel Weiss gave a speech talking about the accomplishments of the firm. The audience reportedly applauded.....
"Hey everyone, I'm going to prison for 18 to 33 months. Give me a big hand!"
The WSJ reported this morning that Mel Weiss has struck a deal to agree to plead guilty in a case alleging improper kickbacks. Other former name partners David Bershad and Steven Schulman had previously pleaded guilty in the case.
The beauty of naming the firm after Larry Milberg? He dead.
More Milberg Weiss coverage, including a statement from Mel Weiss, at the WSJ Law Blog.
Thursday, March 20, 2008 1:00 PM - By Kashmir Hill
The long-running NBC TV show, Law and Order, promotes its shows with claims of "ripped from the headlines," but always includes a disclaimer within each episode that the story and characters are fictional. Questionable.
Well, one attorney is not happy about having his likeness ripped from the headlines of this New York Times story from 2003. And he's been given the go-ahead to proceed with his $15 million libel suit against the show. From the New York Law Journal:
Attorney Ravi Batra can proceed with a $15 million libel suit against the creators of "Law & Order" for airing an episode depicting a "bald Indian-American" lawyer who bribes a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, a Manhattan court has ruled.
The lawyer filed the defamation action in 2004 against 35 defendants, including producer Dick Wolf and NBC Universal, claiming that an episode was based on a corruption scandal involving Justice Gerald Garson, matrimonial lawyer Paul Siminovsky and Batra.
In what she deemed the first "libel-in-fiction" claim to survive a summary motion in nearly 25 years, Acting Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer held that viewers "would identify" a fictional lawyer character dubbed "Ravi Patel" with Batra "because of the uniqueness of [Batra's] name, ethnicity and appearance."
Batra has probably never been so happy to be a bald man. It seems this shared feature with the "Law and Order" character is a big part of the case. And their both being Indian:
The episode, entitled "Floater," centered around the husband of a woman who turns up dead in the Hudson River. The husband's alibi leads police to uncover a corruption scandal involving a divorce lawyer and a judge at the courthouse where his wife worked.
The episode portrayed a bald Indian-American matrimonial attorney called "Ravi Patel," played by India-born actor Erick Avari, bribing a female Brooklyn Supreme Court justice.
Batra was never charged with corruption or bribery, but his reputation was hurt by the bad press.
We've tracked down photos of Ravi Batra and the actor who played "Ravi Patel" (Erick Avari, better known as genetics doctor Chandra Suresh from NBC's straight-up awesome show Heroes). Judge the similarities for yourselves!
Update: More from from the NYT's City Room (which actually wrote up the case before the NYLJ):
Mr. Batra demonstrated that at the time the episode aired, he was one of only six lawyers in New York City with the given name Ravi and the only one of the six with the same age and physical description as the Patel character.
Confidentiality. Lawyers get lectured about it all the time. Despite all the warnings, attorneys young and old routinely get themselves in trouble through indiscretion (not just Eliot Spitzer).
Sometimes Supreme Court clerks are overheard talking about their cases. Sometimes law firm partners are overheard talking about firm business. An in-house tipster provides this account of a morning subway ride:
I was sitting on the E train at approximately 9 AM today. Next to me was a tall, older woman with a short (obviously dyed) blond hair cut. A younger (I would guess in his 40s) man saw her and made some comment about how funny it was to see her. She made a face, said she was in a rather bad mood, and showed him an email on her blackberry.
Now this conversation only lasted from the 7th Avenue stop on the E to the 5th Avenue one where Male (I'm assuming Partner) got off in order to attend a meeting, and Female (I'm assuming Partner) got off at the Lexington/Third Avenue stop [at 53rd Street].
Note: Thelen's offices are at 875 and 900 Third Avenue, around 53rd Street....
The conversation continued to express FP's concern regarding the person in the email. That FP would "talk to her" as soon as she got in. MP seemed somewhat unconcerned as he "suspected something like this would happen."
Talk to Her -- the title of a critically acclaimed Almodovar film. In this context, however, we're guessing that FP's secretary or assistant got laid off (or is about to get laid off) -- and FP needs to discuss the situation with her.
Then MP mentioned your piece in AboveTheLaw.com (which is how I figured out what they were talking about), stating that the firm was reflected fairly well all things considered, and how the piece could have been worse. FP made a comment about how it only got bad when you read the comments, where it seems a lot of information was given out that made her very unhappy.
Ah, the comments. Sometimes they make us "very unhappy" too -- although, for the most part, we are grateful for the insight and humor contained therein.
Welcome to the internets, FP. And exercise greater discretion next time -- you never know who might be listening.
I had been planning to share the results from last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on which other firm you would want to go to today, but in light of recent events at Thelen Reid and Edwards Angell, let's just leave that survey open for a bit longer. Let's talk about whether the slowdown is going to hit your firm as well, and how you might cushion the impact.
Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.
Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:20 AM - By Kashmir Hill
CNN reports that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been disbarred in the District of Columbia:
The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted last year of lying to a grand jury and federal agents probing the leak of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson.
"When a member of the Bar is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude, disbarment is mandatory," the District of Columbia Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion, which is posted on its Web site.
"When convictions on more than one count are involved, disbarment is mandated if any one of them involves moral turpitude," the court added.
The D.C. Court of Appeals opinion is posted [PDF]. POTUS commuted Libby's 30-month prison term last year. So Scooter may be disbarred, but at least he's not behind bars.
Good editorial cartoon of "Scooter" flying off cliff while Cheney looks on, by Steve Breen of Copley News Service, available here (click on thumbnail to enlarge).
Last week, our colleagues over at Dealbreaker reported on changes to the "Evening Meals and Taxis" policy of Goldman Sachs in London. The upshot: the firm's dining@mydesk service -- okay, that doesn't sound fun, but it's still a perk of sorts -- and a GS-covered taxi home will kick in at 10 PM instead of 9 PM, the old cutoff. Memo here.
Similar changes to car and dinner policies appear to be happening on this side of the pond. For example, we hear through the grapevine that Mayer Brown's New York office recently pushed the free-car cutoff back to 9:30 PM.
At your law firm, when do you get a free dinner and / or transportation home? Has the firm changed its policy recently? Any thoughts on what the cutoff ought to be? Some firms have deadlines that vary by season. E.g., Debevoise (9 p.m. during the summer).
Please weigh in, on these and related matters -- e.g., stories about crazy and/or incompetent car service drivers -- in the comments.
Update: According to this comment, "MBRM has always moved cars back to 9:30 once the clocks change."
* Another prominent plaintiffs' lawyer pleads. Today it's Mel Weiss of Milberg Weiss, to plead guilty in an alleged kickback scheme. Any guesses as to the new firm name? Milberg LLP? [WSJ Law Blog]
* SCOTUS overturns conviction of Louisiana death row inmate, due to improper exclusion of African-Americans from jury. Vote was 7-2, opinion by Alito. [SCOTUSblog; How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* Exciting times for commodities investors spell scary times for regulators. [New York Times]
The firm is in the process of laying off 26 associates and 85 staff members, on a firm-wide basis, "in response to recessionary pressures." (Unlike President Bush, Mr. O'Neal was not afraid to use the "r" word.) Thelen has approximately 600 lawyers, per its website, so the cuts amount to roughly 4 percent of total headcount.
With respect to the location of the affected lawyers, the cuts affected all major offices. With respect to seniority -- one source told us that some first- and second-year associates were fired -- Mr. O'Neal said that "some were fairly junior, and some more senior."
In terms of practice areas, Mr. O'Neal said the layoffs were spread out among groups, but with "some areas more impacted than others," including certain parts of capital markets and cap-markets-related real estate work. He noted that other practice areas are "thriving and increasing in scope," including renewable energy, cross-border M&A, China practice, litigation, and workouts / bankruptcy.
With respect to staff layoffs, Mr. O'Neal explained that they are due in part to the economic climate, but in part due to post-merger staff redundancies. The merger of Thelen Reid and Brown Raysman took place in late 2006, making the consolidated firm a little over a year old. But the firm did not do much cutting of staff in 2007.
Last year "was not a year when we tried to make deep cutbacks in anything, even though we had combined two good-sized firms," explained Mr. O'Neal. "It was a year of building, coordinating, and consolidating. We wanted to understand how best to organize this new entity." Now that the firm has a better understanding of its staffing needs, and is in the process of consolidating multiple offices in the same cities (e.g., New York), it is reducing staff redundancies.
As for associate severance packages, Mr. O'Neal stated that firm provided a "market-level" package. We floated three to four months as our understanding of market, and he said that the firm is "in that ballpark."
"We are anticipating a profitable 2008," said Mr. O'Neal. "We are being prudent businesspeople, and when you are dealing with recessionary pressures, you adjust your business so you will have -- and maintain -- a strong level of profitability, notwithstanding those pressures."
We thank the firm for the information and candor with respect to the layoffs (i.e., not casting these departures as "performance-based"). If you have more information, feel free to email us.
Updates: A few additional nuggets:
1. As noted in the comments, total headcount includes partners and counsel, so the percentage of associates laid off is higher than 4 percent. Some of you suggest it's around 10 percent.
2. We're a little annoyed at Legal Pad for the lack of an ATL shout-out -- in both the blogosphere and the MSM, it's proper form to credit and/or link to the source that breaks a story first (even if you were working on the same story too) -- but we'll link to them anyway.
They have more on the Thelen layoffs here. Much of the info in their post appeared previously in ours, but they do add that the firm "is also trimming its summer program from eleven to eight weeks and is pushing the start date for first-years from September to January."
3. A source at the firm tells us that the severance packages were in the two- to three-month range.
* Thoughts on the case of an English prof who posed on an S&M site with one of her students, from law prof Paul Secunda. [Workplace Prof Blog]
* Thoughts on private property, a favorite topic of his, from law prof Richard Epstein (who has a new book out on the subject). [PrawfsBlawg]
* Is the generally well-regarded Judge Barbara Jones (S.D.N.Y.) a judicial slacker? The numbers may mislead. Also, interesting data on average reversal rates in the Southern District. [Judicial Reports]
* Enter the VC's March Madness pool. You could win a Supreme Court bobblehead doll! [Volokh Conspiracy]
* C'mon, folks -- read your ATL. The move to 18 weeks of parental leave has been going on for months now. [National Law Journal via ABA Journal]
The Washington office of Winston & Strawn was the site of a "mystery protest" this afternoon. For more details and a photo, see here. Wonkette's tipster writes: "What they did to deserve a protest is beyond me."
Our guess? Fashion-forward feminists, really pissed off about this.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 3:25 PM - By Kashmir Hill
Technically, this New Jersey judge is our Ex-Judge of the Day, since he retired in January for "health reasons." He is accused of PUI (presiding under the influence), bullying people in his courtroom, and tearing up a go-go bar. Oh, is that unusual behavior for a judge?
The Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct today released a complaint against a former municipal court judge from Somerset County, accusing him of multiple offenses, including presiding while intoxicated, causing a ruckus at a Bound Brook go-go bar and calling a police chief to retrieve him because he was too drunk to drive.
Richard Sasso, 52, retired from the bench earlier this year citing health reasons. He formerly served in Bridgewater, Bound Brook, Warren and Watchung.
You can check out the complaint filed against Sasso here (PDF). There are some great transcripts of Sasso abusing his judicial power. But our favorite line was uttered to a bartender at Torpedo's Go Go Bar, a "gentleman's club," of course:
"Do you know who I am? I'm the Bound Brook judge."
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:35 PM - By Kashmir Hill
Our readers are certainly aware of the compensation/personal life trade-off involved in taking a high-paying law firm job. Salaries go up, but so do the billable hours. Building a Better Legal Profession, a group we have discussed inthesepagesbefore, is working to change that.
Young associates at many firms rarely see the inside of a courtroom and get little feedback on their performance. On top of that is the crushing pressure to make partner -- a status awarded to a small percentage of associates after years of toil that can mean stratospheric incomes but also a lifetime of weekends and evenings in the office.
So last year [Stanford law student Andrew] Bruck and about 25 other Stanford students founded Building a Better Legal Profession, which is aimed at forcing law firms to change the way they hire and promote young lawyers.
Among the students' concerns about the legal profession's future are inefficient work habits, widespread unhappiness, and deteriorating mental health. While ATL may contribute to the first, we hope we're helping you fight off the latter two.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 1:30 PM - By Kashmir Hill
At ATL, we have a special place in our heart for the intersection of law and media. Thus, we are moved to report on the publisher of Slate, Cliff Sloan, leaving the media world to become a partner at Skadden Arps. From The Washington Post:
Slate, the daily online magazine owned by The Washington Post Co., said publisher Cliff Sloan will leave to become a partner in a law firm. John Alderman, vice president of business development at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, or WPNI, will replace Sloan on April 1, the company said. Sloan will join Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
The double Harvard grad is a member of the Elect (Stevens / OT 1985). Someone needs to update his Wikipedia page with the new gig.
There's no announcement on the Skadden site yet, so we don't know what his focus area will be. Maybe he'll work to improve the Skadden website. The bright red background hurts our eyes!
As for Slate, they've just launched Convictions, a new legal blog, with oodles of boldface legal names as contributors. We'd list some of the writers, but that would risk omitting others, and almost all of them are bigwigs of the bar or blogosphere. So just check the site out for yourself, by clicking here.
Based on all the non-sequiturs appended to Non-Sequiturs, some of you clearly want to talk about the latest filings in the AutoAdmit case. So here's an open thread for you to go wild (but not too wild).
Most people who follow the case are already up on the recent developments. But if you need background, see The Legal Satyricon. Professor Marc Randazza writes: "Excuse me while I greedily devour this slice of humble pie.... If you want to see the dumbest thing ever done in litigation, feast your eyes on this letter [PDF] that AK47 sent to the Plaintiffs' attorneys. What a nimrod."
If you have Eliot Spitzer fatigue, stop reading here. If not, feel free to continue.
The Spitzer scandal raised this question: How are lawyers like prostitutes? It's an admittedly groan-worthy joke, fit to be told by an inebriated guest at a local bar association dinner. But maybe there are a few insights to be gleaned from comparing the learned profession to the oldest profession. For brief musings, see our column in this week's Observer.
Stop that $1 million check: It turns out the call girl linked to Eliot Spitzer had already shed her clothes for "Girls Gone Wild" as an 18-year-old while partying in Miami, Florida, the video company's founder said Tuesday.
Upon learning that Ashley Alexandra Dupre was already in his company's archives, Joe Francis revoked his $1 million offer for her to appear in a non-nude spread for his company's new magazine.
But shed no tears for "Kristen." As Rachel Sklar reports over at Eat the Press, the sultry songstress has earned a small fortune -- definitely six figures, possibly seven -- from online downloads of her music. She also has offers to pose for Penthouse and Hustler that could yield a million-dollar payday.
Last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey asked, "If you knew then what you know today, would you still choose to join your current firm?"
We received 540 responses, and, overall 68% of you said yes. But the gruntlement (i.e., satisfaction) varied quite a bit from market to market:
• Atlanta - 50%
• Boston - 74%
• Bay Area - 79%
• Chicago - 70%
• Dallas - 80%
• Houston - 82%
• Los Angeles - 71%
• New York - 71%
• Philadelphia - 75%
• Washington, DC - 68%
Apparently, "everything is bigger in Texas" includes job satisfaction, and the Bay Area is close behind, followed by Philadelphia. Meanwhile, firms in Boston have managed to produce slightly happier associates than firms in New York, notwithstanding the city's often lamented bagels and challenging pizza scene -- a challenge Chicago offices, hampered by quiche deep dish pizza, have been unable to surmount. Washington, DC lags a bit behind, and Atlanta clearly needs a hug.
Associates at a few firms were particularly likely to say they'd make the same choice today. Find out which firms have especially happy campers, after the jump.
While standing outside the U.S. Supreme Court building this morning, Georgetown Law student Sam Arora sent us this message (with photo):
I'm #2 in line for the SCOTUS 11 AM argument. A policewoman standing at front told me I wasn't allowed to wear my Hillary button "on the plaza." She said it was rules.
I asked if she was sure, because I'm just standing here in our single file line with my friends. She said wearing a button was "demonstrating," and I had to take it off.
I asked again if she was sure, because that seems to run afoul of First Amendment protections, but hey... I want to see my professor (Mike Gottesman) argue in Chamber v. Brown at 11am, so I took it off.
I asked her who in their office I could talk to about their policy, because I just don't understand its grounding. She barked at me, "JUST TAKE IT OFF!."
Well, dang, she has a gun, so I'm just going to petition the government... at a later time when she can't hurt me!
So, readers, what do you think? Does Sam have a legitimate grievance? Or will his petition be denied?
P.S. Sam Arora is identified here with his permission. Our default rule at ATL is anonymity for tipsters. But Mr. Arora is a quasi-celebrity here inside the Beltway, as one of The Hill's 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill. Sadly, the Supreme Court policewoman proved immune to his charms.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:10 AM - By Kashmir Hill
George Washington students have created a series of YouTube videos riffing on the Bud Light Real Men commercials. Best in the law-student-mocking series is "Guy who asks about summer jobs":
Our favorite line: "Public interest is for gays and hippies."
To see more of the Real Men of Law School videos, check out the TaxProf Blog.
* Collected coverage of yesterday's Supreme Court oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Second Amendment case concerning D.C. gun control. [SCOTUSblog (linkwrap); How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* NJ prosecutors subpoena records from JuicyCampus.com (think AutoAdmit for college students). [AP]
* An update on former Lawyer of the Day Kwame Kilpatrick: the Detroit City Council wants him to resign as mayor, but he's vowing not to leave. [New York Times]
* Olympic gold-medal hottie who had "close personal relationship" with New York's latest Luv Guv, David Paterson, says he helped her land a government job. [New York Post via Drudge]
* The full transcript of yesterday's speech by Barack Obama on race. [Washington Post]
If you're a judiciary junkie who used to read Underneath Their Robes, the judicial news and gossip site that was our first foray into blogging, you may be mildly amused by this strange piece of spam.
* Dueling applications to register "Client 9" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Maybe Eliot Spitzer should object? [USPTO; USPTO]
* Speaking of trademark fights, who should have the rights to use “COCKAHOLIC”? (An aside from Prof. Marc Randazza: "I’m surprised this wasn’t simply rejected as allegedly 'immoral and scandalous.'”) [The Legal Satyricon]
* Remember Leona Helmsley's "rich bitch," who inherited $12 million from the late real estate queen? Here's more information about estate planning for pets, from lawyer and pet lover Rachel Hirschfeld (via Prof. Paul Caron). [TaxProf Blog]
* On the subject of New York real estate riches: Columbia law prof Hans Smit has apparently lowered the asking price on his Manhattanmansion to $25 million. A reader who caught the HGTV segment said: "The actual tour of the house with the good professor leading the way was pretty neat.... Check your schedule for HGTV." [HGTV]
We bring you news of a career move by one of America's most fabulous young lawyers. From a press release issued by WilmerHale:
WilmerHale is pleased to announce that Rachel L. Brand and Mark D. Nelson will join the firm's Washington, DC public policy and strategy practice focusing on congressional investigations, regulatory affairs and crisis management. Ms. Brand will also be active in the firm's government litigation and defense and national security practices. Ms. Brand was most recently Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy, where she served as chief policy and regulatory advisor to the Attorney General and managed the confirmation process for Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
Wait, hold on a sec -- Rachel Brand? As in young-conservative-superstar Rachel Brand, known in some circles as the Federalist Society Prom Queen?
Are you sure there hasn't been some mistake? Maybe Brand went to another D.C. law firm whose name starts with a "W," like Wiley Rein -- perhaps a more natural home for a prominent Republican attorney?
WilmerHale, after all, is one of Washington's most high-profile, left-leaning law firms. It's home to leading liberal lawyers like former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a possible Attorney General or Defense Secretary in a Democratic administration; former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, a possible judicial (D.C. Circuit?) nominee; Randy Moss, former head of the DOJ's super-elite Office of Legal Counsel; and Howard Shapiro, former general counsel to the FBI. [FN1]
But no, it's true -- Brand is at Wilmer Hale. Word on the street, in fact, is that the firm is actively looking for Republican lawyers like Brand and Nelson. Perhaps they need someone to hold down the fort when everyone bails to serve in the Obama Administration?
We spoke to Rachel Brand yesterday, her first day of work. You know how useless first days can be -- paperwork, orientation, technology training. "They taught me how to turn on my computer," she quipped.
As for her new gig, Brand expressed excitement about the opportunity to join WilmerHale, "a great firm with some incredible lawyers." She noted the abundance of lawyers with government experience at WilmerHale and said that her skill set fit well with the firm.
We wish Brand and Nelson the best of luck in their new professional home.
(We tried to contact Nelson but were unable to reach him. The WilmerHale telephone operator did not have an extension for him. Perhaps he isn't in the office yet? If he is, someone needs to give his phone number to the receptionist.)
[FN1] As it turns out, a number of prominent Republicans are current or former WilmerHale partners. E.g., current partner Reginald Brown, who most recently served in the White House Counsel's office, and former partner C. Boyden Gray, currently U.S. ambassador to the European UnionSpecial Envoy for EU Affairs.
As the BLT reported earlier this month, McKee Nelson has hired beauty queen Chelsey Rodgers, a 3L at Howard University Law School, who will be D.C.'s representative in the Miss USA competition. Although the firm has been trying to thin its ranks, we're sure that they can find room for Ms. Rodgers (just as Thacher Proffitt, in its recent personnel reductions, kept its former Playboy pinup on the payroll).
In an interview in Washingtonian magazine, Chelsey Rodgers described this embarrassing moment:
"I lost a boob cup once. It's one of the tools of the trade, but I was uncomfortable with it. I told the girls before we went out: 'If you see something fall out of me, just act like nothing happened.' I could sense it shifting as we walked out and it came out on me. All you can do is act like nothing happened."
Quips our tipster, "Let's hope she doesn't lose any 'boob cups' whilst 'thumping the table in the courtroom.'" [FN1]
Here's a question (which you don't need to emerge from a soundproof booth to answer): What is up with beauty queens and the law? See, e.g., Erika Harold (Harvard), Victoria Kush (Florida International), and -- last, but definitely not least -- Kumari Fulbright (University of Arizona).
Why do these beauty pageant winners gravitate towards the legal world? Especially when, in a sad commentary on gender equality in the law, they could arguably earn more as escorts? As Stanford law professor and sociologist Michele Landis Dauber recently told us, for our column in this week's New York Observer:
“It is unfortunately true that plenty of women, Silda Spitzer included, probably have a better chance of making five diamonds at the Emperor’s Club than they do of becoming an equity partner at Dechert, Mayer Brown, Blank Rome, Kramer Levin, or Cravath.”
[FN1] Don't feel bad if you weren't familiar with a boob cup; we weren't. But Kashmir Hill, ATL's breath of fresh estrogen, explained:
"A boob cup is one of those stick-on bra things. You get two cups that you essentially adhere to yourself. They don't tend to work that well for anyone larger than a B cup."
Sorry we're late to the party on this HuffPo post, bearing the provocative title "Law Firm Segregation Reminiscent of Jim Crow." It's by Yolanda Young, a former staff attorney at Covington & Burling. Her claim, in a nutshell, is that Covington fills the ranks of its "staff attorney ghetto" with African-Americans, while the ranks of its partnership and partnership-track associate pool are overwhelmingly white.
Young's post has already been discussed at Legal Blog Watch and the WSJ Law Blog. But considering how we love to fan flames of racial tension follow the issue of diversity in the legal profession so closely here at ATL, of course we're going to cover it.
Here's an excerpt (emphases added):
Blacks at Covington comprise less than 5% of the Washington office's partners and associates, but make up 30% of its staff attorneys. A peek at the firm's website doesn't reveal this since, unlike all other lawyers there, staff attorneys aren't pictured. Were they, a peculiar pattern would emerge.....
Covington's black staff attorneys (like its black partners and associates) hail from top law schools like Harvard, Duke and Georgetown while several white associates and partners attended schools like Catholic, Kentucky and Villanova (all ranked well below 50). Taken as a whole, the black staff attorneys' average law school rank is higher than that of white staff attorneys at the firm.
Blacks bought into the notion, stressed by legal literature, ranking systems and law firm recruiting departments, that investing in a top legal education is paramount for those wishing to work at top law firms. It's disheartening to then discover that the black student who borrows $120,000 to attend Georgetown will only earn half that of the white associate who's paid $60,000 to attend the University of Maryland.
Covington began stockpiling its staff attorney ghetto with blacks and other minorities in 2005, shortly after the General Council [sic] of some of the country's largest companies joined Roderick A. Palmore, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Sara Lee in taking a tougher stance on law firm diversity. Signed by hundreds of General Counsel, this new "Call to Action" states they will retain firms that demonstrate a level of diversity reflective of their employees and customers and end their relationship with firms "whose performance consistently evidences a lack of meaningful interest in being diverse."
Covington has certainly diversified its firm; however, its attorneys are far from equals. The vast majority of Covington's black attorneys do no substantive work, have no control over their case assignments and no opportunity for advancement. This seems to be just the sort of structure the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warned against in its 2003 "Diversity In Law Firms" report which stated, "In large, national law firms, the most pressing issues have probably shifted from hiring and initial access to problems concerning the terms and conditions of employment, especially promotion to partnership."
You can read the rest of the post -- it's quite lengthy -- over here.
What explains our delay? We were doing the MSM thing of waiting to hear back from Covington before posting (instead of just going ahead and writing about it, which would have been the more bloggy thing to do). They just got back to us, a few minutes ago; here is the first part of their statement:
We have long been committed to equal opportunity at all levels of hiring. Our ongoing efforts show positive results. In the case of our staff attorneys, we've been very successful in recruiting African-American lawyers. We attribute our success to a number of factors. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, which we will likely further enhance in the near future. This includes the innovative benefit of pay for pro bono work, and our staff attorneys average about 70 hours of pro bono work a year. Our staff attorneys are a stable, productive and respected part of our workforce. Part of this stability can be attributed to our recruitment process, which has benefited from the great number of referrals from our current staff attorneys.
The rest of the Covington statement appears after the jump.
In addition to reading Young's post and the coverage of it, check out the material on the rest of her blog for background. Props to her for coming up with such headline gems as "Think of my mouth as your next sexual partner."
P.S. Disclaimer: Please note that Kashmir Hill, former Covington & Burling paralegal, had no role in the writing of this post.
Several tipsters nominated this story for ATL's Lawsuit of the Day.
A businessman claims in a lawsuit that he was injured when a stripper giving him a lap dance swiveled and smacked him in the face with the heel of her shoe.
Stephen Chang, a securities trader, said in court papers filed Friday that he was at the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison Square Garden and was getting a paid lap dance when the accident occurred early Nov. 2, 2007.
According to the lawsuit, as the dancer swung around, the heel of her shoe hit him in the eye, causing him ''serious injuries.''
At least the heel just him in the eye. We agree with one tipster who said:
You have to love the name of the club, too - "Hot Lap Dance Club". Really? They couldn't come up with anything better?
We surfed on over to the Hot Lap Dance Club website:
Our dancers are all ''hand picked'' and are among the most beautiful women in New York City with killer bodies.
Killer bodies, eh? We wonder if Mr. Chang will use this in his case as proof of intent.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:25 PM - By Kashmir Hill
Last year, the TV networks and their "fleeting expletives" won their case against the Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC... and the public's right to hear Jane Fonda use the "c" word as necessary.
The Second Circuit held that, contrary to the commission’s policy under the Bush administration, the agency could not punish television stations for broadcasting “fleeting expletives,” or blurted obscenities. At the time, F.C.C. officials expressed concern that the opinion could hamper the ability of the commission to regulate any speech on television or radio.
Kevin J. Martin, the chairman of the commission, said on Monday that he was pleased that the high court would review the issue. Last June, he said he was “disappointed for American families” because of the Second Circuit ruling.
“The commission, Congress, and most importantly, parents understand that protecting our children in our greatest responsibility,” Mr. Martin said. “I continue to believe we have an obligation, then, to enforce laws restricting indecent language on television and radio when children are in the audience.”
American families everywhere are rejoicing.
For background on the Second Circuit's ruling, check out this excellent New York Journal article:
The FCC planned to sanction the network first for Cher's comment at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, when she said "f**k 'em" about critics who had repeatedly said her career was over.
Richie followed at the 2003 awards by saying "Have you ever tried to get cow s**t out of a Prada purse? It's not so f**king simple."
Who would have thought that Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie's adventures on the Simple Life would spur a Supreme Court case? We hope to hear Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read Nicole Richie's quote aloud during arguments.
While last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on hindsight is still open, today's survey ponders the uncertain future. And Bear Stearns's effect thereon.
Nathan Koppel has an interesting post on the WSJ Law Blog about which firms might miss Bear Stearns business. Verdict: it's murky, but probably not that great for Latham, Skadden, Cadwalader, or Weil Gotshal, and a mixed bag for WilmerHale. (Wachtell and Cravath weren't mentioned in the post, but since Wachtell advised J.P. Morgan in the deal, and Cravath represented Lazard as financial advisor to Bear, they might experience some short-term upside.)
John Carney has an interesting post on Dealbreaker about how the Bear Stearns collapse affected the chairman's bridge game. Verdict: the guy was playing bridge??
And the litigation's already afoot (PDF), suggesting that somebody out there is going to get to bill some heavy hours for the defense.
But how will it affect you? Will work slow down as investors circle the wagons, or will there be a regulatory response that actually increases the need for lawyers? Will shareholders' fear of fire sales increase bankruptcy and litigation work?
Meet Richard Hohensee. He's a homeless man here in Washington, who has been living on the D.C. streets for some two years -- which has been "very convenient," since he's running for president (see here). We met him yesterday outside the Supreme Court, during our recent field trip.
Rick Hohensee is highly intelligent and articulate, with detailed views on the Second Amendment and the proper disposition of the Heller case, which is being argued before the Supreme Court as we post this. In case you can't read it in the video, this is the text of his sign:
Could this be the first time in human history that the name of a D.C. Circuit judge has appeared on the sign of a homeless man? (D.C. Circuit judges who get nominated to the Court, and protested as SCOTUS nominees, don't count.)
In this short video clip, Mr. Hohensee explains why he believes Judge Silberman erred:
Two more videos featuring Rick Hohensee, in which he explains his support for Obama and his own presidential bid, after the jump.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:15 AM - By Kashmir Hill
VS.VS. New York and New Jersey's rivalry has spilled over into sex scandals. New Jersey started the battle way back in 2004. Then-Governor James McGreevey resigned and announced he was a "gay American," who had carried on an affair with a male aide. This month, New York belatedly responded, when Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor amid a prostitution scandal.
New Jersey filed its reply brief. From the New York Post:
A former driver and aide to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey yesterday made the bombshell claim that Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them.
In an explosive interview with The Post, the McGreeveys' self-professed man in the middle, Teddy Pedersen, gave explicit details of three-way sex romps that he claimed to have had with the now-divorcing duo, starting during their courtship and continuing into the marriage.
Note: when conducting sex scandals, New Yorkers choose the Mayflower Hotel, while Jersey folks opt for drinks at T.G.I.F.'s:
"We called it the Friday Night Special," Pedersen said. The "intense" escapades, he said, usually began with a "couple of drinks" at a local T.G.I. Friday's and culminated in "a hard-core consensual sex orgy" between the three of them at McGreevey's Woodbridge condo.
So as far as nasty sex scandals, we declared a victory for New Jersey -- but then New York filed a petition for rehearing! The Daily News reports that new Governor David Paterson and his wife have both carried on extramarital affairs for years:
In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.
In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.
We are unable to name a "Dirtiest Governor Sex Scandal" victor just yet. We are mildly overwhelmed. We wish the McGreeveys, the Spitzers, the Patersons, and "Kristen" would just have one big orgy, to make our news coverage easier.
Heather Mills was awarded nearly $50 million yesterday in her divorce from Paul McCartney. CNN has video of Mills speaking with reporters after the verdict. Mills says:
It was an incredible result in the end to secure mine and my daughter’s future and that of all the charities that I obviously plan on helping and making a difference with.
The funny way Mills says "obviously plan on helping" in the video made us surf over to her official website and look at her charities. The charities seem like a collection of photo opportunities: Heather in a hard hat with a landmine sign, Heather with limbs, etc.
We also discovered a bizarre "Heather's Friends" section, which includes video testimonials from Richard Branson and Hillary Clinton. Weird.
Mills spends a good amount of time ranting about the law courts' conspiracy against litigants who represent themselves:
Obviously the court do not want a litigant in person to do well, it’s against everything that they ever wish, so when they write the judgment up they’re never going to make it look in favor.
We would just like to point out that Mills requested nearly $251 million and only received a fifth of that. And now her daughter has to fly coach. We hope her daughter does not ever have to use American Airlines.
* "Are we headed for another Great Depression?" [McClatchy]
* Quelle surprise: Bear Stearns shareholder lawsuit (filed in S.D.N.Y. by Coughlin Stoia). [Bloomberg; WSJ Law Blog (PDF of complaint)]
* Speaking of Bear Stearns, here are some law firms losing out on BSC business. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Tenth Circuit reverses convictions of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio. [AP]
* Harvard Law School will pay the 3L tuition of future students who agree to work for nonprofit organizations or government for five years following graduation. [New York Times via Tax Prof Blog; Harvard Law School (news release)]
* Settlement in Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce (more on this later). [Legal Week]
* SCOTUS to hear Second Amendment / D.C. gun control case today (more on this later too). [New York Times; Reuters]
We probably won't cover judicial clerkship bonuses quite as closely as we used to, now that Justin Bernold has put together this handy table of clerkship bonus info. But we did want to bring your attention to one development, since several of you emailed us about it. This message is representative:
Just to let you know, JD has just changed their website to reflect a $50K clerkship bonus. Despite all the bad things said about JD on ATL, they are at least keeping pace with clerkship bonuses. Hope this spurs some positive commentary....
Thanks for providing a great service to lawyers everywhere!
For ATL's table of clerkship bonuses, which has been corrected to reflect the JD information, click here.
P.S. For the record, we don't think the Jones Day buzz here has been that bad. Sure, there have been some negative comments, but that's true of almost every firm under the sun. And we've heard from Jones Day defenders as well.
* News you can use: when your economic stimulus rebate check -- $600 (single) or $1,200 (married), plus $300 per child under age 17 -- will be in the proverbial mail. [TaxProf Blog]
* Will London overtake New York as a global financial capital? What are the prospects for a major US/UK law firm merger? Bruce MacEwen reports from London. [Adam Smith, Esq.]
* More apparel inspired by L'Affaire Spitzer. This T-shirt carries a pro-safe sex message. [Cafe Press]
* Speaking of dear old Eliot, he's featured in a new print ad from Virgin Mobile Canada. [QuizLaw]
* Happy St. Patrick's Day! But when to celebrate it? And what does it mean to be Irish today? Some reflections from Professor William Birdthistle. [Chicago Tribune]
* Special St. Paddy's Day wishes to Senator Barack O'Bama. But if the phone rings in the White House at 3 a.m., do you really want a Leprechaun taking the call? [Blogonaut]
* Finally, Daithí Mac Síthigh hosts Blawg Review #151, from Dublin. [Lex Ferenda via Blawg Review]
We just got back from visiting the Supreme Court, where we hung out with the (sizable and growing) crowd of people camped out at One First Street, so they can get seats in the courtroom for tomorrow's argument in the D.C. gun control case, District of Columbia v. Heller (previously discussed here).
We'll have more in subsequent posts. For now, we pass along this highlight. It's a video of Alan Korwin and Robert Blackmer -- strong supporters of Second Amendment rights, and members of a group called "The Cartridge Family" -- singing their own unique version of "That'll Be the Day," with alternative lyrics. Check it out:
1. Layoffs did take place at EAPD last week. The number of associates who were laid off was "less than ten," according to management.
2. Management gave assurances that there will be no more terminations (although they also stated that they could have made deeper cuts than they actually did).
3. The firm posted the following on the intranet, and sent associates a link to the posting: "Although the firm grew in 2007, we did not grow as much as our staffing grew... As a result, today we undertook the very difficult process of eliminating a small number of attorney and staff positions. The decision to let go personnel was very difficult, but necessary given the changes in the economy over the past several months. We believe that these steps ensure that we will remain a strong, successful firm.
(Our source observes: "I'm not sure why they would post it on a website other than to make it difficult to forward.")
4. Management downplayed the impact of partner John Hooper's departure.
5. Most people do not know the individuals terminated and the departments affected, although litigation is rumored to have taken the brunt of it.
Here is, by our count, the list of firms that have openly acknowledged layoffs or "layoff-esque" personnel moves (e.g., buyouts of the "leave or you'll probably be laid off" variety): Cadwalader, Clifford Chance, Dechert, Edwards Angell, McKee Nelson, and Thacher Proffitt.
If we're missing a firm, please email us. Please include some documentation of the firm acknowledging the layoff or other personnel action, internal or external (e.g., an email from firm management, a link to a news article, etc.). Thanks.
Update: Confirmation and additional information from TheLawyer.com.
Under the leadership of the beloved Elena Kagan, Harvard Law School continues to raid other schools for law professor talent. Word on the street is that another big hire is in the works. This past weekend, Dean Kagan crowed about her coup before a group of admitted students, saying it would be announced later this week.
We checked for news and gossip over at Leiter's Law School Reports, the definitive source for information about senior-level appointments in legal academia, but didn't see anything. Any guesses as to who will be snatched by HLS next?
In addition to the Harvard name (and endowment), Dean Kagan has other weapons in her arsenal for doing battle in the recruitment wars. She wooed Feldsuk with a million-dollar mansion, and Cass Sunstein with a million-dollar bab[e]. What fabulous prizes will Kagan bestow upon her latest hire?
Feel free to speculate and opine in the comments, or by email. Thanks.
We received 1,189 responses to last Monday's survey on whether you would want to work in a different city. A whopping 88% of respondents said they would consider moving to a new city to practice. Sixty-eight percent cited a better lifestyle as a reason to move, while 45% would move for more money. Thirty-eight percent of respondents would move for a better practice, and 35% would be willing to move to be closer to friends or family. Only thirteen or fourteen percent, however, would move to be closer to a spouse or significant other, suggesting that most respondents are either single or willing to be.
Responses: Would you consider moving to a new city to practice?
Where would you go? The Bay Area was the most popular destination, chosen by twelve percent of respondents. Another nine percent chose London. Eight percent would move to either the Pacific Northwest or Washington, DC. Six percent chose LA, Texas or Chicago. Five percent chose Boston, New York or Atlanta. Less than four percent would move to Paris, Hong Kong or Dubai to practice, and only a handful would consider Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, or Frankfurt. Quite a few people wrote in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Denver, Miami, and San Diego as their preferred destinations, putting them in about the same range as Tokyo.
Can you get there without updating your resume? Maybe not. Only a third of respondents thought their current firm would allow them to change offices. A quarter said no, and the rest weren't sure.
The Supreme Court gets to enjoy the media spotlight this week as it dives into the always contentious Second Amendment. An article in Sunday's Washington Post has a good breakdown of the issues at stake:
The nine justices, none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment's meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years.
"This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to be interpreting the meaning of an important provision of the Constitution unencumbered by precedent,'' said Randy E. Barnett, a constitutional scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center. "And that's why there's so much discussion on the original meaning of the Second Amendment.''
Facing the highest firearm murder rate among the States, the District of Columbia passed a law in 1976 virtually banning the possession of handguns. As a sidenote: The District also changed the name of its basketball team from the questionably violent "Bullets" to the "Wizards" in 1997.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the ban last year, and now SCOTUS has got to get up in it. In a Wall Street Journal column this month, Laurence Tribe revealed that he will do a little happy dance if the Court decides narrowly. Moderation...yawn...
Using a case about national legislative power over gun-toting in the capital city as a vehicle for deciding how far Congress or the state of California can go in regulating guns in Los Angeles would be a silly stretch.
Chief Justice John Roberts, ever since his days as a judge on the court of appeals, has virtually defined judicial modesty by opining that if it is not necessary for the court to decide an issue, then it is necessary for the court not to decide that issue. For this reason, and for the further reason that the scholarship on the reach of the Second Amendment and its implementation is still in its infancy, the court should take the smallest feasible step in resolving the case before it.
Issuing a narrow decision would disappoint partisans on both sides and leave many questions unresolved. But to do anything else would ill-suit a court that flies the flag of judicial restraint.
Supreme Court vs. the Second Amendment may be as exciting as a Duke vs. UNC basketball game. People are camping out overnight to watch the argument tomorrow! A tipster on location reports that there are already 14 people in line, the first one having arrived at 5:30 a.m.
Of course, no decision's expected until the end of the term in June. While we wait, we'll keep challenging people in bars to name all the Supreme Court Justices. And watch Charlton Heston movies.
Hiring partners and recruiting coordinators at Wachtell and S&C, it's time to break out the champagne:
CRAVATH HAS BEDBUGS!!!
Yes, that's right. The Worldwide Plaza headquarters of Cravath, Swaine & Moore -- perhaps the country's most prestigious law firm, and one of its most profitable -- has some unwelcome visitors. And no, 2L interview season ended months ago.
Here's what we've learned, from multiple sources at CSM:
1. An email was sent around Cravath last week about the presence of bed bugs at the firm.
2. A few bedbugs were found on two floors, the 21st floor and the 41st floor, which are being fumigated.
3. Two employees had bedbugs in their apartments and told the firm, which caused the firm to investigate.
4. The 21st floor is a paralegal / administration floor, but the 41st floor is a litigation floor -- which means that one of the two employees may be a lawyer.
6. Both of the employees are still with the firm (i.e., they have not been fired, like the poor soul at Cadwalader who, rumor has it, got canned after self-reporting).
7. The email about the bed bug problem was protected against forwarding or copying.
Apparently Cravath and Cadwalader have something in common other than the Bear Stearns deal. [FN1]
As you may recall, in June 2007, Cadwalader reported a bedbug problem. A few months later, they announced lawyer layoffs.
Are associate layoffs like bedbugs? Will they start off at relatively less prestigious firms -- we say "relatively," since Cadwalader is still plenty prestigious (#26 on the Vault 100) -- and move all the way to the top of the list? Will Rodge Cohen and Ed Herlihy be scratching themselves furiously as they negotiate the next big bank merger?
Words of wisdom to incoming Cravath summer associates: go to as many events as you can, and spend as little time as possible at the Death Star. May the force be with you.
We contacted Cravath, which declined comment through a spokesperson. If you have anything to add on the situation, please feel free to email us. Thanks.
[FN1] The bedbug email went around Cravath before the JP Morgan Chase / Bear Stearns deal was initiated. So there would be no merit to a conspiracy theory that Cadwalader gave the cooties to Cravath by sneaking them into a box shipment destined for Worldwide Plaza.
A 21-year-old Harris County woman filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines alleging employees on a flight to Los Angeles from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport failed to protect her while she slept from another passenger who masturbated to her and ejaculated in her hair, according to a lawsuit she filed last week in Tarrant County.
Anyone who's seen the movie Red Eye knows flight attendants are oblivious to women being terrorized by strange men on planes.
Here are the traumatizing details:
The woman slept most of the flight, but awoke about 20 minutes before landing when the pilot announced the plane was on descent into Los Angeles. When the woman opened her eyes, she saw that an unknown man had moved into the seat next to her and was staring at her as he masturbated, the suit states.
The woman turned toward the window in embarrassment and in an act of nervousness began to run her fingers through her hair where she noticed “a substantial amount of an extremely sticky substance in her hair,” the suit states.
We are tempted to remark on possible new definitions of red eye flight had she not turned away, but we think one tipster who sent this story along said it best:
* Stocks plummet around the world, in wake of deal by JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns on the cheap. [New York Times]
Update: If you're interested in learning which lawyers and law firms slaved away over the weekend on the Bear Stearns deal, see here.
* Fed takes action to fight crisis, but may be too late -- economy is f**ked (which everyone already knew). [Washington Post; New York Times]
* Lawyer for whore lectures media on ethics. [WSJ Law Blog]
* "Missed connection" between plaintiffs and appellate victory: Seventh Circuit rules Craigslist not liable for discriminatory ads. [How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* Pro se defendant successfully defends himself -- in a murder trial. No, not Jonathan Lee Riches. [Washington Post]
* Defendant doctors prevail in John Ritter malpractice suit. [CNN]
* Ruling expected today in Paul McCartney / Heather Mills divorce case. [AP]
* A compensation overview for in-house lawyers. [WSJ Law Blog]
Update: Thanks for the reminder. Professor Jeffrey Rosen's NYT magazine cover story, a long and detailed survey of the Roberts Court's business law jurisprudence, is available here.
[Ed. note: This post is by Friday's guest blogger, Kashmir Hill, who will be writing more for these pages going forward.]
We are starting off the week reverential when it comes to Judge of the Day. Virginia Circuit Court Judge Gary Hicks is dedicated to cracking down on crime in and out of the courtroom. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
When 70-year-old Susanne Thompson bled to death on the streets of Richmond in October, Hicks helped chase down her alleged assailant.
Here are the details on how Hicks trains for marathons AND fights crime:
On the crisp morning of Oct. 27, Hicks was running west on Broad Street with friends, 7 miles into a training run for a marathon two weeks away.
Suddenly across the street, Hicks and other runners saw a man bent over Thompson's body. She had been walking her dog, a common sight in the Fan District, where she was a beloved figure. Johnny Hughes, now awaiting trial in Thompson's death, was starting to get away.
Hicks chased him down and hung close. "I see it as sort of a duty. There are choices."
He darted into Broad Street traffic with another good Samaritan, stopped it and created a wall of metal that Hughes could not negotiate. A squad car got caught in the blockade, and the officer jumped out with his gun drawn.
I am a little confused by the action sequence involving the traffic. But creating a wall of metal is awesome. It's like Hicks is Magneto from X-men... but not a villain.
Our tipster writes:
Hicks is no joke. He's as a much a badass on the bench as he is on the street.
We are pondering who is more badass: Gary Hicks or mugger-fighting Judge of the Day alumnus Ira Robinson.
* Could Eliot Spitzer lose his law license? "Legal experts say such an outcome is unlikely, but not inconceivable." [City Room / New York Times]
* Meanwhile, for New York state law geeks, a question: In the event of a tie in the state senate, will Joseph L. Bruno -- as Republican majority leader, and as acting lieutenant governor (starting Monday) -- be able to vote twice? [City Room / New York Times]
* Misadventures in lawyer advertising. Maybe they can all go work for The Daily Show? [Connecticut Law Tribune]
* Judge Frank Easterbrook thinks that sometimes a bong is just a bong. [How Appealing]
* "Tales of a Law Professor Lateral Nothing": A look at "the mysterious world of the law professor lateral hiring market," by Professor Paul Secunda. [SSRN]
* Speaking of law profs.... Law Professor of the Day? He also logged in to RateMyProfessors.com and gave himself a chili pepper. [TaxProf Blog]
* Celebrity professor Cass Sunstein has warm words for his buddy Barack Obama -- even though Barack didn't stand by Cass's lady friend, Samantha Power, during "Monstergate." [Chicago Tribune]
* Speaking of Her Monstrosity, Susan Lehman asks: Is Hillary Clinton's corporate law background hurting her candidacy? [American Lawyer]
* "Dickie Scruggs: Now that he’s been accused of pleaded guilty to bribery, there are questions about how he achieved so much." [ABA Journal]
Ladies, if you want to make partner, consider Dorsey & Whitney. The Project for Attorney Retention has just released a report (PDF) on the number of women among this year's new partners at 77 firms.
At a dozen firms, 50% or more of the new partners were women: Dorsey & Whitney (10 of 15 new partners are female, for 71%), Ropes & Gray (7 of 10 new partners are female, for 70%), Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (4 of 6 new partners are female, for 67%), Blackwell Sanders (8 of 12 new partners are female, for 67%), Cravath, Swaine & Moore (2 of 3 new partners are female, for 67%), Crowell & Moring (4 of 7 new partners are female, for 57%), DLA Piper (15 of 28 new partners are female, for 54%), Reed Smith (14 of 26 new partners are female, for 54%), Arnold & Porter (2 of 4 new partners are female, for 50%), Cadwalader (1 of 2 new partners is female, for 50%), Shearman & Sterling (3 of 6 new partners are female, for 50%), and Womble Carlyle (4 of 8 new partners are female, for 50%).
Women made up less than half of the new partners at the other 65 firms surveyed.
Some firms are in serious gender equality hot water. Here's the list of shame:
Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein did not make a single female partner (0 of 8 new partners were female). For others, only one or two women lawyers were awarded the brass ring: Orrick (1 of 13 new partners is female, for 8%), Proskauer Rose (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Nixon Peabody (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Baker & Daniels (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Vinson & Elkins (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (1 of 9 new partners is female), Akin Gump (2 of 15 new partners are female, for 13%), Milbank (1 of 8 new partners is female, for 13%), White & Case (1 of 7 new partners is female, for 14%), and Gibson Dunn (2 of 13 new partners are female, for 15%).
Three firms have had nearly all-dude partner classes for four years running: Akin Gump, Fried Frank, and Vinson & Elkins. For those of you flirting with a career move from lawyering to screenplay-writing, think: Charlize Theron fighting her way to partnership at Fried Frank, à la North Country.
Thanks to everyone who responded to our open call for Supreme Court clerk hiring news. We now know the identities of Justice David H. Souter's four law clerks for October Term 2008:
Congratulations to all. And if someone could put their names into Wikipedia, now that their hiring has been confirmed, that would be most appreciated.
We're still missing those last two Alito clerks. Are they playing a game of hide and seek with us? If you can give us a hint as to who they are -- or, better yet, name, rank, and feeder judge clerkship -- please email us.
Updated lists of the OT 2008 and OT 2009 SCOTUS clerks, with the DHS clerks added, after the jump.
When we used to sleep in class, we did so sitting up. Laying your head on the desk invites trouble:
Danbury officials have been notified they are being sued by a student who was awakened in class by a teacher who made a loud noise. Documents filed with the Town Clerk, a prelude to a lawsuit, claim that a sleeping student suffered hearing damage when his teacher woke him up by slamming her hand down on the boy's desk in December.
Attorney Alan Barry says 15-year-old Vinicios Robacher suffered pain and "very severe injuries to his left eardrum" when teacher Melissa Nadeau abruptly slammed the palm of her hand on his desk on Dec. 4.
We welcome slamming and loud noises here at ATL.
Update: Since it's my first day, I appreciate your pointing out places where I can steal good material. We did not realize that Overlawyered also posted on this here.
If the economy keeps getting worse -- check out today's stock market meltdown and Bear Stearns debacle, discussed over at Dealbreaker -- law firms will need to replace the dried-up revenue streams from transactional practice. And this time around, it looks like the usual countercyclical practices -- e.g., litigation, bankruptcy -- aren't picking up the slack.
Fortunately, there's a growing cottage industry for Biglaw: renting out offices to film and television production companies. This message recently went out to everyone in the Washington office of DLA Piper:
Subject: Fox Pilot Shoot This Weekend
Please be advised that Fox Television Network will be filming a TV pilot shoot on Saturday, March 15, and Sunday, March 16, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., in our office space. They have been authorized to take photographs and shoot scenes of the interior and/or exterior of the building.
The areas to be filmed, include office locations 6050 and 6052, the hallway outside these 2 offices, the atrium, 7 Red, and the dining area of the cafe. 7 White will be used to store equipment and other items needed during the shoot.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
Thanks.
[xxxx]
And, no, they don't need any "extras" :)
Sorry, DLA Pipers. Your best shot at fame is still realitytelevision.
We've walked past the DLA Piper offices here in D.C. many a time -- they're very well-located, in the delightful Penn Quarter neighborhood -- and we've been impressed. The building is sleek, ultra-modern, and so well-lit that you can practically see the titles of the books on the shelves (yes, we've tried). It's not hard to imagine a movie or TV show being filmed on the premises.
But we have to ask: Fox? Is this damaging the DLA brand? Consider the following hierarchy of law firms and the productions they've hosted:
Oscar-winning feature film, starring George Clooney: Dewey Ballantine (with shared credit to Davis Polk).
Apparently, being the district attorney for the smallest county in Texas leaves one with a lot of free time. This Texan lawyer is on trial for building a tricked-out server using government funds. From The Dallas Morning News:
A computer that Rockwall County District Attorney Ray Sumrow says he built as a backup server for his office contained documents related to eBay sales, personal e-mails and a cheat sheet for a computer game, an FBI computer expert testified Monday morning.
I am guessing the computer game was Scrabulous and the cheat sheet was full of all the possible two letter words.
At least Sunrow has a plan B career option as a computer engineer:
The computer – equipped with two hard drives, seven fans, high-end video and audio cards, a wireless Internet connection and cables that glow under ultraviolet light – is designed for playing video games, prosecutors say.
Alan Timberlake, assistant director of information technology for Rockwall County, called the computer "gimmicky" and more suited to a college dorm room than an office.
Powerful plaintiffs attorney Richard ''Dickie'' Scruggs and a co-defendant pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to bribe a judge for a favorable ruling in a case involving legal fees from a post-Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.
The surprise plea came Friday during a hearing in Oxford, Miss. on pretrial matters, court officials said. His trial was set to begin at the end of the month.
Scruggs, 61, and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States. Scruggs' law partner and son, Zach, also is charged in the case but did not enter a plea and is expected to go to trial.
Prosecutors said they would recommend five years in prison for Scruggs and 2 1/2 for Backstrom, penalties significantly lower than what they could have faced.
Two quick thoughts. First, has Scruggs employed bribery as a tactic in other matters -- e.g., the tobacco cases that made him famous (and a movie star)? Second, could Mississippi give Louisiana a run for its money as most corrupt state in the union?
P.S. And maybe one could throw West Virginia into the running. Seehere (noting federal investigation of the West Virginia Supreme Court, in connection with the Massey Energy case).
P.P.S. No offense to any of the aforementioned states. Our home state of New Jersey is also up there -- or down there, as the case may be.
Update: From the ABA Journal: "Dickie Scruggs: Now that he’s been accused of pleaded guilty to bribery, there are questions about how he achieved so much."
Thanks to a Kansan sheriff, this great story now has the legal twist we hoped for. A 35-year-old woman sat on her boyfriend's toilet long enough to become stuck to it.
Criminal charges against her boyfriend are now in the works, according to the Kansas City Star:
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said Thursday he asked the county attorney to file charges against Kory McFarren for mistreatment of a dependent adult. The county attorney will decide whether any charges are brought.
By our count, the girlfriend spent Valentine's Day in the bathroom. If "food and water" did not include chocolates on February 14th, this guy is definitely guilty of mistreatment.
McFarren said she moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into clothes he brought her. He brought food and water to her. They had conversations and an otherwise normal relationship — except it all happened in the bathroom.
If we were to conduct a relationship in one room of the house, it would be the kitchen. And we would have a laptop.
Here is today’s Job of the Week, brought to you by Lateral Link. Over the last week, Lateral Link members received offers from Skadden Arps (Houston), Mayer Brown (New York), Gibson Dunn (San Francisco), Cooley Godward (LA), Clifford Chance (Warsaw), and Morgan Lewis (New York).
Position: Associate General Counsel
Location: Chicago, IL
Description: One of the top office products retailers in North America is seeking an Associate General Counsel to work in its Naperville, IL headquarters. The Corporate Counsel position will provide transactional legal counsel and other services to clients within the company. The successful candidate will be part of a team of attorneys whose primary responsibility is to review and negotiate all business transactions on behalf of the company, and to manage other legal issues common to a large, international organization. The position will report to a Vice President, Associate General Counsel. The candidate will have authority to select and hire outside counsel, consultants, and other professionals as necessary for handling legal transactions.
More information, about the company and the position (including the job code), after the jump.
As you may recall, when Governor Eliot Spitzer was told that "Kristen" would be servicing him, he asked what she looked like.
Here's what one student at the Spitzers' alma mater had to say on the subject, after seeing the Spitzers' 1984 HLS yearbook photos (in black and white, at right; the color photos are of Kristen):
Some have said young Silda kind of resembles Kristen the Call Girl.
Not sure I see it, but that's a depressing thought.
Actually, we kinda do see a resemblance. But since Spitzer is (or was) a politician, let's put it up to the popular vote:
While we're on the subject of the Spitzers and their Harvard Law School days, a different tipster tells us:
I'm in Alvin Warren's corporate tax class, and he said in class on Tuesday, when somehow the subject of him not teaching came up: "What would I be doing if I weren't teaching? I'd be like Spitzer -- doomed to be rich in New York. [Pause.] He took this class. As, alas, did his wife. I take no responsibility though."
Finally, as several of you noted in the comments to our earlier post, Silda Spitzer has canceled her HLS appearance, originally scheduled for today. For confirmation, see the Harvard Law Record (last paragraph). See also the program, where Silda Spitzer's name no longer appeals.
Move over, Eliot Spitzer and the Emperor's Club. The St. Petersburg Times has a story on a Florida judge accused of stealing money from a New York stripper:
Christy Yamanaka says she had sex with 2nd District Court of Appeal Judge Thomas E. Stringer Sr. three times during their 15-year friendship.
She paid him rent in a home he once owned in Hawaii, and now lives in a New York City apartment leased under his name.
She says the married father of five owes her hundreds of thousands of dollars that he helped hide from creditors.
I'm not sure why the number of times the judge and the stripper had sex is the lead on this story. But hey, it is interesting!
The details on the juicier financial dealings follow. Sometimes it's best not to keep it in the family:
Yamanaka said she contacted Stringer during the spring of 2004. She had declared bankruptcy in Las Vegas, and creditors won $315,000 in judgments against her. She hoped Stringer would help her sort out the legal mess.
The judge acknowledges that he referred Yamanaka to his son, Tampa attorney Daryl Stringer.
So, is it better to be "an Emperor" or "Your Majesty?"
Out of respect, she called Stringer "Your Majesty."
Yamanaka had lived in Japan for seven years and says the country revered judges almost like gods.
We're glad ATL is not based in Japan. We don't treat our Judges of the Day like gods -- unless we're in their courtrooms.
My name is Kashmir Hill, and I'll be David Lat's co-blogger for the day. Before digging into today's headlines, I'd like to introduce myself.
I'm a Washington, D.C., non-profiteer (aka low-paid nonprofit organization employee) and come to ATL from the journalism world. I manage international educational programs for journalists for the National Press Foundation. I also go to a lot of fun media awards dinners, like the Radio TV News Correspondents Dinner last March, where I watched Karl Rove rap and touched POTUS's elbow. It was at such a dinner where I had the pleasure of meeting ATL's editor-in-chief.
My legal experience is not limited to being surrounded by lawyers and law students in D.C. I did a post-college stint as a paralegal for Covington & Burling. Which convinced me not to go to law school.
Having lived in D.C. for five years, I've almost forgotten that there are people in the world who are not lawyers, journalists or government workers. Writing for ATL will allow me to stay in the law-journo bubble that is my comfort zone.
To be perfectly honest, we're getting tired of writing about the new U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. But judging from the number of comments on our earlier posts -- 1,153 and 575, as of this posting -- you're not tired of reading and talking about them. So, onward.
Continue reading "The U.S. News Rankings: More Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth"
(87) Comments
* A politically incorrect theory to explain the growing pay gap between male and female JDs. Opines Jane Genova: "No one likes The Professional Woman -- not women, not men, not children, not animals, not even The Professional Woman." [
Dominating today's news cycle is the Treasury Department's 
Several readers have written in to inquire about the status of the BAR/BRI class action litigation. Here's the latest update on the lawsuit 
Spring! Cherry blossoms, opening day, and pedigreed lawyers uniting in marriage. We're pleased to be back with another installment of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, featuring these three impressive couples:
* Media mogul smackdown: Barry Diller (pictured) prevails over his former mentor, John Malone, in Delaware Chancery Court. [
Every now and then, it's healthy to be reminded of the triviality of your daily preoccupations. From the 
* Was Barack Obama a "real" law professor at the University of Chicago? Or just a pseudo-prof? [
With respect to our 
What is it about Florida that causes its lawyers and litigants to misbehave so egregiously? Just last week, the Florida Supreme Court 
The law firm of 
Here is today’s Job of the Week, brought to you by our friends at 
Today's Lawyer of the Day has a political connection. He's a superdelegate to the Democratic convention, as well as an Obama supporter. From the 
* Sad news: "Jeffrey Epstein's accuser, Maximilian Cordero, has broken it off with boyfriend - lawyer - blogger William Unroch." [
Here's the answer (which may relate to our recent post about 
Unless you've always wanted an Australian accent. From the 
We don't know if there are many public defenders regularly reading ATL. For those who do, we salute you for putting up with clients like this one:
We have a strange obsession with 
So far, almost 1,000 ballots have been cast in this week's 
Disney World is one of those places that's magical through the eyes of a 5-year-old, but the realization of one of Dante's circles for adults. The long waits, the overpriced tickets and food, the body odor of foreign tourists, and the fear of being viciously attacked for cutting in line:
* Clear Channel and private equity firms sue banks they claim are balking on financing their buyout deal; injunctive relief secured. [
* Not as coveted as Miley Cyrus tickets, but some people will pay good money for access to a Supreme Court oral argument. Is this kosher? [
Picking our Lawyer of the Day was easy. Today the winning hand belongs to Ropes & Gray partner 
We reported 
Here's a round-up of interesting items pertaining to 
We've received approximately five hundred responses to last week's 
There's an interesting behind-the-scenes story in an appeal heard by the Supreme Court this week. The appeal concerns a South Carolina drug dealer and the definition of a felony. For details, see this 
Relax, folks. We are aware that the 2009 law school rankings of 
We linked to it yesterday 
* An account of Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Supreme Court argument. Depressing detail: he rented his morning coat. [
The New York Times is on a bit of a "bully" kick lately -- using their "bully pulpit," if you will. They recently ran this 
The latest major law firm to enhance its parental leave policy: 
A tipster sends us troubling news from the 
As many of you may recall, from our 
This month's 
Young New Hampshire lawyer Daniel Hynes, who is just 27, has earned a place among our Lawyers of the Day for extorting hair salons.
Coming soon to a theater near you: 
* State makes VA Tech families settlement offer to prevent litigation. [
There are already about a half-dozen major law school 
* Noted SCOTUS litigator Carter Phillips (right) promises Tony Mauro that he will drop the F-bomb and S-bomb before the Supreme Court. [
For some of Lawyers of the Day, things eventually 
Researchers at the University of Calgary have conducted a 
With JPMorgan quintupling its offer for Bear Stearns earlier this morning, it seems like an appropriate time to discuss last week's 
It sounds like Gibson Guitars is pissed that people prefer Guitar Hero remote controllers to real guitars. Gibson is seeking revenge on the hugely popular video game through 
Some ATL readers may find our 
Despite the recent turmoil in the economy and the stock market, all appears to be well at 
* A cool job opportunity for a college senior or recent undergraduate with an interest in the law: work for noted Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein. [
For the record, here's some follow-up on two Bay State lawyers previously discussed in these pages, who have been cleared of the charges against them. At least to some extent.
A second trial is currently underway. In that case, as reported in today's 
1. 
The markets are closed today for Good Friday, which is why it's a reduced-publication day here at ATL (and our sister sites, 
Poor 
We now know the identity of Dean Elena Kagan's 
This Florida attorney pops up in our pages often enough to have his own 
In today's 
The long-running NBC TV show, 
Confidentiality. Lawyers get lectured about it all the time. Despite all the warnings, attorneys young and old routinely get themselves in trouble through indiscretion (not just Eliot Spitzer).
CNN 
Last week, our colleagues over at Dealbreaker reported on 
The rumor making the rounds of lawyer and staff layoffs at 
The Washington office of 
Technically, this New Jersey judge is our Ex-Judge of the Day, since he retired in January for "health reasons." He is accused of PUI (presiding under the influence), bullying people in his courtroom, and tearing up a go-go bar. Oh, is that unusual behavior for a judge?
Our readers are certainly aware of the compensation/personal life trade-off involved in taking a high-paying law firm job. Salaries go up, but so do the billable hours. 
At ATL, we have a special place in our heart for the intersection of law and media. Thus, we are moved to report on the publisher of 
Based on all the non-sequiturs appended to 
If you have Eliot Spitzer fatigue, stop reading here. If not, feel free to continue.
Last week's 
While standing outside the U.S. Supreme Court building this morning, Georgetown Law student Sam Arora sent us this message (with photo):
If you're a judiciary junkie who used to read 
We bring you news of a career move by one of America's most fabulous young lawyers. From a press release issued by 
As the BLT 
Sorry we're late to the party on 
Several tipsters nominated this 
Last year, the TV networks and their "fleeting expletives" won their case against the Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC... and the public's right to hear Jane Fonda use the "c" word as necessary. 
VS.
VS.
Heather Mills was awarded nearly $50 million yesterday in her divorce from Paul McCartney. CNN has 
* "Are we headed for another Great Depression?" [
We probably won't cover judicial clerkship bonuses quite as closely as we used to, now that Justin Bernold has put together this 
* News you can use: when your economic stimulus rebate check -- $600 (single) or $1,200 (married), plus $300 per child under age 17 -- will be in the proverbial mail. [
We have confirmed the 
Under the leadership of the beloved 
The Supreme Court gets to enjoy the media spotlight this week as it dives into the always contentious Second Amendment. An 
Hiring partners and recruiting coordinators at Wachtell and S&C, it's time to break out the champagne:
1. An email was sent around Cravath last week about the presence of bed bugs at the firm.
We have another Lawsuit of the Day involving the 
[Ed. note: This post is by Friday's guest blogger, 
I am a little confused by the action sequence involving the traffic. But creating a wall of metal is awesome. It's like Hicks is 
* Could Eliot Spitzer lose his law license? "Legal experts say such an outcome is unlikely, but not inconceivable." [
* Celebrity professor Cass Sunstein has warm words for his buddy Barack Obama -- even though Barack didn't stand by Cass's lady friend, Samantha Power, during "Monstergate." [
Ladies, if you want to make partner, consider Dorsey & Whitney. The 
Thanks to everyone who responded to our 
A tipster sent us word of this 
If the economy keeps getting worse -- check out today's stock market meltdown and Bear Stearns debacle, discussed over at 
Apparently, being the district attorney for the 
This just in, from the 
Thanks to a Kansan sheriff, this 
Move over, Eliot Spitzer and the Emperor's Club. The 
So, is it better to be "an Emperor" or "Your Majesty?"
My name is Kashmir Hill, and I'll be David Lat's co-blogger for the day. Before digging into today's headlines, I'd like to introduce myself.
