The legal and tech blogs are abuzz with the news that retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is diving into the gaming world. From Wired's Game Life blog:

Delivering the keynote address Wednesday at the annual Games For Change conference at Parsons the New School For Design, O'Connor detailed a project she is spearheading called Our Courts, which she described as an "online, interactive civic education project for seventh- and eighth-graders" that familiarizes students with the legal system. O'Connor believes that America's youth aren't learning enough about civics, and thinks that the educational power of videogames is just the thing to change that.

"Only one-third of Americans can name the three branches of government," O'Connor said, "but two-thirds can name a judge on American Idol."

Executive, legislative, judicial -- boring! Crazy tales of Paula Abdul molesting Idol contestants -- exciting! We hope SOC realizes there needs to be an excitement factor if she wants to engage the kiddies. With this in mind, we suggest the following for the video game cover:

Sandra Day O'Connor: Game Designer [Wired]
Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games [Slashdot]
In Surprise to Herself, Justice O'Connor Makes Foray Into Digital Gaming [WSJ Law Blog]

Today's ATL / Lateral Link survey asks a question that a number of associates have been asking lately: Will your firm let you have children and a career at the same time?

Or, for that matter, are you even comfortable trying?

--
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.

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.

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.

Sex Case Against MA Guv's Aide Dropped [AP]
'Most eligible bachelor' acquitted in attempted rape case [Boston Globe]
Zerola team: Alleged victim sought $150G [Boston Herald]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: Carl Stanley McGee
Most Eligible Bachelor Becomes Considerably Less Eligible

Over the last couple of weeks, we've posted four sets of results from last month's ATL / Lateral Link survey on leave and part-time arrangements:

 • your thoughts on whether you would rather work fewer hours for less pay,
 • a running table of firms' paid maternity leave policies (mirrored here),
 • a breakdown of part-time and flex-time availability, and
 • a breakdown of childcare options (with slightly more detail provided informally here).

Today we address a fifth set of results, by popular demand: paternity leave.

As one tipster put it:

Can you also keep track of paternity leave? Firms will never really embrace work-life balance issues until they recognize that they affect both women AND men. Moreover, having lengthy maternity leave and poor paternity leave discriminates against gay couples and assumes that a woman will always be the primary caretaker.

The reason maternity leave is provided is because pregnancy is a legal disability. Therefore, employers (most of them) must provide you with the same rights as if you were disabled in any other way (if you've been there for a year), even though pregnancy is a voluntary disability. So if your firm has a 12-week disability, then it's 12 weeks etc. (See Pregnancy Discrimination Act if I'm wrong on any of this, I've only seen it tangentially).

So far, we've posted three sets of results from last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on leave and part-time arrangements:

 • your thoughts on whether you would rather work fewer hours for less pay,
 • a running table of firms' paid maternity leave policies (mirrored here and updated today to add King & Spalding), and
 • a breakdown of part-time and flex-time availability.

Today we'll discuss a fourth set of results: childcare support. But first, a fresh survey! One reader of the maternity leave results made an interesting point in the comments:

I would imagine these stats to be far less important to working moms than how permissive a firm is with flexible schedules. The maternity leave is a one time deal at the very beginning of the baby's life, but the child will need the mom to be there for far longer.

Also, family friendly policies such as long maternity leave and flex schedules provide significant benefits to society in general. Firms too benefit in many ways.

Some of yesterday's results suggest our tipster is right, but which policies really matter most to you? Let's find out:

We'll post results next week. In the meantime, find out how law firms fare on childcare options after the jump.

Results are still flowing in from last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on leave and part-time arrangements. So far, we're up to almost 700 responses, and we have received quite a few tips about maternity leave.

The running table of firms' paid maternity leave policies that we posted yesterday has now been updated to include new information on Heller Ehrman, Nixon Peabody, Kaye Scholer, Cahill Gordon, Kirkland & Ellis, Freshfields, Kramer Levin, Thelen Reid, Goodwin Procter, and to correct information on Winston & Strawn and Mayer Brown.

Today, let's talk about how associates view their firms' policies, and also explore the availability of part-time, flex-time, and other alternative work/life-styles.

Overall, it looks like firms have room to improve:

Discussion continues, after the jump.

Yesterday, we posted some preliminary results from last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey on leave and part-time arrangements. Today, we're going to get a little bit deeper into the maternity leave data.

We now have more than 600 responses, and roughly three-fifths of respondents have reported that their firms offer twelve weeks of paid maternity leave. Another 17% of respondents are at firms that have adopted an eighteen-week leave policy. Since some of you have been clamoring for charts (and others have been less enthusiastic), a chart showing the overall breakdown of responses is here.

Of course, the number of responses and the number of firms are different animals, so today we're going to start a running table of firms' paid maternity leave policies. Check it out, after the jump.

These announcements aren't the most exciting things to read (or report on). But we've spoken to a number of associates and law students, especially women, who follow them closely. So we'll continue posting them (and they're easy to skip over anyway).

The latest law firm to improve its parental leave policy is Mayer Brown. Check out their memo, issued earlier today, after the jump.

This blog has posted several entries over the last few months, and even this morning, about law firms updating their parental leave policies. That's a great trend in the industry, but there's probably not an associate pirate out there who doesn't still get at least a call a week from associates who want to go part-time, but just don't feel comfortable asking their firms.

So today's ATL / Lateral Link survey explores both the substance and the accessibility of your firm's policies.

The day is still young, but we already have our Lawyer of the Day -- and we doubt that anyone we hear about later today can steal this honor away from him. Via the Boston Globe:

A top official in the [Gov. Deval] Patrick administration has been placed on unpaid leave because he was arrested in Florida and charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male in a steam room at a $500-a-night Gulf Coast resort.

Carl Stanley McGee, 38, assistant secretary for policy and planning, is scheduled to be arraigned next week for sexual battery in Lee County, Fla.... According to police reports, McGee was arrested Dec. 28 and accused of performing oral sex on the 15-year-old, who was a guest at The Gasparilla Inn & Club, a 95-year-old hotel and championship golf course in Boca Grande.

As they like to say up in Massachusetts, "Thar he blows."

McGee, a former Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate, was previously a corporate lawyer at the law firm WilmerHale. He was instrumental in the movement seeking to defeat efforts to overturn legalization of same-sex marriage, serving as director of the civic and business outreach efforts of the advocacy group MassEquality.

A year after same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts in May 2004, McGee's wedding to John Finley IV was highlighted in the "Vows" section of The New York Times....

Known for his shock of platinum hair, McGee was named one of The Boston Globe's 25 most stylish Bostonians in November. In the article, he described his style as "traditional, but it's also subversive and ironic."

"Traditional," but "subversive." Sort of like married men engaging in steam-room hook-ups?

Good thing Carl McGee isn't running for office. We're reminded of the famous quotation by former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, who once boasted that he couldn't lose an upcoming election unless he was "caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

Update: Just a reminder that these are obviously mere allegations. Sources mentioned in the Globe article said they "were stunned by the news of McGee's arrest and said they do not believe the charges." One colleague of McGee told the paper, "I know it didn't happen."

Further Update: Best comment thus far, from an observant, Spanish-speaking reader: "He was arrested for blowing a 15 year old in... huhuhuh... Boca Grande..."

Key aide to Patrick accused of sex assault [Boston Globe]
John Finley IV and Stan McGee [New York Times]

For Monday's Lawyer of the Day, we faced an embarrassment of riches -- of embarrassment. So we nominated a quintet of contenders: a North Carolina lawyer caught reading Maxim in court, a former prosecutor who allegedly had sex with two teenage boys, an AUSA arrested on DUI charges, a Canadian lawyer/politician who allegedly overbilled an order of nuns, and a Chicago lawyer who keyed a Marine's car. Then we had you vote on who should take the honors.

Participation was enthusiastic, with almost 1,300 votes cast. Two contenders emerged early in the voting: Beth Modica, the allegedly predatory prosecutrix, and Jay Grodner, who pleaded guilty to keying the Marine's vehicle. Competition was fierce. But in the end, Mrs. Modica came out on top.

So congratulations, Beth Modica. You take the prize as Monday's Lawyer of the Day!

Read more about her alleged misadventures, after the jump.

Biglaw is becoming kinder and gentler. The number of large law firms enhancing their parental leave policies continues to grow. The latest to join the club: Debevoise & Plimpton.

From a (male) tipster:

18 weeks. Not bad. Of course, since I'm unlikely to give birth to a child anytime soon, I'll have to be satisfied with 10 weeks.

Also, what's with this "primary childcare giver" business? Of the new parents I've known, the first few months seemed like one needed at least two primary childcare givers, if not more. Eh, I doubt D&P will be sending auditors into associates' homes to check who bills the most hours with the baby.

The email announcing Debevoise's policy, plus a list of firms that have recently enhanced their parental leave policies, after the jump.

Defendants in deep doo-doo come up with all sorts of innovative defenses. Last week, we learned that fashion mogul Dov Charney, accused of sexually harassing a former employee, claimed in a deposition that when he appeared before the plaintiff wearing nothing but a strategically placed sock, he was merely testing a new line of underwear.

But this is even more dubious. At a murder trial underway in New York, a father accused of killing his seven-year-old stepdaughter has introduced into evidence a "World's Greatest Dad" mug she once bought for him.

If the mug has writing on it, you must acquit.

'World's Greatest Dad' Mug Seen In Nixzmary Trial [wcbstv.com]
Implausible defense department [Overlawyered]

* Does the Supreme Court's Stoneridge decision give the "getaway drivers" of securities fraud a free pass? [OverHedged]

* Apparently Green Bay fans really like the Packers. [SI.com]

* Miss Loyola 2L? Meet Kirsten Wolf. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Did Barack Obama receive an illegal endorsement? [TaxProf Blog]

* Speaking of Obama, his minister had this to say about Bill Clinton: "He did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky." Can someone please remove the cigar from the national vajayjay? [Baltimore Sun]

Sometimes we wish we had the breastses. Then we could enjoy the luxurious lactation room at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Back in this post, we wrote about the lactation room at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. We're sure it's plenty nice. But we doubt it's as snazzy as what the competition on the other side of Lexington Avenue is offering.

Check out this Davis Polk email, which went out late last year (exclamation mark in the original):

From: **** On Behalf Of Associate Development
To: all.lawyers.ny
Subject: Nursing Room

We are pleased to announce that the firm now has a private nursing room!

Located on the 10th floor, this cozy room is equipped with brand-new furniture, including a comfortable chair and end table, refrigerator, and reading materials of interest to new mothers. Access to the secure room is available through the Security Desk. A small sign on the outside of the door indicates when the room is occupied.

We hope that this amenity will provide returning mothers who wish to continue nursing their babies additional support during this important transition. Your privacy and comfort are our priority.

Please do not hesitate to contact [xxxx] or any member of the Associate Development Department if you have any questions. Thank you and congratulations to all of our new DPW Parents.

We're curious about the "reading materials of interest to new mothers" at DPW. Draft asset purchase agreements? SEC proxy filings?

Meanwhile, in other happy news for parents, Arnold & Porter has jumped on the improved parental leave bandwagon. Following the recent trend, which we've been following in these pages, they've increased the paid leave they provide to women who give birth or primary caregivers of a newly adopted child. It used to be 12 weeks; now it's 18 weeks, which appears to be the "market" rate these days.

Transmittal email, plus A&P's full leave policy, after the jump.

Earlier: Biglaw Perk Watch: Lactation Rooms

Today's Washington Post contains a very interesting article by Ian Shapira (who seems to love writing about lawyers; see here and here). It's the latest in a series of stories about well-educated young people in the D.C. area. Today's piece focuses on college-educated twenty-somethings, living in metro areas, who decide to buck the trend and have kids. Shapira writes:

[Erin] Rexroth, a former congressional aide, and her husband, Philip, 27, who works for the Department of Homeland Security, are defying the norm for their class and age group: They are raising a child. The majority of college graduates in their 20s in metropolitan regions postpone having kids until at least their 30s or never have any, according to recent demographic research.

Like anyone who strays from the generational pack, college-educated parents in their 20s often face questions about friendships, careers and their place in life. Although rearing children invigorates them like a high-profile job, these parents sometimes say they feel like guinea pigs among childless peers. They wonder whether it's possible to befriend older parents. Some say they feel isolated from friends, those who don't change diapers or deal with sleep deprivation.

Later in the story, an associate at Cadwalader is quoted about how she decided to have kids early so it wouldn't disrupt her path to partnership as much:

"By the time I'm at a point in my career where I am going to be making partner, my kids are going to be old enough to be playing on their own and sleeping on their own," said Erin Foley Lewis, 28, an associate at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who recently had twins. "If I had waited until 33 to have children, I'd have newborns at the time I would be up for partner."

Cadwalader -- they still make partners over there? They better not get into that habit, or their crazy leverage -- and sky-high profits per partner -- are sure to fall.

On the bright side, at least Ms. Lewis is (1) in litigation and (2) in Washington. So her chances of being laid off are relatively low.

Bringing Up Babies, And Defying the Norm [Washington Post]

Congratulations to former judge Roger Wall, who's getting a belated holiday gift. From the Springfield News-Leader:

After three indictments and nearly three years, a former Douglas County judge will not stand trial on child pornography charges, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. That's because repeated delays on the part of the U.S. Attorney's Office violated Roger Wall's right to a speedy trial.

In a stinging order dismissing the case, U.S. District Court Judge Richard E. Dorr called the government's handling of the case "disappointing" and "out of control." And unlike Dorr's dismissal of the same charges against Wall in September, Tuesday's ruling was "with prejudice," meaning attorneys may not refile charges.

So that's the end of that. What was Judge Wall accused of?

The case against Wall began in early 2005, when the government alleged the man was in possession of three tapes showing, among other things, a female minor having sex with her boyfriend. Acting on an anonymous tip, federal agents had seized envelopes containing the videos from an Ava woman's residence. Wall was alleged to have given the items to the woman for safe keeping.

It's especially troubling when a judge stands accused of such offenses, since they have no excuse for such behavior. If they have a weakness for youthful flesh, they ought to just stick to their clerks.

Earlier: Former judge will not face trial in porn case

Birth leave sought for girls [Denver Post via Drudge Report]

Earlier: Biglaw Perk Watch: Hogan & Hartson Announces Enhanced Leave for Childbirth and Adoption

(We missed this case because it happened over the holidays, when we were away from ATL. But we've received several requests to cover this super-juicy story, so we'll go for it, despite being so late to the party.)

We described Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy, a lawsuit by a Jewish associate against his former law firm, as "the Jewish version of Aaron Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell." Now we're looking at "the pervert-who-has-sex-with-13-and-15-year-old-sisters version of Charney v. S&C."

From the New York Daily News:

A disgraced lawyer who paid a mother to allow him to have sex with her underage daughters is looking for a payday of his own - from the elite law firm where he once worked.

James Colliton is suing Cravath, Swaine & Moore for $1.45 million, accusing the white-shoe firm of stiffing him on an annual bonus, salary and vacation pay.

Reached by phone at his home in Poughkeepsie, the convicted sex offender refused to talk about his suit, which was handwritten on notebook paper.

"It's all in there," Colliton said.

That's what he told her. Also, we'd expect better than a complaint "handwritten on notebook paper" from James Colliton. If Aaron Charney can type up his pro se complaint against his former firm, surely an ex-Cravath lawyer can do the same.

More discussion, beyond the jump.