If you have a job these days, especially a job at a high-paying law firm, you should be grateful, right? Right.

But that doesn’t mean work is all sunshine and lollipops. Many attorneys continue to experience a high amount of stress, which often manifests itself in the form of illness. A friend who works at a law firm sent us this suggestion:

I’m swamped, but I had to run out of the office for a doctor’s appointment. I was diagnosed with an ulcer last year, and apparently it still hasn’t healed.

Maybe you should do an ATL piece on ostensibly stress-related illnesses suffered by attorneys. What are some of the most “popular” maladies suffered by attorneys at an inappropriately young age?

Good question. Take our survey, and a stroll through the various maladies that have afflicted Elie Mystal, after the jump.

As Justice Brandeis famously observed, “[s]unlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” A certain amount of transparency keeps organizations honest and ethical. Alas, it seems that some law firms, like vampires, have a lower tolerance for sunlight than others.

In late August, we ran an offer rate open thread. There were over 550 comments, and some of the ones about WilmerHale were a little disturbing. They came to our attention when an individual weighing offers from WilmerHale and other top law firms sent us this message:

Could you follow up on all of the negative comments re: WilmerHale in your Summer Offer Rate Open Thread? I’m considering an offer from this firm, and there seem to be a ton of disgruntled associates there. The whole thing seems to center around an internal memo warning associates not to send tips to ATL. This deserves some investigation. Thanks for running an excellent blog.

So we took a closer look at the WH comments on the thread. Like this one:

The firm has made it abundantly clear that no one should provide tips to ATL or post comments. The clear message is that if caught, you’ll be fired. I, however, have already been “transitioned out”, so I have nothing to worry about other than feeding my family.

And this one:

Didn’t you just love the scathing internal memo meant to scare the living &*^$ out of those who were even thinking about tipping ATL? Apparently it worked, because it didn’t end up here (though it should have). I guess the few that were spared from the bloodbath are shaking in their boots.

We haven’t received the memo itself — yet — but we certainly received an awful lot of detail about it.

More reactions to the memo, plus comment from the firm, after the jump.

* Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest has been officially expunged from the record. It’s almost like it never happened, kind of like Apocalypto. [TMZ]

* The FTC is requiring bloggers who review products to disclose their connections with advertisers. Our sister site Fashionista has some questions. [Fashionista]

* George Washington Law School got the U.S. News law school rankings message. Man, that U.S. News is one powerful magazine. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The dangers of being a process server could make for a movie subplot. [Adventures in Process Serving]

* Is Georgetown Law professor Chai Feldblum, nominated to serve on the EEOC, the victim of a smear campaign? [Re:Act / The NLGJA Blog]

* Mental note: Do not piss off Matt Taibbi. [True/Slant]

* Last call for entries for ATL’s law firm swag contest. (We’ve been disappointed by the submissions so far.) [Above the Law]

* Next up for Erin Andrews and Bingham McCutchen? Maybe suing Marriot and Ramada. [Legal Blog Watch]

* District Judge Stefany Miley, who replaced district Judge Elizabeth Halverson, is also allegedly a victim of domestic violence. Vegas baby. Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there. [Legally Unbound]

* Silicon Valley lawyer Craig Johnson, founder of Venture Law Group, RIP. [WSJ Law Blog]

* We got to him first, but do check out Forbes’s interesting profile of Ted Frank, who’s “on a mission to protect consumers from their own class action lawyers.” [Forbes]

* Apparently Macy’s can’t even afford a shredder. That doesn’t bode well for this year’s Thanksgiving Day parade. [Missouri Lawyers Weekly]

* Social Networks: Friends or Foes? Check out this conference at Berkeley later this month, featuring such folks as Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy and ATL’s own David Lat. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Today is World Teachers’ Day, a.k.a. World “wash your hands and don’t give me swine flu you nasty urchin” Day. [Solo Practice University via Blawg Review]

There has been so much talk about the death of Biglaw that the term has become a cliché. These are challenging times, to be sure. But many firms are in the process of adjusting to the market, by making long-term plans to revise their business models so they can thrive in the future.

One such firm is O’Melveny & Myers. About a month ago, the firm released a five-year strategic plan to its associates and counsel. At a time when some firms are keeping their employees in the dark about long-term issues, O’Melveny — to its credit — decided to let its people know what management is thinking.

Above the Law has obtained a copy of this five-year plan. The document outlines how O’Melveny intends to compete going forward. Instead of aiming for marginal cost savings by making a few cutbacks here and there, the O’Melveny memo tries to rethink the firm’s overall business model — and gives us a chance to talk, once again, about the long term viability of Biglaw.

Let’s take a look into the O’Melveny’s — and perhaps Biglaw’s — future, after the jump.

* If you’ll be in D.C. on Wednesday, September 23, come to this panel on New Media and the Law, featuring Lat, Tony Mauro of the National Law Journal, and Matt Welch from Reason magazine. [Georgetown Federalist Society]

* Did Serena Williams threaten that line judge at the U.S. Open? [Junior Ganymede]

* “In defense of Serena Williams.” [Deadspin]

* One associate’s positive outlook on his first week on the job. [Young Lawyers Blog]

* U.S. News ranks economic diversity too. [Tax Prof Blog]

* I’m pretty sure I saw a real-life ad like this while watching reruns of The Practice. [Litination]

* This week’s Blawg Review is devoted to graduates from our Douchiest runner-up.
[Blawgletter via Blawg Review]

Skadden has decided to significantly reduce the size of its summer class for 2010. In a charming move, the firm told the media before informing law schools and prospective summer associates. Am Law Daily reports:

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is cutting the size of its 2010 summer associate class by half and adjusting its recruitment strategy by making all of its offers on a single day in late September, according to a copy of a letter the firm will send to prospective summers.

Does this give new meaning to the term “half-Skadden”? (Gavel bang: commenter.)

Skadden hired 225 summer associates this year and expects to hire a little more than 100 next year, though the precise figure will depend on offer acceptance rates, says Howard Ellin, Skadden’s recruiting partner.

Good news from the letter: the firm plans to make offers to 95 percent of its 2009 summer associates. Of course, as we previously reported, they won’t be starting at the firm until 2011.

We’ll let you know when Skadden officially releases the memo to the people who are affected by the decision.

Correction: From a Skadden spokesperson:

The letter was sent last week to career services and deans at the law schools where Skadden is interviewing. Some schools already have circulated it to their students. We absolutely did not talk to the media before notifying schools.

By way of explanation, your ATL editors were thrown off by the wording of the Am Law report, which described the letter as one that “the firm will send to prospective summers” (emphasis added).

Update: Skadden to Cut Summer Class by Half, Change Recruiting Process [Am Law Daily]

The new Vault law firm rankings, for 2010, are set to be released later this week. But earlier today, readers sent us this link, which takes you to a page on the Vault website with incomplete prestige rankings for a little over 60 law firms.

We reached out to Brian Dalton, managing editor of Vault, who informed us that these rankings are NOT legit. From Dalton:

These are not the correct rankings. There was a technical glitch on our end and some incorrect rankings have appeared on the site. We will publish the new rankings soon.

And when they do, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Still, even if these rankings are wrong, it’s always fun to gawk. While we wait for the official list to be produced, here are the top five firms on the apocryphal list (note the absence of Cravath):

After the jump, more faux rankings.

Elie here. On Wednesday, I took a closer look at the woman who called the Cambridge police on Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. I wondered if she could be held liable under a good Samaritan statute, and asked if we should hold good Samaritans to a higher standard.

Most readers felt that the woman was beyond reproach. She saw “two black males with backpacks” attempting to enter a house, and most people — including Professor Gates and President Obama — felt she acted appropriately when she called the police.

Legal Blog Watch has published a great analysis suggesting that Gates’s arrest was unwarranted. Even if you take the police officer’s word about what happened inside the house, it was unlikely that a prosecution against Gates for disorderly conduct could have survived (at least based on the evidence we have now; there are rumors of tapes).

I understand that I am hanging far out on a thin limb, but I remain far from convinced that the woman acted appropriately. I do think, hypothetically, that there is a cognizable legal claim Professor Gates could have against the woman who turned him in. Here is the applicable Massachusetts “good Samaritan” statute:

Chapter 258C: Section 13. “Good Samaritans”; liability

Section 13. No person who, in good faith, provides or obtains, or attempts to provide or obtain, assistance for a victim of a crime as defined in section one, shall be liable in a civil suit for damages as a result of any acts or omissions in providing or obtaining, or attempting to provide or obtain, such assistance unless such acts or omissions constitute willful, wanton or reckless conduct.

On Wednesday, I suggested that the standard for liability was reasonableness, as opposed to “willful, wanton or reckless conduct.” Obviously, a recklessness standard is much more difficult to prove.

But after the jump, I make my case. And then Mr. David Lat slaps me upside the head makes his case … that I need to be Rule 11-ed right back to Tolerance 101.

Details are still sketchy, but word on the street is that Dr. Li-ann Thio will not be coming to NYU Law School this fall. It appears that Dr. Thio has voluntarily decided not to serve as a visiting professor.

As many of you know, Dr. Thio has been heavily criticized by some in the NYU community (and beyond) for the allegedly anti-gay views she professed as a member of Singapore’s Parliament. But up to this point, Dr. Thio has enjoyed the support of Dean Richard Revesz and the NYU administration.

We previously reported that early returns showed low student registration for Dr. Thio’s classes this fall. A petition protesting her appointment garnered over 800 signatures. It’s too early to tell if any of this affected her decision to withdraw.

We will let you know when we receive official word from the law school or Dr. Thio.

UPDATE: The official announcement is now available. Check it out after the jump.