We first heard about this months ago — back in September, from another speaker at the Lavender Law conference. We didn’t mention it at the time, though, since we’re not that comfortable outing people.

But now that the cat has been let out of the bag — or closet, as the case may be — by the mainstream media, let’s… go there. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.

Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise — or advertise — his orientation.

Shocking? Not exactly. Judge Walker is a professionally successful white male, with great job security and a six-figure income, who’s in his sixties — and has never been married. A confirmed bachelor, if you will. Who lives in San Francisco. Umm, yeah.

(On the other hand, we hear His Honor’s favorite drink is a Maker’s Mark Manhattan — a fairly butch beverage, despite the maraschino cherry. We’ll stick with our cosmos, thank you very much.)

So this brings us to the question that Ashby Jones posed over at the WSJ Law Blog earlier today: If Judge Walker is gay, what should we make of that fact?

* Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, has officially been charged with involuntary manslaughter. How did the alleged crime go down? Well: He came into MJ’s Apartment, he left the bloodstains on the carpet. MJ ran underneath the table, he could see MJ was unable. So MJ ran into the bedroom MJ was struck down, it was MJ’s doom. Too soon? [Popsquire]

* If there was an Alabama version of the Jersey Shore, this guy would be on it. [BL1Y]

* People in D.C. are really freaked out by all the snow. I’m trying to think of a naturally occurring event that would have New Yorkers similarly discombobulated. [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]

* I hate having interviews or meetings at coffee places. But in general I hate the concept of a coffee house where people relax, pull out a laptop, and have conversations. That’s what hookah bars are for. [Law.com]

* If the Bushidō code were still around today, wouldn’t Akio Toyoda have to commit hara-kiri?
[Trial Warrior Blog via Blawg Review]

“I used to be a bank robber.”

That’s an attention-grabbing lede for a personal essay for a law school application. Or:

“The Supreme Court granted my very first petition for cert. And then ruled in my favor unanimously.”

Shon Hopwood, 34, could start his application with either one of those statements. Convicted of five robberies in Nebraska in the late ’90s, he was sentenced to prison for 13 years, writes Adam Liptak in the New York Times:

Mr. Hopwood spent much of that time in the prison law library, and it turned out he was better at understanding the law than breaking it. He transformed himself into something rare at the top levels of the American bar, and unheard of behind bars — an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner.

Hopwood wrote a petition for cert for a fellow inmate, John Fellers, in 2002. Not only was it granted, veteran Supreme Court advocate Seth Waxman says, “It was probably one of the best cert. petitions I have ever read.”

High praise for a dude who doesn’t even have a law degree…

I lived in Indiana for 13 months and 9 days (not that I was counting), so last night’s Super Bowl was a little bit disappointing. The night featured the return of the Manning Face, the ads were pretty boring (I did like the Auto-Tune one, Kash liked Google). A game between the two best offenses in the league came down to a defensive touchdown and (arguably) the best special teams play of all time.

Oh yeah, and the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. That warm fuzzy goodness you feel about the Saints winning for their city totally redeems every slightly annoying thing that happened last night.

The Saints get back to town tomorrow, and it should be obvious that the city will shut down to celebrate. And chances are, they’ll not really be getting back to work until Ash Wednesday.

Tulane Law School knows that its students like to party. And the administration won’t stand in the way. Tulane is shutting down tomorrow.

I just hope the Tulane Law students don’t try to make off with the Lombardi Trophy.

Check out the beautiful message from Tulane’s president after the jump. And Geaux Saints!

We’ve said a lot about the atrocious ABC television show, The Deep End. One particularly annoying aspect of the show is that of the four — purportedly “best in the country” — first-year associates, one of them graduated from the Case Western Reserve School of Law.

With all due respect to the good people at Case Western, Biglaw types have a hard time suspending their disbelief that even a fictional top law firm would grab an associate from the #55 ranked law school in the country.

But maybe, just maybe, the prestige-obsessed are wrong. Obviously, Clarence Thomas is happy to hire clerks without regard to their schools’ positions on the U.S. News list. And it appears that the kids at Case Western play just as rough and dirty as anybody in the H-Y-S crowd. Check out this email to all Case Western Law faculty and students:

I am very sorry to report that someone has cut some class-related sections out of several copies of a library book. I am sure that the overwhelming majority of you don’t need to be told that this behavior is unprofessional and unacceptable. It is also a serious violation of the law school code of conduct. This is a very unusual occurrence at our school, for which we should all be grateful. Nevertheless, even one such incident is too many.

Somebody at Case Western has read One L a few too many times.

But hey, if the school is being criticized on prestige grounds, maybe it’s time for its students to take academic competition to the next level. Let’s hear from some Case law students about this.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported on the Vinson & Elkins bonus payouts. At the time, we noted that associates in New York were generally pleased with the payout, but associates in V&E’s Texas offices — notably, the firm’s Houston office — were not at all happy with their bonuses.

The issue appeared to be that V&E Texas associates didn’t receive a “make-whole” bonus. Some firms have followed Latham & Watkins’s lead and are using the bonus to give back the money that associates lost during last year’s salary freeze.

A couple of days after our post went up, Above the Law started to receive some interesting emails from Vinson & Elkins people in Texas. Here’s an example:

The partners realized they had screwed up and are making good by the associates, giving additional bonuses in the coming weeks. Top performers in Houston will end up making MORE than their counterparts in NY on the full Cravath scale (for the second year in a row). Pretty impressive that they are willing to admit their screw up and fix it quickly.

And it’s true. Instead of sticking to a decision many associates felt was unfair, V&E changed course and put more money on the table.

Details on this reversal of fortune after the jump.

Just a quick note, over at Gabe’s Guide, I’ve posted a bunch of links on LegalTech - New York, as well as a few of the snowpocolapse here in D.C. Still trying to dig my way out over here.

Lazy Sunday Links 2.7.10: The LegalTech Aftermath/Superbowl Sunday/Snowmageddon, Edition [Gabe’s Guide]

We’ve been having some fun documenting the curious game of chicken happening in Chicago. The top firms in the city seem to be waiting for each other to set the associate salary market — even though that market has already been set.

Kirkland set the market by never freezing associate salaries in the first place. Mayer Brown finally blinked and raised salaries. Sidley is still waiting — we’re not sure why, but they are waiting.

At Jenner & Block, “merit-based” salary increases are in effect. But the raise — at least for some people — is nowhere near market salary. One tipster reports:

The situation is bad at Jenner Block. You should write about how cheap the firm is. A title should be something like: “PPP up 33%, Associate Bonuses 33% of Last Years.” Well that is the truth. For the past two years associates who made hours have gotten 5k raises and all others have gotten zero. So, the salary scale, for those that have consistently made hours (worse if you slip a year or have a slow department), is effectively: 160k, 165k, 170k, 180k…. the more senior you get the more the gap between Jenner and the market.

And for bonuses, this year they start at 2k, even for 3rd years.

Well, $5,000 here, $5,000 there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money. I’m sure if our Jenner friends just hang in there for another decade, they will be very happy with their compensation.

According to spokespersons for Jenner & Block, our tipsters are incorrectly reporting their salaries. But the firm isn’t very clear on what salaries Jenner folks are actually receiving.

Details and a statement from the firm, after the jump.

If you’ve always wanted to own a piece of defunct law firm Heller Ehrman, today is your lucky day. A sizable portion of the firm’s art collection is hitting the auction block in about an hour, at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco.

We previously covered a prior Heller art auction, here in New York, but that sale involved just a handful of pieces. The auction taking place today — and starting very soon, at 10 a.m. Pacific time (or 1 p.m. Eastern time) — is much larger in scope.

So what’s up for sale? And how can you get a piece of the action?

At LegalTech, I had a chance to attend a panel with some very interesting speakers on the “future” of law.

During this panel, a question was posed to a person — we’ll call him “David L.” — on whether law students are feeling better about the market now as opposed to six or twelve months ago. His answer: yes, but perhaps not in the way you might imagine. Students are feeling better because they’ve become resigned to their fates, which has actually been quite liberating. After all, “Why stress about your career when you’ll be just lucky to have one?”

Another resignation to fate was taking place right before my eyes, one that went almost completely unnoticed among those in attendance: the end of the current BigLaw Partner-Associate (Cravath) Model.

More after the jump.