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Lawyer Falls For Nigerian Inheritance Scam, Gets Suspended

Lawyer Falls For Nigerian Inheritance Scam, Gets Suspended

A Biglaw Partner In Big Trouble — Charged With Gay Sexual Assault (Along With His Nephew!)

A Biglaw Partner In Big Trouble — Charged With Gay Sexual Assault (Along With His Nephew!)

Associate Bonus Watch: Willkie Farr and Shearman & Sterling

Associate Bonus Watch: Willkie Farr and Shearman & Sterling

Inhaling The Scent of A Woman… Is Creepy And Wrong

Inhaling The Scent of A Woman… Is Creepy And Wrong

Stuff White People (Don’t) Like: Being Accused Of RACEISM™

Stuff White People (Don’t) Like: Being Accused Of RACEISM™

Let’s Waste Some Time On A Friday!

Let’s Waste Some Time On A Friday!

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A Biglaw Partner In Big Trouble — Charged With Gay Sexual Assault (Along With His Nephew!)

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Stan Stallworth and Therrie Miller (click to enlarge)

It’s almost law school exam time, so let’s run through some hypotheticals. An uncle having sex with his niece: should that constitute illegal incest?

What about an uncle having sex with his nephew? Does the fact that it’s “gay incest,” with no possibility of procreation, make it less troubling?

What about an uncle and his nephew allegedly getting a teenage male drunk and tag-teaming him? Whether or not it’s “incest,” it sounds problematic.

According to Chicago prosecutors, such a situation unfolded last week. And the oldest man in the threesome is a partner at one of the world’s leading law firms….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Willkie Farr and Shearman & Sterling

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Is it our imagination, or is the 2013 bonus season unfolding at a glacial pace? Maybe because these bonuses are just the reheated bonuses from last year, they feel like they’re coming out of the fridge.

Cravath announced on Monday. Skadden announced on Tuesday. Cleary announced on Wednesday. Nobody announced on Thursday (as far as we know; if we missed your firm’s announcement, please email us or text us (646-820-8477)).

Today we got the Friday afternoon bonus news dump. We have announcements from Willkie Farr and Shearman & Sterling. What are these two firms doing?

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Non-Sequiturs: 12.06.13

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* Another lawyer is going on The Bachelor! This time it’s Andi (pictured), a Wake Forest Law grad who is described as a federal prosecutor (though other sources say she works at the district attorney’s office). She says she got a murder conviction in 8 minutes, which is impressive for someone who graduated last year. Like, hard-to-believe impressive. Well, now she’ll be trading in all that self-respect for roses and 15 minutes of reality TV fame. [Huffington Post]

* The law of underground trespassing — when drilling sends contaminants into neighboring land. “I poison your milkshake. I poison it up!” [Breaking Energy]

* At least a couple readers have had a bad exam experience already this term. Here’s how to deal with it. The advice is pretty good except for advising you to avoid alcohol. Alcohol is always the answer. [Law School Toolbox]

* It’s time to start making moves to improve your long-term quality of life. [Law and More]

* Kevin Underhill of Lowering the Bar has a new book about all the stupid laws on the books out there. It’s called The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance. [Lowering the Bar]

* When you hear about the similarities between Obamacare and the Heritage Foundation plan from the old days, recognize you’re getting spun. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

* Trying to balance out religious symbols in public spaces for the holidays is dumb. All you need is the Festivus pole. Lest you forget the story of Festivus, there’s a video embedded beyond the jump…. [PrawfsBlawg]

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Inhaling The Scent of A Woman… Is Creepy And Wrong

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Getty only has images of women or children sniffing things… because men sniffing women is TOTALLY CREEPY.

Of course sniffing a woman can be sexual harassment. Who would even dispute that? Hovering over a woman and inhaling deeply is the move of creepy rapists in Lifetime movies.

A Dallas magistrate judge ruled against a woman who was fired after complaining that men would come into her office and freaking sniff her. Thankfully, an appeals court reversed… because Jesus Christ, ex-convicts were smelling her and talking about how they needed a “release”….

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Stuff White People (Don’t) Like: Being Accused Of RACEISM™

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We are not talking about all white people, or you white people in general. We are talking about whiteness as a system of oppression.

– Professor Shannon Gibney, an English professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, during an in-class discussion about white privilege. Issues involving Professor Gibney have given rise to student complaints, faculty reprimands, and litigation….)

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Let’s Waste Some Time On A Friday!

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It’s Friday.

You’re bored. You’re not looking forward to working/studying this weekend. You watched that Sound of Music remake based on the premise, “if you loved Julie Andrews, Carrie Underwood has to be an improvement, right?” You might be hungover if you came to the ATL party — like a ton of you in NYC did. Hell, you might still be drunk because that’s how you roll, ATL reader!

How about we just trawl the Interwebs for funny legal content to waste a few billable minutes on? Does that sound good?

It does? Capital!

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Job Search Tips For JDs Who Want To Expand Their Options

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Ed note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Kate Neville, founder of Neville Career Consulting, offers helpful tips for law school graduates who would like to expand their career options.

The year 2009 is well known within the legal industry as the year there were more attorneys laid off than in all of the previous years combined. It is also the year that the number of people who took the LSAT exam reached a record high. Though law school applications have since dropped precipitously, that dichotomy remains a problem. There continue to be more licensed attorneys than there are legal jobs available in the current economy.

Continue reading at the ATL Career Center….

Lawyer Falls For Nigerian Inheritance Scam, Gets Suspended

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Except, apparently, one lawyer in Iowa.

Which is worse: to be unethical or to be stupid — really, really stupid?

Who says you have to choose? That’s the lesson of today’s story about a lawyer who fell for a Nigerian inheritance scam, dragged his clients into the mess as well, and just got his law license suspended by the Iowa Supreme Court.

Dear Friend: Please permit me to make your acquaintance in so informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a dependable and trust wordy partner. We do not know each other, it does not matter.

My tale will not cause discomfort or embarrassment in whatever form, except to a monumentally moronic lawyer — who got cleared on some (but not all) of the ethics charges against him because he genuinely believed that a trunk full of money was going to magically show up on his office doorstep….

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Lindsay Lohan Is Reportedly Asking Her Lawyers About Going After GTA5 For Non-Portrayal

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Lindsay Lohan, everyone’s favorite train-wreck, sure seems to come up in the world of intellectual property an awful lot. I’m not sure if this is because she has some over-inflated sense of entitlement, or if she’s just the devil-incarnate here to entertain me personally, but she’s gotten angry about being mocked in music, angry about a talking baby being named Lindsay (and being a “milkaholic”), and angry at the invention of the video camera for showing her stealing stuff that didn’t belong to her.

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Growing Pains: Succeeding In The World Of Small Firm Practice

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Keith Lee

Ed. note Please welcome Keith Lee of Associate’s Mind, our newest columnist covering the world of small law firms.

Since Brian Tannebaum got too busy and important to keep feeding the trolls writing columns here, and Above the Law needed someone else to write a column about small law firms, I got asked last tapped for the job. Sure, Carolyn Elefant is writing a small-firm column as well, but Carolyn is much too nice and experienced, and knows what she’s talking about from years of practice. No way the typical ATL reader is going to listen to her. Far better to listen to me blather on about what it’s like to practice in a small-firm setting.

I practice law in Birmingham, Alabama. That’s deep in red state, flyover country, for you folks on the coasts. Yes, people and businesses actually have needs for lawyers in flyover country too. Next thing you know we’ll manage to get indoor plumbing.

I graduated from law school in 2010, right into the quagmire of the worst legal employment environment ever, but still managed to get a job. I was there for a year before I was downsized, cast off, s**t-canned. I ended up partnering up with two lawyers I went to law school with. We started off with three lawyers, no clients, crammed into a spartan 350-square-foot office. Two years later, there’s still just the three of us, but we’ve moved into an 1800-square-foot office and have steady, reliable business….

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Morning Docket: 12.06.13

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The last time someone willingly entered New Jersey.

* New Jersey continues to mint lawyers despite terrible market conditions. Lat told me I should come up with a good Jersey joke. I said that was fairly well-worn territory and I would feel a bit like #498 at the Houston 500. Lat said, “            ” [Newark Star-Ledger]

* The Obama uncle we mentioned earlier this week? Obama’s roommate before Harvard Law. Why won’t Obama produce his rent deposit!? [CNN]

* The men who stole parts of the Porsche Paul Walker died in were arrested yesterday. They will be charged with felony grand theft, tampering with evidence, and living perhaps too fast… too curious? [TMZ]

* Regulators are having a tough time figuring out what to do with the burgeoning Bitcoin market. Numismatists are equally puzzled by this rarest of rare coin markets. [New York Times]

* Jos. A. Bank, the most prestigious clothier in the United States and/or Canada, has been subpoenaed by the Ohio Attorney General. If the Ohio AG deposes one executive, he gets to depose three additional executives for free. [Washington Post]

* A Q&A with Nelson Mandela’s lawyer. Very cool story, indeed, bro. [Al Jazeera America]

And as an added bonus, after the jump are pictures from last night’s ATL holiday party…

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THIS Is What It Looks Like When A Law School Actually Cuts Tuition

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An actual top-50 law school has cut its tuition. They’re not giving a tuition “reimbursement” or “credit” or “scholarship.” They’re not making it a one-time deal available to impulse shoppers. Instead, they’re reducing tuition, across the board, for both in-state and out-of-state students, across all class years. They’re cutting tuition. Let us give them thanks and praise.

It’s still expensive, probably prohibitively so. But a top-tier school putting its tuition in reverse is big, bright news. I award this school all the corn in my silo, they’ve earned it….

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