August 2006

* Corporate associates, listen up: sometimes that mind-numbing due diligence actually matters. Sometimes. [The Recorder] * Oooh, we no likee. Will this prevent us from forwarding embarrassing summer associate emails to 50 of our closest friends? [WSJ Law Blog] * What the “Burning Man” cultural festival shares in common with a law firm: “It’s a […]

A few job changes that didn’t make it into our earlier round-up: Lateral Moves: * Litigator Walter Loughlin, to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, from Latham & Watkins. * Tax lawyer Robert Miller, to Greenberg Traurig, from Intel. New Partners: * Fried Frank: Tax lawyer Brian Kniesly and corporate lawyer David Shaw. Anyone have any […]

Time for another installment of Advice for the Lawlame, the closest thing that Above the Law has to an “advice column.” We take the questions submitted to NYLawyer.com’s popular advice columns, including “Advice for the Lawlorn,” and offer our own take on them. (We’ve been at this for quite some time now. For the Advice […]

It’s been kind of a slow week, what with the upcoming Labor Day holiday and all. So today’s Lawsuit of the Day — by the way, these “of the Day” features aren’t exactly daily, just whenever we feel like it — isn’t that ridiculous. Here it is (via the New York Law Journal): A medical […]

Thanks to all of you who are already sending in tips to our inbox. Keep it up! The good-natured fun of ATL isn’t possible without your help. So go ahead, email us something interesting or amusing. One of you kindly drew our attention to this lawyer advertisement, which is our basis for awarding Colorado Springs […]

Musical Chairs is our summary of the most important or interesting moves within the legal profession. We read through the announcements (and pick out the high points), so you don’t have to. If you have good gossip about any of these job changes and the players involved, or forthcoming announcements, please drop us a line […]

Welcome to Above the Law’s Skaddenfreude: Totally Gauche Ogling of Other Lawyers’ Incomes. We all know that lawyers can’t stop talking about their work — and, of course, how much they get paid for that work. Skaddenfreude brings that talk out in the open (and onto the internet). Each week we’ll pass along some of […]

* In the legal and regulatory crackdown on business corruption and white-collar crime, “lawyers serving fraud-ridden companies have emerged relatively unscathed,” reports the Washington Post. Chalk it up to professional courtesy. [Washington Post] * Lord Conrad Black (at right), former media mogul, has had his worldwide assets frozen by a Canadian court. But don’t feel […]

Earlier this month, we gave Nevada attorney William Caramagno a Lawyer of the Day award. What did he do to merit this honor? He showed up to court late — and, even better, drunk — to defend a client facing a kidnapping charge. A charge with a potential life sentence. How was the lawyer’s drunkenness […]

* Allegations of bill padding at Holland & Knight. An isolated occurrence — or more widespread within Biglaw? [WSJ via WSJ Law Blog] * The secret to success: Wake up early. Like really early — try 3 a.m. That Ann Althouse is a machine! [Althouse] * Here’s a link for those of you who don’t […]

Back when we practiced law, and we’d tell people what we did for a living, they’d have different reactions. Sometimes they’d say “Oh, really?”, in an impressed, you-must-make-six-figures sort of way. But sometimes their eyes would glaze over — and they’d excuse themselves to go refill their drinks. Why? Because many people think that lawyers […]

Above the Law is on a mission. Our quest: to find the hottest ERISA lawyer in America. For all of you non-lawyers — or for those of you who sat in the back row in law school — ERISA stands for the “Employee Retirement Income Security Act.” It’s the federal law, originally passed in 1974 […]

* The number of women clerking at the Supreme Court has fallen to the lowest level since 1994. It’s all Scalia’s fault. Oh wait, no it isn’t — he never hires women anyway. [New York Times] * Former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr has asked the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of a high school […]

Another summer weekend, another raft of attorney weddings. Plenty of fodder for this week’s edition of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, in which we review selected lawyer nuptials from the New York Times wedding announcements — and assign numerical scores to each couple. We rate them in three to four categories: on their résumés, their families, […]

Inappropriate cell phone use — we’ve seen them used during wedding ceremonies — has gotten out of control. So it’s great to see a tough-minded jurist take a stand against this growing problem: A judge detained and questioned a row of spectators when a cell phone rang for a third time in her courtroom, later […]

Since it went and got itself indicted, things have been less than peachy-keen over at Milberg Weiss, everyone’s favorite class-action complaint factory. Milberg has lost oodles of prominent partners to other plaintiffs’ firms. And now things are turning downright ugly: Patricia Hynes, a former name partner of Milberg Weiss, is crossing over to the other […]

Thank God for the rule of law. It’s great that we have courts and judges to resolve disputes like this one: How many meows does it take to make a misdemeanor? Jeannette District Judge Joseph R. DeMarchis will make that determination in 90 days. He heard testimony Tuesday in the case of a city teenager […]

Former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson just resigned as chairman of Chicago legal powerhouse Winston & Strawn, after 13 years at the helm. Here’s what he had to say about his departure: Thompson, 70, described the move as a natural transfer of power to younger lawyers. He noted that the firm had amended its rules twice […]

* So the ethics issue raised against the NSA surveillance case judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, may be much ado about nothing. But the opinion still sucks. [Volokh Conspiracy; New York Times] * Guys: whatever you do, don’t date a litigatrix. [Forbes via DealBreaker] * Skadden gobbles up more space from the Conde Nasties. [New York […]

Driving through the great state of Missouri just got a little more interesting, thanks to the Sixth Circuit: A Missouri law barring sexually oriented businesses from advertising within a mile of the state’s highways unconstitutionally limits commercial free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of […]