Archive for May 2007

Ebony and Ivory, Live Together in Perfect Harmony: Los Angeles County v. Rettele

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Ebony and Ivory Above the Law blog.jpgSeveral commenters drew our attention to the Supreme Court’s quasi-amusing decision today in Los Angeles County v. Rettele (PDF). We also received reader email about it:

“In the per curiam opinion in LA County v. Retelle (PDF), we get a nice discussion of racial harmony in the context of naked white people being awakened early in the morning by cops executing a search warrant on a house that was previously owned by black criminal suspects.”

From the Court’s unsigned opinion, joined by seven justices:

“Because respondents were of a different race than the suspects the deputies were seeking, the Court of Appeals held that ‘[a]fter taking one look at [respondents], the deputies should have realized that [respondents] were not the subjects of the search warrant and did not pose a threat to the deputies’ safety.’ We need not pause long in rejecting this unsound proposition.”

“When the deputies ordered respondents from their bed, they had no way of knowing whether the African-American suspects were elsewhere in the house. The presence of some Caucasians in the residence did not eliminate the possibility that the suspects lived there as well. As the deputies stated in their affidavits, it is not uncommon in our society for people of different races to live together. Just as people of different races live and work together, so too might they engage in joint criminal activity. The deputies, who were searching a house where they believed a suspect might be armed, possessed authority to secure the premises before deciding whether to continue with the search.”

The SCOTUS reverses the Ninth Circuit? Happens multiple times each Term. Boring.
The SCOTUS summarily reverses the Ninth Circuit, in a per curiam opinion? Happens a few times each Term. Uninteresting.
The Supreme Court benchslaps the Ninth Circuit, for not being politically correct enough? PRICELESS.
(For more substantive analysis of Rettele, check out this post, by Orin Kerr.)
Los Angeles County v. Rettele [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
Supreme Court Reverses Ninth Circuit in Out-of-Bed-Naked Search Warrant Case [Volokh Conspiracy via SCOTUSblog]

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Lawsuit of the Day: Identical Twins in Paternity Fight

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Twin Falls Idaho Above the Law blog.jpgReaders of ATL disagree vehemently over the existence of God. But if God does exist, he has a delightfully sick sense of humor. From ABC News:

Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don’t know which is which. Or who is who. The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman’s testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court.

But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy— and neither one wants to pay the child support. The result of the test has not only brought to light the limits of DNA evidence, it has also led to a three-year legal battle, a Miller family feud and a little girl who may never know who her real father is.

Très trashy — but there’s an actual legal issue here. How was it decided?
Find out, after the jump.

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Musical Chairs: Jack Weiss to LSU

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Jack Weiss.jpgLate last month, we wrote about how Jack Weiss, a media and entertainment lawyer in Gibson Dunn’s New York office, was under consideration to head LSU Law School. Despite his dazzling resume, Weiss lacked faculty support — which Laurie Lin found surprising.
Now, a brief update. From the New Orleans Baton Rouge Advocate:

New Orleans native Jack Weiss will become chancellor of LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center this summer after his unanimous selection Friday by the LSU Board of Supervisors.

Weiss, a New York partner for the Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher firm, which has about 800 lawyers, will take over for retiring Chancellor John Costonis as early as July 1, but at least before fall classes resume, Weiss said by phone from New York.

Law school faculty members, rendered irrelevant and ignored. Who’d have thunk it?
P.S. Weiss, who clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger and John Minor Wisdom, joins a sizable club of former Supreme Court clerks who now occupy leadership positions in academia. For other examples, see here.
Weiss to head law school [The Advocate]
From the High Court to the Ivory Tower [Empire Zone/New York Times]
Earlier: LSU: Practitioner Versus Professoriate

Pillsbury Winthrop: ‘Let Them Eat Cosi’

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Will Work for Food Above the Law blog.jpgOver the next few weeks, hordes of summer associates will arrive at top law firms around the country. And many full-time associates — or at least the less harried and/or curmudgeonly ones — will rejoice, delighted by the opportunity to take summer associates out to fancy lunches, on their employer’s dime.
But maybe not at Pillsbury Winthrop. Earlier this month, someone posted as follows, over at Infirmation/Greedy NY:

If you think things are tight in NYC, listen to this: Pillsbury Winthrop (NoVa/DC) just sent out a memo limiting associates to one meal per week, “and in no event should meals cost more than $15/person.”

I s**t you not, they actually sent out that memo this afternoon!!!!!

We haven’t verified this rumor; maybe it’s apocryphal, or a joke. But if it’s true, please file it under “hilarious” and “pathetic.”
On a budget of $15 a head, you can maybe dine at Au Bon Pain or Cosi. Just don’t indulge in (1) a cold beverage with your meal, AND (2) a post-meal coffee drink.
If you can confirm, or have a copy of the memo to share, please email us (subject line: “Pillsbury Winthrop Is Cheap”). Thanks.
(We wouldn’t be completely surprised if this rumor is true. After all, Pillsbury Winthrop is one of the firms that is publicly dragging its feet on associate pay raises.)
Update: Lots of dispute in the comments over the accuracy of this rumor. We will gladly accept corrections and clarifications by email. Please provide us with your real name; we keep our sources anonymous, but we need real names so we can confirm that you actually work at Pillsbury.
One thing we can confirm, from a verified source in Pillsbury’s San Francisco office:

I am an associate at Pillsbury and just read the posting about Pillsbury lunch limitations to $15 once per week. It’s not true! Of course, we can take summer associates to lunch as often as we like, and they ask that we keep it to $25 per person, but can exceed that for special occassions.

But the rumor in question concerns Pillsbury’s offces in northern Virginia and Washington, DC — not San Francisco. If you work in one of those offices, we would be especially interested in hearing from you. Thanks.
Further Update: The consensus in the comments appears to be that the rumor of a $15 lunch limit IS true, but ONLY for northern Virginia (Tysons Corner).
Cheapest Lunch Date EVER? [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: In a Holding Pattern?

Supreme Court Hands Down Five Rulings. Nation Yawns, Mourns Dead Trees.

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supreme court 3.JPGZzzzzzzzz…
Guess this is the calm before the storm. The Supreme Court cranks out lots of important-but-boring opinions in May, so it can clear the decks and focus on the 5-4, “It’s All About AMK” barnburners that it dumps on the nation in June. Nino starts saving up his energy for penning those trademark zingers of his.
The most interesting of today’s quintet of decisions would appear to be Bell Atlantic v. Twombly (05-1126). Per Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog:

“The Supreme Court, in the first of five final decisions, ruled on Monday that claims of parallel business conduct are not sufficient to prove an antitrust conspiracy under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”

In other words: If you’re thinking of filing an antitrust lawsuit against Biglaw, ’cause large law firms engage in “parallel business contact” with respect to associate compensation — good luck with that.
(True confession: we doubt we’ll be reading these five slip opinions anytime soon. But if you happen to check them out, and come across anything amusing — funny footnotes, bitchy benchsaps — please feel free to let us know.)
Update: A post on Los Angeles County v. Rettele, which has its amusing aspects, appears here.
Court issues five rulings [SCOTUSblog]

How Not To Study for the Bar Exam

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marijuana pot cannabis doobie Above the Law blog.jpgWe do not recommend following the example of “Spazzed customer,” as related in this anecdote.
(But his description of preparing for the bar exam — “I have to take a really big test, and then I can forget it all” — isn’t half-bad.)
Where Lawyers Come From [Overheard in New York]

Morning Docket: 05.21.07

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* Cash kickbacks, booze, and politics mixing in Nevada? Come on! [MSNBC]
* Wearing a plaid shirt saves Lindsay Lohan from theft charges. [CNN]
* “Attorneys general” v. “attorney generals” battle heats up. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Australian authorities determine nude carwash is legal. [MSNBC]
* Landis’ attorney blasts doping case at arbitration hearing. [SI.com]

Skaddenfreude: Weekend Open Thread

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100 dollar bill Above the Law Above the Law law firm salary legal blog legal tabloid Above the Law.JPGIf you are still participating in any of the bizarre discussions from Friday morning’s open thread — which covered such diverse topics as open houses in Houston, childhood sleepover experiences, and the hipster quotient of the New Yorker — please don’t let us stop you. You can join in the fun by clicking here.
But if you’re looking for a forum for discussing subjects that are a bit more germane to ATL, such as associate pay raises and clerkship bonuses, then this new open thread is for you.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend; we’ll see you on Monday.

Non-Sequiturs: 05.18.07

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Anne Heche Call Me Crazy Above the Law blog.jpg* A rabbi, a nun and Christopher Hitchens walk into a bar… [PrawfsBlawg]
* Unlike other 15-year-olds who appreciate toilet humor, this girl felt victimized by the inside joke. [Pensacola News Journal]
* Anne Heche continues to entertain/disturb, plus we haven’t had a cautionary divorce tale in some time. Stay tuned… [Nasty, Brutish & Short]
* Who knows? The junior associate who sent out that crazy email some time ago could end up the next Kafka. [Legal History Blog]
* Forget fashion mags, frenemies and Paris — this is the real harm perpetuated by women against other women. [Red Orbit]

Wild Rumor of the Day: Alberto Gonzales = Melinda Doolittle?

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Alberto Gonzales Melinda Doolittle Attorney General Alberto R Gonzales Above the Law blog.JPGWe highly doubt this. But instead of logging off as we originally planned, we’ll stick around for another fifteen minutes, on the off chance that it proves true.
P.S. Speaking of Wonkette, where we used to blog, congratulations to Ana Marie Cox on the dismissal of Robert Steinbuch’s lawsuit against her!
(To be sure, it was on statute-of-limitations grounds; bloggers might have preferred a broader ruling. But hey, a dismissal is a dismissal.)
Friday Night News Dump: Alberto Out At 5? [Wonkette]
Reliable Source: This Just In… [Washington Post via Wonkette]
Suit Dismissed Against Founding Wonkette Editor Ana Marie Cox [Associated Press]
“American Idol” — results — America, don’t take my Blake away! [Althouse]

Alberto Gonzales Has ‘A Monica Problem’

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Monica Goodling 5 Monica M Goodling Monica Gooding Alberto Gonzales Above the Law blog.jpgWe have a new favorite catchphrase: “You have a Monica problem.” We’ve added it to our favorite quotations, and we may put it in our email signature file, too.
As explained here, the words “You have a Monica problem” were typically uttered to Justice Department job applicants whose credentials might be deemed insufficiently conservative by Monica Goodling — the uber-powerful ex-DOJ official who played a key role in hiring.
But these days, “You have a Monica problem” might also apply to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. From Jason McClure of the Legal Times:

Now it’s all about Monica.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales emerged mostly unscathed from last week’s face-off with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee over his role in the U.S. attorney firings….

But there’s one big wild card that’s yet to be thrown into play, and that’s Monica Goodling, Gonzales’ former White House liaison.

If you don’t share our Monica obsession, you can stop reading here. But if you find her as fascinating as we do, there’s more after the jump.

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NYC Biglaw Is Brooklyn Bound

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No Sleep Til Brooklyn Law School Above the Law blog.jpgLaw school snobs — or “tierists,” as some call them — should check out this interesting article, by Lindsay Fortado of Bloomberg News. It’s about how high demand for summer and permanent associates is pushing large law firms to expand their recruiting efforts, to include law schools outside the “top 10.”

When Josh Kleiman, a student at Brooklyn Law School, interviewed at 17 law firms for a summer position, 12 called back. He joined New York’s Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen, one of the city’s most profitable.

The competition has increased for Kleiman and other students at so-called second-tier law schools for jobs that pay more than $3,000 a week, plus free lunches and cocktail parties. New York’s largest law firms have hired record numbers of summer associates to deal with an abundance of work and defections of lawyers to banks and private equity clients.

Kleiman had the pick of the Biglaw litter:

Kleiman was also offered summer positions at Sullivan & Cromwell; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker; White & Case; Shearman & Sterling and Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. He said he chose Fried Frank, ranked 14th in the city in revenue per partner, because the attorneys were “diverse and interesting.”

Presumably Kleiman chose Fried Frank over the conventionally more prestigious S&C sometime this past fall (pursuant to the NALP deadlines). But if similarly situated law students turn down S&C in higher-than-usual numbers this coming fall, we’re blaming it on this guy.
(To whom, by the way, law clerks may owe their newly improved bonuses. Some speculate that S&C raised its clerkship bonus to $50,000 because it feared a tough recruiting season this fall, due in part to L’Affaire Charney. Eventually Simpson Thacher followed suit, followed by many other top shops. And the rest is history.)
Lawyer Search Spurred by M&A Sends Manhattan’s Best to Brooklyn [Bloomberg]