* A shout-out to the Elect on TV tonight. The lawyer protagonist of the new ABC drama, "Eli Stone" -- portrayed by Jonny Lee Miller (pictured), an ex-husband of Angelina Jolie -- is supposedly a former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [New York Times]

* A novel approach to the legal job hunt: build your own website, then advertise it in the ABA Journal. If Loyola 2L doesn't have a job lined up already -- although rumor has it that he does, which may explain his "retirement" from blogging -- here's something for him to consider. [3L for Hire and ABA Journal, via WSJ Law Blog]

* More proof that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is a wannabe Eliot Spitzer. [DealBreaker]

* Lawyerly lairs: Tunisia. [flickr]

This has been all over the news. We like the ABA Journal's version, 'cause it's the crispest:

The Atlanta judge overseeing the prosecution of alleged courthouse shooter Brian Nichols has stepped aside from the case after he was quoted [in a New Yorker article] as saying, “Everyone in the world knows he did it.”

The New Yorker piece was by one of our idols, prosecutor-turned-writer Jeffrey Toobin (who launched our blogging career, with this Talk of the Town piece). Judge Fuller and Jeff Toobin were interviewed by the Fulton County Daily Report about the controversy:

"I had a specific agreement with Toobin," said Fuller on Tuesday, before announcing his recusal. "Our conversation was to be on background only, and there would be no direct quotations or attributions, unless they were floated by me first."

Not so, said Toobin, reached in New York. "I don't know what to say," he said. "I mean, it was clearly for attribution; we even had a New Yorker fact-checker call and confirm it. ... I have great respect for Judge Fuller, but that was not at all my understanding."

We're with the meticulous Toobin on this one. In fact, we share the suspicion of one of the correspondents who wrote us about this story: Was Judge Fuller's indiscretion intentional? Was it his way of getting out from under a long and complex nightmare of a case?

Judge Recuses From Courthouse Shooting Case Due to New Yorker Quotes [ABA Journal]
Judge Fuller recuses from Nichols case [Fulton County Daily Report]
Judge in Courthouse Shooting Case Steps Down [New York Times]
Death in Georgia [The New Yorker]
New Yorker Quote Leads to Atlanta Judge Recusal [WSJ Law Blog]

Our friends at the ABA Journal are working on an interesting piece about associates getting "pigeonholed" at their law firms. They're looking for some sources, opinions, and ideas. We're hoping that you can help.

Some background, from Richard Acello, the reporter on the story:

By pigeonholing, we mean the tendency of an associate to get locked into a practice area -- depending on what the firm does -- because he/she was assigned to a lawyer or group upon joining the firm. So let's say it was an intellectual property firm, and the associate does all patent prosecutions. (We can probably think of similar specialty/subspecialty examples in other practices.)

How does the associate branch out? After all, they probably don't want to rock the boat or have partners think they're unhappy, especially when compared to other associates who, say, have happily accepted being pigeonholed.

Who should be responsible for this? Should the firm have a built in way to make sure associates get a variety of work, or should it be the associate's responsibility to speak up?

These are all excellent questions. If you have some thoughts, please opine in the comments (and provide some descriptive information in your signature if possible -- e.g., "IP associate at East Coast law firm"). You can also contact reporter Rich Acello directly, via email, by clicking here. Thanks.

Today brings us bonus and salary news from DLA Piper, the biggest of all Biglaws. Back in November, the firm was crowned by the National Law Journal as the nation's largest law firm (with a whopping 3,623 attorneys).

DLA Piper may be the biggest -- but not when it comes to bonuses. From a disgruntled tipster:

It's official: no special bonuses for DLA Piper's New York office. But first year associates in our secondary offices got raise to a $160,000 start. I attach the chart. [Ed. note: It's after the jump.]

The firm did it in a very slimy way with no official announcement, just individual notices of bonuses. Pretty funny after last year's heralded promises to stay with the New York market... I guess Frank and Lee thought: "never mind."

So was DLA Piper managing expectations when it issued a somewhat gloomy email earlier in the month? From a few weeks ago (around January 8):

I'm an associate at DLA Piper and we got a firmwide email discussing the firm's 2007 finances and applauding us all on a job well done. They exceeded expectations and last year's totals. However, the email closes with this paragraph:

"While we are pleased with the results for 2007, we approach 2008 with caution, given the uncertain economic outlook. We intend to be conservative in both our budgeting for 2008 and in our financial management."

It may be nothing... but I feel like they are bracing us for something, whether it's crappy bonuses or no pay increase. Good times!

Today's bonus and salary memo, plus the firm-wide salary chart, after the jump.

Back in December -- around the holidays, so many of you may have missed it -- we wrote about Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy. It's a lawsuit brought by Norman Schoenfeld, an observant Jewish lawyer who once worked in the New York office of Allen & Overy. Schoenfeld claims, among other things, that A&O discriminated and retaliated against him as a result of his observing the Sabbath.

Since then, we've received many requests for updates. This message is representative:

"Is there any news on this lawsuit? As a Sabbath observant 2L, this is of interest to me and many of my friends. A post on ATL providing an update would be appreciated. Love the site. Thanks."

We're not aware of any procedural developments in the case. And we sadly didn't receive much in response to our request for firsthand information about Norman Schoenfeld or Allen & Overy in New York. Here's the most interesting tip we received -- some opinions from an A&O associate:

"That this suit goes on is beyond anyone here at A&O. I did not know this Schoenfeld guy much for the five minutes he worked here and don't know if his complaint has merit. I will say this though: associates don't want to work with Mark Wojciechowski and are asking not to work with him."

"He told A&O he was bringing associates from Mayer Brown; MB associates refused to come work with him. Better to stay on a sinking ship like MB NY than work for a nightmare like Mark Woj...."

"No one can understand how firm management let this happen (rumor is that A&O already fired their first outside counsel). Recruitment of NY lawyers is badly affected and we just wait to see how much this costs the firm in damages (and associates of course since all s**t gets passed down - you know the partners won't take the hit in their pocket)."

We contacted the firm for comment, but they didn't have anything to add.

If you have any firsthand information to pass along about the events in question, please email us. Thanks.

Complaint: Norman Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy (PDF)

Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: The Jewish Version of Charney v. S&C?

A little follow-up on Kaye Scholer, whose bonus memo we posted back in November. From a source at the firm:

Just found out that despite the memo sent to associates last year, Kaye Scholer has decided to tie the special bonus to hours. Requiring 2200 hours to receive the special bonus.

There was no mention of this hours requirement in the original memo. Of course, it was designed to appear that Kaye Scholer was paying market when they had no intention of doing so.

But in fairness to the firm, they did leave themselves with some wiggle room, stating that special bonuses would be paid on a "discretionary" basis. It just seems that 2200 was the magic number required to trigger the exercise of said discretion.

Some associates aren't happy about how that requirement was communicated (or not communicated, as the case may be). One associate claims that managing partner Barry Wilner, at a meeting held last year to discuss the bonus situation, did not disclose that 2200 hours would be the cutoff. As a result, "[a]ll the associates had to go on were rumors, which caused many associates to scramble at the last minute to achieve what they thought would be a sufficient amount of hours.... I'm not so much concerned about the amounts involved as much as I am concerned about the lack of information that floats through this firm."

Two other bizarre bits of news about Kaye Scholer -- involving "a giant Care Bear" and a roller derby queen named "She Raw," which would seem to take the firm to Venable-level heights of weirdness -- after the jump.

[Ed. note: As you may recall, last month we solicited applications for the position of ATL's sports columnist. We thank the many fine applicants who threw their hats into the ring.

Today we're pleased to introduce you to this site's new sportswriter: Marc Edelman, a sports lawyer and law professor. You can reach him directly by email (click here). And now, without further ado, we turn the floor over to Professor Edelman.]

As a young boy, I remember sitting with my father watching Super Bowl XXI. In that game, New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms completed 22-of-25 passes for 268 yards, leading my hometown G-Men to a 39-20 victory over John Elway’s Denver Broncos. At that moment, I knew that I would one day work in sports.

Flash forward 21 years. The Giants are back in the Super Bowl. Their then-famous center Bart Oates is now a practicing attorney, and I recently was named as a professor of sports law at New York Law School, Seton Hall University, and Manhattanville College. I am also the new sports columnist at Above the Law.

In the coming weeks, my column Sports and the Law will focus on issues involving the legal aspects of sports, including moral issues, labor policy, and antitrust policy (or lack thereof). This column will also discuss how lawyers can find jobs in the sports field.

Read the first column, after the jump.

The time has come, and the crowning of ATL's Lawyer of the Year and Second Favorite Blog After ATL, both of which are sponsored by ATL and Lateral Link, is at last upon us.

In all, a whopping 4,186 votes were cast, with 2,683 of you voting for Lawyer of the Year and 1,503 weighing in on which blog you like second-most after this one. Find out how it all turned out after the jump.

* New accounting rules for M&A. [DealBook]

* Lilly contemplates $1 billion payment to settle civil and criminal investigations relating to its marketing of Zyprexa. [New York Times]

* NYPD officer accused of pimping child. [MSNBC]

* Ex-priest jailed for murder via exorcism. [CNN]

* Indiana man arrested for making his own crosswalk. [The Indy Channel]

* Nader takes steps toward another run for the presidency in 2008. [Bloomberg]

We bring you an addendum to Monday's post about the latest in Supreme Court clerk hiring. And we're pleasantly surprised to see that we have this news before Wikipedia.

Recently hired to clerk for Justice Stephen G. Breyer in October Term 2008: Brianne Gorod, currently in the D.C. office of O'Melveny & Myers. Gorod is a 2005 Yale Law grad and a former clerk to the judicial tag team of Jed S. Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) and Robert A. Katzmann (2d Cir.).

Those who obsessively follows SCOTUS clerk hiring know that Judges Rakoff and Katzmann have jointly sent clerks to the Court before. But contrary to some rumors, they're not always a "package deal" when it comes to hiring (although there is a significant degree of overlap among their current and former clerks).

Judge Katzmann prefers to hire individuals who have clerked on the district court (or have some other kind of post-law school work experience), so he regularly turns to Judge Rakoff, for whom he has a great deal of respect, as a source of clerkly talent. Judge Katzmann sometimes also helps promising applicants to his own chambers to secure interviews with Judge Rakoff. Conversely, Judge Rakoff also refers and sends clerks to Judge Katzmann, as well as to other Second Circuit judges, and he has also hired some clerks after Second Circuit clerkships. In short, both judges think it's valuable for people to have both district and circuit clerkship experiences, and they try to help make that happen for their clerks. But they don't hire 100 percent of their clerks jointly.

The current tally of OT 2008 SCOTUS clerks, with Brianne Gorod added, appears after the jump.

* Think of this as a compendium of Lawyers and Judges of the Day. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Speaking of judges who do embarrassing things, a Canadian judge insisted that an HIV-positive witness testify while wearing a mask. The judge also "moved the case to a bigger courtroom in order to create more distance between the witness and the bench." [Toronto Star]

* D.C. power lawyer Robert Bennett has a new memoir coming out -- plus a really cute dog! [Washingtonian]

* News you can use, with Super Bowl parties looming: double-dipping in a communal bowl of dip really is gross. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Federal judges to apply their judicial skills to reviewing submissions in the ACS's Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition. Deadline is February 15; contest details here. [ACS Blog]

Any trial judge with the Gall to benchslap the Supreme Court has a serious set of cojones.

Accordingly, Judge Richard Kopf (D. Neb.) -- who sent beer to Professor Doug Berman, as recently noted -- is our Judge of the Day. See links collected below.

We agree with Tony Mauro: Judge Kopf's irreverent "top 10" list of lessons learned from the high court's sentencing jurisprudence is "a provocative jaw-dropper that may get Kopf scratched off the holiday card list at the Supreme Court."

Judge Kopf's "Top Ten" take on SCOTUS sentencing work [Sentencing Law and Policy]
The Top Ten Things I Learned from Apprendi, Blakely, Booker, Rita, Kimbrough, and Gall (PDF) [Sentencing Law and Policy]
Federal Judge's 'Top 10' List Takes On Supreme Court's Sentencing Decisions [Legal Times]
Richard G. Kopf bio [Federal Judicial Center]

The rain in Spain falls mainly on... a**holes? Well, only if most Spaniards are like Tomas Delgado -- and we're guessing (and hoping) they're not.

After all, since chutzpah like this doesn't come along often. Our latest Lawsuit of the Day hails from Spain, via CNN:

A Spanish businessman withdrew a controversial lawsuit Wednesday against the family of a teenage boy he struck and killed while driving a luxury car.

Tomas Delgado had filed a suit asking the dead boy's parents to pay him €20,000 ($29,400) on the grounds that the collision that killed their teenage son also damaged his Audi A-8.

After public outrage ensued, Delgado dropped the suit -- but was none too happy about it:

The businessman had insisted in a recent television interview that he was a victim, too. He was not present for a court hearing Wednesday. His lawyer told the court that Delgado felt that the extensive publicity amounted to a public lynching.

A high-tech lynch mob for an uppity Audi driver. Who was reportedly driving 107 miles per hour in an area where the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. Who hit the boy from behind, according to the boy's father, and "dragged [him] 106 meters (347 feet) along a rural highway."

Read more in the full article (which includes an interesting digression about how quickly you need to file your notice of appeal in Spanish courts; their appeal periods make ours look like an eternity).

Driver drops bid to sue family of boy he killed [CNN]

Here are a few quick updates on the associate bonus front:

1. Wilson Sonsini: On Monday night, the firm issued a long and complicated memo, which we've posted in all its glory after the jump. Since we haven't taken math since high school calculus, it went a bit over our head.

General reaction to the WSGR bonus news was less than positive. From one tipster: "My friends there are pretty pissed in light of Latham's bonuses." From another:

"Some constituent groups (those with low hours) are happy. Other groups (people who work for a living) are less happy. All associates outside of New York are upset that New York special bonuses were paid without a minimum hours requirement."

Under the WSGR bonus system, in certain class years, a lawyer in New York who billed 500 hours less than her counterpart outside New York could wind up with a bigger bonus.

2. Akin Gump (Washington, DC): On rather short notice -- the email went out at around 1 p.m., announcing a meeting at 5 p.m. -- a meeting to talk about bonuses was held on Monday in the D.C. office of Akin Gump. Here's the bottom line:

[T]he gist was that bonuses "ranged from $1,000 to 75,000," which basically means that if you are a first year (or any associate who started in the fall) you got $1,000, and the most senior associates who are most valued got $75,000. Associates were also told that the average was $25,000. This was not broken down by class year, hours, or any other details that may tell you whether you'll be compensated well or terribly.

Lovely. Guess they think transparency is overrated

3. Quinn Emanuel: At Quinn Emanuel, in contrast, management is fairly transparent, and communication is relatively open (at least by Biglaw standards). How many senior partners of major law firms write open letters to ATL, as John Quinn did recently?

Anyway, two pieces of news. First, yesterday QE gave supplemental bonuses today to laterals, recalculating how they pro-rated (a subject of prior controversy). Second, they provided some information -- albeit not terribly specific information -- about billable hours and 2008 bonuses. Memo after the jump.

Last year, we ran a popular series of posts on the Harvard Law Review (click here and scroll down, to the posts marked with a mushroom cloud over Gannett House). The gist of the coverage, as described by one of our sources, was that the Review's new, left-leaning leadership "is running the journal into the ground with a cabal of radical ideologues, making the outgoing editors nervous about the future reputation of the journal."

We got some flak for our HLR coverage. But in view of what the Review is publishing these days, as discussed extensively in the blogosphere last week -- see, e.g., the Volokh Conspiracy and PrawfsBlawg -- we can't help gloating. Just a little.

Harvard Law Review on Punitive Damages and the 14th Amendment [Volokh Conspiracy]
Cruel and Unusual? On the Harvard Law Review's Case Comment on Philip Morris [PrawfsBlawg]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of the Harvard Law Review

For Monday's Lawyer of the Day, we faced an embarrassment of riches -- of embarrassment. So we nominated a quintet of contenders: a North Carolina lawyer caught reading Maxim in court, a former prosecutor who allegedly had sex with two teenage boys, an AUSA arrested on DUI charges, a Canadian lawyer/politician who allegedly overbilled an order of nuns, and a Chicago lawyer who keyed a Marine's car. Then we had you vote on who should take the honors.

Participation was enthusiastic, with almost 1,300 votes cast. Two contenders emerged early in the voting: Beth Modica, the allegedly predatory prosecutrix, and Jay Grodner, who pleaded guilty to keying the Marine's vehicle. Competition was fierce. But in the end, Mrs. Modica came out on top.

So congratulations, Beth Modica. You take the prize as Monday's Lawyer of the Day!

Read more about her alleged misadventures, after the jump.

No, seriously. Despite the perception of Biglaw partners as fat cats, some of them, at least in their early years, take home less than the senior associates who toil under them. From an article in the Legal Times by Nathan Carlile (whose work we've always admired, even before he wrote this nice profile of us):

[T]he most recent round of associate pay hikes has edged senior associates ever closer to junior partner pay rates. In fact, in some cases, senior associates can come out ahead of partners -- particularly if the firm has a nonequity tier.

Here's just one example: At Arent Fox, Chairman Marc Fleischaker says senior associates can earn as much as $280,000 in base salary and -- if they meet targets for generating business -- an additional $100,000 in bonuses. Total: $380,000. First-year nonequity partners start off with a pay rate of $310,000. But they subtract $20,000 to cover their own benefits. Their total: $290,000.

Additional excerpts and discussion, after the jump.

In previous ATL / Lateral Link surveys, we've discovered that a surprising number of you worked over Christmas or New Year's, and that many of you crave a better work environment or better hours.

So, as we look forward to the Superbowl and tomorrow night's Lost premiere and the crowning of ATL's Lawyer of the Year (not necessarily in that order), we can't help but wonder: how many of you will actually be in the office instead of celebrating?

Today's ATL / Lateral Link survey takes a wistful look back at the cancelled plans of yesteryear.

[Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.]

Whatever your responses, you can look forward to this: tomorrow we'll announce both the ATL Lawyer of the Year and your Second Favorite Blog After ATL. For that latter contest, we're adding in Blogonaut after receiving at least seventy write-in ballots. Sure, they were all from one person so most of them didn't count, but they were committed. (Thanks also to those of you who wrote in The Associate Pirate (Arr is for Resume!), but I'm recusing myself from this one. It's not so much the potential conflict of interest as the fear that my blog would get beat up by taxgirl's blog.)

--
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this survey.

Official announcements haven't been made yet, but they're imminent. Two prominent attorneys are about to drop out of the presidential race: former U.S. Attorney and Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani, and super-successful trial lawyer John Edwards.

Random factoid: Giuliani and Edwards both attended top law schools, NYU and UNC - Chapel Hill, respectively. These schools are respectively ranked #4 and #36 by U.S. News. [FN1]

But the remaining candidates who happen to be lawyers went to Harvard (Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) and Yale (Hillary Clinton). These two schools, national institutions for many years, are ranked #2 and #1, respectively.

Loyola 2L claims to be "retired" from the blogosphere. But if here were still around, he might wonder aloud: Are American voters "tier-ist"?

P.S. And who cares about these stupid rankings anyway? A number of top law schools may be overrated.

[FN1] And the law school rankings didn't exist back when Edwards and Giuliani attended.

Update: First, it appears that some of you have misread this post. We doubt that many voters know or care about where a candidate went to law school. We just (1) pointed out a "random factoid," and (2) suggested that people who are obsessed with law school rankings, like Loyola 2L, might try to read something into this.

Second, from an observant tipster:

"It might be worth noting that according to the exit polls the most influential lawyer yesterday was none of the ones you mentioned."

"Rather it was T3 graduate Gov. Charlie Crist (Cumberland Law), whose endorsement seemed to boost McCain past Romney while at the same time destroying any hope Rudy had since Rudy had been courting Crist for weeks."

McCain Wins; Giuliani Set to Drop Out [New York Times]
John Edwards to Quit Presidential Race [AP]
The Most Overrated Law Schools: A Student Perspective [TaxProf Blog]
Which top school do law students think is most overrated in US News? [Brian Leiter's Law School Reports]

Earlier: One Fewer Lawyer in the Presidential Race

* "T.Owes." [ESPN]

* Rebates to $500? [CNN]

* AG Mukasey won't label waterboarding. [MSNBC]

* Sen. McCain wins Florida, Rudy to bow out. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* Federal inquiry into stolen artifacts expands. [New York Times]

* Margaret Truman, only child of President Truman and author of mysteries set at the Supreme Court and the FBI, RIP. [AP]

Earlier this month, we posted an open thread on the law school gunner. It generated a spirited discussion -- perhaps too spirited -- and we eventually closed it to new comments.

We're going to try this again. Here's another open thread to share your gunner stories. But please keep the discourse civil, and please don't call out anyone by name. If you're mentioned in a story and want to defend yourself, come up with a pseudonym for doing so. You really don't want ATL to come up when someone Googles you (e.g., around recruiting season).

As is our practice, we'll kick things off with a story. From a tipster at a law school in New York:

last semester a 1L decided to spread a little rumor. he said he knew what was going to be on one of the finals (civ pro) -- actually he dropped another person's name who people trusted and said that the prof told her what was going to be on the exam. word spread pretty quickly that the last question of the exam would be a policy question, and that preclusion wouldn't be covered. it was a complete lie; he just made it up. most people studied everything anyway, but there were definitely a bunch who spent a lot of extra time trying to study "policy" issues and less time on preclusion (which of course ended up being a question on the exam).

p.s. this guy studies with a small group who call themselves the "dream team" - haha

some other things that i was told later on but didn't experience first-hand:

1) he allegedly conspired to mislead the class for weeks about this

2) his facebook status said "[his name] is exploiting situations like Geraldo Rivera" after he spread the word about what was supposedly on the test

Earlier: Law School Gunners: Open Thread

* A PSA for Blackberry Pearl users on the T-Mobile network. Also, Theresa sounds deliciously evil. [PrawfsBlawg]

* "Senator Obama, we knew Jack Kennedy, and you, Senator, are--well, dude, you were two-years-old...." [What About Clients?]

* "Lessons from Mary-Kategate: Why Lawyers Should Not Engage in Media Relations." And we agree wholeheartedly with this statement: "the ability to get under powerful people’s skin. If ever there was a talent valued among tabloid journalists, that’s got to be it." [Starkman & Associates]

* DLA Piper to launch an in-house version of Facebook. But can you play Scrabulous on it? [Legal Blog Watch]

* It's hard out here in a courtroom for a pimp, proceeding pro se. [11Alive.com]

* Oregon Supreme Court puts kibosh on unkindest cut. [Blogonaut]

* Blawg Review #144, with a Lord of the Rings theme. [Cyberlaw Central via Blawg Review]

Georgetown is an excellent law school -- "T14" (top 14), as some like to say -- with many things going for it. Supreme Court justices love to visit. Students get to take classes like The Law of 24. The diva-licious Nina Totenberg speaks at commencement.

Perhaps most importantly, at least to readers of ATL, Georgetown grads land excellent jobs. Not surprisingly, in a recent poll, a majority of respondents said they'd need $100,000 to turn down 14th-ranked Georgetown in favor of, say, 51st-ranked Arizona State (maybe 'cause they'd like to be separated from Kumari Fulbright by multiple states).

But GULC isn't perfect. Mistakes get made -- mistakes that could, say, compromise your personally identifiable information (and mess with your credit score). From several tipsters:

"You might want to post this so anyone who graduated during this time but didn't get the e-mail knows about the stolen identities."

"I got this warning this morning. Evidently, not everyone is affected, as students next to me in class have not received the email. Just thought I'd forward this along to show the problems at American could be worse - at least their identities aren't at risk."

View the email, after the jump.

Update: We have also posted a follow-up to the original message.

Unlike yesterday -- and by the way, we'll keep the reader poll open for a few more hours -- today we have no difficulty picking our Lawyer of the Day. Hollywood lawyer James Jackson maltreated his Filipino maid. We do not like it when you mess with our peeps.

From the AP (via Law.com):

A former Hollywood studio attorney and his wife were sentenced Monday for abusive treatment of their Filipino maid in a case federal prosecutors said "amounts to modern-day slavery."

James Jackson, the former vice president of legal affairs at Sony Pictures, was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine. His wife, Elizabeth, was sentenced to three years in prison after her attorneys unsuccessfully pleaded for her to receive home detention.

These Hollywood types are ruthless (we've watched "Entourage"). Studio lawyers make Biglaw partners look like social workers. Consider the treatment alleged by the former maid in her civil suit against the couple:

[Former maid Nena] Ruiz claimed in her civil lawsuit that Elizabeth Jackson regularly slapped her and pulled her hair. She also said she was forced to sleep on a dog bed and was given three-day-old food to eat even as she was expected to clean and provide fresh fruit to the Jacksons' pets. The Jacksons only paid her $300 for her work....

See? Studio lawyers are meaner than law firm partners. At least associates get paid $160K for their suffering.

Happily, Nena Ruiz ultimately made out quite well. She was awarded $825,000 in damages by the jury that heard her case.

P.S. In fairness to Mr. Jackson, it appears that much of the abuse was perpetrated by his wife. In her allocution, Elizabeth Jackson told the court: "In my life I have always tried and strived to do the right thing. I failed in this case." Um, yeah.

P.P.S. A tipster observes: "Is it just me, or have these modern-day slavery stories been popping up a lot lately? See here."

Former Sony Pictures Lawyer and Wife Sentenced in Forced Labor of Filipino Maid [AP via Law.com]
Hollywood couple sentenced in Filipino maid 'slave' case [AFP via Philippine Inquirer]
In Pictures: Long Island Slaver Family On Facebook [Gawker]

Back in November, we broke the news that, barring a "substantial improvement" in market conditions, the law firm of Thacher Proffitt & Wood would resort to lawyer layoffs in January. The firm is a major player in structured finance and real estate, two practice areas that have been hard hit by the credit crunch.

January is now here -- and, in fact, almost over. We were reminded of this last week, when we saw this article in the New York Sun about law firm layoffs, mentioning Thacher Proffitt:

Earlier this month, Manhattan-based Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft laid off 35 lawyers, 26 of them in New York City, and late last year, Thatcher Proffitt & Wood cut 50 associates' jobs. The cuts have spurred other firms to follow suit, experts said.

Was the statement accurate, insofar as it suggests or implies that TPW laid off fifty (50) associates? We followed up with Thacher, which issued this statement, through a spokesperson:

As described in our November 27, 2007 official statement, we notified 24 associates in the Structured Finance and Real Estate Practice Groups that if there was no substantial improvement in the market, it was near certain that economic layoffs would take effect in January 2008. As of today, 99% of the 24 associates have accepted a package which compensates them through the end of March 2008, and many have already found new positions. To clarify recent media reports, these events occurred ahead of our initial plan to commence layoffs. [Ed. note: Maybe it should be 96% of the 24 associates -- 23/24 = 95.8%. But who knows... maybe one person is still working part-time for TPW?]

In addition, we offered our first-year associates in the Structured Finance and Real Estate Practice Groups a four-month severance package, should they volunteer to leave the firm. Again, referring to our original statement, the first-year associates' offer remains strictly voluntary; they are under no obligation to accept it. We do feel it's in their best interest to explore other opportunities, since we are concerned that we will not be able to provide them with the best work experience at this formative stage of their careers. A group of first-year associates has voluntarily accepted this package.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the goodwill of those in the business and legal communities who have expressed interest in our associates and have helped to place them in new positions. Although these decisions were difficult for our firm, we are confident that our approach kept our associates' interests in mind and also mitigated our business risks.

We construed this as a statement that the firm did not have to resort to layoffs (as originally planned). We followed up with TPW, and they confirmed this understanding: "Up to this point, departures have been voluntary." [FN1]

But should TPW associates start dancing in the hallways? Not yet. When we asked if this meant the firm had ruled out layoffs going forward, Thacher was noncommittal: "We cannot speculate on future market conditions and the potential impact on our attorney population."

So stay tuned. In other TPW news, it's not just associates who are leaving. Partner V. Gerard (“Jerry”) Comizio, a prominent banking and financial services lawyer here in D.C., just left Thacher to join Paul Hastings (see this press release). When a firm is going through tough times, partner defections are to be expected (although they're unwelcome news, since rainmaker departures only exacerbate the problem of insufficient business to go around).

[FN1] We realize, of course, that if you "voluntarily" depart after being told you'll probably be laid off if you stay, it's not completely "voluntary." A cynic must suggest that it's like "voluntarily" giving the mugger your wallet after being told you'll be shot if you don't. But, on a hyper-technical level, we wouldn't consider these departures "true" layoffs. People can always wait for the ax to fall -- like the one apparent holdout among the 24 associates.

Fearing Recession, Law Firms Tighten Belts [New York Sun]
Pinup's Naked Justice: Keeps Lawyer Job [New York Post]
Paul Hastings Bolsters Bank Regulatory Practice with the Addition of V. Gerard Comizio to the Washington, D.C. Office [Paul Hastings (press release)]

Earlier: Nationwide Layoff Watch: Thacher Proffitt Announces Likely Future Layoffs

Our favorite bride this week is one we don't get to write about. Rachel Berkowitz is a professional organizer who "helps individuals and businesses to organize closets, filing systems and offices and to move and pack." And if you're not a little bit turned on by that, we want to see your underwear drawer.

On the legal-eagle front, three Fordham JDs (at least) and a Sunday school teacher make this our first Catholic-themed week here at LEWW.

The contenders:

1. Sandra Zucker and Joshua Bennett

2. Mari-Claudia Jiménez and Steven Coffey

3. Laura Brown and Brian Vogt

More about these couples, after the jump.

Before the New Year, associates in the New York office of Morrison & Foerster received their bonus news. Now it's time for their colleagues outside of NYC to collect their cash.

In addition to the firm's "standard productivity bonuses under the published 2007 compensation program," MoFo is paying out (1) "a one-time bonus" (it sounds "special" to us), ranging from $10,000 - $20,000, to associates and certain of counsel who met or exceeded their hours requirements, and (2) merit bonuses, for "exemplary lawyering and exceptional teamwork," ranging from $15,000 - $30,000.

Full memo, after the jump.

Time is running out on this month's ATL Lawyer of the Year and Second Favorite Blog After ATL polls, both sponsored by ATL and Lateral Link.

So far, we're up to just over 2,600 votes for Lawyer of the Year, and Wall Street Journal pick Loyola 2L is still going strong. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has a roughly 2.5 to 1 lead over Hillary Clinton, and Alberto Gonzales is stamping out civil rights stomping on music rights attorney Ray Beckerman . . . but pretty much nobody else.

On the blogging front, the Wall Street Journal remains the blog to beat, while Above The Law is still in second place and Volokh Conspiracy is on track for third, having opened up a hefty lead over Patently-O and SCOTUSblog. Write-in candidate Ms. JD has overpowered Overlawyered, and Likelihood of Confusion has turned the tables on Professor Bainbridge and is now closing in on Skadden Insider.

We'll post the final results on Thursday.

But while you're voting for the champions above, are you also voting with your feet at work? In last month's ATL / Lateral Link job survey about 20% of you responded that you were considering leaving your current firms once you received your bonus. But that was before many of you knew what your bonuses were going to be.

So last week, we asked you whether your job searches were indeed underway. Find out if the answers changed after the jump.

* Resignation in Detroit text-message scandal (previously discussed here). [Detroit News]

* A proud American tradition unknown in the rest of the world: bail for profit. [New York Times]

* Legal luminaries at the SOTU. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Trial begins in alleged microwaving of infant. [CNN]

* TRO against Patriots' Moss extended until after Super Bowl. [SI]

* Mortgage crisis may affect litigation departments. [WSJ Law Blog]

* U.S. jails Colombian FARC leader. [BBC]

We don't really have any major bonus news to pass along. Here are a few items following up on previously reported developments:

1. Latham & Watkins: On Friday we reported on the LW bonuses, which were well-received by associates. We now have more detailed information, which appears after the jump.

2. McDermott Will & Emery: We wrote here about their decision to issue supplemental bonuses. Those bonuses have now been paid, and people are happy. More details after the jump.

3. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft: As previously reported, the bonus situation over there is rather vague. An addendum, also after the jump.

Remember MacGate, at American University's Washington College of Law? It was resolved. But technology problems persist at WCL:

Date: January 28, 2008 2:34:20 PM EST
Subject: Wireless at WCL

Dear Student Body:

The following problems have been discovered with the WCL network:

1. All access points in room 101 were either turned off, or nonfunctional for the past two years.

2. All access points on the 5th floor were located in elevator shafts, or other places where they did not provide coverage.

3. Certain points on the 6th floor were assigned the wrong IP address,and so did not provide access.

The Technology department is working to address these problems. If you continue to experience problems with the internet, please inform the Student Services Committee at [xxxx]. You can also file an online trouble ticket, when you find yourself in an area with internet access, at [xxxx].

Regards,
Student Services Committee

At first we thought this was satirical, but we were assured that it's not: "This is for real -- we got it from the SBA today. Our wireless has been terrible recently."

Your friends at ATL obviously want you to have wireless access in class. But we realize that some professors contend that internet access in classrooms is an impediment to instruction.

* Where do broken hearts Lawyers for Fred go? Into the open arms of Mitt Romney, who just picked up an impressive group of conservative legal eagles. [Mitt Romney]

* We previously linked to transcripts of the Kumari Fulbright 911 tapes, but now you can listen to them yourself (click here, then scroll down to the italicized link). Says a tipster: "The screams must have been pretty loud if that many people could hear them from their homes and from the street." [Arizona Daily Star]

* Sangria is illegal in Virginia, so restaurants there serve "a bowdlerized version of the drink." Ted Frank wonders: "[W]hen is someone going to bring a consumer class action against the Spanish restaurants serving faux sangrias without warning customers?" [Overlawyered via WSJ Law Blog]

* Is IP law sexy? Not to this "curvy," aspiring actress. [New York Post; Ropes & Gray]

* Speaking of sexy, do you have a crush on Hillary? This kid does. [YouTube via Blogonaut]

P.S. Some of these items are a little stale (from last week). As we just mentioned, we're clearing a backlog of items we've been meaning to write about.

Update: In response to this comment -- no, we're not done for the day. More posts to come.

Last week was a busy one in terms of bonus news. In addition, we were prevented from publishing as much as we wanted by technical difficulties (which lie outside the jurisdiction of your undersigned blogger, a mere writer and not a tech person).

Our recent neglect of the "misbehaving lawyers" beat has given rise to a backlog of possible Lawyers of the Day. We've decided to clear the backlog by tossing out five nominees and having you vote on who should get the honor.

Click on each lawyer's name to read more about their alleged misadventures. Then vote on who should be our Lawyer of the Day.

1. Todd Paris: This North Carolina lawyer was held in contempt after a judge caught him reading Maxim [quasi-NSFW] in court. "When [Judge Kevin] Eddinger gave Paris a chance to respond he apologized and 'stated in his view the magazine was not pornography, was available at local stores and that he did not intend contempt,' the [contempt] order said."

2. Beth Modica: "A former suburban prosecutor and PTA president had sex with two underage boys, joined many other teens in booze and pot parties and kept it all a secret from her police chief husband, officials said Tuesday. Beth Modica, 44, was indicted on 35 counts alleging statutory rape, criminal sex acts, sex abuse and endangering children. Wearing an olive-gray suit and handcuffs, she pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Rockland County Court and was ordered held on $75,000 bail."

3. Mikal Hanson: "Pierre police early Thursday morning arrested an assistant U.S. attorney, who is accused of drunken driving and speeding. Mikal Hanson, 52, an assistant U.S. attorney in Sioux Falls, was stopped by police shortly before 1 a.m. for speeding, said Pierre Police Chief Elton Blemaster. The arresting officer could smell alcohol on Hanson and asked him to perform field sobriety tests, Blemaster said. 'Mr. Hanson didn't complete them as instructed,' he said."

4. Canadian Senator Mobina Jaffer: "Liberal Senator Mobina Jaffer is under investigation by the Law Society of British Columbia for allegedly overbilling one of her legal clients, including charging for 30 hours of work in a single day.... Jaffer has been called before the law society to account for more than $6 million in legal bills charged to her former client, a Catholic missionary order known as the Oblates of Mary Immaculate."

5. Jay Grodner: From the Chicago Tribune (via Blackfive.net):

Jay Grodner, the Chicago lawyer who keyed a Marine's car in anger because the car had military plates and a Marine insignia, finally got his day in court last week. Grodner pleaded guilty in a Chicago courtroom packed with former Marines. They came to support Marine Sgt. Michael McNulty, whose car Grodner defaced in December, but who couldn't attend because he's preparing for his second tour in Iraq....

"You caused damage to this young Marine sergeant's car because you were offended by his Marine Corps license plates," said Judge [William] O'Malley....

"That's because there is a little principle that the Marine Corps has had since 1775," the judge continued. "When they fought and lost their lives so that people like you could enjoy the freedom of this country. It is a little proverb that we follow: "No Marine is left behind.

"So Sgt. McNulty couldn't be here. But other Marines showed up in his stead. Take him away," said the judge and former Marine.

So those are the five contestants. Here's the poll:

Things have been quiet on the Supreme Court clerk hiring front. There are rumors that Justice Alito has finally finished hiring for October Term 2008, but nobody seems to know who the lucky winners are. If you know, please drop us a line.

We do, however, have some news. A tipster reports:

Justice Ginsburg just hired a 2006 UVA Grad to begin clerking summer 2009. I knew Pamela Bookman (pictured) in law school, and not only is she incredibly smart, she is remarkably fun and down to earth. Kudos to Pam!

For confirmation, see this article, which has the story of how Pam Bookman got an offer from RBG on the spot:

Even though Bookman [who is clerking for the International Court of Justice in The Hague] currently lives thousands of miles away from Washington, D.C., she was still able to arrange an in-person meeting with Ginsburg. Two weeks after receiving an e-mail from Klarman saying that Ginsburg wanted to interview her, Bookman traveled to Washington while visiting her parents during winter break. Bookman chuckled that her interview was her first time ever visiting the Supreme Court. After chatting with Ginsburg about international law, the justice offered her the job on the spot.

“It was thrilling, it was surreal,” she said. “I’m still not sure this is real.”

The current tally of OT 2008 and OT 2009 SCOTUS clerks, with Pamela Bookman added, appears after the jump.

Biglaw is becoming kinder and gentler. The number of large law firms enhancing their parental leave policies continues to grow. The latest to join the club: Debevoise & Plimpton.

From a (male) tipster:

18 weeks. Not bad. Of course, since I'm unlikely to give birth to a child anytime soon, I'll have to be satisfied with 10 weeks.

Also, what's with this "primary childcare giver" business? Of the new parents I've known, the first few months seemed like one needed at least two primary childcare givers, if not more. Eh, I doubt D&P will be sending auditors into associates' homes to check who bills the most hours with the baby.

The email announcing Debevoise's policy, plus a list of firms that have recently enhanced their parental leave policies, after the jump.

We were pretty lucky in the law school roommate department. During our 1L year, we lived with a high school friend who was in New Haven doing medical research. During our 2L year, we roomed with a friend from college: the brilliant Steve Engel, a former law clerk to Judge Kozinski and Justice Kennedy, who currently serves as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (and who recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in that capacity, on the legal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees).

Both were highly considerate roommates. Neither tried to purloin our silverware, which is the allegation made in this angry letter from a University of Alabama 2L to his former roommate. It begins:

Dear Roommate:

This is a letter regarding your use and possession of my silverware and tableware. I regret that I have to tell you this in writing, but all of my attempts to speak to you in person were thwarted by your unwillingness to speak directly to me.

I wish to be as tolerant as possible so we can live together peaceably. However, your impermissible possession and misappropriation of the bulk of my silverware, as well as my stoneware bowls, is no longer acceptable.

The silverware in question was purchased entirely by me for my use. It is relatively new, bought in 2007, and cost approximately $75. The silverware in questions [sic] consists of Oneida’s “Journey” (4 setting) and also an Oneida Silverplate (2-setting which is coated in actual silver). I did not object to you using it at first (although you never asked for permission), but I reasonably thought you understood that your use had to be within some bounds of reason. You have continually used silverware without returning it to the kitchen. This has meant there is insufficient silverware for me, the owner, to use. This is unacceptable under any condition. Placing dishes and silverware in the kitchen does not waive my right to have reasonable possession or use of it.

The letter gets more over-the-top as it goes along. It culminates with a threat to bring a civil action for the tort of conversion.

Read the rest, after the jump.

Last month we asked you which holidays you worked on, or expected to work on, during 2007. About half of you reported that you had worked on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In today's ATL / Lateral Link survey, we see how you fared last week. Did you take the day off to honor a champion of civil rights, or did you make it a "day on"?

[Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.]

In the meantime, at least one of you noticed that I am not Dave Lat. I'm actually Justin Bernold, a Director in Lateral Link's Boston office. I'm also a friend (and fan) of Dave's from college and the author of, among other things, the Associate Pirate (Arr is for Resume!) blog.

* Top candidates turn to trial lawyers for support. [Washington Post]

* More recusal requests expected in WV Supreme Court. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Former NFL player's wife files malpractice suit over surgery. [ESPN]

* Suffrage suffers in Mexico. [MSNBC]

* How to count primary delegates (and an explanation of the "superdelegates"). [New York Times; New York Times]

* "It's just not realistic" to present major new initiatives, but the SOTU will still be on every channel tonight. White House speechwriters are not on strike. [CNN]

* Super-litigator Tom Barr of Cravath, RIP. [New York Times (death notice); WSJ Law Blog]

We've been hearing a bit about the bonuses paid out by Latham & Watkins. It seems that LW associates are quite pleased.

Going back to our post from earlier today, it seems that one tipster's speculation about a meeting to spin bad news was off the mark. A second LW source had this rebuttal:

Sometimes our offices have meetings to discuss bonuses. I am aware of one office that had a similar meeting last year, on the day in which bonuses were given. I think it's more to go through the bonus memo and answer any questions, rather than to break any bad news.

And apparently there was no bad news to break. If this chart (posted at AutoAdmit) is correct, Latham associates did pretty well for themselves.

We haven't received confirmation of the chart (yet -- we're working on it). And the chart also doesn't reflect unspecified additional amounts paid out in New York. But LW sources did write in to say they're pleased with their hauls:

"I think people are pretty happy with what they received."

"Overall, bonuses are better than ever. They matched or more than matched in every market, for people who hit 1900 billable hours (a goal that is very clear -- there was no doubt from the day I was hired that I needed 1900 to get a bonus). Bonuses in non-NY offices are far higher than they were last year (minimum - $35,000) and New York seems to have matched and/or exceeded the Cravath model. Overall, I am very happy!"

Update: The accuracy of the chart has been confirmed for us by multiple sources at Latham.

Latham bonus memo for 2007 [AutoAdmit.com]

Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch: Reading the Latham Tea Leaves

An oldie but a goodie (and the sheer age of this item makes it pretty safe to use). This archived entry was recently located inside the database of a temporary staffing firm. It's a description of a temp accountant's less-than-successful stint at a law firm he was farmed out to:

12/13/00 -- Terminated from assignment at [redacted] for "creeping out" the staff by excessive talking, staring at the female employees, eating candy canes off the office Christmas tree, and inspecting other people's food in the refrigerator. Brought into the office and counseled.

If you have your own funny anecdote about an idiosyncratic temp, feel free to post it in the comments (but without identifying info, per standard ATL policy).

Yesterday the D.C. office of WilmerHale made its bonus announcement. Here's a summary from a source at the firm:

The bonus memo came out today. Yay! Salaries are the same. For the class of 2006, the hours guideline for bonuses is:

Hours Bonus
1,850 $15,000
2,000 $35,000
2,200 $40,000
2,400 $45,000

Management gave the caveat that bonuses were awarded for 1,850 hours only in some cases, basically for practices that were slow in which 2,000 hours could not be billed. The firm repeated that it expects lawyers to bill 2,000 hours per year (including pro bono).

If you have info on other classes, feel free to send it our way by email.

Update: A second source confirms the numbers above for first-year associates, and adds: "This was conveyed in personal letters stating our salary and bonus levels. New associates who started in the fall received prorated bonuses."

Check out Lateral Link's completely revamped website, with new features. Now you can find the Job of the Week appearing below in the Featured Jobs section of your MyBio page, and qualified candidates can reveal the employer name immediately.

Position: General Counsel

Company: CONFIDENTIAL (Family Office of High Net Worth Individual in Orange County, CA)

Location: Orange County, CA

Description: Are you familiar with Nick on the show Dirty Sexy Money? The family office of a well-known, high net worth individual in Orange County, CA, is currently seeking an attorney for General Counsel. The family office manages and administers all of the financial affairs and activities not associated with the founder’s company. Responsibilities will include, either directly or by coordinating outside counsel: Real Estate, including contract review, drafting, and negotiation; Contract Negotiations; Regulatory and Compliance ('33 Act, '34 Act, both '40 Acts); Estate, Tax and Financial Planning; and managing general business transactions. Requirements include: 4-10 years experience with a law firm, financial service, or property management company; Experience with real estate or private investment transactions; and SOX experience a plus.

For more information, see job #7697 on Lateral Link.

Earlier: Prior Job of the Week listings (scroll down)

As we reported earlier this week, the Atlanta office of Paul Hastings has adopted a new pay scale, with a starting salary of $160,000.

The Fulton County Daily Report picks up the news today. It's not new, since it was announced on Wednesday. But the article, by Meredith Hobbs, has a nice round-up of where things stand in the Atlanta market, post-Paul Hastings:

Like most of their competitors, Paul Hastings paid first-years $130,000 in 2007, the rate established by last spring's round of pay raises. The firm had delayed unveiling its response to the increase to $145,000 triggered by Alston & Bird in August (with smaller raises up the classes) until now.

Paul Hastings' new pay scale goes from $160,000 for first-years -- the current market rate for first-years in more expensive cities such as Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York -- to $215,000 for seventh-years.

By comparison, King & Spalding announced in October a 2008 scale starting at $145,000 for first-years and going to $195,000 for seventh-years. At that time, King & Spalding established a richer bonus system, which upped pay for first-years receiving bonuses to $152,500, and star seven-years to as high as $250,000.

Paul Hastings does not calculate bonuses until after the end of its fiscal year, so associate bonuses correlating to 2008 compensation will not be determined until the end of February 2009, said Philip J. Marzetti, the firm's Atlanta managing partner.

More excerpts and discussion, after the jump.

Expect bonus news in a matter of hours from Latham & Watkins. An LW source writes:

Some are speculating Latham will try to cheap out on bonuses because [last night] we received an e-mail to all associates that there will be a meeting Monday to discuss bonuses. I don't remember them doing this last year, and some people think they may issue low bonuses Friday, then do damage control Monday.

Of course it may also not mean anything too.

In other words, nobody knows anything. And we'll know the real answer very soon anyway.

But if you can't engage in time-wasting speculation on a blog, where can you do it? Read and parse the email for yourself, after the jump.

We wish we knew how to quit... finding legal angles to every story under the sun. One such story is the recent, tragic death of Heath Ledger, the celebrated young actor.

We've noted the news in passing. Now we offer more substantive, law-related discussion (beyond fleeting references to NYU law students who went from their seminars about Jesus to join the crowd of gawkers assembled outside Ledger's apartment).

1. Rights to remains. Sometimes this can become an issue, as it did in the case of Anna Nicole Smith. Earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court heard a case about a law providing that body parts removed during an autopsy are classified as medical waste (which usually results in the incineration, rather than burial with the body).

It fortunately appears this won't be an issue in Ledger's case. Although additional blood and tissue testing still needs to be done, his family will be taking custody of his body, according to the NYT's City Room blog.

2. Pending projects. Heath Ledger's sudden passing raises issues with respect to projects he was involved with. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Of particular importance to Hollywood will be the future of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which had very recently begun shooting. After dealing with the shock of losing Ledger to unfortunate circumstances, the film's producers and lawyers will have to consult with their production lawyers and the insurance firm that indemnified the film to decide whether to recast, restage and/or rewrite the film to work around Ledger's absence, or whether Ledger's death presents an irresolvable barrier to completion of the film.

More analysis, including discussion of insurance recovery issues, over here.

3. Funeral protestors. Exact funeral plans for Heath Ledger are not yet known. But when it does happen, it could get ugly. A tipster raises a legal question:

Check out this story [about how members of the antigay Westboro Baptist Church plan to protest at Heath Ledger's funeral, because of his work in "Brokeback Mountain"].

Here's my question. These [SOBs] are saying horrible, offensive, disgusting things. When does the fighting words doctrine come into play, and does the fighting words doctrine protect me if I punch out one of these bastards? Because I would really like to.

Feel free to opine in the comments.

Update: More about that Jesus seminar, from the WSJ Law Blog.

Heath Ledger's Death Leaves Big Legal Question [THR, ESQ. / Hollywood Reporter]
Anti-Gay Church to Protest Ledger Funeral [ABC News]
What Are They Teaching at NYU Law These Days? [Traditional Notions]
Where Were You When? [Concurring Opinions]
The Passion of the Christ: The Trial of Jesus [NYU School of Law]

Some good news from a tipster over at Venable:

You can finally remove D.C.'s Weirdest Law Firm from your List of Shame. (Does the List even exist now, or is it being revamped for $190K?)

A memo was just issued announcing that first-year salaries at Venable will be raised to $160,000 effective July 2008. Sure, we're a tad bit behind the times, but at least we finally came through. The firm also mistakenly upped first-years' salaries for the pay period that ended this week, but in a move that shows their infinite generosity, they decided the first-years could keep this "bonus" money, with the next paychecks going back to the $145K level (until July 2008).

Memo after the jump.

Earlier: Venable: DC's Weirdest Law Firm?

Yes, we did see Lisa Belkin's "Life's Work" column in yesterday's New York Times, entitled "Who's Cuddly Now? Law Firms." Truth be told, we didn't find it terribly exciting, since most of the law-firm lifestyle improvements she mentions are ones that are familiar to ATL readers. We also shared the reaction of the WSJ Law Blog, which found it sort of random for Thursday Styles: "Since when did the NYT Styles section become a legal trade?"

But since the article has zoomed to the top of the NYT Most Emailed Articles list, with which we are obsessed, we're compelled to write about it. Excerpts and discussion, after the jump.

* Does the Bush Administration have Blackwater's back? The U.S. pushes for specific legal protections from Iraqi law for civilian contractors. [New York Times]

* West Virginia: a little less corrupt than last week? WV Supreme Court agrees to rehear Massey Energy case (previously discussed here). [AP; WSJ Law Blog]

* D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg steps down early, to make way for Chief Judge David Sentelle. [D.C. Circuit (PDF) via How Appealing]

* NYT endorses Hillary Clinton (but not for the reasons identified in the bumper sticker at right). [New York Times; New York Times]

* A more detailed report on the Georgetown Law event with Justice Ginsburg that we wrote about last night. [Georgetown Hoya via How Appealing]

As you may recall, back in November, Weil, Gotshal & Manges announced special bonuses, at market levels. In its memo, the firm explained that year-end bonuses would be announced at a later point:

As is customary, 2007 year-end bonuses will be paid at market to associates receiving an “Overall Strong” rating and will be above market for associates receiving a “Distinguished” rating in class years 2003 and above. Year-end bonuses will be paid on January 25, 2008.

That point has come. Weil just announced its year-end bonuses -- and for top performers at more senior levels, i.e., "Distinguished" associates in the class of 2003 and above, the bonuses are above market.

For details, check out the memo, after the jump.

The great state of Michigan, recent host to presidential primaries, is also the home of our Lawyer of the Day. A correspondent writes:

The mayor of Detroit was sexing up his chief of staff, who just happened to be a Wayne State Law Student. The mayor happens to be married with three kids. They may have perjured themselves.

No, not the kids -- Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his lover. From the Detroit Free Press:

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff lied about their relationship last summer at a police whistle-blower trial that has cost the cash-strapped city more than $9 million, according to records obtained by the Free Press.

The false testimony potentially exposes them to felony perjury charges, legal experts say.

Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty denied during testimony in August that they had a sexual relationship. But the records, a series of text messages, show them engaged in romantic banter as well as planning and recounting sexual liaisons.

Dirty details, below the fold.

One of the great things about going to law school here in Washington, D.C., is access to the U.S. Supreme Court. If you're at Georgetown Law and want to watch a SCOTUS argument, you can just stroll on over to One First Street.

And sometimes the mountain comes to Mohammed. Justices of the Supreme Court regularly visit Georgetown University Law Center. For example, last November, as reported in these pages, Justice Antonin Scalia paid a visit.

Today his considerably more liberal counterpart, fellow opera lover Ruth Bader Ginsburg, graced GULC with her presence. From a tipster (who took the iPhone picture at right):

Justice Ginsburg just left an admitted students event at GULC, a discussion about U.K./U.S. comparative law. Also in attendance was Lady Hale of the soon-to-be U.K. Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg was very dignified. She was wearing a brown suit -- it looked like a carpet -- paired with white stockings and yellowish shoes.

Best part: when she whipped a copy of the Constitution out of her pocket and read out the Equal Protection Clause!!!

I had my Con Law book ready for her signature, but she snuck out a side door right afterwards.

For the Article III groupies among you, a little more description of the event appears after the jump.

Back in November, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft issued a bonus memo that was devoid of numbers. Today, the CWT associates who survived the recent layoffs -- which, to be fair, is most of them -- learned how much they'd be getting.

But since there was no firm-wide memo, there's still a lack of total transparency about how much people are getting. Associated were notified individually:

"CWT announced its bonuses today in individual letters to the remaining associates. Some people got full market bonuses and others got letters that merely told them what 2008 salaries are, with no mention of a bonus."

If you can shed more light on the situation, feel free to post in the comments, or email us. Thanks.

Sorry it's been a little slow around here for the past few hours. In the morning, we had some technical difficulties. For most of this afternoon, we've been offline, speaking at this D.C. bar panel.

Anyway, now we're back. And we have a fair amount of bonus information to pass along.

The New York office of Winston & Strawn has announced year-end and special bonuses. Memo after the jump.

So far, about 1,400 of you have cast your vote for ATL Lawyer Of The Year.

Loyola 2L is in the lead so far, but Obama is close behind. Whoever helps Chipmunk Lady is a not-so-distant third, showing that this year's ATL reader wants change (and bonuses) and supports the little guy (and not-so-little bonuses).

Hillary Clinton, currently in fourth place, urges us to vote for experience. Meanwhile, Aaron Charney, Alberto Gonzales, and Ray Beckerman are in the Thompson / Kucinich / Gravel zone, respectively. On the write-in front, Bob Link and "DC Pants Judge" are beginning to get some traction.

Meanwhile, this month's ATL / Lateral Link survey on hours and bonuses continues to get responses of its own, and we're now up to almost 1,750 participants.

We revealed the bonus breakdowns for the Classes of 2004, 2005 and 2006 in the results to Monday's survey on whether you're looking for a new job. Today, we reveal the numbers for 2003 after the jump.

Why do the gay lawyers land all the fabulous real estate? Just a few days after this installment of Lawyerly Lairs, profiling the palatial pads of two same-sex couples, we learn of a third such couple living large in New York.

A reader sums it up nicely: "This seems right up our alley for Lawyerly Lairs: Manhattan / East Hampton real estate, Yale Law alum (then Paul Weiss before going in-house), Ivy League pedigree on both sides of the same-sex partnership, and shout-outs by the New York Times."

Indeed it is. Read about the charmed life of architect Michael Haverland and lawyer-turned novelist Philip Galanes, follow their successful adventures in NYC real estate (and furniture collecting), and ogle photos of their luxurious Upper East Side and East Hampton homes, in this NYT article.

Starting Over, and Over, and Over [New York Times]
Philip Galanes biography [galaneshaverland.com]

Earlier: Lawyerly Lairs: Gay Gotham Edition

Defendants in deep doo-doo come up with all sorts of innovative defenses. Last week, we learned that fashion mogul Dov Charney, accused of sexually harassing a former employee, claimed in a deposition that when he appeared before the plaintiff wearing nothing but a strategically placed sock, he was merely testing a new line of underwear.

But this is even more dubious. At a murder trial underway in New York, a father accused of killing his seven-year-old stepdaughter has introduced into evidence a "World's Greatest Dad" mug she once bought for him.

If the mug has writing on it, you must acquit.

'World's Greatest Dad' Mug Seen In Nixzmary Trial [wcbstv.com]
Implausible defense department [Overlawyered]

* Renomination of Steven Bradbury to head OLC seen as diss to Dems. [New York Times]

* Barry Bonds seeks dismissal of perjury charges. Depends on what the meaning of "is" is? [San Francisco Chronicle via How Appealing]

* Senate debates whether to grant phone companies immunity from suits arising out of their helping out on warrantless wiretapping. [Washington Post]

* Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan seeks Supreme Court review of his conviction. [Chicago Tribune via How Appealing]

* Also turning to the SCOTUS: cheeky pro se litigant who forestalled foreclosure for 11 years. [WSJ Law Blog]

* You've got mail? Maybe not, at least at the White House, which is having some email archiving problems. [Washington Post]

The powers that be in the Atlanta office of Paul Hastings just announced associate pay raises for fiscal year 2008, which will take effect on February 1. Apparently ATL -- the website, not the city -- got a shout-out at the meeting, when the announcing partner asked, "Who is going to be the first one to email Above the Law?"

Here's the memo and salary table:

We are pleased to announce the Firm will be increasing base-level salaries for U.S. associates in the Atlanta office effective as of the new fiscal year which commences February 1, 2008.
FY 2009 Compensation by Class Year is as follows:

These increases reflect the Firm's commitment to paying at the top tier of the market in Atlanta.

We thank you for and commend your performance, commitment and hard work throughout the year and your contributions to our success.

In last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey, we asked you to submit your nominations for Lawyer of the Year. Today, you get to vote!

The nominees, and select comments explaining why, are below:

Aaron Charney

For both the attention focused, success of action, and for the visibility [he] brought to the secondary issue of partner/associate relations (but not those kinds of relations).

Alberto Gonzales

Exemplifies why lawyers are so mistrusted in this country.

Barack Obama

The man had the credentials to do Biglaw. He chose public service instead. Although he is obviously politically ambitious, he at least appears to be in it for the people. He's almost as hot as Judicial Hottie Jeffrey Sutton. I mean, did you see the Obama Girl videos? We've all got a crush on Obama. And he just might be president next year.

Hillary Clinton

She's fabulous.

Loyola 2L

He's generated the most thoughtful discussion of law school. That, and perhaps the publicity will help him get a job.

Ray Beckerman

For his tireless defense and continuous commentary in countless RIAA cases.

Whoever helps Chipmunk lady.

Because.

We know that last one should really be a 2008 Lawyer of the Year, not a 2007 Lawyer of the Year, but we just don't care. You demanded the nomination right now.

So who should win? Cast your vote below.

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.

A report on bonuses (such as they are) at K&L Gates in New York:

No notice -- not even an email. Apparently, the "highly confidential" memo appearing on ATL last year less than 24 hours after its release wasn't appreciated.

We were told that we would find out what the bonus was when it hit our bank accounts. The money hit our accounts this past Saturday, and it was a friggin' joke. Since our handlers are doing their best to hamper communication, we've been forced to piece together an unofficial chart. Here's the sad tale, by class year:

2007: Zero
2006: 0 -- $15,000
2005: $20,000 -- $30,000
2004: $30,000
2003: $35,000
2002: $35,000
2001: $35,000 -- $40,000
2000: $40,000 -- $50,000

The high end of each class's range was obtained by one, maybe two associates.

And that's in New York; we'd expect other offices to be lower. If you have info on them, feel free to email us.

For whatever reason, Quinn Emanuel -- the highly prestigious, super-profitable litigation powerhouse, with offices in California and New York -- has received a disproportionate amount of coverage here at ATL. As we previously wrote, "we have a lot of tipsters over there. It seems that QE associates love to talk about their firm, for good or ill."

And it's not just associates. Last night we received an email from John Quinn, the "legal titan" and "known litigation genius" who founded Quinn Emanuel. In his long and detailed email, Mr. Quinn addresses several of the criticisms of QE that have surfaced on ATL. This was our favorite part:

it has been suggested that i do not use capital letters in my typing in an effort to be "cool." i am not cool; wish i was, but after 56 years i don't think it is going to happen. the fact is i am not coordinated enough to hit the shift button with one hand and a letter with the other.

Check out his complete email -- in which he addresses a whole host of topics, including billables, bonuses, partnership decisions, partner compensation, and even office supplies -- after the jump.

So what's going on with everyone's favorite beauty queen turned law student turned alleged kidnapper, Kumari Fulbright?

First, she's still suspended from the University of Arizona's law school. As reported yesterday in the UA student newspaper, The Wildcat (yes, The Wildcat -- how apropos):

On Jan. 7, Fulbright and her lawyer, Marc Beginin, met with UA officials and Fulbright was placed on interim suspension by the Dean of Students Office, said Johnny Cruz, a university spokesman.

"There's no designated end date as to when the status will change," Cruz said Thursday. "Any student on interim suspension cannot be on campus."

Beginin pointed out that the suspension is a mandatory part of school policy. "It's only an administrative suspension that is an automatic function when someone's involved in an investigation," he said Thursday. "It wasn't a decision based on merits of the case."

Second, on a much more exciting note: Kumari Fulbright has contacted us! Since the scandal broke, she hasn't been speaking with the media, letting her lawyer to do the talking. So we were thrilled and honored to receive this message from her, via Facebook:

You forgot a quote of mine on your blog.....

"God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth.... Take the hint"

With all that Ivy League education under your belt that should be reasonably self explanatory... but maybe not.

Well, God also gave us two (2) hands, with which to type up blog posts. Anyway, back to Kumari:

Also, where is your country of origin? In the United States we believe in innocent until proven guilty.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!

Associate layoffs have been the big news in 2008 thus far. Appropriately enough, they're the subject of our latest column for the New York Observer. Here's an excerpt:

“It's tough. People are scared,” [one] jettisoned Cadwalader associate said. “It’s so rare that this happens. The first-years are freaked out. People are wondering: Is this continuing on a rolling basis, or did they take one big hit? People worry about [the impact on] recruiting efforts, both on a lateral basis and for incoming law students.”

The associate, like the others laid off that day, was given barely more than a week’s notice: His last day of work would be the following Friday, Jan. 18.

He’s getting three months of severance, paid out every two weeks, just as when he was employed. But he’s no longer able to tell prospective employers he’s still at the firm, which he predicts will make his job search harder.

“It’s like dating,” he said. “When you’re with someone, everyone wants you; when you’re on your own, it’s that much harder.”

You can read the complete column by clicking here.

P.S. We've been writing this column for a few months now. The archives are accessible here.

Will Work for Dinner at Nobu [New York Observer]
Lawyers Column archives [New York Observer]

Or maybe yesterday. From Tuesday's New York Times, an article that still sits on top of the Most Emailed Articles list:

Marty Ummel feels she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom. What makes Ms. Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault.

Ms. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.

Real estate lawyers and brokers say the case, which goes to trial in North County Superior Court on Monday, is likely to be the first of many in which regretful or resentful buyers seek redress from the agents who found them a home and arranged its purchase.

It's an interesting case. We're a bit skeptical, but maybe that's just us. Read the full NYT article, which contains more of the facts, then feel free to take our poll if you like:

Feeling Misled on Home Price, Buyers Sue Agent [New York Times]

* Jose Padilla gets 17 years. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* A merger between Anderson Kill and Reed Smith? Maybe not. But 55 of Anderson Kill’s 126 lawyers have decamped for Reed Smith. [WSJ Law Blog; WSJ Law Blog]

* Ted Frank on yesterday's Enron cert denial: Extortion, interrupted? [New York Sun]

* China shuts down "real-time" porn site, as part of its crackdown on online porn. [Reuters]

* Law tie (however tenuous) to Heath Ledger story: "Nicole Vaughan, 24, a law student at New York University, was in a seminar about Jesus when someone sent her a message about Mr. Ledger. She checked the Web, then walked to the apartment 'because of the way our generation is; we sort of feel we’re a part of each other’s lives.'” [New York Times]

* Apparently Bill Clinton enjoys the Yale Law / Harvard Law rivalry: "I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight." [NYDN via Drudge]

Last week, a Boston tipster told us:

As you probably know, the rest of the Boston firms will begin announcing bonuses next week (finally). Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that associates at Goodwin Procter received a very short email yesterday that there would be a meeting on Tuesday at 1pm to discuss "this year's attorney review process, review delivery and total compensation determinations." We'll be crossing our fingers that the firm will match NYC and the bigger Boston firms (Ropes, Proskauer, Weil) with the special bonuses.

Goodwin is on a 9/31 fiscal year and 2007 was their best year in the firm's history. If they cheap out, there will be a LOT of complaining.

It looks like they didn't "cheap out." From a different source, who was at this afternoon's meeting:

Goodwin Procter matched regular and special bonus - 1850 billables (I know not a true match from you perspective, but in reality there are very few firms in the city who do not have some hours requirement; all things considered, theirs is low). No memo, had an all associate meeting. All other offices on the NY scale w/o special bonus.

P.S. Completely unrelated to law firm life, Heath Ledger has been found dead in New York. He was a talented young actor. May he rest in peace.

Last year we wrote about Peter "P'Ta Mon" John, whom we named an ATL Lawyer of the Day. In an innovative advertisement, Peter John dubbed himself "The Thugs Lawyer," with the following motto: "No Evidence -- No Conviction!"

Now, a quick update. The latest edition of the Baton Rouge phone book contains Mr. John's newest ad (see below). He no longer calls himself "The Thugs Lawyer," but he still uses the "no evidence -- no conviction" slogan. And he's offering an "Expungement Special," for just $500! (Plus filing fees.)

P.S. We don't know about how state systems deal with this issue. But in the federal system, in most circuits, expungement is a tough row to hoe. We worked on one such case in the Third Circuit: United States v. Rowlands (PDF; via Third Circuit Blog).

No jurisdiction to expunge criminal records in absence of challenge to underlying conviction [Third Circuit Blog]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: Peter 'P'Ta Mon' John

Former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) -- who has played a lawyer on television, as well as in real life -- is dropping out of the presidential race.

Look for an official announcement by the close of business today.

Update: Here is Fred Thompson's statement on his withdrawal from the 2008 presidential race. Additional thoughts on the Thompson candidacy appear here (Marc Ambinder) and here (Adam Nagourney and Michael Powell).

Thompson Decides To Drop Out [Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic]
Fred Thompson Drops Out of the Presidential Race [New York Times]

In last week's ATL / Lateral Link survey, we asked you whether it was fair for associates in New York to get bigger bonuses than associates in other cities, even if they worked the same hours.

We appear to have struck a nerve.

Over two thousand of you responded. Among New Yorkers, 94% of associates thought that the higher bonuses were just fine. More than three fifths of respondents in other cities disagreed, with outrage and arguments spilling over into the comments.

But despite their differences in pay, both New Yorkers and the smattering of other associates who supported those differences came together to give the same reasons for why the higher bonuses are ok, although not in exactly the same order:

Poor Boston. First their bagels, and now this?

Earlier: Featured Job Survey: Bonuses in New York and Beyond

If we hadn't already named a Lawyer of the Day, the prize might have gone to Jeremy Pitcock of Morgan & Finnegan. From the American Lawyer:

The former head of intellectual property at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman was fired in December for "extremely inappropriate personal conduct," according to the firm.

Not merely "inappropriate" conduct, but "extremely inappropriate" conduct. We're guessing it was strenuously objectionable.

Jeremy Pitcock, 35, joined Kasowitz in March 2006 after being wooed from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where he was a senior associate. Kasowitz named him head of IP not long after. But after less than two years, Pitcock left the 200-plus-lawyer firm for 52-lawyer New York IP boutique Morgan & Finnegan.

Morgan touted Pitcock's hiring as "an outstanding addition to our successful litigation practice" when it announced his move on January 8. But the Kasowitz firm says he was forced out following an unspecified incident.

"Mr. Pitcock was terminated for cause by Kasowitz, Benson in December 2007 because of extremely inappropriate personal conduct," name partner Daniel Benson said in a statement.

So what prompted the firm's statement?

Kasowitz's statement followed the publication of an article in trade publication IP Law 360 last week, which reported that Morgan had lured Pitcock from Kasowitz. In his statement, directed toward the publication, Benson said, "It was inaccurate to use 'nab' in your headline, or to use 'jump ship' in your opening paragraph."

"We were not looking to publicize this incident, but because of those incorrect news items, we felt compelled to set the record straight," Benson said in a press release that the firm distributed online.

We're intrigued -- and the full article in the American Lawyer doesn't offer much more. If you have details on the alleged conduct, please email us. Thanks.

Update (6/6/08): Jeremy Pitcock has filed a $90 million defamation lawsuit against Kasowitz Benson. See here.

Kasowitz Fired its ex-IP Chief for Inappropriate Conduct [The American Lawyer via Law.com]
Jeremy S. Pitcock bio [Morgan & Finnegan]

Is the complaining about the tough job market for graduates of non-elite law schools overblown? Take, for example, Western New England College School of Law. According to U.S. News, it's a tier 4 school. But when it comes to career success, its graduates are doing just fine, thank you very much.

Some WNEC alumni make partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. Others attain fortune and fame on television. From TortsProf Blog:

I admit to some hesitation in acknowledging watching American Gladiators, which is not by any rational measure a particularly good show. And yet there it sits on our TiVo, and yet we watch it. Such is the mystery of life, no? But today, I get to tie it in both to my law school and to Torts.

Last night one of the contestants, Jennifer Blum, was identified as a New Jersey lawyer and a professional football player (she plays for the New York Sharks and is an all-time leading receiver). A quick search of our alumni database reveals that she's a 2002 graduate of Western New England College School of Law! Sources vary; I thought they said on the show that she's a criminal defense lawyer, but other sites indicate that she's a civil litigator. Maybe she reads this blog!

Or maybe this one. Hi Jen! If you'd be willing to be interviewed on ATL, please email us.

From her American Gladiators bio:

Jennifer Blum is a women’s football player who grew up sleeping with a football in her bed. When she was 9-years-old, she and her parents sued for her right to be on a boy’s soccer team — an event that was covered in the media nationwide. Always a tom-boy, never afraid to take a hit or hit back, she is ready to jump into the ring with the Gladiators. Blum, a civil litigation lawyer, is 34 years old and currently lives in Franklin Park, New Jersey.

Jen Blum sounds tough and tenacious. How did she fare on the show? Find out by reading Professor Bill Childs's full post (which also includes excerpts from the incredibly long waiver form that contestants must fill out).

Update: A tipster informs us that she used to work for the New Jersey Attorney General's Office. See picture at right.

Lawyers Ready? Gladiators Ready? [TortsProf Blog]
Jennifer Blum [American Gladiators]
Lawyer Profile: Jennifer Blum [Martindale-Hubbell]

Congratulations to this quintet of five law firms, which just made Fortune magazine's annual list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For (listed below in rank order):

19. Arnold & Porter: "Staffers get 12 weeks paid maternity leave and profit sharing of 7.5% of salary. The less you make, the less you pay for health-insurance premiums."

Actually, a correction: 18 weeks (as of January 1, 2008).

31. Alston & Bird: "Both the legal and nonlegal staff get super benefits, including 90 days of paid maternity leave, coverage of fertility treatments, and concierge services."

Concierge services? Fabulous. Atlantans, stop yer whining!

41. Bingham McCutchen: "They're proud of their elite grads: 72 from nearby Harvard Law, 24 from Yale, and 20 from Stanford. They all start at $160,000 a year."

55. Perkins Coie: "They value fun at this law firm. At 2007's Lawyerpalooza battle of the bands, the Perkins Coie rock & rollers brought down the house (and took home the top prize)."

See also Nixon Peabody: "Fun is not prohibited here." Speaking of which...

66. Nixon Peabody: "The law firm excels on policies for GLBT employees (a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign); it targets 3% of billable hours annually for pro bono work."

Please send us any theme songs that are composed to commemorate these honors. Thank you.

100 Best Companies To Work For (2008) [Fortune]

Earlier: Bingham McCutchen: Land of the Amazons?

* Fed cuts fed funds rate by 0.75%, but stocks are still lower. [AP; New York Times; Washington Post]

* Clinton and Obama get snippy with each other in debate, raising questions about each other's legal work. [Washington Post; New York Times; WSJ Law Blog]

* SCOTUS denies review in gigantic Enron-related investors' lawsuit. [SCOTUSblog via How Appealing]

* Statutory interpretation makes for strange bedfellows in 5-4 ruling in Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons. [SCOTUSblog (PDF) via How Appealing]

* New York City revisits the issue of forced disclosure of calorie counts by restaurants. [AP via Drudge]

The topic for today's open thread: law firm recruiting of law clerks. From an exchange last week in the comments:

"The law firm clerkship recruiting season is picking up, with a lot of clerks' cocktail parties scheduled in the next few weeks in NY. How about an open thread for clerks to discuss firms?"

"[H]ow about a thread with a list of shame for firms, big and small, that haven't stepped up and offered clerkship bonuses to make up for the salary hit you take to clerk for a year?"

"Don’t be upset because you realize your clerkship experience is devoid of any value, as evidenced by the nominal clerkship bonuses. You would have been better off working for a large firm straight out of law school, but I understand that mediocre people need all the experience they can get before applying to a prestigious job, much like my own. P.S.: I didn’t apply to any clerkships because I knew (unlike yourself) that I would never recoup the time invested. I am sorry you wasted your time on a clerkship, but don’t be upset simply because firms place little-to-no value on your clerkship experience (and I use the term "experience" loosely)."

So here's an open thread on Biglaw law clerk hiring. In the comments, feel free to trade notes on which law firms are especially welcoming of clerks, who's leading (and lagging) on the clerkship bonus front, and whether the clerkship experience is worth it -- which we expect to bring out the usual trash talking, from both the pro- and anti-clerking camps. Thanks.

In Chicago, gay lawyers get to attend exclusive parties. In New York, they enjoy a finer prize: luxury real estate.

The law schools of Columbia and NYU have been battling over faculty superstars for several years. And now NYU is bringing out the heavy artillery: multimillion-dollar condo purchases. From the New York Times:

Columbia University, in a never-ending search for a larger campus, has long had an outpost for faculty housing at 455 Central Park West -- 53 apartments in an 26-story tower attached to the French Renaissance chateau at West 106th Street.

So it was something of a surprise when a foundation associated with New York University bought a large condominium in the complex. The unit, which cost $5.2 million, is built into one of the huge turrets of the chateau.... The duplex apartment has a round living and dining room with 37-foot high ceilings and Central Park views, along with three more conventional bedrooms.

Sounds fabulous! Who gets to inhabit this fabulous pad?

Find out, after the jump.

* A Virginia lawyer reveals a secret he held for a decade, causing a death sentence to be commuted to life in prison. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* Kumari Fulbright 911 tapes released. Truth be told, they're a little disappointing -- nothing Kumari-specific in them. [KVOA News 4]

* Chief Justice Elliott Maynard of West Virginia recuses himself from further participation in a case involving a coal company executive with whom he traveled (previously discussed here). [New York Times]

* You can call trial lawyers many things, but don't say they're not dogged: John Edwards remains in the presidential race, despite his growing string of losses. Is he aiming for the role of convention kingmaker? [Politico; New York Times]

* In other election news, the Obama campaign calls for an investigation of alleged voting irregularities in Nevada. [AP]

* NY AG Andrew Cuomo investigates college study abroad programs. [New York Times]

Last month, our ATL / Lateral Link job survey asked you when your firms paid bonuses, and whether you were planning on changing jobs once those bonuses got paid. About 20% of you responded that you were considering leaving your current firms.

For some of you, this meant waiting until you got your bonus. For others, this meant asking the new firm to match the bonus you'd be leaving behind. And for yet another group, the bonus was irrelevant; you just wanted out.

Well, now that most firms have given associates at least some idea of what their bonuses will be -- and most have even paid them -- is your job search actually underway?

[Update: This survey is now closed.]

We'll share the results from today's survey next week. In the meantime, feel free to drop some comments about what your firms are doing to keep you. Cookies? Chair massages? Wear your jeans to work days? New lactation rooms? Or, dare we ask . . . retention bonuses?

It's a government holiday, so public sector employees get the day off. And the markets are closed, so Wall Street is out today too.

But not everyone gets Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday. From an incensed tipster:

[A friend] at Price Waterhouse Coopers forwarded this offensive message, which was sent from the head of PWC US to all US employees. It is one thing for firm management to decide not to observe Dr. King's birthday. It is quite another to dress up that decision, which was clearly motivated by a refusal to bear the costs of observing the holiday, as a noble gesture in honor of Dr. King's achievements.

Clearly, the firm believes that its employees (many of whom are attorneys -- hence the email to Above the Law) are unintelligent enough to believe that this thinly veiled insult was intended to honor Dr. King. Even more offensive is the fact that the firm denigrates Dr. King's extraordinary struggles and achievements by equating them with the daily work of accountants, auditors and tax professionals as they work to save tax dollars and maximize profits for mega-corporations.

The comparison is laughable and utterly offensive. I trust that ATL will not allow the insult to go unnoticed.

We'll let you be the judge. Check out the message, after the jump.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the pioneering civil rights leader. Dr. King's birthday was actually on January 15th, but the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year.

Many of you are not in the office today, in honor of the holiday. If you're not at work, we hope that you are enjoying the day off. (We are around, but will be posting less than usual.)

If you are looking for something to do, we suggest that you treat today as an opportunity for public service. You can look up a service project in your area at MLKDay.gov.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Blawg Review #143 [Public Defender Stuff via Blawg Review]
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service [MLKDay.gov]

To San Francisco, apparently, to clerk on the Ninth Circuit.

We hope that the author of this email is clerking for one of court's slave-driver judges. He needs to be kept busy, so he won't have time for any more literary endeavors.

"Pleaded" or "pled" may be a matter of personal preference. But turns of phrase like "I had to have breakfast with my unit" and "the inadequate salve of an orgasm" ought to be criminalized -- even in the Ninth Circuit.

Correction: We've heard from the woman who received the email. As it turns out, she works for the Ninth Circuit; the sender does not (although he is an attorney, in southern California). She construes the references to the Ninth Circuit to mean "that the job he currently has is *his version* of the Ninth Circuit -- that is, his dream job."

"It Was A Risk -- Dating You. Risking My Reputation. Where Was Respect For That?" [Jezebel]

So far this month, over 1,500 of you have voted on who should receive two significant accolades.

Our Second Favorite Blog Of The Year After ATL survey, sponsored by ATL and Lateral Link, is still dominated by the Wall Street Journal. But the Volokh Conspiracy, Patently-O, and SCOTUSblog are putting up a fight, write-in candidate taxgirl is creeping up on write-in candidate TaxProf Blog, and added-because-we-love-him candidate ProfessorBainbridge.com is just crushing Likelihood of Confusion (whom we also love).

Meanwhile, nominations for ATL Lawyer of the Year have been dominated by Loyola 2L, Aaron Charney, and Barack Obama (which is probably the only time you'll see those folks on the same list). Hillary Clinton -- who's already Legal Diva of the Year, as far as we're concerned -- is close on Barack's heels, and there are a smattering of nods for others.

While both of those surveys remain open, today we reveal results from last month's ATL / Lateral Link survey about your potential prize: Will you make partner?

More than 1,600 of you responded to last month's survey, and, generally speaking, you're a pessimistic bunch. Only about 14% of you thought that you would definitely make partner at your current firm, with another 13.6% holding tentatively positive expectations. About 7% of respondents thought that they would make partner somewhere, but not at their current firms. The remaining two thirds of you either don't think you'll make partner, just don't know, or simply don't care. The most junior associates were the least likely to believe they'll make partner.

The good news is, those of you who don't make partner might still have jobs at the end of the day. Roughly 43% of you responded that your firms are not "up or out." Thirty percent, however, believe the axe will fall if they don't make partner. The rest of you simply don't know.

We don't normally do this (and probably won't make this a regular feature). But since we have a few on hand right now, we'd like to pass along the following public service announcements:

* Attention Washingtonians. There's an interesting panel discussion taking place here in D.C. next week: "Practicing Law in the E-Court of Public Opinion: How the Internet Can Make or Break a Lawyer’s or Law Firm’s Reputation and What You Can Do About It."

We are on the panel, along with Mark Britton of Avvo, Andrew Mirsky of Mirsky Legal, and fellow bloggers Carolyn Elefant, of My Shingle, and Jonathan Frieden, of E-Commerce Law. [Avvo Blog; MyShingle.com]

* Attention Asian American lawyers and law students (but all are welcome; this isn't the K&E GLBT party). There's an interesting conference taking place next month in Philadelphia, PA: "Emerging Asia: Shedding New Light on the Legal Landscape." We're delivering the keynote address at dinner. [APALSA]

* Attention South Asian lawyers and law students (but again, all are welcome). There's an interesting conference taking place next month in Los Angeles, CA: "Reflecting Back, Reaching Forward: Building on a Decade of Progress." [NASALSA]

* Attention essayists. Check out this essay contest: "How Do We Close the Gap Between Baby Boomers and Millennials on Work/Life Balance?" It's sponsored by Ms. JD and The Project for Attorney Retention. Prize of $1,000; entry deadline of February 29. [Ms. JD]

* Attention prospective bone marrow donors. A tipster writes:

A former Simpson Thacher associate needs a bone marrow transplant, most likely to come from someone Jewish, and we’re trying to notify as many people as possible to get on the donor list.

More details, after the jump.

Why was Cinderella stuck in the office doing document review, while her wicked stepsisters nibbled on caviar and danced the night away?

Maybe Cinderella worked at Kirkland & Ellis, and her sisters were of the Sapphic persuasion. From a K&E tipster:

The Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis hosted a "GLBT only" party last night. The email invitation is below.

It's illegal under Illinois law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace. But they shouldn't be expected to know that as attorneys, should they?

Here's the invite:

The GLBT Subcommittee of the Firmwide Diversity Committee cordially invites All Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Attorneys and Staff to a Winter Cocktail and Hors d’Ouevres Reception Today, Thursday, January 17, 2008 Sidebar Grille.

221 N. LaSalle
Chicago
5:00 P.M. — 7:00 P.M.

Truth be told, we aren't deeply troubled. Regardless of their technical status under the law, events for lawyers who share common interests happen all the time.

So lighten up, Mr. Tipster! You probably wouldn't have liked the music anyway -- or, for that matter, being ogled by those twinks from IT. And you definitely wouldn't have appreciated being hit upon by that bear from Duplicating.

As a certain ATL commenter might say, "Guys in my high school used to throw special gay parties all the time. They called it Drama Club. It was no big deal."

P.S. A more serious issue is presented by K&E's summer associate diversity fellowship, previously discussed by Professor David Bernstein over at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Diversity Fellowship Program [Kirkland & Ellis]
Illegal Fellowship at Kirkland & Ellis? [Volokh Conspiracy]

Today is Friday, when we entertain offbeat reader requests. Like this one:

I've billed a couple of hours this week arguing with different partners about whether "pled" or "pleaded" is the preferred past tense form of "plead." Can I get a poll? I wonder what Biglaw associates and old-school partners have to say about it.

I've generally found that most younger attorneys use "pled" while the more senior attorneys prefer "pleaded." Anyway, just random thoughts for a Friday morning.

Back in our brief-writing days, we used "pleaded," which we felt better captured the "past-ness" of the event. But that's just our opinion. What do you think?

It appears that Jonathan Lee Riches -- ATL's favorite pro se litigant, who filed that famous $63,000,000,000.00 Billion lawsuit against Michael Vick -- has some competition in the contest for craziest complaint.

Pro se litigant Gregory Newman has filed a lawsuit against "Covert Action Air Operations." This entity does not exist. But that hasn't stopped Mr. Newman from alleging that it erased his videotape of a "magnetic tornado" that descended upon his backyard.

Here's an excerpt from the memorandum opinion dismissing the complaint, which describes some of Gregory Newman's more colorful allegations:

You can read the two-page opinion -- which includes some boilerplate and citations, perhaps helpful to the law clerks among you, for the proposition that complaints "that describe fantastic or delusional scenarios are subject to immediate dismissal" -- by clicking here.

Memorandum Opinion: Newman v. Covert Action Air Operations [U.S. District Court (D.D.C.)]

If you're not already a member of Lateral Link, you can sign up through their website. Membership, which is free and confidential, allows you to learn about new legal opportunities as they become available. Successfully placed candidates will receive a $10,000 placement bonus.

Position Type / Location: Law Firm - Tax Associate (Washington, DC)

Position Description: The Washington D.C. office is seeking a mid-level tax associate to work on project finance transactions. This magic circle law firm makes The American Lawyer's AmLaw 100 rankings. The firm's practice areas include corporate, bankruptcy and restructuring, intellectual property, litigation, project finance, reinsurance and insurance, and tax. The successful candidate must have at least 3-6 years experience in partnerships, foreign tax planning, leveraged leasing, subchapter C and tax-exempt financing.

For more information, see job #7697 on Lateral Link.

Earlier: Prior Job of the Week listings (scroll down)

Today's open thread focuses on someone who is near and dear to all of your hearts: the law school gunner. He's sitting on your left; he's sitting on your right; or maybe he is you. If you don't know who the gunner in your class is, then look in the mirror.

We asked the tipster who suggested this topic to us to provide us with some fodder to kick off the thread. Here's what we got:

It all begin at Admitted Students Weekend last spring, when this particular individual had to be shushed and told to "STOP TALK-ING" by a professor running a mock class. This was after he interrupted another admitted student and said, "Well, he gave a BAD example, but what he was clearly trying to say was..." There was other bizarre admitted students weekend behavior, but that should give you an idea.

Then, we arrived at school in August and there he was...ready to embark on a semester full of interrupting other students and professors, sharing awkward personal stories, and even telling professors that material they assigned from casebooks was "irrelevant."

For finals, he decided that typing on his laptop keyboard would not allow him to type quickly enough to get all of his thoughts down in EBB, so he got special permission from the Registrar to use an external keyboard and a stand for his laptop. The whole contraption takes up lots of desk space and looks like he is sitting at the controls of a spaceship. From what I hear, he also used it for the last week of classes to "practice" for the exams.

He also once asked a particularly well-known professor to autograph his casebook...

And, finally, the event that precipitated my message to you. During a lunchtime speaker event, this individual pulled out a set of nail clippers and started clipping and then filing his fingernails! The entire room heard and was staring at him--naturally this got around the law school pretty quickly. Did I mention this individual is older and should know better (not that a 22 year old straight from undergrad shouldn't...but he's significantly older)?

So there's a few examples for you.

Have gunner horror stories of your own to share? Please do so, in the comments (without naming any names, per our standard operating procedure around here). Thanks.

Gunner [Wikipedia]

* Former police chief calls Diana's death preventable. [MSNBC]

* Court allows casino caucuses in Nevada. [New York Times]

* Legal aid money allegedly spent on booze and loans. [AP]

* Roger Clemens retains D.C. powerhouse lawyer, Lanny Breuer, to help him navigate the Beltway byways. [New York Times]

* Developments in missing marine case. [CNN]

* Study estimates 473 days' worth of missing White House e-mails. [Washington Post]

* Texas Supreme Court justice indicted, but indictment to be dismissed. For a more complete write-up, see our earlier post. [New York Times]

It's not every day that a member of a state's highest court gets indicted. So of course Justice David Medina, of the Texas Supreme Court, is our Judge of the Day. Justice Medina and his wife were just indicted in connection with an alleged arson fire that destroyed their home last summer. (We previously discussed the case here.)

But wait -- it gets better. District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, a recent Lawyer of the Day, has announced that his office will move to dismiss the indictments. As several tipsters helpfully pointed out to us, both Rosenthal and Medina are Republicans.

This is a little too much bizarreness for this early hour. We'll turn the floor over to a Texas tipster:

Texas is awesome for many reasons -- for example, the locals trying to build nuclear reactors in their garages. And don't forget the alien visitors.

But the justice system just makes Texas awesomer (even though we already knew that -- see here).

First there's the Texas supreme court justice & his wife who were indicted yesterday and are suspected of torching their house after the bank foreclosed on it.

Then, the DA who says he'll seek to toss the indictment.

Did we mention the DA's under investigation himself, and a Harris County judge has requested the AG investigate?

All around, it's pretty solid legal scandal.

Everything is bigger in the Lone Star State -- including the legal scandals.

Update: Here's an article from the New York Times (via the WSJ Law Blog).

Texas Supreme Court Justice indicted in arson of his Houston home [AP]
Texas Supreme Court justice, wife indicted [Houston Chronicle]
Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina Indicted [Texas Lawyer]
Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina indicted in connection with fire [Dallas Morning News]

Earlier: Did A Texas Supreme Court Justice Burn Down His Own House?
Lawyer of the Day: Chuck Rosenthal

* Does the Supreme Court's Stoneridge decision give the "getaway drivers" of securities fraud a free pass? [OverHedged]

* Apparently Green Bay fans really like the Packers. [SI.com]

* Miss Loyola 2L? Meet Kirsten Wolf. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Did Barack Obama receive an illegal endorsement? [TaxProf Blog]

* Speaking of Obama, his minister had this to say about Bill Clinton: "He did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky." Can someone please remove the cigar from the national vajayjay? [Baltimore Sun]

In the wake of this story, which had a happy ending, we received this email:

I read about you helping the woman with cancer who wanted to wear her hat in court.

I'm handicapped, paralyzed with a closed head injury.

I'm in a wheelchair and rarely leave my condo except to see doctors.

I've lived in my condo since August 1989. I brought the bird feeder from Mom's house after she died.

Now Ms. [xxxx], the new Property Manager, has ordered me to get rid of my water and chipmunk ramp.

I've been here 18 years. She's been here less than a year.

My whole outside world is my patio with the bird feeder, and water and chipmunk ramp.

I have appealed to [xxxx] Management in Buffalo Grove, IL, but they won't help me.

I hope you will.

We're much better at helping Biglaw associates secure pay raises, or law clerks snag clerkship bonuses. The law governing whether a Chicago condo tenant is entitled to keep a chipmunk ramp on her patio lies outside our expertise. Also, we're not admitted in Illinois.

But if you're a landlord / tenant lawyer in Illinois who might be willing to help our correspondent, please email us, and we will put you in touch with her. Thanks.

More news from one of ATL's favorite law firms, Quinn Emanuel. See Gawker and Radar.

If your friends are as fabulous as Susan Estrich's, why hide them behind a bcc?

Query: Could this actually be a brilliant viral marketing ploy? Has Susan Estrich harnessed the power of the blogosphere to get all the world to read her paean to QE?

The Art Of The 'To' Line [Gawker]
Fox News' Susan Estrich Has a New Job [Radar Online via Big Law Board]

So far, we've received exactly 1,400 responses to last week's survey on hours and bonuses. You can see how bonuses broke down for the Classes of 2005 and 2006, based on hours, in the results to yesterday's Lawyer of the Year survey.

But how did billable hours break down by city?

There's been a lot of discussion in responses to our previous surveys about whether New Yorkers really work as hard as other cities, especially given the Christmas and New Year's efforts of their California brethren.

Find out how New Yorkers really stack up, after the jump.

Who knew that being a judge could be so dangerous? Maybe jurists should get hazard pay. From the Boston Globe:

Few at the Norfolk Superior Court house in Dedham disputed that the worn and uneven front steps needed fixing. But when a judge in his late 60s tripped on them and broke his left kneecap more than three years ago, neither the state nor the county wanted to take responsibility for the condition of the steps.

Now the judge, Paul A. Chernoff, is suing both the state and the county to determine who is at fault. Chernoff, who is about to retire, wants to know which party will cover his future medical bills if he develops arthritis in the damaged knee or requires a knee replacement....

The judge is seeking $10,000 for anticipated future medical and hospital expenses and $25,000 for pain and suffering, according to court documents, which state that the injuries have caused a permanent disability.

According to Judge Chernoff's lawyer, judges in Massachusetts aren't eligible for workers' compensation. Workers' comp would have covered future medical bills -- and the judge could plausibly claim he was injured in the course of performing his duties:

On the morning of June 30, 2004, Chernoff was returning to the Superior Court house after delivering instructions to a jury, which had gathered at the District Court house across the street. As Chernoff ascended the worn stone steps of the Superior Court - the same steps that spectators of the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian anarchists, went up in the 1920s - he tripped and landed on his knee.

Courthouse perils should not be underestimated. Magistrate Judge Ted Klein (S.D. Fla.) may have died as a result of deadly toxic mold in his courthouse.

Update: Might Judge Chernoff be engaging in some forum shopping? A tipster tells us:

FWIW, the courthouse where he fell has a reputation for juries who are not terribly plaintiff-friendly. Which is probably why he filed in Middlesex County (at least in part). I understand there are a few more liberal jurors in Cambridge...

Judge sues over court mishap [Boston Globe]

Sometimes we wish we had the breastses. Then we could enjoy the luxurious lactation room at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Back in this post, we wrote about the lactation room at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. We're sure it's plenty nice. But we doubt it's as snazzy as what the competition on the other side of Lexington Avenue is offering.

Check out this Davis Polk email, which went out late last year (exclamation mark in the original):

From: **** On Behalf Of Associate Development
To: all.lawyers.ny
Subject: Nursing Room

We are pleased to announce that the firm now has a private nursing room!

Located on the 10th floor, this cozy room is equipped with brand-new furniture, including a comfortable chair and end table, refrigerator, and reading materials of interest to new mothers. Access to the secure room is available through the Security Desk. A small sign on the outside of the door indicates when the room is occupied.

We hope that this amenity will provide returning mothers who wish to continue nursing their babies additional support during this important transition. Your privacy and comfort are our priority.

Please do not hesitate to contact [xxxx] or any member of the Associate Development Department if you have any questions. Thank you and congratulations to all of our new DPW Parents.

We're curious about the "reading materials of interest to new mothers" at DPW. Draft asset purchase agreements? SEC proxy filings?

Meanwhile, in other happy news for parents, Arnold & Porter has jumped on the improved parental leave bandwagon. Following the recent trend, which we've been following in these pages, they've increased the paid leave they provide to women who give birth or primary caregivers of a newly adopted child. It used to be 12 weeks; now it's 18 weeks, which appears to be the "market" rate these days.

Transmittal email, plus A&P's full leave policy, after the jump.

Earlier: Biglaw Perk Watch: Lactation Rooms

Back in September, during our focus on non-top-tier law schools, there was some brief discussion over how much an LLM degree from a top program can help you in the job search if you graduated from a non-top law school.

Let's return to that topic. Here's an email we recently received, from a loyal reader of ATL:

I am emailing you to ask if you would do a thread about LLM programs. Specifically, I am a 2L at a top 25 law school, and I'm in the middle of my class. Every semester I improve my grades; however, I am still not in BigLaw range. I am thinking of getting an LLM in Tax from Georgetown, NYU, etc., and I was wondering about career prospects for people like me.

For example, would I be at a disadvantage come hiring time because I will have gone straight through from JD to LLM? Would I need to be in the top 10% of my LLM class? Do firms give progression / bonuses for people who get LLMs? Any other information would also be helpful.

This is a subject we're not terribly familiar with, so we'll turn these queries over to the readership. If you have information or advice to share with our correspondent, please do so in the comments. Thanks.

* Former congressman indicted in connection with group that allegedly funded terrorism. [Washington Post; CNN]

* Randy Moss denies battery allegations. [SI.com]

* SCOTUS upholds NY judicial selection. [New York Times]

* OJ released on doubled bail. [AP; Reuters]

* Delicious, buttery lawsuit pops up in Colorado. [MSNBC]

* Big award round-up: Apollo Group must pay shareholders $280 million; Libya must pay $6 billion for airplane bombing. [WSJ Law Blog; WSJ Law Blog]

Obesity isn't just a problem for Biglaw lawyers who don't get to the gym enough. From the New York Post:

He weighs more than 500 pounds, but that wasn't enough to tip the scales of justice for ex-cop Paul Soto.

The rotund retiree lost his legal argument that it was a line-of-duty fall outside a doctor's office that cost him his NYPD career. A judge says it was actually his "morbid obesity."

"There's no dispute that [Soto] is physically incapable of performing his duties as a police officer. He is morbidly obese, suffers from narcolepsy and is hypertensive," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische wrote in her decision made public yesterday.

Apparently the physical vigor of being a cop doesn't always keep off the pounds:

When Soto joined the force in 1993, Gische found, he weighed approximately 250 pounds. He is now 40, 5-foot-7 and over 500 pounds.

A former colleague at the 6th Precinct said Soto's gun belt was an incredible 6 feet long, and his bosses would order him to take walks around the stationhouse for his own good. They would also have other officers shadow him to make sure he didn't pick up food along the way, he said.

It's a good thing Soto doesn't work at a law firm, where office-wide emails about extra sandwiches left in conference rooms make the rounds daily.

He's Biiig Blue [New York Post via Drudge]

* Calling all cougars -- and the young studs who love them. If you're a single female who earns more than $500,000 a year (e.g., a Biglaw partner), you should check out this event. [DealBreaker]

* Canadian lawyers are horndogs, too. [Legal Blog Watch]

* "Though I did not think Judge Kopf owed me anything, I was not about to refuse a beer from a federal judge." [Sentencing Law & Policy]

* Hillary Clinton as Tracy Flick? [Slate TV via Althouse]

* Survivor winner Yul Kwon, with whom we went to law school, contemplates a congressional run. Go Yul! [Washington Examiner]

A case going to trial next month raises some, er, probing questions. From the NYT's City Room:

Under what circumstances can a patient in an emergency room be forced to submit to a procedure that doctors deem to be medically necessary? That question — and the notion of informed consent — is at the heart of a civil case that is about to go to trial next month in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Brian Persaud, a 38-year-old construction worker who lives in Brooklyn, asserts that he was forced to undergo a rectal examination after sustaining a head injury in an on-the-job accident at a Midtown construction site on May 20, 2003. Mr. Persaud was taken to the emergency room at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he received eight stitches to his head.

According to a lawsuit he later filed, Mr. Persaud was then told that he needed an immediate rectal examination to determine whether he had a spinal-cord injury. He adamantly objected to the procedure, he said, but was held down as he begged, “Please don’t do that.”

C'mon, Brian. Why not have a more open mind (among other things)? Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

As Mr. Persaud resisted, he freed one of his hands and struck a doctor, according to the suit. Then he was sedated, the suit says, with a breathing tube inserted through his mouth.

After Mr. Persaud regained consciousness, he was arrested, then taken — still in his hospital gown — to be booked on a misdemeanor assault charge. Gerrard M. Marrone, who was Mr. Persaud’s lawyer, got the criminal charges dropped, then helped Mr. Persaud file a civil lawsuit against the hospital.

For more discussion -- including additional facts about the case, legal discussion, and comment from the hospital -- check out the full post, by the indefatigable Sewell Chan.

Update: More about involuntary rectal exams from Slate (via WSJ Law Blog).

Forced Rectal Exam Stirs Ethics Questions [City Room / New York Times]
But I Don't Want a Rectal Exam! [Slate]

We're still collecting nominations for the first annual ATL Lawyer of the Year, and we've decided to combine last month's open thread with today's ATL / Lateral Link survey.

Let us know who you think should be our Lawyer of the Year, and why. To add a little fun, we're also going to let you tell us who your favorite and least favorite partners are.

To be honest, we have no idea whether we're going to post that last bit of information, because we'd rather not get sued. But consider it a great big tip jar. We'll try to follow up on the juicy stuff and, when appropriate, sprinkle tidbits into our regular posts from time to time. And who knows? Maybe your favorite partner will wind up Lawyer of the Year. (But again, we reserve the right to be absolute wusses.)

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.

Earlier: ATL Lawyer of the Year: Nominations, Please

Some of you might think we have a strange obsession with Quinn Emanuel around here. That's really not the case; it's just that, for whatever reason, we have a lot of tipsters over there. It seems that QE associates love to talk about their firm, for good or ill.

Today, for good. From a source at the firm who is quite content:

John Quinn gave his annual State of the Firm address today and I think he really did a great job addressing the bonus fiasco. In a section of the address where he mentioned things the firm has to work on (which included an honest list of wide ranging topics), he mentioned that the partners have to do a better job of communicating the bonus system. After first noting that, historically, bonuses are awarded differently every year, he stated that the partners will provide a detailed list sometime in the middle of the year of what hours will be required, and what types of hours will apply in what amounts. He said that the amount of the bonus will stay open (of course), but the partners do believe this will help prevent future dissatisfaction. He also mentioned that the firm's leadership did something "stupid" with the lateral hires by using the wrong denominator in calculating their special bonus. (You might not remember, but there were complaints that laterals were cheated out of an extra month of hours due to the discrepancy between QE's fiscal year and the calendar year.) Quinn stated that they will recalculate hours and distribute special bonuses based on that recalculation.

More after the jump.

Here's an update to last week's post about how various law firms fared in recruiting summer associates for this year. That post, including the comments, featured oodles of info about the expected summer class sizes at different Biglaw shops.

Now we bring you a few more data points. First, just a few short hours after our post went up, this email went around the New York office of Latham & Watkins:

As we move forward into 2008, the Recruiting Committee and the Recruiting Department would like to thank each of you for your support and participation in last year’s recruiting efforts. Your involvement in the summer program and our fall recruiting efforts was “priceless”. Thanks to your efforts, our summer program and fall hiring results were incredibly successful. The recruiting efforts resulted in 61 first years (not including judicial clerks, which we are currently in the midst of recruiting) starting next fall and a summer class of 80 summer associates (our largest to date!). Thank you all again and a very happy and healthy 2008 to each of you.

It's nice when firms are so responsive to our inquiries.

In addition, a few tipsters emailed us unofficial information about how their firms did in the recruiting process. Check it out, after the jump.

Do you have a Scrabulous problem? Are you addicted to the online version of Scrabble, which you can play via Facebook?

We had a Scrabulous addiction for a while, until we forswore the game. We're finishing up current games; in fact, we just scored a bingo right before posting this ("OPERATED" -- see board at right). But we are not starting or participating in new matches.

If you've been finding your own productivity impaired by Scrabulous, however, you may not need to give up the application. It may be taken out of your hands, over your protest. From the BBC:

Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble. The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users. Lawyers for toy makers Hasbro and Mattel say Scrabulous infringes their copyright on the board-based word game.

The move has sparked protests by regular fans of Scrabulous keen to keep the add-on running. Scrabulous is currently one of Facebook's ten most popular applications - little programs that Facebook members can add to the profiles they maintain on the site....

The Scrabulous add-on was not created by Facebook but was built for the site by Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla - software developers based in Kolkata.

Apparently Hasbro and Mattel don't look kindly on outsourcing to India -- unlike, say, law firms. We'll keep you posted about the fate of this game.

Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous [BBC]

From the Smoking Gun:

Disgraced and disbarred, Mike Nifong is now bankrupt. The former North Carolina prosecutor, whose career imploded with his botched handling of the Duke University rape case, today filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities in excess of $180 million. A summary schedule from Nifong's Chapter 7 petition can be found below. Almost all of that sum represents legal claims filed against the former Durham County district attorney by members of Duke's 2006 lacrosse team, including the three players who were accused of raping a stripper at a team party.

Included among Nifong's assets are a 2003 Honda Accord, about $9000 in personal property, and his $235,000 home. He lists nearly $5000 monthly in pension or retirement income and describes himself, charitably, as retired.

A sampling of reader comments from the WSJ Law Blog:

"I would have liked to have been his ‘credit counselor’… Now Mr. Nifong - I see you have $180 million in debt. Let’s go over ‘how to balance your checkbook’ chapter in your pamphlet…ahahah"

"Mr. Nifong can now talk to Simon & Schuster without any apprehension."

"I know that this question is immaterial, but what nationality is the name “Nifong”? I have asked several individuals and none of them had a clue."

"The name Nifong is of Scottish Ancestry and this member is a disgrace to that proud family."

Mike Nifong Bankrupt: Disgraced Duke prosecutor lists $180M in liabilities [The Smoking Gun]
Michael Nifong Files for Personal Bankruptcy [WSJ Law Blog]

* Gov. Romney wins Michigan. [CNN]

* Sen. Clinton faces challenge from "uncommitted." [CNN]

* NV Supreme Court overturns decision allowing Rep. Kucinich to debate. [MSNBC]

* Criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards would not be easy. [New York Times]

* Did CIA lawyers and officials implicitly sign off on the destruction of interrogation tapes? [Washington Post]

* Austrian court rules animal rights group can't have custody of chimp; appeal will be to the European Court of Human Rights. [AP]

* DOJ to investigate Tejada? [New York Times]

* Collected news coverage about yesterday's Stoneridge decision. [How Appealing (linkwrap)]

Ah, to be a federal judge. Life tenure means never having to say you're sorry (unlike those state judges, like the hat-hating Holly Hollenbeck).

Judge Samuel Kent (S.D. Tex.), who has lawyered up in response to being charged with sexual misconduct by a court employee, is speaking out -- sort of. In an interview published earlier this week in the Houston Chronicle, he tried to win some sympathy from the public.

Judge Kent discussed his struggles with alcohol (like Justice Thomas in his recent memoir), his diabetes, and the death of his first wife from brain cancer. But he did not address the substance of the allegations made against him:

"As with every human controversy, there are absolutely two sides to this one, and I will vigorously present mine at the appropriate time," he told the Houston Chronicle. "It has been extremely frustrating for me, my family and my staff not to be able to speak in my defense."...

He declined to address specifics of the misconduct allegations against him, citing federal laws that make judicial investigations secret.

So according to Judge Kent, there is another side of the story. As for what exactly it is, stay tuned.

After the jump, selected comments on the story from Houston Chronicle readers.

Kent talks of personal struggles [Houston Chronicle]
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent Hires Dick DeGuerin, Meets With FBI [Texas Lawyer]

Last month we asked you which holidays you worked on, or expected to work on, during 2007. About 10% of you reported that you expected to work on Christmas, and roughly 22% expected to work on New Year's.

You were wrong.

We received about 1,300 responses to last Tuesday's ATL / Lateral Link survey about whether you did, indeed, work over the holidays. Overall, a little over 36% of you worked at least one of those days. About a quarter of you worked on Christmas, and almost a third of you worked over New Year's. Broken down by day, 22% of you worked on Christmas Eve, 10% on Christmas Day, 28% on New Year's Eve, and 15% of you nursed your hangovers in the office on New Year's Day.

Find out how it broke down by city, after the jump.

The tipster who forwarded this invite to us pretty much said it all: "Weil: Are you joking?"

Weil is currently ranked #9 on the Vault 100. How many spots should they be docked for this?

(In case you're wondering, yes, we did contact the firm for comment. We did not hear back from them.)

WEIL GOTSHAL & MANGES -- INVITATION TO DIVERSITY RECEPTION FEATURING STAR JONES

Please join us at our diversity reception for first year law students next Tuesday, January 22nd! Please also note that the time for the reception has changed to 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Our guest speaker, Star Jones, will be arriving at 6:00pm to mingle, so plan to be there early! Further details are below.

For those of you who cannot view the JPEG, here are the details for the event:

Location: STK
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Special Guest Speaker: Star Jones of truTV (formerly Court TV)

RSVP by Friday, January 18 to [xxxx] or (212) 833-[xxxx]

[xxxx]
Legal Recruiting Coordinator
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
767 Fifth Avenue

Star Jones Reynolds [Wikipedia]
Star Jones [official website]

* How many legal blogs can land an interview with Flea? Oh wait -- different Flea. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* How is Stoneridge a victory for investors? Our big sibling explains. [DealBreaker]

* How many former law firm partners can claim the distinction of having appeared on the Tyra Banks Show? At least one. [Top of the Ticket / Los Angeles Times]

* How cool is it to be a lawyer? Susan Cartier Liebel opines, over at Blawg Review #142. [Build A Solo Practice via Blawg Review]

Sometimes being named Lawyer of the Day is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. From the AP:

A woman is seeking an arrest warrant against suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones [pictured], claiming he punched her at an Atlanta strip club. Fulton County Magistrate Court officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Wanda S. Jackson asked for the warrant after a Jan. 3 altercation at the Body Tap Strip Club.

Jackson, an attorney, says in her filing that she was in the club's office when an angry Jones accused managers of stealing his money and bracelet.

"I was sitting in the office and he lunged at me numerous times in an effort to do grave bodily harm," Jackson wrote in the warrant application filed Jan. 7. "Veronica Jones, an owner, went into the hall to deal with a member of his entourage. I followed to gawk. He was in the hall, surprisingly reached over or around a security guard and sucker punched me in my left eye."

As for why a female attorney was at a strip club:

WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that Jackson said she was in the strip club because of a divorce case she is handling.

So what's the over/under on how long it will take Jackson to file a civil suit against Jones?

Woman: Pacman Punched Her at Strip Club [Atlanta Journal Constitution]
Pacman faces trouble again [AP via SI.com]
Wanda Sherelle Jackson [State Bar of Georgia]

Almost one year ago, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett announced a major associate pay raise, unveiling a new pay scale with a starting salary of $160,000. The move sent tremors throughout Biglaw. Firms in New York quickly followed suit; firms in markets outside New York took longer, but eventually matched (for the most part).

But if you're looking to STB to lead the market higher still, you'll be disappointed. Yesterday the firm sent around this memo:

SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT LLP

MEMORANDUM TO ALL ASSOCIATES AND COUNSEL

Effective as of January 1, 2008, the annual base salary for each class year will be as follows

Class of 2007 - $160,000
Class of 2006 - $170,000
Class of 2005 - $185,000
Class of 2004 - $210,000
Class of 2003 - $230,000
Class of 2002 - $250,000
Class of 2001 - $265,000
Class of 2000 - $280,000
Class of 1999 - $290,000

Salaries for counsel and classes senior to 1999 will be addressed on an individual basis and discussed with those individuals during the Annual Review process. Increases will be reflected in the January 30, 2008 paycheck.

January 14, 2008

Earlier: Breaking: Simpson Thacher Raises Associate Base Salaries!!!

Here's a quick update about yesterday's Judge of the Day, the Honorable Holly Hollenbeck. From the Tri-City Herald:

A Benton County judge has apologized for telling a woman with cancer to take a knitted cap off her bald head or leave his courtroom. "Words can't express how sorry I am," Judge Holly Hollenbeck told the Herald on Monday, a few hours after he spoke with Bev Williams by phone and offered an unconditional apology.

Hey look! It's an ATL shout-out:

The story was picked up by Seattle news media, then was spread across the country by The Associated Press. The Drudge Report website, published as a digest of headlines across the nation, reported the story Sunday. A website called Abovethelaw.com also invited comments about the incident, and had drawn more than 60 by Monday evening.

"I'm being vilified," Hollenbeck said. "I made no excuses to her for my behavior. What happened to her was inexcusable."

And what about the headgear rule?

Hollenbeck, who is presiding judge for the District Court, said each judge retains discretion on how to enforce rules about hats and appropriate attire in court. "The rule has been changed (in my court)," he said.

So if you ever get to wear your hat in Judge Hollenbeck's courtroom, you have ATL to thank for it (in part).

Judge apologizes for telling woman with cancer to remove hat [Tri-City Herald]

Earlier: Judge of the Day: Holly Hollenbeck

If you're a victim of the latest round of associate layoffs at large law firms, we'd like to interview you. The subject of layoffs is an important one, and the legal community is keenly interested in it. But getting firsthand information -- from lawyers who have been laid off themselves, as opposed to people who just know things "through the grapevine" -- can be tough.

Hence this open call for sources. If you've been laid off and would be willing to be interviewed about your situation -- and please note, you can remain anonymous -- we hope that you'll drop us a line. You'd be doing a service to your peers and contributing valuable information to the public discourse.

If you'd be willing to chat, please email us, and we can set up a time to talk. Thanks.

As we mentioned last week, McDermott Will & Emery was planning to hold a meeting with associates today about compensation matters. The meeting is over; here's a brief report:

The MWE associate compensation committee had a videoconference with all associates this morning, where they ate crow about their bonus structure for 2007. They basically said, "we missed the market, we're sorry, and we're fixing it."

They are meeting on January 23rd to set the rate for supplemental bonuses, which will be announced at the end of this month. Apparently the risk of losing all their top billers and having it smeared all over ATL was more than our delicate leadership could handle.

So no numbers yet; expect them near the end of this month. We'll keep you posted.

Today's Washington Post contains a very interesting article by Ian Shapira (who seems to love writing about lawyers; see here and here). It's the latest in a series of stories about well-educated young people in the D.C. area. Today's piece focuses on college-educated twenty-somethings, living in metro areas, who decide to buck the trend and have kids. Shapira writes:

[Erin] Rexroth, a former congressional aide, and her husband, Philip, 27, who works for the Department of Homeland Security, are defying the norm for their class and age group: They are raising a child. The majority of college graduates in their 20s in metropolitan regions postpone having kids until at least their 30s or never have any, according to recent demographic research.

Like anyone who strays from the generational pack, college-educated parents in their 20s often face questions about friendships, careers and their place in life. Although rearing children invigorates them like a high-profile job, these parents sometimes say they feel like guinea pigs among childless peers. They wonder whether it's possible to befriend older parents. Some say they feel isolated from friends, those who don't change diapers or deal with sleep deprivation.

Later in the story, an associate at Cadwalader is quoted about how she decided to have kids early so it wouldn't disrupt her path to partnership as much:

"By the time I'm at a point in my career where I am going to be making partner, my kids are going to be old enough to be playing on their own and sleeping on their own," said Erin Foley Lewis, 28, an associate at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who recently had twins. "If I had waited until 33 to have children, I'd have newborns at the time I would be up for partner."

Cadwalader -- they still make partners over there? They better not get into that habit, or their crazy leverage -- and sky-high profits per partner -- are sure to fall.

On the bright side, at least Ms. Lewis is (1) in litigation and (2) in Washington. So her chances of being laid off are relatively low.

Bringing Up Babies, And Defying the Norm [Washington Post]

Not too long ago, we reported the move of Williams & Connolly to a pay scale with a starting salary of $180,000. Today we bring you more happy compensation news from W&C.

First, the firm just raised its clerkship bonus from $35,000 to $45,000. This is a welcome development, although not super-exciting; $45K is slightly below the $50K that is the market clerkship bonus, at least for the top firms.

The second piece of news is more interesting. If you have two clerkships under your belt -- e.g., a federal district court clerkship and a federal circuit court clerkship -- Williams & Connolly may be the place to be (assuming you're interested in working on sexy, high-profile litigation matters). For people with two clerkships, the firm pays a total clerkship bonus of $90,000.

Most of the firms that pay a $50,000 bonus for one clerkship pay a $70,000 clerkship bonus for two clerkships and/or two years of clerking experience. So $90,000 would appear to be a new high in terms of clerkship bonuses.

Sorry, we don't know the fine print on this offer (e.g., whether two years of clerking for the same judge will get you the $90K, what clerkships will qualify towards the two-clerkship bonus, etc.). But if you're in the small class of people who might be affected by this, and if you secure an offer from Williams & Connolly, you may wish to make a polite inquiry into the precise contours of the policy.

Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Williams & Connolly to $180K

Earlier this hour, the Supreme Court handed down its eagerly anticipated ruling in the Stoneridge case. See collected links below, to posts by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog and Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog. The opinion itself is available here (PDF).

Lyle Denniston writes:

The Supreme Court, in one of the most important securities law rulings in years, decided Tuesday that fraud claims are not allowed against third parties that did not directly mislead investors but were business partnes with those who did. The 5-3 ruling came in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta (06-43).

Investors, the Court said, may only sue those who issued statements or otherwise took direct action that the investors had relied upon in buying or selling stock — whether that involved public statements, omissions of key facts, manipulative trading, or conduct that was itself deceptive. One impact of the decision is likely to be the scuttling of a massive $40 billion lawsuit against financial institutions growing out of the Enron scandal.

This news will be welcomed by many in the business community. But is it bad news for business litigators? Defending dubious securities fraud lawsuits may not be very sexy. But over the years, doing battle with the Milberg Weisses of the world has kept many a large law firm busy -- and profitable.

With transactional work drying up, is the Supreme Court's business-law revolution, cutting down on litigation against corporate America, coming at a bad time for Biglaw as a business?

Court limits securities fraud lawsuits [SCOTUSblog]
Stoneridge is in! Supremes Rein in Investor Suits [WSJ Law Blog]

The men pictured above are not gay lov-ahs. But their relationship may be too close for comfort. On the left: Chief Justice Elliott E. Maynard, of West Virginia, and today's Judge of the Day. On the right: Don L. Blankenship, chief executive of Massey Energy. The setting: exotic Monaco.

From a piece by Adam Liptak in today's New York Times:

A justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court and a powerful coal-company executive met in Monte Carlo in the summer of 2006, sharing several meals even as the executive’s companies were appealing a $50 million jury verdict against them to the court.

A little more than a year later, the justice, Elliott E. Maynard, voted with the majority in a 3-to-2 decision in favor of the coal companies.

Insert West Virginia joke here.

Justice Maynard, who is now West Virginia’s chief justice, and Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of Massey Energy, were “vacationing together,” according to a motion seeking Justice Maynard’s disqualification, which was filed on Monday.

A spokesman for Massey Energy disputed that characterization.

“Both Blankenship and Justice Maynard were separately vacationing in the Monte Carlo area,” said the spokesman, Jeff Gillenwater. “They were not vacationing together. They did meet occasionally for meals — lunches and dinners.”

And maybe on other occasions, too?

The motion included photographs showing the men together. The time stamps on the photographs, apparently taken by someone who had joined the men during their time together, indicated that they met on July 3, 4 and 5, 2006....

Ten of the photographs attached to the motion were filed under seal. They showed, the motion said, “two females apparently traveling with them as companions.” The men are single.

Motion Ties W. Virginia Justice to Coal Executive [New York Times]

* U.S. to deport imprisoned immigrants more quickly. [New York Times]

* Baseball warms up for more congressional hearings; media prepare "curveball" pun headlines. [ESPN]

* LeBron James gets speeding ticket, plans to use "magna carta" defense. [CBS Sportsline]

* Britney Spears is in court and for some reason still famous. [MSNBC]

* Blawgs have some fun with a 7th Cir. footnote. [WSJ Law Blog]

Based on last month's survey about base salaries and bonus, we've told you about bonuses in New
York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles (take the survey on that page to see the results), San Francisco / Silicon Valley, Boston, and even Texas.

And so far, one thing seems clear: New Yorkers have bigger... bonuses.

In today's ATL / Lateral Link survey, we ask you whether you think that's ok.

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.

In an earlier post about the Kumari Fulbright situation at the University of Arizona law school, we noted that the UA administration has been fairly taciturn about the whole matter. Perhaps in response to the community's desire for more openness, Dean Toni Massaro just sent out an email discussing the matter.

It was forwarded to us by a tipster, who commented:

Can you believe this BS? It is a "welcome back" email from Dean Massaro at the University of Arizona Law School in which she "addresses" the Kumari Fulbright situation. But the Dean doesn't really "address" anything. The school in effect says nothing at all....

With a [student] (Craig Cordes) who allegedly killed a cop in New York, a "beauty" queen gone bad, and other issues, the school needs to step up and make an affirmative statement that not only addresses these issues directly, but also defends from ridicule the few capable students at the school that have BigLaw jobs.

AZWildcat2L

AZ Wildcat 2L, why are you being so hard on Dean Massaro? Longtime ATL readers may recall that she was nominated as one of America's hottest law school deans. One of her nominators wrote:

Not only is Dean Massaro brilliant, attractive, and self-assured, she's also a cancer survivor AND a lesbian. It's easy to make Advanced Con Law sexy, but how many Deans could get 3rd year students out of bed every morning for an 8 am class and have a packed classroom? Moreover, students just LOVE her Civil Procedure classes. I'm not kidding.

Check out the email from Dean Massaro, one southwestern hottie opining on another, after the jump.

Something weird, that's what. We are not prepared to declare associate layoffs (because we try to be cautious about making such calls). But odd things are afoot at OMM, and the environment is one of Kremlin-esque anxiety and paranoia.

We contacted O'Melveny & Myers last week, to see if they had any comment on rumors of associate layoffs. They never got back to us. So this report does not reflect any information provided by the firm itself.

(Other firms that have been the subject of layoff rumors have been more cooperative, opening their kimonos and persuading us of the falsity of the layoff rumors about them. OMM did not avail itself of this opportunity.)

Although O'Melveny had no official comment, we did hear from people who are at OMM or who know people over there. The (admittedly unhelpful) upshot: nobody seems to know what's going on; the firm is keeping people in the dark.

Read the full report, after the jump.

A recent trend: judges who are touchy about courtroom attire. Last week we wrote about Judge William Sosnay, who is no fan of ascots. Now meet Judge Holly Hollenbeck:

Bev Williams of Richland wears a knitted beanie cap to cover her hairless head everywhere she goes, but not in Judge Holly Hollenbeck's courtroom.

The District Court judge told Williams, 43, to take her cap off or leave his court in the Benton County Justice Center on Friday morning.

"I was embarrassed. It made me cry," said Williams, who recently underwent six months of chemotherapy for cancer.

But Judge Holly Hollenbeck -- who's a man, by the way, so he ain't no Hollenbeck girl [FN1] -- has a rebuttal:

"I ask everybody to remove hats," he said, noting the only reason he has allowed one — once — was for a religious reason.

Hollenbeck said, "I am very understanding with people who battle with cancer. My own mother died from cancer. I've had hundreds of cancer victims come through my court, and I've never had one not remove their hat, ever."

He added, "Refusal to remove shows contempt for the court and for the judge."

So what do you think? Is Judge Hollenbeck's position reasonable? Or is this s**t bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s?

By the way, with respect to our earlier poll, almost 55 percent of you don't think an ascot is appropriate courtroom attire.

[FN1] Nor should Judge Holly A. Hollenbeck be confused with motivational speaker Holly H. Hollenbeck, author of Sex Lives of Wives: Reigniting the Passion, and proprietress of PassionSeekers.com.

Judge's strict no-hat rule upsets cancer patient [Seattle Times]

Last week, our friends over at the WSJ Law Blog asked: "Why do 'trial lawyers' have such a bad name?"

One possible answer: Because they abandon their brides at the altar. From the Miami Herald:

Walk-away groom: Jim Ferraro, multimillionaire trial lawyer.

Ferraro, set to marry prominent real estate broker Patricia Delinois on Friday in a formal ceremony at Fisher Island's Vanderbilt Mansion, jilted her -- at the altar -- as they were about to exchange vows before 75 to 80 guests....

After five years of dating, the couple were to finally tie the knot. But, says Ferraro: 'When it was time to say `I do,' I just said, 'I love her but I just can't do this.' '' He walked away, flanked by sons James, 21, Andrew, 18, and daughter Alexis, 14.

The audience gasped. Delinois' sister, Ingrid Long, told off Ferraro -- loudly. Some say she yelled, ''You dog!'' Not so, Long says. ``I called him a snake. I think I even called him a few other things. I was trying very hard not to curse, but I think a few curse words came out.''

Says Ferraro: ``It was dramatic.''

Trial lawyers can be such drama queens. Maybe they get addicted to making audiences gasp -- you know, that whole "Perry Mason" thing. It appears that finances weren't behind the cancellation:

The issue, [Ferraro] says, was not money. ''We did have a prenup.'' She is CEO of Century 21 Premier Elite Realty. He has law offices in Miami and Cleveland, owns the Cleveland Gladiators arena football team, has a private jet, and built a 21,000-square-foot compound in Martha's Vineyard -- with 14 bedrooms, tennis court, basketball court, nine-hole putting green, movie theater, and weight and cardio gyms.

This time, Ferraro figures, their romance is done for good. ``She probably doesn't ever want to talk to me again.''

Power couple's wedding ends with `I don't' [Miami Herald]
Why Do “Trial Lawyers” Have Such a Bad Name? [WSJ Law Blog]

In case you haven't noticed, the economy is headed for the toilet (assuming it's not there already). The White House and the Federal Reserve have declared their intent to rush to the economy's defense, although it may be too little, too late.

Even if the lowering of interest rates can't save the faltering economy, it may at least bring good news for debt-saddled law school students and graduates. From one such reader:

It would be super-cool if you could do a post about loan consolidation or loan refinancing, now that interest rates appear to be going down again.

Okay, I know you'll get a lot of people saying "Slow news day, huh?" But I'm a 3L wondering about this stuff, and it would be a good service.

And from an LLM student, who is not eligible for federal loan programs and is shopping around among private providers:

Are there any particular student loan packages that your readers would recommend?

I managed to get a comparative chart (prepared by Duke University) comparing various private loan packages. Out of that chart, I've narrowed it down to the following providers:

* Nellie Mae;
* Sallie Mae / Southwest Student Services Corp.;
* Access Group/National City Bank;
* Bank of America;
* Chase;
* Citibank;
* Wachovia; and
* Wells Fargo.

The chart certainly is helpful in terms of comparing repayment periods, aggregate loan limits, fees, and interest rates. However, I'm at a loss as to the meaning of various terms, such as "prime rate" and "LIBOR rate," and how exactly they translate into computation of monthly loan payments. I'd greatly appreciate whatever help you and your readers can provide in this regard.

If you can speak to these specific questions, or if you have more general thoughts to share about law school debt -- tips, predictions, rants -- feel free to chime in, in the comments. Thanks.

* Midsize CA firms to...what? [Law.com]

* Baseball trainer McNamee wants to testify. [ESPN]

* Show goes on without writers, viewers. [New York Times]

* Search heats up for suspect in pregnant Marine slaying. [MSNBC]

* Should you sue your doctor? [CNN]

* Quality of mercy strained for ex-track star Marion Jones, who gets six-month sentence. [AP]

* SCOTUS grants cert in confrontation clause case that will spell out contours of Crawford v. Washington. [New York Times]

We received about 1,400 responses to last month's ATL / Lateral Link survey about base salaries and bonus. So far, we've told you about New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles (take the survey on that page to see the results), San Francisco / Silicon Valley, and Boston.

Today, we're showing you Texas, and we're supplementing last month's data with the thousand responses we've received so far to last night's survey on hours, rates and bonuses. (That survey, by the way, is still open.)

Find out how Texas compares to the rest of the country after the jump.