March 2008

The Empire State is sending all sorts of craziness our way lately. From the New York — no, not the Washington — Post: A female federal prosecutor was viciously attacked by a hulking, razor-wielding drug dealer in a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday – and was saved when the thug’s 72-year-old lawyer and others tackled him. “He […]

In these pages, we alternate between sensationalistically fanning the flames of greed (NY to 190!) and despair (Nationwide Layoff Watch!). Today, despair. From the ATL mailbag: You should do a thread on worried 2Ls. I am one of them. I have a summer associate job at a Vault 100 firm, and so do lots of […]

The latest departures from OMM (1) involve partners and (2) appear to be voluntary. From the Legal Pad: Legal Pad is still chasing information about O’Melveny & Myers’ early retirement program…. Details are dribbling out, but the firm is officially pretty tight-lipped so far. “It’s strictly voluntary,” the firm said in a statement today. “We’ve […]

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer scheduled a news conference for 11:30 AM today. It appears that the governor is running late. We’re tuned in to CNN, and they just showed footage of the governor’s motorcade leaving from his Upper East Side apartment — previously profiled here (Fifth Avenue, 3BR/3BA, Central Park views) — to his […]

So Governor Eliot Spitzer is scheduled to speak in half an hour. We’ll cover that when it happens. Meanwhile, a tipster points out: Little notice has been given so far to the other “Client Xs” in the federal complaint at the center of the Spitzer prostitution scandal. But one story semi-buried in the Post this […]

Today’s ATL / Lateral Link survey is about hindsight. With real estate and structured finance in a slowdown, bankruptcy heating up, and some firms opening new offices while others shuffle their workforce, some career choices are suddenly much more exciting, while others . . . not so much. So, if you knew everything you know […]

* Spitzer may — or make that will — resign today. [CNN; New York Times] * Obama wins Mississippi, picks up more Texas delegates than Clinton. [CNN] * Gitmo war-crimes tribunal to hear detainee’s case. [MSNBC] * Houses passes proposal to create independent ethics panel. [Washington Post] * Another French trader taken into custody in […]

As Wonkette points out, disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and his wife, Silda Spitzer, graced the cover of 02138 magazine as a top “Power Couple.” 02138, in case you’re not elite enough to be familiar with it, describes itself as “the lifestyle magazine for Harvard influentials.” Yes, it’s just as d-baggish dreadful as it […]

* Here’s a tale of a castaway…. who’s pushing 70, and still enjoys her marijuana. [TMZ.com] * Don’t tase me, bro! Unless you’re willing to pay me $40K. [The Lede / New York Times] * Not surprisingly, the Feminist Law Profs aren’t big fans of this law firm advertisement: a “Sexual Harassment Flash Card.” [copyranter; […]

The scandal surrounding New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who allegedly patronized prostitutes, raises an interesting issue. It surfaced in some of the comments to yesterday’s posts, and it’s raised in the defense of Governor Spitzer offered by his former law professor, Alan Dershowitz, on CNN: “I don’t think he should face criminal charges for federal […]

Most law firm name changes are pretty silly. The general approach: lop off all names after the first two. If you like, squish the surviving names together into one word, to make yourselves seem contemporary and cool. E.g., “WilmerHale.” (A law firm marketing firm would charge you five figures for that advice.) Okay, so how […]

Here’s news of an interesting, high-profile move. Our source offers this preface: “[A] number of the younger lawyers at K&E tend to be moderate to liberal and have donated a great deal to Obama. Yet K&E seems to be a popular destination for right-wingers nonetheless.” (Well, that depends on the office. There are lots of […]

Since yesterday, when the big Eliot Spitzer news broke, we’ve been on a bad-behavior kick here at ATL. So let’s keep going down that path. A tipster sent us a juicy story, with this intro: This is wild. And by wild, I mean INSANE… He’s 61. She’s 25. He likes booze, cocaine, and turtlenecks. How’s […]

When it comes to horrible (and horribly trashy) conduct, it’s tough to top microwaving your baby. In a room at a La Quinta motel. But you can certainly supplement it with additional misbehavior. From the Houston Chronicle: A jury should not hear an allegation about sex in an interrogation room that occurred after the arrest […]

Longtime readers will recall that Chief Judge Edward Nottingham (D. Colorado) is no longer eligible for our coveted Judge of the Day prize. After he threatened to call the U.S. Marshals service on a handicapped woman whose handicapped parking spot he stole, a few short months after it was revealed he dropped more than $3,000 […]

Over a month has passed since our last update on Supreme Court clerk hiring. We hear through the grapevine that Justice David H. Souter has finally picked his law clerks for October Term 2008. And we’re guessing that Justice Samuel A. Alito has too (since we’ve known about his first two hires for quite some […]

We received 1,046 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on vacation time. Roughly two thirds of respondents reported that their firms offered four weeks of vacation, but sixteen percent are at three-week firms, six percent are at firms with only two weeks of vacation, and a handful are at firms with but […]

* Spitzer considers resignation. [New York Times] * NYT slams him. [New York Times] * Boeing to protest Air Force contract awarded to Northrop and European Airbus maker. [CNN] * Oklahoma legislator says gay people are worse than terrorists… [CNN Video] * Sen. Obama: stop calling me veep. [Washington Post] * Colorado woman to fight […]

There are a few things we could write about right now, but let’s just talk about what everyone is talking about: New York’s prostitute-patronizing governor, Eliot Spitzer. Here’s a fresh thread for discussion (since the old one is already a comments clusterf**k). From the New York Times (which broke the story): Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who […]

We’re offline right now, speaking at Stanford Law School. We’ll be back shortly (and pick up where we left off with the Eliot Spitzer scandal). In the meantime, check out this funny post by Marc Randazza, about some dubious proposed legislation in Massachusetts that could criminalize certain types of pick-up lines. Pickup Line Quagmire in […]