Two venerable institutions are working on re-branding.
In this new promo video, Venable wants to clarify that its name starts with a “V.”
From their marketing firm’s website comes this insight into the new image:
Working with Greenfield/Belser, we sought to create a visual identity for our firm that best represented our firm’s personality:
* proud but not boastful
* self-assured but not cocky
* confident and competent but not arrogant
* decisive and resolute but flexible and adaptable
* enduring, built for the long haul but evolving with changing needs
We also sought to reinforce to existing clients and convey to prospective clients, the attributes that we are known for (in the view of our clients):
* a firm that gets what’s really important to me
* the best of both worlds, quality and excellence at a fair price
* real human beings, not robots
* genuine interest in me, my business and my concerns
* they tackle our problems like they’re their own
* they’re confident, determined, authentic, resolute, innovative and respected
Our New Brand
V is the first letter in the word “Venerable,” and “Victory,”and “Vision,” and…Venable. We have made very minor modifications to our logo. But we will now also incorporate a strong visual element throughout our materials – The Venable “V.” “V” is a powerful letter and we want to own it. It is strong and unique.
Very vinteresting.
The second re-branding campaign has been discussed before in these pages. Berkeley has issued a press release clarifying their name. An excerpt:
Names
* Our official name is the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. With external audiences, we will use our official name in full or in one of two abbreviated forms: UC Berkeley School of Law or Berkeley Law.
* We will continue to use the name Boalt Hall with alumni and with the internal law school community.
Approved
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Berkeley Law
Boalt Hall (within the “family”)
Discouraged
Berkeley School of Law
Berkeley Law School
Boalt Hall School of Law (or other permutations)
Please notice the Boalt logo at the top of the press release page. Mixed messages… we’re confused…
Berkeley paid a public relations firm $25,000 to come up with the brilliant new moniker, UC Berkeley School of Law. We wonder why they didn’t take ATL readers’ (free) advice and call it the White Guys With Asian Girls School of Law.
When it comes to law school graduation speakers, it’s hard to please everyone. Earlier this year, controversy erupted at Boston College Law School when U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey was announced as the commencement speaker. Some students, faculty and alumni voiced opposition to AG Mukasey, based on his involvement in the waterboarding / torture controversy (extensive coverage collected here; resolution of the situation described here).
Now we report on commencement controversy news of a rather different (and somewhat less highbrow) sort. It arises out of the decision by Northwestern University School of Law to invite Jerry Springer to serve as this year’s commencement speaker. Springer got his law degree there in ’68, worked as a campaign aide to Robert F. Kennedy, and served as mayor of Cincinnati. But he’s perhaps best known as the ringmaster of scandal and vulgarity on the Jerry Springer Show (and an unsuccessful contestant on Dancing With the Stars).
Some Northwestern students are not happy about Springer’s selection. From a tipster:
There is a current uproar in the graduating class at Northwestern Law. The graduation committee thought Jerry Springer would be an appropriate speaker for this year’s convocation. Most of the student body is opposed to this, but this administration is sticking by the committee’s decision.
Maybe he’ll bring Northwestern students with secrets and unresolved conflicts up on stage, then have them confess and brawl. That might be more fun than the usual staid graduation ceremony.
We contacted the school for comment, which issued the following statement, from Dean David E. Van Zandt:
In keeping with the spirit of our community, our commencement speaker annually is selected by a student committee, approved by the administration, and invited by both.
Mr. Springer is an alumnus who has held public office as a city council member and mayor of Cincinnati. He has had a very successful career in the news and entertainment industries.
We look forward to Mr. Springer’s participation at commencement.
At least one LLM candidate is trying to prevent Springer’s speaking. See the protest letter circulating at Northwestern, and vote in our reader poll, after the jump.
Update: Also after the jump, a defense of Jerry Springer’s selection as commencement speaker, which went out over the NU law school listerv.
Continue reading “Jerry Springer to be Commencement Speaker at Northwestern Law School”
Marc Dann has had a rough tenure as Ohio’s attorney general. When the media start crafting timelines of your troubles, the end may well be nigh. One of Dann’s biggest problems seems to be judgment calls. Such as when choosing staff members. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a write-up on this stellar Dann staffer:
One of Attorney General Marc Dann’s top managers, who is accused of sexual harassment, has a history of problems with cars and alcohol, including a drunken driving arrest months before he was hired and a smashed state car after.
Dann knew about the arrest because, according to State Highway Patrol records, he was the one who picked Anthony Gutierrez up at 2:30 in the morning at the Canfield post after Gutierrez blew a .149 on a blood-alcohol test nearly twice the legal limit.
Aren’t staffers supposed to be the ones picking their drunk bosses up, and not the other way around?
Reflecting another poor hiring decision, Dann had to discipline his communications director for sending a "profane, abusive e-mail to a co-worker." His COMMUNICATIONS director.
The list of poor staffing choices goes on.
Dann's staff is not entirely to blame for his troubles. From the timeline:
June 2007: Dann, standing on a street in an upper-middle class neighborhood, spots a reporter who had written a story he didn’t like. Dann says, “Hey Steve, write this down: Go (expletive) yourself!”
Maybe Dann’s communications director suggested that.
Dann picked up his aide after DUI arrest [The Cleveland Plain Dealer]
Timeline of Marc Dann’s troubles [Dayton Daily News]
Some of you have already noticed this on Above the Law’s snazzy new site credits page. But for those of you haven’t, we bring you news of a promotion. Say hello to ATL’s terrifically talented new associate editor, Kashmir Hill!
Kash has been a frequent guest contributor to these pages for several weeks now. Her witty and well-written work has been praised by many of you (and you’re a tough crowd). So we are delighted to bring her on as a permanent addition to the crew.
(Also, she promised us a photo with more skin in exchange for a promotion — and delivered. See photo at right.)
Please join me in welcoming Kashmir Hill as ATL’s new associate editor. Kash, we’re thrilled to have you!
Kash In On ATL
Above the Law: About Us
New York Times reporter Anemona Hartocollis, who has the best byline since her colleague Jennifer 8. Lee, seems to have the “urban insanity” beat at the NYT. She covers acrimonious legal disputes between lawyers and their neighbors:
The war over secondhand smoke at the Ansonia has ended. A couple at the Ansonia, a historic Upper West Side apartment building, who had sued a neighbor over her wafting cigarette smoke have agreed to settle their lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs said on Monday.
The plaintiffs — Jonathan Selbin and his wife, Jenny, both lawyers — had sued their fourth-floor neighbor, Galila Huff, claiming that smoke seeping from her condo into the common hallway was jeopardizing the health of the Selbins’ young son.
Mr. Selbin confirmed the settlement and said Ms. Huff had agreed to take steps to minimize the spread of her smoke. After news of the suit was reported in February, the manufacturer of an air-cleaning system came forward to offer free equipment to Ms. Huff and the Selbins.
(We’ve had secondhand smoke problems with neighbors ourselves, so we’re siding with the Selbins on this. We hope these smoke-containment measures succeed.)
And Hartocollis covers mass transit meltdowns of lawyers, too:
[Train passenger John Clifford] asked the passengers to keep it down, but the chatter continued. In March 2007, Mr. Clifford had had enough. He shouted an obscenity at a passenger talking on his cellphone and slapped the hand of another, and was arrested. On Tuesday, he found himself in Manhattan Criminal Court, telling his tale.
“I stand up for my right to be let alone,” Mr. Clifford, a retired New York City police sergeant, declared from the witness stand at his nonjury trial on charges including harassment and assault….
Although he seemed like a perfect client for a civil rights lawyer, he chose to represent himself. He has a law degree….
Outside court, he compared himself to Rosa Parks, fighting for his right to sit where he wanted in peace.
Um, yeah.
So city living can be frustrating for some lawyers (as ATL commenters in non-urban areas love pointing out, in the geographical pissing matches that periodically erupt here). But hey, things could be worse — at least these lawyers haven’t mysteriously disappeared.
Is New York City becoming the Bermuda Triangle of Biglaw? That’s the subject of our latest column for the New York Observer.
The Case of the Disappearing Lawyers [New York Observer]
A Noisy Train, a Fed-Up Rider and a Day in Court [New York Times]
Upper West Side Couple Settles Suit Over a Neighbor’s Smoke [New York Times]
Here is the latest Job of the Week, brought to you by Lateral Link. Since overseas markets continue to be strong, we’re offering up another unique international opportunity for a U.S.-trained lawyer, this week in Asia.
Position: Associate (Asia)
Description: Top-tier international law firm seeks U.S.-qualified mid-level candidates (3-5 years) with solid U.S. registered and/or unregistered equity and debt capital markets or private and public M&A and private equity experience, for the firm’s Hong Kong and Shanghai offices.
Company Description: This firm has an extraordinary reputation in Hong Kong and onshore – they routinely advise on billion-dollar deals, and their clients include Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Credit Suisse. It is one of the world’s largest firms, with over 2500 attorneys working in 26 offices across 15 countries, and it is offering candidates increased New York scale salary and excellent expat benefits. This is a unique opportunity as Mandarin language capability is not required. Qualified candidates should have strong academics and solid law firm experience.
For more information, please see job # 8566 and job # 8567 over at Lateral Link.
Earlier: Prior Job of the Week listings (scroll down)
Just a quick reminder about an interesting event, previously mentioned in these pages, which is taking place in a few hours. The ABA Journal, which just profiled U.S. News “rankings czar” Bob Morse, is hosting a live chat with him this afternoon. From Edward Adams of the ABA Journal:
Morse will be taking questions from the public on ABAJournal.com on Friday, April 11, from 3 to 4 p.m. ET. We hope you and your readers will participate.
More from the Journal:
Robert Morse, the man who created the law school rankings for U.S. News, offers an olive branch to law school deans who have long complained about the effect of the rankings on legal education. “Deans are welcome to call me or come by my office in Washington,” Morse says. “I want to work with them to improve the rankings.”
Some deans and former deans think they should engage the magazine, rather than just complain about it. “I think rankings need to be changed, and the only way that will happen is if law school deans sit down with Bob Morse for honest discussion,” says Nancy Rapoport, who resigned as dean of the University of Houston Law Center after her school dropped almost 20 points in the rankings. “I would attend a meeting like that without hesitation.”
So unhappy law school deans, here’s your chance. You can already submit “questions” — defined in academia as rambling screeds, concluded with “and what do you think of all this?” — by clicking here. Or just visit the ABA Journal’s home page at 3 PM Eastern time.
Additional links about the U.S. News rankings not mentioned in our earlier coverage, after the jump.
Continue reading “Unhappy About the Law School Rankings of U.S. News? Let ‘Em Know!”
Congratulations to our old friend James Ho. The good news first surfaced on Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog:
A quiet trickle of a rumor last week was that James C. Ho, currently of counsel with Gibson Dunn and a former law clerk to Justice Thomas at SCOTUS, has been tapped to serve as the next Solicitor General of Texas. If this is true, Texas will be in very capable hands as Jim Ho is certainly one of the best appellate lawyers in the state (and the country for that matter), and has demonstrated great and valuable political savvy on the national stage as well.
Moreover, it is interesting to note that, now, three of the four solicitors general have clerked for SCOTUS (Greg Coleman-Justice Thomas; Ted Cruz-the late Chief Rehnquist; and Jim Ho-Justice Thomas). A SCOTUS clerkship now appears to be a prerequisite to the post, which makes eminent sense because one of the OSG’s main functions is to represent the State before SCOTUS-a job we have noted current General Cruz has done extremely well.
That preliminary report appeared on Tuesday; the news is now confirmed. Here are press releases from the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, both praising Ho for his past achievements, and wishing him well in his latest endeavor.
Read more, after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Jim Ho Replaces Ted Cruz as Texas SG”
We’re not considering a spin-off blog on animals and the law. But maybe we should given the amount of reporting we’ve done on our furry friends recently, including a lascivious wombat, a hedgehog as a weapon, and a dog in mortal peril. Now, we’ve got a diseased hamster to add to the mix:
A Whitman woman whose husband died less than a month after receiving a tainted liver transplant says a diseased hamster purchased at PetSmart is to blame for her premature widowhood.
Nancy Magee, 51, is suing the Phoenix-based pet industry giant for negligence.
Businessman Thomas J. Magee was 54 in 2005 when he was one of three people who died after receiving organs donated by a woman who had contracted lynphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) from a sickly hamster she bought on March 19, 2005, at a PetSmart store in Warwick, R.I., according to Nancy Magee’s complaint in U.S. District Court.
ATL does not have a heart of stone. We are sympathetic to the woman and her loss. We just don’t dig the logic in placing the blame with PetSmart. Unless the logic is that a pet store has deeper pockets than a hospital.
Forget PetSmart. That sickly hamster better be behind bars.
Widow sues PetSmart in transplant death [The Boston Herald]
In case you hadn’t noticed, earlier this week we launched AboveTheLaw 2.0 — a redesigned, retooled version of ATL, the legal tabloid site you’ve come to know and love. There have been a few technological hiccups associated with the relaunch — e.g., most of yesterday — and there will surely be more in the days (and weeks) ahead. But we will muddle through. Thanks again for your continued patience.
On the question of design, opinions will differ, as they always will on matters aesthetic (and more on that later). But on an objective level, the new site offers several cool new features not available on the old site:
1. Community Section: This is ATL’s version of a message board. Annoyed that we haven’t yet used your idea for an open thread? Start up the thread yourself! The Community section is open to any readers who wish to post discussion topics of their choosing. To access this part of the site, just click on the “Community” box in the upper right-hand corner (or click here). [FN1]
2. Past Precedents: One of the problems with a blog-style, purely chronological format is that the newest post always goes above the old, regardless of relative importance — and when a post scrolls off the ATL front page, it’s sometimes as if it never existed. So in the “Past Precedents” box on the front page, we draw your attention to recent notable stories and classic ATL items that no longer grace the main page.
3. Comment Capabilities: If you want to take ownership of your most witty or insightful comments, now you can, by registering for a commenter username and password. This is how internet celebrities are born! E.g., Loyola 2L.
But if you prefer to comment anonymously, you can still do that, just as you could on the old site. Simply click on the “Comment as a guest” link, and have at it.
(One minor note: the byline for guest commenters will always read “guest.” So if the humor of your comment inheres in the byline, you need to incorporate that into the body of your comment — which you can easily do by “signing” your comment inside the box provided for comment text.)
4. Hot Topics: Self-explanatory. Certain popular or noteworthy subjects discussed on ATL will be highlighted in the “Hot Topics” band at the top of the page.
And now, the promised word on design. Although some of us are nostalgic for the old design, which had a certain amateurish charm — we kinda miss the demonic-looking judge of the old site logo — we’ve been told that there’s no turning back. The new design — by the professionals over at Concentric Studio, who redesigned our sister sites, Dealbreaker and Fashionista — is here to stay. (But a few tweaks may be made here and there; feel free to offer constructive criticism, in the comments to this post, or in this Community thread.)
Nevertheless, just out of curiosity — because we’ve received both rants and raves, and don’t know whether the emails and comments are representative of the readership as a whole — please take our poll:
We hope that you enjoy the new look and features of the revamped ATL. We’ll continue to work hard to make it, in terms of both form and content, a delightful site, informative and entertaining at the same time. Welcome!
[FN1] Please note that we will moderate the Community section, just as we moderate comments on regular posts, primarily to remove spam and other problematic material. Unfortunately, due to%2
Entertainment Weekly has just generated 15 Legal Eagles We’d Hire: a list of the on-screen attorneys they would like to have as counsel. To save you the trouble of clicking through EW’s annoying slideshow format, here’s the breakdown:
1. Atticus Finch / Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Perry Mason / Raymond Burr, Perry Mason
3. Vincent Gambini / Joe Pesci, My Cousin Vinny
4. Lt. Daniel Kaffee / Tom Cruise, A Few Good Men
5. Ally McBeal / Calista Flockhart, Ally McBeal
6. Denny Crane / William Shatner, Boston Legal
7. Henry Drummond / Spencer Tracy, Inherit the Wind
8. Jack McCoy / Sam Waterson, Law & Order
9. Victor Sifuentes / Jimmy Smits, L.A. Law
10. Fred Gailey / John Payne, Miracle on 34th Street
11. Miles Massey / George Clooney, Intolerable Cruelty
12. Joe Miller / Denzel Washington, Philadelphia
13. Jake Tyler Brigance / Matthew McConaughey, A Time to Kill
14. Frank Galvin / Paul Newman, The Verdict
15. Lionel Hutz / Phil Hartman, The Simpsons
We can’t believe that Ally McBeal ranked higher than Jack McCoy. That show was canceled, while Law & Order lives on like the Energizer Bunny.
Some Hollywood legal-types ATL would add to the list:
– Reese Witherspoon, in Legally Blonde;
– Richard Gere, for Chicago and Primal Fear;
– Julia Roberts, as paralegal in Erin Brockovich, and a law student in the Pelican Brief;
– Michelle Pfeiffer, in I Am Sam;
– Jim Carrey, in Liar, Liar; and, most importantly,
– Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, as good lawyer vs. evil Satan lawyer, in The Devil’s Advocate
That is not a scientific list, just the result of rigorous ATL brainstorming and some Google searching.
Who are your favorite on-screen attorneys? We encourage you to list your top five, in the comments.
Best TV/Movie Lawyers: 15 Legal Eagles We’d Hire [Entertainment Weekly]
ATL honored a California trial judge, James M. Brooks, with Judge of the Day last June, when an appeals court ordered a new trial after he created a “circus-like atmosphere” in the original one. On Monday, the California Commission on Judicial Performance gave him the smackdown, issuing a decision and order imposing public admonishment [PDF].
ATL can’t help but be part of the humiliation. These are some of the hilarious awful things he did during the trial in question, which are listed as reasons for the admonishment:
1. “Overruled” Signs
2. The Twilight Zone
3. Comments During the Reading of Stevenson Deposition/ Litton Examination
4. Soccer Cards
The court order is not allowing us to copy text, and we don’t have a court reporter on staff to transcribe. To sum up, Judge Brooks was overseeing an employment discrimination suit, and spent a good amount of the trial exchanging jokes with the defense attorney. He made a hand-lettered “Overruled” sign for overruling the plaintiff attorney’s objections. The defense attorney later provided him with a better one.
Brooks let the defense attorney mock the plaintiff’s testimony by singing the Twilight Zone theme song, apparently off-key, and started using a soccer system of “red cards” to censure attorney behavior.
Judge Brooks, you are officially publicly admonished. But we must say, you sound like a fun guy!
JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE COMMISSION ISSUES PUBLIC ADMONISHMENT OF JUDGE JAMES M. BROOKS [PDF]
Decision and Order Imposing Public Admonishment [PDF]
* Remember that New York Times bullying article? Walter Olson calls bulls**t (at least in part). [Overlawyered]
* Professor Orin Kerr wonders, with respect to part-time arrangements in Biglaw: “Is part-time the new full-time?” [Convictions / Slate]
* Lawyers: an opinionated bunch, and fond of the bottle. So surely some of you will have views on the propriety of this Absolut Vodka ad. [AP]
* UK Judge: Being someone’s Facebook friend isn’t like real friendship. [TechDirt]
P.S. We take Facebook friendship very seriously. Feel free to add us, or join the ATL Facebook group.
Earlier today, in the wake of yesterday’s post about troubles in the Charlotte office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, firm chairman Elliott Portnoy sent around an irate email:
From: Portnoy, Elliott I.
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:40 PM
To: #Attorneys-All
Subject: Rumors Regarding Charlotte and Summer Program
Many of you have recently heard claims regarding our Charlotte office that have emanated from certain blogs frequented by law students. I write today to let you know the facts, not rumor or speculation. Firmwide, we will have more than 50 Summer Associates joining us over the coming few months, and we plan to have 24 first-years joining us this Fall across the firm.
First, this fine website, while certainly “frequented by law students,” is also read by many other folks – e.g., law professors; associates, partners, and recruiting personnel at top law firms; in-house and government lawyers; law clerks and judges; and legal reporters and PR professionals.
Second, Portnoy attempts to draw a distinction between “facts” and “rumor.” But the core of what we reported – namely, that the firm has rescinded offers of summer and full-time employment in its Charlotte office – is a fact, acknowledged by Portnoy later on in his message.
Read the rest of that email message, with our running commentary, after the jump.
Continue reading “Still More on Sonnenschein: Portnoy’s Complaints”
[Ed. note: Apologies for the radio silence for much of today. Alas, we've been experiencing some rather severe technical difficulties, in connection with the site redesign and relaunch. The next few days (and perhaps weeks) may be a little bumpy around here; please bear with us. Thanks for your patience.]
Here are two pieces of information that we’ve heard about Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman:
1. For incoming first-year associates, their start dates, originally set for early October 2008, are being pushed back. These new associates could start as late as January 2009. The delay is due to “a serious slowdown in business.”
2. For 2008 summer associates, the summer program has been reduced from 12 weeks to 10 weeks. Summer associates will not be allowed to work more than 10 weeks, even if they want to.
With respect to the first tip, concerning incoming full-time associates, we’ve heard it with respect to the Los Angeles office specifically. With respect to the second tip, concerning summer associates, we believe it to be a firmwide policy.
We contacted PWSP for confirmation and comment, earlier this week and again today. A firm spokesperson confirmed receipt of our inquiries but had no comment (as of the time of this posting; if we hear from her, we’ll update this post).
More details, plus reactions from some of our tipsters, after the jump.
Continue reading “Endless Summer? Not at Pillsbury
(And start dates possibly pushed back for first-years, too.)”
Sunday’s Washington Post magazine has a narrative by journalist Mike Wise that features his love of his dog, a brush with icy death, and Jason Coates, a George Washington University 1L, who saved him from that death. The timeliness of this post is questionable as the heroic feat dates back to January and the GW Hatchet reported on it in February (in an article that we linked to in passing). But if the Washington Post deems it timely, so do we.
Wise was out jogging on a winter night late in January and managed to fall through the ice on the Potomac River. He had been submerged for over three minutes with hypothermia setting in when Coates appeared.
Read the exciting and dramatic narrative, after the jump.
Continue reading “Law Student of a few Months Back the Day: Jason Coates”
Forbes caters to the business elite, so the latter title for this post is probably the most appropriate one. But ATL readers could wind up on either side of one of these suits, so read with whichever lens you prefer.
The article talks about some of the worst courts for certain types of defendants to land in. Los Angeles is knocked because “California allows disabled persons to recover monetary damages for ADA violations.” Here are some of the other named districts:
“There is a high degree of stability in what most people think are the most problematic places to get sued,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Rule of Lawyers. “If you put pins on a map for the top 50 most outrageous verdicts, bizarre run-away juries and so forth, you would find this belt around the Gulf Coast that runs from southern Texas across Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. These are also some of the places people consider the worst places to get sued.”
Hmmm. These are also some of the states from which we get our most interesting stories. Florida seems to have the weirdest news stories by far, such as the recent Cheerleader group beating. What’s in the water down there?
Forbes.com asked the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), which surveys hundreds of defense attorneys and corporate executives every year for its report on litigation abuse on “Judicial Hellholes,” to list the places identified by the largest number of survey respondents as the worst possible places to be a defendant in particular types of lawsuits. The list they produced has a surprise or two for nearly everyone.
Hit with a personal-injury lawsuit? Better hope it’s not in Starr County, Texas. Class actions? Hopefully you won’t find out why John Grisham sets so many legal thrillers in Mississippi. Construction suits? Building’s not the only thing booming in Clark County, Nev. And journalists hoping to avoid libel suits may wish to avoid courts in Philadelphia, according to ATRA’s report for Forbes.
Consider yourself advised or warned. Depending on your lens.
Also, ATL will no longer report news out of Pennsylvania.
The Worst Places To Get Sued In America [Forbes via Overlawyered]
* Feuding Harvard students near settlement over Facebook founding. [New York Times]
* Princess Di’s death deemed criminal; but was it also the butler on the witness stand with the perjury? [CNN]
* Call girls testify in DC Madam case. [Washington Post]
* Justice Scalia, “not a nut,” on CSPAN tonight. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Fourth Circuit hears “enemy combatant” case. [Washington
Post]
* AG Mukasey looks super-old, but at least his front office is fresh-faced. [Washington Post]
* An apple pie we can understand, but a picnic table? [NBC10.com]
* Who knew? Blogging can be lethal. We need to find ourselves a good plaintiffs’ attorney. [Jeremy Blachman; New York Times]
* Somehow, some bloggers survive — and thrive. Belated birthday wishes to the PrawfsBlawg crew. [PrawfsBlawg]
* In case you’re wondering, PrawfsBlawg is #14 on the latest Law Prof Blog Rankings. [TaxProf Blog]
* Proof of prejudice, via a video game? [Mediation Channel]
* “947 years they can never get back.” (And no, this has nothing to do with Biglaw associates.) [Innocence Blog]
* If tax time is making you unhappy, find relief in some of these tax tracks, from Steven Zelin, The Singing CPA. [The Singing CPA via TaxProf Blog]
* We linked to them previously (via the Volokh Conspiracy), but in case you missed them, here are some interesting interviews with eight Supreme Court justices, conducted by legal writing guru Bryan Garner. [LawProse]
* Blawg Review #154. Did you know that yesterday was World Health Day? [HealthBlawg via Blawg Review]
Here’s a bit of follow-up on last week’s post about Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. We heard from a number of tipsters, and their reports are consistent with the rumors previously reported:
1. Sonnenschein is rescinding offers of summer employment to incoming summer associates in the Charlotte office.
2. Sonnenschein is rescinding offers to full-time associates who were set to start work in the Charlotte office in the fall.
We have not heard from the firm since our initial inquiries last week — despite repeated efforts, including some made yesterday. We are inclined to agree with this commenter:
Their lack of response must mean it’s true. Rescinding offers is about the worst thing a firm can do for its rep. There’s no way they’re going to confirm it if it is true, and they would’ve immediately disputed it if it is false.
Read what our tipsters had to say, after the jump.
Continue reading “Update: What’s Going on at Sonnenschein – CLT?
(And a discussion of the Charlotte market in general.)”
