The career services office at Washington University (St. Louis) Law School is earning its keep. The Dean, Kent D. Syverud, sent out a message to his students. The first point, predictably, was that his students are totally screwed:
I write to address a foremost priority of this law school– your future legal careers and the role we play as a law school in preparing and placing you in the legal community.
I write during a sea change in the legal employment world. Employers are rethinking what was formerly an entrenched and immutable hiring model. In many cases legal employers have already amended their current hiring practices and there is a growing consensus that these changes will be systemic and inexorable.
Damn. “Systemic and inexorable” change sounds like something that happens to people who get an STD.
But Dean Syverud is on the case, after the jump.
Continue reading “Washington University (St. Louis) Law School Is Focused”
Last night, George Sodini, 48, walked into an LA Fitness Center near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened fire on those exercising inside. Early reports say he killed three women and injured up to 15, including his ex-girlfriend. He then turned the gun on himself.
Sodini’s LinkedIn profile says he was a systems analyst at K&L Gates. We reached out to the firm this morning. A spokesperson responded to say:
K&L Gates is deeply saddened by last night’s events, and offers its condolences to the families and friends of all who were involved in this terrible tragedy.
ABC News has found Sodini’s online diary. We ran a WhoIs search and determined that the diary is not a hoax. A George Sodini of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, registered the website in August 2000.
It is incredibly disturbing.
Continue reading “LA Fitness Shooter Worked at K&L Gates
(And discussed K&L layoffs in his diary.)”
* Last night, a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania gym, killing four. It appears he is an employee at K&L Gates. [CNN and LinkedIn]
* Jack Borden is not the oldest lawyer, but the 101-year-old is the most outstanding. [Dallas Morning News]
* Robert Luskin of Patton Boggs has to get Texas fraudster Allen Stanford some money or he’s fired. [Bloomberg]
* Rihanna wants judge to allow her to share an umbrella with Chris Brown. [New York Daily News]
* Federal judges tell California to let inmates go because the degree of prison overcrowding constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. [Los Angeles Times]
* Divorcing attorney has to hand some of his partnership interest over to his ex-partner. [New York Law Journal]
Well, at least one lawyer thinks he has this whole Biglaw thing figured out. And he’s happy to share his wisdom with new associates. Writing at the Texas Lawyer, Jason Braun has some harsh advice for young lawyers:
When I became a lawyer, a partner gave me what I now realize was great advice: “Don’t think like an associate,” she told me. “Think like a partner.” I wisely nodded my head. “Of course,” I solemnly replied, hoping she would not notice my confusion….
New associates love being lawyers — or at least should — and hopefully their first and foremost goal is to become a great lawyer. Over the past few years, several tenets have helped me on the way to that goal. Some I learned quickly; others I learned through trial and error.
Oh boy. When you start out declaring what new associates should love in life, you can see where Braun is going.
Check after the jump for more reasons why giving yourself completely to the Biglaw experience is the only way to go.
Continue reading “Lawyer With Stockholm Syndrome Has Advice for Associates”
* What other minority groups have yet to be represented on the Supreme Court? Maybe it is time to give the first Americans a “first!” [U.S. News]
* Summertime, and the livin’s easy. Sonia Sotomayor is keeping it cool since her confirmation hearings, and David Lat says that is totally normal. [Reliable Source]
* I don’t care how much money Nic Cage owes the IRS, nothing explains Knowing. [Going Concern]
* This morning Jones Day took a shot at firms that haven’t been very nice to their associates. Of course, there is always a counter-argument. [Anonymous Lawyer]
* But perhaps the Jones Day partner should not have expressed his positive thoughts in writing in the first place? [Law and More]
* How can President Obama ask lawyers to commit more to public service, when law school tuition is skyrocketing? I’m asking but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for an answer. [True/Slant]
This case is going to bring new meaning to the “Glue Stic” product. For a Wisconsin man, one evening started out like a happy dream. The AP reports:
A married eastern Wisconsin man thought he was going to a motel for a little romance with one of his handful of lovers. She allegedly played along and suggested he be tied up and blindfolded for a massage, according to court documents.
But it ended up going so horribly wrong:
[F]our women eventually showed up to humiliate the man, who ended up with his penis glued to his stomach in a bizarre plot to punish him for a lover’s quadrangle gone bad, according to the documents filed in Calumet County.
And we’re not talking about some low-rent, barely sticky glue that is approved for use by children:
[Therese] Ziemann struck the man in the face, and used Krazy Glue to attach his penis to his stomach when the other women arrived, according to the complaints. The man told investigators he also was threatened with a gun. Ziemann told investigators she didn’t have a gun but may have told the victim, “Do you know how much I want to shoot you?”
He started screaming and the women rushed off fearful that he could get loose and hurt them but allegedly took his wallet, vehicle and cell phone….
Ziemann told investigators Sewell asked him, “Which one do you love more?” and the man’s wife made a derisive remark about him being scared.
Ouch.
But there’s an open question here. Was the glue applied during the man’s state of excitement or not? Because, if that bad boy was one way, and then started to retreat because he was “scared” …. I mean, not good times, man.
Charges have been filed against the alleged conspirators. Details after the jump.
Continue reading “Wife (With Friends) Glues Husband’s Wang”
Was there any doubt, ever, that Bill Clinton would go to North Korea and come back with two women? The Associated Press reports:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has issued a “special pardon” to two American journalists convicted of sneaking into the country illegally, and he ordered them released during a visit by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, North Korean media reported early Wednesday.
The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peaceloving policy,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.
North Korea had taken a hard stand against the jailed journalist. The two were sentence to 12 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the nation.
But that was before slick Willie made everything okay.
In fairness, the happy victory is probably owed to tireless work by the U.S. State Department and a cadre of unnamed international actors.
But President Clinton went over there and sealed the deal. That man is a closer.
North Korea: 2 US journalists pardoned [Associated Press]
North Korea pardons US reporters [BBC]
What’s better than a Boston cop emailing a newspaper specifically to call a black man a “banana eating jungle monkey”? Well when that same cop turns around and sues the police department for a civil rights violation. The Boston Globe reports:
Justin Barrett, the Boston police officer suspended from the force for his e-mail likening Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., to a “banana-eating jungle monkey,” has filed a lawsuit against the Police Department, police commissioner, and mayor, saying the city violated his civil and due process rights.
You know what would make this story perfect? If the cop who used racist slurs against Henry Louis Gates Jr. turned around and claimed intentional infliction of emotion distress:
The 18-page lawsuit accuses the three parties of “conspiring to intentionally inflict emotional distress and conspiring to intentionally interfere with the property rights, due process rights, and civil rights of the plaintiff.”
I. Just. Love. America.
Let me gather myself after the jump.
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Bananas Cop Sues Police”
Have you noticed that every time we run a story about the legal market in Canada there are a bunch of commenters telling us how great things are for lawyers in the great white north? Well, now we know why. The American Lawyer reports that the Canadian government has been pitching in to help Canadian and American law firms:
According to records obtained by The Lawyers Weekly, the Canadian government spent a record $57.1 million on outside law firms in the 2008-09 fiscal year. It’s the most Canada has ever paid out to private law firms in one year and represents a 34 percent increase from legal fees paid in 2007-08. (All expenditures have been converted from Canadian dollars at the rate of $1 Canadian = $ 0.936 U.S.)
Weil, Gotshal & Manges led the pack of outside legal advisers with $7.7 million in billings.
That is some change I can believe in. When global warming fully kicks in Canada is going to be awesome.
Why the jump in government work for outside counsel? The answer is something so obvious that liberals and libertarians have been talking about it for years.
Details after the jump.
Continue reading “Canadians Know How To Stimulate The Legal Economy”
The inherent tension between the old media and the new media boiled over the weekend when Ian Shapira wrote an insightful article for the Washington Post about how Gawker appropriated one of his stories. For people concerned with the so-called “death of journalism,” it is a must read. It is a fairly accurate description of what happens when bloggers repackage stories.
Yesterday, Gawker fired back at the Washington Post. Gabriel Snyder explained how bloggers add original commentary, humor, and sometimes insight. It’s one of the reasons readers keep coming back.
Today, our own Kashmir Hill entered the fray. She points out that some blogs (ahem) actually report and break news, and that news is repackaged by mainstream media sources all the time, often without sufficient attribution or original insight. Over on True/Slant, Kash writes about what happened to her popular story about Fordham’s privacy dossier on Justice Scalia:
I’m a struggling blogger making very little money. I would have been happy to write that story for the New York Times on a freelance basis and get paid for it. (As Washingtonian Magazine invited me to do for its June issue.)
But that’s not how these things usually work. As journalists — the traditional ones and the “new” ones/bloggers — we get stories out into the world, and then they bounce around and gather steam and get read. It’s exciting!
I’m happy my story was covered, regurgitated and repackaged. It’s an important story about a topic -privacy- that I am passionate about.
Hear, hear. The old media simply doesn’t have a monopoly on original reporting anymore.
In case you are interested, Above the Law has a very consistent policy that we follow when it comes to attribution. Let’s discuss it after the jump, and you can weigh in with your thoughts.
Continue reading “Attribution in the Internet Age: When Does ‘Repackaging’ Become Stealing?”
I guess Justice Souter no longer has to play the role of humble civil servant, and can now start living the life of a former uber-powerful person. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Souter is getting new digs:
When he retired from the Supreme Court in June, it was expected that Justice David H. Souter would return to his beloved family farmhouse in Weare, N.H., a rustic abode with peeling brown paint, rotting beams and plenty of the solitude he desired….
On July 30, he bought a 3,448-square-foot Cape Cod-style home in neighboring Hopkinton listed at $549,000. The single-floor home, for which he paid a reported $510,000, sits on 2.36 well-manicured acres.
The ABA Journal notes that Souter needed more space for his books.
At least he’s staying in New Hampshire. But his neighbors in Weare are acting like Souter is leaving the neighborhood to move to Havana or something. More details, plus photos, after the jump.
Continue reading “Lawyerly Lairs: Souter’s Upgrade”
If you’re leaving Biglaw and moving to New England to innkeep is not your thing, maybe you should consider moving to Los Angeles to promote music.
The American Lawyer has an interesting piece on a laid-off first-year associate, Brandon Dorsky. He was among the batch of Pillsbury Winthrop associates whose departures were inadvertently leaked by a garrulous partner on the train from D.C. to New York.
Dorsky was doing IP work in Pillsbury’s Los Angeles office. The Ohio native had moved to California with the intent to get into the entertainment industry and so he seized the opportunity provided by being laid off:
After leaving Pillsbury, Dorsky decided to build a practice geared to entertainment clients, while also managing musical acts. He e-mailed friends and business contacts looking for leads. Just three days after leaving the firm, he landed his first client, TRG Sports and Entertainment. A friend from the University of Michigan recommended him to the management company, which was looking for a lawyer to draft a recording contract….
“I’m out most nights,” Dorsky says. “I see five concerts a week. I’m out there looking for new clients and looking for opportunities for existing clients.”
Dorsky’s tale might provide inspiration for other laid-off first years. In addition to working with bands, he’s drafting recording contracts and doing trademark work. Read more about the secret to Dorsky’s success and the importance of being a “hustler” at the American Lawyer.
After the Layoffs [American Lawyer]
Earlier: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to New York
(Or: Pillsbury associates, brace yourselves.)
Jones Day has escaped a lot of the worst side effects of the recession. The firm hasn’t had massive layoffs, it hasn’t cut associate salaries, it hasn’t canceled its summer program. That is something to be proud of.
And Jones Day seems very proud. Above the Law has obtained an internal newsletter from Jones Day that was aimed at its California office. The message was written by partner Joe Sims and it’s slated as a “midterm report” about the firm. Much of the letter is the kind of standard stuff you are used to seeing from slick, firm sponsored content:
The reality is that we are feeling the same reduced demand that is facing all law firms; I think it is clear — and as the results from other firms become visible, it is going to be even more obvious — that we are dealing with those circumstances better than most. So we have our challenges but, ironically, this difficult economic climate is also producing the best opportunity we have ever had in California to really separate ourselves from most of our peer competitors, and to move toward the position we aspire to — being universally recognized as one of the leading firms in California.
But what makes this newsletter extraordinary is that the message gets very specific about just why Jones Day is poised to separate itself from its peer competitors. And the newsletter offers Sims’s analysis of precisely where the firm’s California competitors went wrong.
More details after the jump.
Continue reading “Jones Day Slams Its Competitors”
* The Virginia and New York U.S. attorney’s offices both want a piece of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. [Washington Post]
* Guys at my high school who were married to the Secretary of State used to go on “private missions” to North Korea all the time. It was no big deal. [New York Times]
* Utah has instituted a mandatory mentorship program for newly minted lawyers. [Salt Lake Tribune]
* Kindle lovers in Seattle have filed a class action suit against Amazon for deleting books like 1984 from their electronic readers. So Orwellian. [Courthouse News Service]
* The Department of Justice says Guantanamo search woes are Google’s fault. [Under The Radar/Politico]
* L.A. judges are money. [San Jose Mercury News]
Last night, the Wall Street Journal (subscription) sent out a news alert claiming that President Obama’s White House counsel, Gregory Craig, is getting kicked to the curb:
Obama administration officials are holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post, following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.
The WSJ implies that Craig — a former Williams & Connolly partner, perhaps best known for extracting President Clinton from the impeachment mess — has botched advising the President on several national-security issues, including the Guantanamo prison closure, the release of national-security documents from the Bush era, and detainee holdings.
But the White House says ‘whoa, whoa, settle down now.’
Continue reading “Is White House Counsel Gregory Craig Getting Played in a Washington Parlor Game?”
O.J. Simpson wants the Nevada Supreme Court to review his armed robbery conviction he picked up last year.
That’s not surprising.
What is surprising is that Simpson wants to be released from prison while the judges review his case. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports:
[Simpson's] lawyers will try to convince a trio of justices in Nevada to comb through the convictions of both Simpson and C.J. Stewart, a one-time golf partner of Simpson’s. The attorneys are also pushing to have Simpson released on bail while the conviction gets reviewed.
Are you kidding me? There isn’t a sane person in America who would argue that a convicted Juice should be released from prison pending his appeal, is there?
After the jump, O.J.’s lawyer speaks.
Continue reading “O.J. Wants Out of Jail While Conviction Is Appealed”
* British Parliament wants to ban photoshopping of people in ads aimed at children. I have no idea why the government would want to frighten young children with pictures of un-air brushed Brits. Maybe they are running a very subtle abstinence campaign. [Fashionista]
* Transparency is a good thing. And we are doing our part. [Philadelphia Business Journal]
* Is there an epidemic of naked pictures of famous people being released on the internet that I am not aware of? [Transracial]
* Ah, English majors. Long may they live in non-competitive bliss. [Tax Prof Blog]
* When your CEO, CFO, and Chief Accounting Officer all quit, your company is probably not doing that well. [Going Concern]
* Welcome to the speaker circuit, David Souter. [ABA]
* Here’s a little bit of product liability reform for you. [Drug and Device Law]
* Now that Gatesgate is dying down, can we get a regular Blawg Review? Or at least at hit of scantily clad dancing people in Toronto? [Simple Justice via Blawg Review]
Last week, we made dancing groom Kevin Heinz our (Future) Law Student of the Day. Heinz, his bride, and their wedding party danced down the aisle to Chris Brown’s Forever instead of the traditional Canon in D Major. They put it on YouTube last month and it’s since been hit on more than a hot, single bridesmaid.
We posted the video last week and noted:
Their only misstep: Choosing a song by someone convicted of domestic abuse.
Those who commented on last week’s post questioned the bride’s dancing ability, the groom’s decision to go to Hamline University Law School, and our calling the couple out for using a song by someone convicted of domestic violence.
As far as we know, Heinz is still going to Hamline and his bride’s dancing abilities have not improved. But we do have updates for you on the domestic violence front and, unrelatedly, on the couple’s divorce video.
Continue reading “Update on Future Hamline Law Student Kevin Heinz”
