* Tom Daschle in going to DLA. As a partner, not for tax advice. [USA Today]

* Deloitte pays to make Paramalat go away. [Going Concern]

* Indiana Law Professor proposes shipping at-risk kids back to Africa. Oh, where to begin? [True/Slant]

* Is perfectionism a blessing or a curse? [What About Clients?]

* If it’s good enough for Yale Law, then it should be good enough for New York Law School. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]

* It’s holiday sale time in Biglaw. [Young Lawyers Blog]

* Brick Breaker prowess doesn’t always translate into firm success. But when it does, it is awesome. [Litination]

* The ATL running group will be meeting tomorrow (Saturday) at 10 a.m., at the East River 6th Street track. All are welcome. [Above the Law]

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

Katarina grabbed her oversized purse and tossed a long red scarf around her neck. Tyler noticed a copy of Atlas Shrugged peeking out of it. Alignment: Libertarian. And geeky. Only true bookworms manage to slog through all 1000+-pages of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus.

“So what kind of law do you want to practice?” Tyler asked as they walked. He groaned inwardly for asking such a stock question.

“Litigation, probably appellate,” she replied. “I’m especially interested in constitutional questions.”

Tyler sensed a liberal arts background and good grades in law school. “And what was your college major?”

“Archaeology. I have my master’s degree in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology from the University of Chicago.”

Precisely, thought Tyler.

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

ATL,

“I’m a law student with a record. Larceny by trick, we’ll call it. It happened a while ago. I have reasonable assurances from bar members in my state and my law school that if I disclose and explain (and obviously, don’t mess up again) that I will pass the character & fitness exam.

But does it matter? When I got to law school, I thought I’d be able to get a job. Almost three years later, there are no jobs. Is there any point for a guy in my position to even apply to Biglaw firms? My grades are good enough to get Biglaw, but will they just ignore me because of my past?”

Been Caught Stealing

Dear Been Caught Stealing,

I always wondered what became of the cool rich kids from my high school who smashed in people’s mailboxes and raced away in their Jettas to funnel beer in their parents’ basements. If Facebook is to be believed, they’ve traded in terrorizing friendless ninth grade transfer students with clear braces and an unfortunate Sun-In situation for wildly successful careers and loving relationships. And evidently, some of them become lawyers.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: the market for lawyers is a piece of garbage. But as long as you pass character and fitness, you’re in the same position as hordes of other unemployed recent grads. People usually don’t list “criminal” under their resume work experience; they wait until they’re filling out forms at the interview or they’re accepting the job to reveal their checkered past. It’s called “bait and switch,” which you’re probably familiar with. Because you’re a criminal. And that’s how you roll.

I think the world of Biglaw is closed to you for the moment. There is no reason that a swank firm would take someone with a record when they can easily get 300 other people without one to fill the spot. You’ll have better luck in smaller firms where the people are kinder and went to worse schools. Or try PI, where you’ll work amongst your brethren.

I hope this helps.

Your friend,

Marin

Are you sick of taking phone calls at 4:30 on Friday? Would you rather be the one making the phone calls? If so, this Job of the Week might be for you. As always the Job of the Week is brought to you by Lateral Link. Today’s job is another position with one of Lateral Link’s in-house clients. Over the last 4 months Lateral Link has placed more than a dozen attorneys in in-house positions throughout the United States.

Position: Vice President

Location: Orange County, CA

Description: With more than $750 billion of assets under management, and offices around the globe, this Investment Management company is one of the world’s foremost bond fund managers, overseeing more than 70 mutual funds invested in such financial instruments as corporate paper, emerging markets debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, and real estate investment trusts (REITs), as well as stocks. The company is seeking a Vice President, Attorney with a minimum of three to six years of experience in securities laws applicable to registered investment advisers, including the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work on cutting edge legal and regulatory matters, such as analyzing compliance and trading issues, drafting and reviewing compliance policies, negotiating agreements, including investment management agreements, participating in special projects, such as regulatory audits, litigation matters and general corporate work, and resolving legal issues in connection with expansion of its business model and development of new products.

If you are a candidate, please see Position #5567 on Lateral Link. If you are not a member you can sign up for free at www.laterallink.com. If you are an employer seeking top legal talent for your company, please contact Michael Allen, Principal of Lateral Link, at mallen@laterallink.com or 213.785.2344.

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here, writing from New York. Apologies for no new post for a few weeks. It was an extremely busy October, including multiple trips to NYC and Asia (and those trips are of course continuing, with two more NYC and one Hong Kong trip scheduled over the next few weeks).

For the die-hard AC readers, next week we plan to launch a new daily Asia blog over at kinneyrecruiting.com, so you can keep up with the Asia biglaw lateral markets and our goings on much more frequently.

I will be in Hong Kong again from November 21 to December 5, so feel free to reach out if you would like to meet up with me there. Of course, Alexis is there full time and available. For the law student readers out there, on November 19 I will be participating in a seminar in NYC sponsored by the China Business Lawyers Association and the Asia Law Society of NYU. The event’s target audience will be law students who are interested in future biglaw careers in Asia. While I don’t always have time available (I wish I did) to talk to each of the many law students that reach out to us about future potential careers in Asia, events like this can be very helpful for those interested. The event’s sponsors have done a great job of securing speakers / participants for the seminar, including a few law firm partners and myself.

It has been a solid past couple of weeks for us in Hong Kong, with one partner placement and three associate placements. There has also been a lot more interview activity recently in Asia, especially in HK / China, so we are expecting more results for our associate candidate clients in the short-term.

***More after the jump.

The bonus news is coming fast and furious today. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is trying to nail down the market at the Cravath level. Multiple tipsters sent in the STB bonus announcement and the firm is following Cravath at all class levels.

Regular Above the Law readers will note that there is absolutely no surprise about Simpson’s bonus. Last year at around this time — when there was still a clear separation between Skadden’s bonus and Cravath’s bonus — Simpson rushed in to follow Cravath.

Given that history, we don’t know a lot of people that expected Simpson to do anything other than follow Cravath. Long gone are the days when Simpson led the charge to $160K.

But don’t forget about Sullivan & Cromwell. The firm’s had a good year, and with all of its competitors falling in line behind Cravath, they could get some real market separation here with a bonus that is still smaller than what they paid out last year.

What a fun Friday. I wonder if anybody else will rush out a bonus announcement before five o’clock? I’m going to need another Red Bull.

Read the STB bonus memo, after the jump.

Seyfarth Shaw is set to become the latest firm to flip its incoming associates the Bird. A very angry tipster reports:

[Seyfarth] just deferred all incoming associates to October 2010 with only $2000/month as a stipend beginning on our former start date of January 19, 2010! It’s a joke … we know for a fact that they were busy and could have afforded us. It is a firm managed by horrible, greedy, selfish individuals … This is amusing, in light of the fact that the firm turned a profit last year …

We would like to warn anyone considering accepting an offer from the firm to STAY AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is particularly disconcerting for those of us who turned down offers from Biglaw in favor of a firm that apparently “cared soooo much” about us. Go Vault or go home.

Whoa, tell us what you really think. You have to wonder if these deferred incoming associates will come up with any fun banners about their would-be employer.

As angry as the deferred incoming associates appear to be, it is not at all clear that Seyfarth could have afforded to bring on a new class of people at this time. In addition to telling the incoming associates to wait for almost another year, today the firm announced that it was cutting first year associate salaries.

Details and a statement from Seyfarth, after the jump.

Earlier this month, we asked you if holiday parties were still on this year. Many people said that they were, albeit more subdued than the halcyon days of yore.

But one deferred associate had this question:

Aside from the question of which firms may be abandoning their holiday parties this year, it would be interesting to see which firms are inviting their deferred associates. As of now I don’t think the firm that deferred me is …

You know, it never occurred to me that firms would invite deferred associates the holiday party. At first blush, the idea sounds ludicrous. Why would they invite people who are not employees to the employee party?

I’m willing to bet that it never occurred to most firms either. But remember, deferring incoming associates is a completely new thing. There are no rules for this stuff; the legal industry is making it up as it goes along.

So, as long as we are setting new standards here, why shouldn’t a firm invite deferred associates to the party?

A discussion and a reader poll after the jump.

Bonus season is now in full swing. Sources report that Willkie Farr has announced bonuses and it is matching the Cravath scale.

Here’s the breakdown from a tipster:

From: The Executive Committee To: ASSOCIATES - NY; ASSOCIATES - DC Cc: PARTNERS - FIRMWIDE Sent: Fri Nov 20 11:11:01 2009 Subject: 2009 Associate Bonuses

The Executive Committee is pleased to announce the following year-end bonuses for associates:

Class of 2008: $7,500
Class of 2007: $10,000
Class of 2006: $15,000
Class of 2005: $20,000
Class of 2004: $25,000
Class of 2003: $30,000
Class of 2002 and senior: $30,000

Bonuses will be paid on December 18, 2009, consistent with our customary practices.
The Firm greatly appreciates the efforts of our associates over the course of the year.

Don’t feel bad, guys; there are a lot of great things you can do with $7,500.

More on Willkie’s bonuses after the jump.

Ed. note: ATL has teamed up with FantasySCOTUS, the premier Supreme Court fantasy league. (For more background, check out this WSJ Law Blog post.) On Fridays, the 10th Justice will analyze league voting to predict how the Supreme Court may decide upcoming cases. This is the 10th Justice’s first post on ATL.

Welcome to the first installment of Predictions of the 10th Justice, brought to you by FantasySCOTUS.net. The league has over 1,300 members, who have made predictions on all cases currently pending before the Supreme Court. In this feature, we analyze these predictions, and try to explain how the Supreme Court will resolve top cases.

The first case we’ll look at is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, commonly known as the Hillary Movie case. This case is a showdown between free speech and campaign finance laws.

* Reaction to Full-Cravath’s (f.k.a. Skadden) bonus continues to ripple through the blogosphere. [ABA Journal]

* Details continue to leak out about a merger between Hogan & Hartson and Lovells. Apparently, Ho-Love will retain separate profit pools for the two sets of partners. [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]

* Junior Gotti is so close to a mistrial he can feel it. [Daily News]

* Nic Cage got ruined during the financial crisis, according to his estranged business manager. [Courthouse News Service]

* Oprah Winfrey will end her popular talk show in 2011. Notice how I wrote that blurb without using the words “queen,” or “throne.” You’re welcome. [ABC]

* In honor of Full-Cravath’s bonus:

Earlier today, we reported that protests over the proposed tuition hike at UCLA got a bit testy. But we also noted that the protests didn’t seem to include a lot of law students, even though their tuition is going through the roof as well. One friend had this apathetic response when asked about the protests:

Dude, I have finals. And my 2L grades matter because I’ll be doing 3L recruiting. Unless we’re protesting canceled summer programs, count me out.

We wanted to know how the law school generally was reacting to today’s festivities, so we reached out to the UCLA Student Bar Association President, Lenny Sandoval. We asked him why law student participation seemed lacking:

Being a third year with one foot out the door, it’s tough for me to give a totally representative view, but while I agree that the involvement of law students as a whole is a bit subdued, I think the reaction from the identity organizations and their leadership (Raza, BLSA, etc.) has been very supportive and vocal of the undergraduate led movements. Based on FB status updates and gChat blurbs I saw at least 6 or 7 people either returning from the protests or planning on going to the protests, so that’s something at least.

Sandoval also noted that law students need to be a little bit more careful when it comes to potentially getting arrested than college kids.

That’s certainly true, especially in this economy. There’s no sense having your tuition jacked up and hurting your chances at snagging a legal job.

But something other than fear and general apathy might be driving down law student participation in civil disobedience. We also spoke with UCLA Law professor Stephen Bainbridge and he notes that people at the law school might just be paying a little bit more attention to the general state of affairs with the U.C. system than your average college student.

Thoughts from Professor Bainbridge after the jump.

* The Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t care about black people. [WSJ Blog]

* Thank God for Brian Leiter. Here’s what the Super Lawyers rankings look like, adjusted for class size, not adjusted for U.S. News Top-14 status. Now I can comfortably say, HLS to #1! [Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports]

* Sometimes I park, in handicapped spaces, while handicapped people, make handicapped … Oww. I think the PC police just tasered my fingers. [Wild Wild Law]

* Your lawyering skills aren’t going to matter much if you can’t sell it. [Bar & Bench]

* David Hamilton will ascend to the 7th Circuit. Finally. [BLT]

* The IRS does not apologize. [Going Concern]

* Where is the physical evidence in the Robert Wone case? [Who Murdered Robert Wone]

That’s the news we’re hearing out of Austin today. When Texas added a constitutional amendment in 2005 banning gay marriage, it may have actually banned all marriage, says attorney general candidate (and former Vinson & Elkins partner) Barbara Ann Radnofsky.

Fort Worth Star Telegram broke the story. Slate sums it up:

A Houston lawyer who is the Democratic candidate for attorney general claims that a 2005 Constitutional amendment that was supposed to ban gay marriages actually took the whole thing a bit further than anyone expected. The amendment states that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” So far, so good.

But then comes Subsection B: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” That was supposed to ban any form of civil unions or domestic partnership but may have put the legal status of all Texas marriages in doubt.

Texas: 3500 sq ft, a Lexus and babies out of wedlock?

Skadden has decided to match the Cravath scale.

Here’s the scale:

2008 — $7,500
2007 — $10,000
2006 — $15,000
2005 — $20,000
2004 — $25,000
2003 — $30,000
2002 — $30,000

With Skadden and Cravath on the same page, the rest of this bonus season might be devoid of any real drama. Associates will take their $7,500 and up and like it.

Skadden’s move here isn’t all that surprising. Last year, the firm doubled the Cravath payment. While that generated a lot of positive press for the firm, evidently good cheer isn’t something that shows up on the partners’ bottom line.

And you know that Cravath has to be happy about this. Now the firm won’t have to look like it paid low bonuses two years in a row.

We should expect the rest of the top firms to fall in line. Now the question turns to firms that are not in the position of Cravath, Skadden, and Cleary. Will they fall into line with the big boys, or might they go even lower?

Then again, how much lower can this bar really go?

After the jump, check out the memo senior associates got from Skadden about their Cravath bonus.

As an editor of Above the Law, I find the headline below amusing. As a commenter on Above the Law, some of you will find the headline terrifying. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A single vulgar word cost a man his job on Friday.

Well, that’s putting way too nice of a spin on it. It’s not like somebody put in a vulgar comment and then the secret police crashed his cubicle and then kicked him out on the street.

No, the blogger who noticed and deleted the vulgar comment called the commenter’s employer:

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included.

Armed with the IP address, the IT people at the school quickly found out who posted the comment. The commenter was confronted and resigned.

Would I ever do something like that? No. Because I’m drunk with alcohol, not power.

Let me explain after the jump.

President Obama seems to have made up his mind about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed circus trial that will be coming to a New York courthouse near you. The Associate Press reports (gavel bang: ABA Journal):

Obama, in a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, said those offended by the legal rights accorded Mohammed by virtue of his facing a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

I’ve argued that Obama isn’t as cool as everybody makes him out to be, but that was certainly some cold-ass rhetoric. “[W]hen the death penalty is applied to him”? Damn brother, you sending in the Wolf too?

Of course, after the jump, the lawyer part of Obama’s brain kicks in and he backpedals like a professional cornerback.

A tipster just sent in this video from UCLA:

Berkeley students, take note. That is how you cause a ruckus.

The AP reports:

About 200 demonstrators are chanting and marching around a UCLA building where University of California regents are scheduled to vote on a 32 percent fee increase for next year.

Protesters from several UC campuses stayed overnight at a campus tent city to take part in a second day of demonstrations on Thursday.

UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton says 30 to 50 students also have staged a sit-in at an ethnic studies building and have chained shut the doors. They’re peaceful and are being allowed to stay.

Sadly, reports indicate that it is predominately college students that are involved in today’s shenanigans. Are all the law students already mentally beaten?

We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot - I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.

Get mad, but stay safe. Rubber bullets hurt like hell.

Protesters gather at UCLA to oppose UC fee hike [Associated Press]
UPDATE: UCLA student protest now in full swing [True/Slant]

Earlier: Berkeley Law Students, How Did the ‘Not Ironic’ Strike Go?

Somewhere Mr. Pink is smiling. The Express-Times reports:

Moravian College senior Leslie Pope and John Wagner, a Lehigh University graduate student, were handcuffed and transported from the Lehigh Pub to Bethlehem police headquarters Oct. 23 after failing to pay a mandatory 18 percent gratuity.

Pope and Wagner, members of a party of eight during happy hour, refused to pay a $16.35 service charge on top of their $73.87 tab because of what they say was shoddy service as well as a surcharge that was nearly 5 percent higher than the 18 percent listed on the menu.

“Gratuity is thanking you for your service,” Pope, 22, said. “You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip.”

These kids don’t have any idea about what they’re talking about. These people bust their ass. This is a hard job.

According to Pope and Wagner the service was really bad. After the jump, a tipster throws out some counterclaim ideas.

A couple of days ago, we mentioned the new Super Lawyers Law School Rankings. The list ranks law schools by their number of Super Lawyer alumni. At the time, we noted that a potential flaw with the magazine’s methodology was that it is just looking at raw numbers. The rankings aren’t adjusted for class size.

Northwestern Law placed #18 on the list. That’s not too bad if you care about things like rankings. The school placed higher than other traditional Top-14 law schools like Stanford, Duke, and Cornell.

But Northwestern Law Dean David E. Van Zandt does care about rankings. He cares about them a great deal. And while #18 is certainly respectable, it wasn’t quite enough for Dean Van Zandt. Here’s part of his email to Northwestern law students:

As you know, I am a proponent of rankings in general and believe they provide a useful source of consumer information for applicants as well as employers. While their methodology needs improving, I applaud Super Lawyers Magazine for developing a ranking that is based on career performance outputs.

So — in a brilliant exercise of Descartian rationale — Dean Van Zandt changed the list. He (or somebody that works for him) went and changed the methodology to make Northwestern look even more awesome.

Let’s check out Super Lawyers according to Van Zandt after the jump.

This week’s headlines from AsiaLegalBlog.com

1) Weekly Asia Legal Job Openings
Since 2001, Cypress has offered the most extensive and up-to-date job bank focused exclusively on associate and partner opportunities in Hong Kong (42), Tokyo (24), Beijing (38), Shanghai (33) and the Middle East (15)….

2) Obama Tours Asia with Focus on Opening Foreign—Markets
As part of President Barack Obama¹s current tour of Asia, he is sending the message that the US wants more open trade with countries like China. That message resonates strongly with US law firms and lawyers who are interested in pursuing business opportunities in China….

3) Asia-Related CLE Opportunites
Cypress has found the following courses for lawyers looking to increase their knowledge on the Asian legal market while also taking care of their CLE requirements….

4) Asia Deal Watch
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP has represented a Goldman Sachs International, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, JP Morgan Securities Ltd and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc as initial purchasers…

5) Partner Moves & Promotions
Allen & Overy has hired Mallesons Stephen Jaques¹s litigation partner Simon Clarke to its Hong Kong office. Clarke has 15 years of extensive experience in complex litigation andcontentious regulatory work in Asia which the firm is eager to use….

6) Trailing Spouses and Other Dependants
If you want to know how the international assignment is really going, ask the spouse. It is well known that the success or failure of a stint abroad can depend almost entirely on the level of contentedness of the trailing family members. We offer some personal insights…

This information is supplied by cypressrecruiting.com, the first and only US-based legal recruiting firm to specialize exclusively on law firm and in-house placements in the China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Middle East, and Russia legal markets. Click here to see our available opportunities.

It appears that Magic Circle firms have fallen in love with outsourcing. Most American associates will hope that like Mad Cow disease, the outsourcing craze stays on English side of the ocean. The Lawyer reports:

Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the first magic circle firm to outsource legal work as an increasing number of UK firms embrace legal process outsourcing (LPO) in a bid to reduce their overheads.

The firm has partnered with LPO provider Integreon to outsource basic litigation document review to teams in New York and Mumbai, in what could generate a 30-50 per cent cost saving.

Anybody think we’ll see some geographic hypocrisy in the comment thread? Outsourcing to New York = good, outsourcing to Mumbai = bad? Or will everybody simply agree that outsourcing = apocalyptic?

After the jump, The Lawyer has an excellent chart that shows us where British firms stand with regards to outsourcing.

* Duke law grad Stanley Hilton, 60, sues San Francisco Airport (and some 500 others) for $15 million for ruining his life. The airport noise, which sounds like “bombs dropping in a war zone,” caused his marriage and career to fall apart, he alleges. [San Mateo County Times via San Francisco Chronicle]

* The Ninth Circuit rules that L.A. public defender is entitled to health benefits for his same-sex spouse. [Mercury News]

* ‘I don’t. Furthermore, I am pressing charges.’ New Jersey attorney Steve Hallett accuses woman of harassment after she runs a fake engagement notice. [Trentonian]

* Eric Holder still feeling the heat from his decision to try 9/11 masterminds in a civilian court. [Chicago Tribune]

* … Some questions about the trial that are actually interesting. [Concurring Opinions]

* Terrorist attorney Lynne Stewart is heading to jail. [Associated Press]

* Say it ain’t so, H&H. [Associated Press]

Yesterday, we told you that big tuition hikes could be coming to schools in the University of California system. But we didn’t know that Berkeley students had a plan to do something about it. They’re going out on strike! With university workers who want a raise! Or something!

Hey, it’s the Berkeley way. When they are pissed about something, they protest. It’s better than the Harvard way; when we’re pissed about something, we ask Daddy to fire somebody.

[Yale way = invite SCOTUS justice to speak about the issue, ask justice only clerkship application questions. UT way = shoot it. NYU way = wait to see how Columbia handles the problem. I could go on and on.]

The protest was scheduled for today. Those hardcore Berkeley students were even asking professors to reschedule classes so more people could participate in the strike.

(Wait for it)

Yes, you read that correctly. Students wanted to strike, but didn’t want to risk missing class.

After the jump, the Berkeley law blog, Nuts & Boalts explains the problems with this plan:

* In Tennessee you can run for elected office under a fake name. I predict “Jack Daniels” will be Tennessee’s next Governor. [Young Lawyers Blog]

* Kash did some research on what search terms people use to find us. The results are disturbing. [True/Slant]

* Some companies just don’t like the U.S. court system. [Going Concern]

* A health care surcharge could be taxing. [Blackbook Legal]

* William Kunstler’s children are educating people about their father. [Gothamist]

* Lat, in living color. [The Law.TV]

Jeremy Haber’s star rose and and fell before we had a chance to draft a post. Haber is a first year student at Harvard Law School and recently made the finals in the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest. From the Harvard Crimson via ABA Journal:

Jeremy L. Haber, a first year student at the Law School, is one of four finalists remaining in the Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest, the winner of which will write 13 weekly op-ed columns on a topic of his choice.

Haber, who said he entered the contest on an impulse, has emerged from over 4,800 entrants to outlast six other finalists — including a Nobel laureate in physics, an assistant secretary of commerce in the Bush administration, and a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

These are the columns that got him into the final rounds. Unfortunately, some other finals got in the way of his punditry. He is a 1L and it is mid-November…

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

The elevator opened again, and a flurry of blue uniforms quickly surrounded ken Thrax’s office and began marking it with yellow tape. Class: Fighter.

Tyler was a thinker, not a fighter. He left quietly, not wanting to get involved, especially if that yellow sticky note was one of Thrax’s last acts….

Tyler went down the hall to Katarina’s office. He spotted her head amongst the piles of books and case printouts. She was so engrossed in a volume of Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure that she hadn’t even noticed his entry. He smiled.

Tyler rapped lightly on the doorframe. Katarina jumped. “Sorry,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Want to get dinner?”

How would you like to be sitting in property class at Iowa College of Law, and realizing that you are in the same section as this guy? The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports:

An Iowa City man is accused of physically and verbally abusing his live-in girlfriend on Sunday.

According to Iowa City police, Alvin K. Seals, 35, choked the woman after an argument and caused her to hit a wall with her elbow. The woman scraped her elbow and also cut her finger during the struggle, police said.

A tipster reports:

Seals is a 1L at Iowa College of Law. Word on the street is he dropped one of the three doctrinal first-semester classes (property) already.

Alvin Kwesi Seals apparently has quite the temper. More urine soaked allegations, after the jump.

It’s nice to see a firm maintaining its commitment to diversity despite tough economic times. Changing the culture of Biglaw is a hard thing to do, but it starts at the top.

It looks like the partners at McGuireWoods understand that. But a McGuireWoods tipster reports that you can’t just force terrified and busy associates to embrace every diversity initiative the firm has to offer:

I am an associate at McGuire Woods and we got this email this morning from the managing partner of the Chicago office and a lot of us are disgusted. He sent it to all attorneys in the Chicago office.

Is this really the way to get us interested in diversity? Maybe they should question their commitment to associates in this time of financial distress. This was an optional event where they sent an invitation once to remind us of its occurrence.

A managing partner calling out his office for a lack of commitment to diversity? That is just not something you see everyday.

Let’s take a look a the pro-diversity email that angered a bunch of Chicago associates, after the jump.

Many ‘08 law school grads are about to take a step up to second year associate level at Biglaw firms across the land. You’re feeling pretty proud? And lucky to have a Biglaw gig these days, right?

Well, eat your hearts out. Michael Edwards, Georgetown Law ‘08 grad, has already been appointed a judge. He took his seat on the bench in Indiana City Court on Tuesday. From WTHI TV:

The Indiana Supreme Court appointed a new attorney to become a temporary judge in a southern Indiana City Court. Michael Edwards is a Naval Academy graduate, former Marine, and now the city court judge in Bicknell.

A Georgetown classmate tipped us off to the news:

This is one of my friends from GULC’s class of 2008. Already a judge! Ridiculous!

So how’d Edwards come to the attention of the Indiana Supreme Court? Judge Edwards’ ascension to the bench is a result of malfeasance by a prior judge, but was also due in part to a pushed back start date at a Chicago Biglaw firm.

A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law:

• Assara Laser

• The Atlantic

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• Harvard Business School

• Kinney Recruiting

• Lateral Link

• LexisNexis

• The Tikvah Center at NYU School of Law

• The Red Cross

• University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Isenberg School of Management

If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!

Last week, we asked you if deferral stipends for incoming associates are too small. The reaction was mixed. Some people felt that incoming associates should be thankful for every penny they get. Others noted that it was extremely difficult to make loan repayments off of the deferral stipend.

But many people felt that deferred associates should just go out and get a job, any job.

I had assumed that most deferred associates were already actively engaged in the process of looking for work. Not just to defray the costs of their deferment, but for a long term position in case their firm never actually allows them to start working. But then this question came into the ATL inbox:

I am emailing because I think it would be useful to deferred associates to dialogue on how we should react to the situation we are in. I have an offer at a law firm that had initially deferred incoming associates until January 2010. Now incoming associates are being deferred until later in 2010. Are incoming associates (to all firms) being foolhardy for continuing to rely on these offers? What if we are deferred again, or worse, what if our offers are rescinded? Will we look back and question why we did not look for another job sooner? Will potential other employers think we were naive for relying on the offers for so long, making our chances of finding another job less likely? Is it enough that we received job offers from prestigious, competitive firms, but in the end it did not work out; will that get us another job? These are all questions we have to ask ourselves, but it is hard to come to any answers without the benefit of knowing the future…obviously. I think it would be useful to get the industry perspective, because in the end, it the industry perspective that will dictate how our decision to wait around or not wait around is viewed.

Let’s discuss and take a reader poll after the jump.

Panelists:
Jonathan Pan, Managing Partner, NYC Office, King & Wood
Toby Myerson, Partner, Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Puneet Arora (LLM, 2001) Principal/Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Evan Jowers, Kinney Recruiting, Author of the Asia Chronicles at Above the Law.com
Francis Zou, Senior Counsel, NYC Office, Allen & Overy LLP
Nan-I Chen, Senior in-House Counsel, Barclays Capital

* Judge David Hamilton (S.D. Ind.), nominated to the Seventh Circuit, will (finally) be put to an up-or-down vote in the Senate today. [Christian Science Monitor]

* A veto for Iraq’s election law means that elections might not happen in January as expected. [New York Times]

* Speaking of things that aren’t happening in January, Obama admits that Gitmo won’t be closed by the January 2010 deadline he set for himself. Elie wants to know if he has a Restatement § 90 claim. [Washington Post]

* But at least Obama is on the case when it comes to almost $100 billion in improper payments by the federal government. Expect an executive order shortly. [CNN]

* So much for the (Linda) Greenhouse effect: Justice Kennedy is ticked off at the Times. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Judicial reform may be coming to West Virginia. [How Appealing]

* The Empire State cracks down on drunk drivers — especially those who take their kids with them. [New York Times]

Sensible shoes are for liberal chicks. Say hello to fabulous Federalist footwear!

As you may have noticed, from our two posts late on Monday night and one from Tuesday morning, we're engaging in some after-the-fact blogging of last week's Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention.

As in past years, the social highlight of the conference was the Thursday night banquet (black tie optional; and many availed themselves of the option, 'cause that's how conservatives roll). The speaker at the dinner was none other than Justice Samuel A. Alito, who delivered an insightful and hilarious speech that was a delight to listen to. Just as one might say of, say, a newscast by Jon Stewart, much of the entertainment value was in the delivery -- Justice Alito is so dry and deadpan, and yet his remarks make you bust out laughing.

Interestingly enough, we haven't come across many news accounts of Justice Alito's speech. There was also no video recording allowed at the address. So we feel we can add some value with this write-up, despite its belated nature.

There may have been some confusion over the ground rules governing reporting about the speech. From the BLT:

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. spoke to the Federalist Society [last Thursday] night, but photos of him doing so are hard to come by. That's because photographers other than the Federalist Society's own were barred from the event. Keith Appell, a spokesman for the Federalist Society, said cameras were prohibited by Alito's security detail....

Kathy Arberg, the court spokeswoman, said "The justice's policy was that the event was open to still cameras and pencil press," and that the Federalist Society was informed of that policy before the event.

Well, photos from the event aren't hard to come by on Above the Law. Nobody told us that we couldn't take photographs -- so we did. And, as members of the "pencil press," we jotted down notes in our reporter's notebook. (We left the laptop at the hotel that night.)

Check out a slideshow of our pictures, along with a discussion of Justice Alito's highly engaging and entertaining address, after the jump.

Last month, we reported that UC Hastings College of Law was set to become the most expensive law school in California. Apparently, the good people at Berkeley and UC Davis took that as a challenge.

Tomorrow, November 18th there will be a meeting on the proposed budget for the California university system. The tuition numbers for law schools would be terrifying for prospective law students — if only they were able to exercise common sense.

First let’s look at the proposed tuition and fees for California residents at Berkeley and other California public law schools over the next three years:

Notice that these numbers are up from the proposal that was on the table just this past August. I can’t imagine what tuition will look like when we actually get to 2012 - 2013. By then they’ll be charging people in Euros and organ donations.

After the jump, we look at what these schools plan for non-resident students (hint, it’s obscene enough that I considered putting up NSFW warnings), and why UC administrators think students will accept the tuition hikes.

* Today is the NRA’s birthday! To celebrate, I’m heading to my local gun range (it’s called “the Bronx” if you’re not from New York) where I intend to pump a copy of the Second Amendment full of hot lead. [Jew with a Gun]

* Google gets into the Westlaw and Lexis business. [The Supreme Court of Texas Blog]

* Volokh looks at some aggravating circumstances that could possibly justify why 37-year-old Sandy Binkley was sent away for 12 years for banging a 17-year-old student. I still don’t think the punishment fits the porking. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* The Feds have the death penalty, but New York doesn’t. If Holder really wants to bomb Khalid Sheik Mohammad back to the stone age, it’ll be a tricky political situation. [WSJ Law Blog]

* What does it say when lawyers are lining up to defend Bill Belichick’s controversial decision to go for it on fourth down during the Patriots’ loss to the Colts on Sunday? It says “the amount of front runners who support teams like the Patriots, Yankees, Lakers, Celtics, and Steelers has reached epic proportions in this country. And soon the Dookies will be upon us. Everybody who did not grow up in New England needs to get off Tom Brady’s illegitimate child-having jock.” Ahh, that feels better. [Tax Prof Blog]

Ben Harper says that “what’s from the earth is of the greatest worth.” Yesterday, ex-U.S. attorney John McKay weighed in on the marijuana debate, and said that “what’s from the earth” shouldn’t be illegal.

Instructing federal agencies to ignore congressional laws is not a fix, said McKay. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

McKay faulted Congress for failing to take initiative on the issue. It is not the place of federal prosecutors or law officers to make policy, he said, nor should the White House go it alone.

In the end, he argued, marijuana should not be lumped in with cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin as part of the war on drugs. Marijuana law, McKay said, “should look a lot more like alcohol (regulations) and a lot less like cocaine and methamphetamine (laws).”

Colorado’s attorney general agrees… when it comes to state coffers. AG John Suthers says it’s okay for his state to tax medical marijuana.

A recent Marie Claire article made us realize that this is not just a question of theoretical interest to some of you. Apparently, there are Biglaw types out there toking up! One 29-year-old corporate attorney told the magazine that pot is essential for relaxation after getting chewed out by a partner.

There will be a change at the top of one of the few organizations that can help address some of the problems facing lawyers today. The ABA Journal reports:

ABA Executive Director Henry F. White Jr. has resigned after three years at the helm of the world’s largest voluntary professional membership organization. ABA General Counsel R. Thomas Howell Jr. has been named interim executive director.

Let’s take a moment to remember precisely what the ABA does. From ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm’s official statement about the resignation:

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

There are a lot of lawyers that need some professional assistance just at the moment. Hopefully a fresh face will have new ideas about proactive steps the ABA can take on behalf of its membership.

ABA Executive Director Resigns [ABA Journal]

The Above the Law inbox has been on fire all morning as disgruntled (former) Schulte Roth & Zabel associates share some bad news:

Yet more lay-offs: Two groups — 13 associates so far — real estate and business transactions.

Other tipsters have used the same ominous language: “13 associates, so far.” Are there more people that are going to get the bad news from Schulte today? The firm did not respond to our request for comment, so we suppose other Schulte associates will just have to wait and see.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before we worry about how many more pink slips might be handed out today, let’s take a moment to look at the 13 we know of that have already been let go.

Last night, the WSJ Law Blog previewed a new set of law school rankings. Today, we have the full list from SuperLawyers. The magazine, in association with Minnesota Law & Politics and Washington Law & Politics, has ranked law schools based on the number of Super Lawyers they produce.

Is it a little self-serving for a magazine to rank law schools based on how many of the school’s graduates end up in its own magazine? Sure. It’s a little like US Weekly handing out Oscar nominations based on how many times a star has appeared on its cover.

But at least it is an attempt to rank schools based on graduate outcomes. The Super Lawyers Blog explains the rankings this way:

Most law school rankings look at things like bar passage rates, professor-to-student ratios and the number of books in the library, but they ignore the end product — the quality of lawyers produced. We think it’s like ranking football teams based on athletic facilities, player size and equipment without considering who wins the games.

In the real world — the world of clients and juries and judges — no one cares about your GPA or LSAT score. All that matters is how good and ethical a lawyer you are. That’s the focus of Super Lawyers.

Schools are ranked according to the total number of graduates named to the state and regional Super Lawyers lists in 2009. In the event of a tie between schools, the cumulative peer evaluation and research scores of graduates are used as tie-breakers.

They care about how “ethical” you are in the real world? Who knew?

Enough with the preamble. Let’s explore the cream of the crop, the Super Lawyers top 20, after the jump.

On Friday, we gave you a sneak peek at the new rankings being developed by the Association for Corporate Counsel. The organization is asking its members to submit reviews about the law firms they work with based on a five star system.

We told you that the ACC rankings were still a work in progress, with many firms not having enough reviews to consider their rating significant.

Still, the ACC would have preferred to keep its list a secret from the general public. The ABA Journal reports:

The ABA Journal asked the Association of Corporate Counsel for comment. Media representatives pointed to an online statement and a blog post by ACC President Fred Krebs. “It is premature and inappropriate at this time to cite ‘rankings’ of law firms given the limited number of evaluations submitted thus far,” Krebs says. “The ACC Value Index is in the early data-gathering stage, and it will take time to develop a robust database.”

It seems that the ACC’s real problem is that it doesn’t want its rankings to be termed “rankings.”

Check out an email from the ACC to its members after the jump.

Our recent Career Center survey asked about compensation structure for salaries and bonuses at your firms.  The results reveal that reports of the death of lockstep compensation have been greatly exaggerated: a large majority of respondents — over 75% — say their firm still pays base salaries on a lockstep scale.  And despite the tough economy, over 96% of respondents expect a bonus this year.   

Check out the full survey results after the jump — and visit the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link — for more on which firm has announced an end-of-year salary freeze, the latest firm to join the hybrid-lockstep compensation bandwagon, and which firm is now rescinding offers to new associates.

Full survey results, after the jump.

We’ve had a lot of evidence that prospective law students have hatched a diabolical plan to flood the legal market with fresh talent. But this graph from Most Strongly Supported tells it all:

My Lord.

Right now, I’m like Oliver Platt at the end of 2012. Shut the damn door or we’re all gonna die.

Some other observations after the jump.

* Utah college student can’t use “global warming” as a defense. Tim DeChristopher was indicted in April on felony charges for interfering with a government auction and making false representations when he bid $1.8 million for land near Utah’s national parks knowing he could not make good on the bids. [New York Times]

* ATL grammar police will hate this ruling. A misplaced modifier is not a $2.45-million mistake. “[W]hile misplaced modifiers are syntactical sins righteously condemned by English teachers everywhere, our job is not to critique the parties’ grammar, but only, if possible, to adduce and enforce their contract’s meaning,” wrote Judge Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit. [Courthouse News Service]

* Chevron sues lawyer who sued Chevron. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* LA city attorney wants $3 million reimbursement for Michael Jackson’s memorial service. [Associated Press]

* Cheering the Yarvard Crimdogs. [Yale Daily News]

* Ponzi scheme crackdown in California. [KCRA.com]

* FIU law student missing. [Associated Press]

Time to resume our lateblogging — or can we call it early-blogging, in light of the morning hour? — of the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention. If you’re a conservative or libertarian lawyer (or law student), this is an event well worth attending every year. In addition to the lively and informative panel discussions (which offer CLE credit), the networking is excellent.

Here’s the next panel we attended, on a timely topic given the government’s increasing — and perhaps excessive — involvement in the national economy:

Breakdown of the Public-Private Distinction: Implications for the Administrative State

We continue our lateblogging of the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention. The conversations at the conference are always interesting. As far as we’re concerned, this has to be one of the most painless ways to rack up CLE credits.

Here’s the next panel discussion that we attended:

Regulation of Financial Institutions

Over the weekend, we had the pleasure of attending the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention, down in Washington, D.C. As in past years, conservative and libertarian legal luminaries were plentiful, and the panel discussions and other events were excellent.

Some folks — e.g., Josh Blackman — were liveblogging the proceedings. We’re only writing up the conference now, so you can call this “lateblogging” (both because we’re late in blogging about the conference, and blogging late at night; hey, better late than never).

This year, sadly, we missed most of the Thursday events (because of a speaking engagement at the ABA’s Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference). The first Fed Soc panel we caught was on Friday afternoon:

Free Speech: The Fairness Doctrine

Over 3500 votes are in. Here is our winning caption:

Despite a plethora of non-recession submissions, the economy’s dire straits continues to hold the greatest appeal for our caption contest voters. This is starting to seem like a trend.

We have good news. That is not actually an application-hoarding Biglaw office. Find out the real story behind the photo after the jump.

* Generation X = The Lost Generation? That really bites. [Law and More]

* Meep. [The Legal Satyricon]

* Outsourcing the marketing of attorneys could lead to ethical problems. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* Public opinion on some hot button legal issues. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* There are all sorts of ways unscrupulous lawyers can rip off their clients. [Business Insider]

* Did you know that today is the International Day of Tolerance? Let’s get through this quickly.
[Windypundit via Blawg Review]

I don’t know anything about My Community Legal Network. Its website tells us this:

Introduced in 2009, My Community Legal Network scoured through millions of legal and financial professionals looking for the most knowledgeable and sophisticated providers. Then we took the collective bargaining power that comes from millions of Americans and negotiated wholesale prices from these top professionals. We take these discounted rates and offer them directly to our members. There is no markup; only the best professionals at the best prices. My Community Legal Network currently only offers services in the United States but has plans to expand these services to Canada, Mexico, and South America by the end of 2010.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Based on that description, I suppose the picture after the jump will make more horrifying sense.

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

Back at the office, Tyler reached for his case file. A yellow Post-It note on top read “Drinks at 5 p.m. Solstice. K.”

Tyler instantly e-mailed Katarina one word: Yes.

Then he noticed an e-mail from the managing partner announcing cuts in the recruiting budget. No reimbursements for associate lunches with summers. The firm has, however, negotiated a deal with Solstice such that all recruiting meals eaten there and paid for by corporate credit card are still fully reimbursable up to $7.00 per person. Tyler groaned audibly. Having to eat well-presented-yet-unflavored food every day was his personal hell.

An e-mail from Katarina appeared! His heart pounded as he read her reply: “?” He read it again and mentally administered severe self-flagellation for a divination attempt gone badly awry! Tyler wished vainly for a time reversal spell to recall that e-mail. Seeing none, he instead replied, “What is the answer to which the question is ‘dinner tonight?’” He crossed his fingers.

The Supreme Court decided it wants no part of the Redskins case, and Quinn remains victorious over Native American activists who want to change the team’s racially charged moniker. The WSJ Law blog reports:

The Redskins on Monday got a bit of good news from the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined cert filed by Native American activists who claim the Redskins’ team name is so offensive that it does not deserve trademark protection. The ruling essentially lets stand a lower court ruling that the activists waited too long to bring the challenge.

Mmmm … laches.

Regular Above the Law readers know that this case sparked some internal controversy at Quinn Emanuel when a then-associate at the firm took offense to Robert Raskopf’s celebratory lower court victory email.

The associate argued that Quinn was on the wrong side of history, but it appears the firm is on the right side of the law.

Portland, Tennessee high school math teach Sandy Binkley was convicted of statutory rape back in September. The 37-year-old woman had sex with a 17-year-old student in a locker room.

Binkley argued that the 17-year-old student raped her. She gave an interview to Tennessee News Channel 5 before her trial:

“There was one incident with one student - who was a month away from being 18. He was bigger than me and he forced himself on me,” said Binkley. “He came into the room and forced himself upon me.”

The jury didn’t buy it.

On Friday, Binkley was sentenced. And man, the judge essentially put her behind bars and threw away the key. The Tennessean reports:

A former Portland High School teacher convicted of having sex with her underage teacher’s aide has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

District Attorney Ray Whitley said Sandy Binkley “got what she had coming to her.”

“(Judge Dee Gay) gave her the maximum sentence and that’s what she deserved,” Whitley said.

The woman got 12 years — the maximum sentence — for having sex with a 17-year-old? Really? Does that make sense to everybody here?

Binkley’s lawyers (obviously) feel the judge went a little overboard. Details after the jump.

A Biglaw traveler checked in with us from Minnesota airport:

I almost spat out my Caribou Coffee when I saw this ad next to my gate. Apologies for the pic quality—a little blurry from combination of crappy phone pic and shaky hands from said latte.

Here’s said ad:

Which firm is breaking down its lawyers’ nutritional value?

Many law firms have figured out that the best way to stop the spread of swine flu is to have their sick people stay home from work. Last week, we mentioned that Akerman Senterfitt had explicitly told its associates that staying home because of swine flu would not count against their vacation time.

The stay home message has also gone out at K&L Gates. But apparently one associate didn’t get the memo and showed up to work despite having flu-like symptoms. The associate was eventually diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

The associate drew the ire of K&L Gates managing partner Peter Kalis. All associates at K&L Gates then received a blistering email from the managing partner.

That’s the most shocking revelation in an interesting New York Times profile of H. Rodgin Cohen, the nation’s top banking M&A lawyer and chairman of the venerable Sullivan & Cromwell. From the NYT:

After [Cohen and his wife Barbara] had paid their [restaurant] check, they went to fetch the car, and Mr. Cohen, a Boston fan since his days at Harvard Law, glanced down at his BlackBerry to check on the Red Sox. He drives a Subaru, a humble ride for a man who earned millions last year arranging shotgun weddings for the busted firms of Wall Street, and standing next to Barbara in the darkness, Rodge Cohen, a titan of the banking bar, struggled with his automated key, initially unable to — woop woop woop — release the lock.

Unlocking car doors by remote control — where’s a good associate when you need one?

Now, in re Subarus, we have nothing against them; they are fine cars. Some of our best friends drive Subarus. One of our co-clerks — a member of the Elect, no less — drives a Subaru Forester. The judge for whom we clerked — Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.), a top feeder judge — used to drive a purple Subaru (affectionately nicknamed “Grimace” by his clerks).

But as we know from the judicial pay controversy, federal judges don’t get compensated like partners at Sullivan & Cromwell. And Cohen is no ordinary S&C partner — he’s the chairman of the firm and its top rainmaker, generating tens of millions in business every year. A Subaru is shockingly downmarket for him. We realize that true wealth doesn’t have to advertise itself, and six-figure cars are for the nouveau riche, but this still seems a tad extreme.

More to the point, why is Rodge Cohen even driving himself? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for him to have a chauffeur-driven Maybach — john quinn, holla — so he can spend every waking minute on the phone, negotiating billion-dollar bank mergers? Isn’t it a waste of the brilliant Cohen’s brain cells to have him paying attention to yield signs when he could instead be thinking about yield curves?

More tidbits from the Rodge Cohen profile, along with commentary, after the jump.

* The Wall Street Journal digs into the Scott Rothstein scandal. “The Rothstein story is also a quintessential tale of the Sunshine State, where wealthy retirees and other well-heeled investors have been known to chase outsize returns while ignoring myriad warning signs.” [Wall Street Journal (subscription) and WSJ Law Blog]

* How do you defend the Fort Hood killer? [New York Times]

* The 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four alleged accomplices will stand trial in New York. Congress isn’t happy about it. [Newsday]

* …Rick Ungar defends the justice system against the congressional attack. [True/Slant]

* Trying to be a legal entrepreneur? There’s a school for that. [Brisbane Times]

* A pair of California lawyers wrote a law and then made lots of money off of it. [Associated Press]

* New York AG Andrew Cuomo will make a run for governor. [New York Post]

* Confirmation for Obama’s judicial nominees is moving at a snail’s pace. [Los Angeles Times]

Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks, which has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.

This week, economists missed on the good side — initial jobless claims fell by more than expected. The 502,000 applicants are the fewest since January 3, and the four-month rolling average is at the lowest level since November 2008.

It’s tough to grasp half a million people filing for first-time benefits as good news, but these are troubled times, so we have to cheer where we can. Don’t get too excited, though. Even news that looks good at first glance probably isn’t. The 139,000 people who came off the continuing-claims roster more likely did so as a result of benefits running out or giving up the search than actually finding work.

But don’t be surprised if that number starts creeping back up. A bill was passed last week that will extend benefits by 14 weeks in all states, and six additional weeks in states where the unemployment rate is greater than 8.5%.

All in all, it was a relatively good week in BigLaw, with no layoffs reported. Nonetheless, firms continue to flail about trying to fix their economic models, and we document the efforts after the jump.

* What does it take to legally disturb a grizzly bear in San Francisco? [Lowering the Bar]

* Apparently, some people thought I was defending the Columbia professor who punched out a woman. I was not. [True/Slant]

* The benefits of being a Twitter snob. [Simple Justice]

* Is there enough political balance at law schools? [Blackbook Legal]

* Church ordered to stop being so goddamn nice. [Bad Lawyer]

* Thanks to Ropes & Gray, firms are taking another look at their security measures. [Bloomberg]

* Strippers. In a glass box. On the back of a truck! We’re about to develop a whole new meaning for the term “rubber necking.” [Legally Unbound]

* Don’t forget to vote in this weekend’s caption contest. [Above the Law]

Both California and Texas are thinking about officially deep-sixing sex between lawyers and their clients.

The California State Bar Association is considering a change to the professional rules of conduct to “prohibit sex with clients unless they are spouses or the relations preceded the lawyer-client relationship,” according to The Recorder. The Texas Supreme Court is suggesting the same type of thing in the Lone Star state, according to the Texas Lawyer.

The American Bar Association generally frowns on lawyers getting into their clients’ briefs. The argument against taking discovery to the bedroom is that sexy time undermines an attorney’s ability to give objective advice and to keep his or her interest from limiting that of the client.

On the other hand, regulating bed behavior potentially violates a lawyer’s privacy and the right to freedom of association.

ATL readers, we turn the debate over to you. Is it okay for lawyers to be their clients’ master debaters and masturbators? Moving beyond the theoretical, how many of you have actually had to grapple with this? Take our polls and hear some stories, after the jump.

LEWW was recently hospitalized for a series of events that resulted in the birth of an actual human being for which we are now responsible. We’ll be taking a brief hiatus from our Legal Eagle Wedding-Watching duties while we adjust to life with this screaming, pooping bundle of adorableness.

The Lat/Mystal regime is far less generous with maternity leave than Biglaw, so we won’t be gone for anything approaching 18 weeks. And we’ll be keeping track of the weddings that occur while we’re away, so don’t think you can escape our attention by getting married now. We’ll catch up with everything upon our return.

I like it when judges show a sense of humor. It gives me metaphysical joy when judges refuse to act like legal automatons, and it makes my job easier.

Hennepin County District Judge Stephen Aldrich is a man who understands that court proceedings need not be devoid of the occasional one-liner:

Three weeks ago in family court, reviewing a domestic violence order for protection, a transcript shows Judge Aldrich telling the husband and wife, “I’ve been married 45 years. We’ve never considered divorce, a few times murder, maybe.”

As Chris Rock says, you haven’t been in love unless you’ve considered killing your spouse “and the only thing that stops you is an episode of CSI.”

I think Judge Aldrich should be applauded for his humor. But we live in America, the land of perpetually bunched panties. So it’s not so surprising that some people are calling for Judge Aldrich to resign.

Details after the jump.

Do you remember when lawyers worked on lucrative private equity and venture capital deals? Those halcyon days are coming back. As always the Job of the Week is brought to you by Lateral Link. Lateral Link is pleased to announce that they have recently placed the first two associates in Winston & Strawn’s new Charlotte litigation department. If you are looking for a new position, apply for membership at www.laterallink.com.

Position: Private Equity Attorney

Location: New York

Description: A New York firm is seeking a third year private equity associate. The work will consist primarily of venture capital deals, minority investments and private financing deals. The ideal candidate will have 3 years of experience from a top tier firm.

For more information about this position, please view Position #5532 on Lateral Link.

Wednesday, we told you that the Association of Corporate Counsel was compiling a ranking of law firms based on evaluations from its members. We also told you that some law firm partners were very concerned about this list.

We have the list.

The ACC Value Index currently has responses for 448 law firms. Big and small, big city and secondary markets. Sadly, the vast majority of the firms have very few responses. Apparently corporate counsels have better things to do than ranking the quality of legal services they receive. Most firms — including some of the bigger names like Cravath and Sullivan & Cromwell — have three or fewer responses.

But some firms have generated more reviews.

After the jump, we look at the top ten and bottom ten Am Law 200 firms as ranked by corporate counsel.

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

The waiter’s arrival with their food gave him a few moments reprieve. Mark and Alex had cheeseburgers with dill havarti and fries served in a tall silver cone with a trio of condiments: ketchup, barbeque, and honey mustard. Katarina had a chicken caesar, but with the chicken strips stacked like Lincoln Logs. What nonsense, thought Tyler. Then his pepperoni pizza arrived — in five small round pizzettes stacked vertically at one-inch intervals on a braced skewer.

“Leaning Tower of Pizza, get it?” the waiter asked. Katarina laughed. Tyler was not amused, however, as he now had to eat this edible architectural marvel politely in front of his co-workers.

As Tyler mentally debated the question of hands v. utensils, Spencer walked up with his own lunch entourage. Class: New Partner. Intelligence: High. Top of his class at University of Virginia. Charisma: average. Alignment: Hard work. Spencer had no time for alignments. He was too busy billing. Experience Points: ~3500? Spencer had been a rising star since the day he set foot in the firm as a summer associate, and no one was surprised when he made partner the first year he was up.

Spencer skipped the usual round of introductions and went straight to Mark. “Veronica’s suing the firm,” he said grimly.

Veronica, Tyler knew, was an associate who had recently lateraled to another firm after learning she was unlikely to make partner. Standards were higher in this economy. Class: 7. Experience points: 2200/yr, but low Intelligence. Charisma: Above average. She wasn’t Tyler’s type, but he knew her reputation among the firm’s bachelors.

“What, she didn’t make partner because she’s a woman?” asked Mark.

“No, she’d never make that shtick. Sexual harassment. By Dick Schlosh.” said Spencer.

New Mexico law professor Erik Gerding started off an interesting discussion in the blogosphere with his post, Death of “Big Law School’?, on the Conglomerate.

Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog and Larry Ribstein at Ideoblog have already weighed in.

Gerding’s central thesis is that problems with the Biglaw business model will have major effects on the law school business model:

It would likely mean the end of the law school boom - with its expanding law faculties and the bumper crop of new law schools. Like it or not, the business model (I hate applying that term to legal education, but can’t think of another one) of many law schools is heavily dependent on students getting high paying law firm jobs to pay off high law school tuition. Law firms are also prime benefactors of law school endowments. Without corporate law consuming law school graduates by the dozens, law school will face massive economic pressure.

You’d like to think that. But there is only one way to exert massive economic pressure on law schools, and it is not happening yet.

I understand that “most depressing job posting” is a strong statement. The job market is awful and I’m sure that there are terrible listings that I have not seen. But I stand by my headline. As of Friday the 13th, November 2009, this is the most depressing “legal” job that I’ve seen offered to qualified law students.

From the UT Law career services offices:

Employer: The Ansari Law Firm Title: Legal Assistant/Nanny

That’s right UT law students. You are now being offered a job that you were probably qualified to perform when you were fifteen years old.

Reactions and the full job listing after the jump.

* After all that, Pfizer is leaving New London, Connecticut. [New York Times]

* Five Gitmo detainees will be transferred to New York, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [Washington Post]

* Nidal Malik Hasan’s lawyer says that he is paralyzed. And his hands hurt. I care. [CNN]

* Warren Buffet says that the market crisis is over. Phew. [Reuters]

* “Bow Wow Wow Yippie Yo Yippie Yea” has been returned to its rightful owner. [UPI]

* South Carolina finds a way to make a license plate that violates separation of church and state. [Courthouse News Service]

The rumors circulated back in August, but now it looks like it’s finally happening. From Marc Ambinder, shortly before 11 on Thursday night:

Sources in government say that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has decided to resign, and that the president’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer, will take his place. A formal announcement is slated next week, though word might drop tomorrow.

Looks like that announcement is getting sped up. More after the jump.

UPDATE: Greg Craig’s resignation letter, also after the jump.

Welcome back to “The Pile Up” caption contest. We presented ATL readers with this photo and asked for possible captions:

With over 500 entries, we felt as if we were living the horror of the photo. But we waded through the submissions and whittled them down to our top ten. Check out our favorites and vote for the best one after the jump.

* Rapper calls himself “C-Murder.” Rapper commits murder. Rapper gets convicted for murder. Rapper bitches and moans like a little baby boy that he can’t afford to appeal his conviction. Which one of those things doesn’t belong? (Wait a minute, why am I making fun of a homicidal rapper who might get out of jail? Please tell Mr. Murder that I meant no disrespect.) [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

* How Twitter can help you find a job. [Let’s Talk Turkey]

* Is Justice Ginsburg getting a little weird? [Holy Hullabaloos]

* Gloria Allred wants a bit of Carrie Prejean’s ass. [Radar]

* “Shut the door, have a seat.” [Ideoblog]

* There’s a Costco in Manhattan, in case you are looking to stretch your deferral dollar. [Transracial]

* Homeland Security really needs to get rid of color coded threat levels. [Litination]

Our long, national, helium induced nightmare is almost over. CNN is reporting that Richard and Mayumi Heene — parents of Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heene — will plead guilty tomorrow:

The Larimer County district attorney’s office Thursday said Richard Heene has been charged with one count of attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and Mayumi Heene has been charged with one count of false reporting to authorities, a misdemeanor.

Richard Heene turned himself in Thursday afternoon and was released on his own recognizance, authorities said.

The Heenes will appear Friday in Larimer County Court, where they are expected to plead guilty, their attorneys said.

I think we’ve all learned an important lesson. Children, be they in a balloon, down a well, with a fox, or in a box, do not constitute breaking national news.

Not that there is going to be a lot of sympathy for the Heenes, but it does appear that they got strong armed into this guilty plea.

Details after the jump.

It wasn’t that long ago — just back in August 2008 — that the ABA changed its rules to allow the outsourcing of American legal work. In the midst of the recession, a lot of people are still trying to figure out if outsourcing will cause a more fundamental change to the nature of the Biglaw business model than anything we’ve seen during the credit crunch.

Now, the ABA is asking its lawyers to share their opinion on outsourcing. This week’s ABA Intellectual Property Law section e-letter contains a link to a very interesting survey. Here’s the description from the e-letter:

Outsourcing Task Force Seeks Survey Input From You

The American Bar Association’s Outsourcing Task Force is conducting a survey on outsourcing. The objective of the Task Force, at the Request of ABA President-Elect Steve Zack, is a Report with Recommendations to the House of Delegates on the subject at next year’s Annual Meeting.

An important means of collecting input from a broader cross section of the
ABA is an online survey which can be accessed at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229LAVJNGRM.

As input from the broadest possible range of American lawyers is critical, the Task Force would greatly appreciate if every member could take a moment to complete this survey.

Immediate Past Section Chair Gordon Arnold is a member of the Task Force and serves as its Liaison to the Section of Intellectual Property Law. He strongly encourages all to complete this survey.

IP lawyers, here is one chance to voice your opinion.

After the jump, some we post a couple of the questions the task force is asking.

We receive a lot of interesting emails here at Above the Law. Once law firms started deferring their deferred incoming associates for a second time, we started getting emails like the one below. Since I don’t really know how to respond to the people who have been asking this type of question, I figured I’d throw it out to you guys for your expert advice:

Can you do a story about the size of deferral stipends? Particularly, breaking down the math of expenses showing that some firm’s stipends are too small. For instance, [Redacted] is paying deferred first years only $3300 per month before taxes. After taxes this only comes out to like $2600 per month. Most law students went to expensive schools with $150,000 debt (not to mention undergrad debt), and have $1,000 per month loan payments starting this month even if you select the maximum 30 year repayment plan. Under the 10 year payment plan, loan payments are $1500 per month. When you consider that rent in New York, DC, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco is at least $1,200 (being very very conservative), that leaves no money to pay for things like food or utilities. They expect us to basically spend more than we make for 3, 6, 9, 12+ months? This is practically a layoff. I don’t have the finances or rich parents to go 6+ months with no money. Firms like [Redacted] need to pay at least the market $5,000 per month so that the deferred first years have enough to live on. Especially when our original offer letter promised us “market compensation.”

Is there anything useful we can tell this person (and the other incoming associates in the same position)? Let’s try after the jump.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but the National Law Journal reports that partners are successfully hanging onto their jobs despite this recession.

Associates and “other attorneys” are not:

Law firms since 2005 had increased the number of “other” attorneys — a category comprising counsel, of counsel, senior counsel and staff attorneys — to help handle boom-time business.

But in 2009, they cut about 10% of those attorneys, for a loss of 1,113 lawyers. By comparison, NLJ 250 firms shed 8.7% of associates in 2009. This year, 46 “other” attorneys worked at the average NLJ 250 firm, compared to 50 the year before.

Yeah, it is not a good time to be an expensive senior counsel or of counsel that doesn’t bring in business. On the bright side, at least senior attorneys and counsel have a career track record they can market if they have been laid off.

Staff attorneys cannot say the same thing. Their troubles have been well documented. Staff attorney programs getting pinched because of the recession generally. And the increased reliance on outsourcing is a double whammy to staff attorney job security.

But after the jump, the NLJ reports that partners appear to be safe.

Fact: Eliot Spitzer had sex with prostitutes.
Fact: Eliot Spitzer is a hypocrite.
Fact: David Paterson has been a horrible Governor.
Conclusion: Having sex with prostitutes and being a total hypocrite isn’t the worst thing in the world?

And so, the rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer continues. He’s on T.V., he’s writing, he’s teaching a class. I think the lesson here is supposed to be that a man’s inability to keep it in his pants doesn’t mean that he can’t be a useful voice about the economic crisis and regulatory reform.

So it’s not entirely surprising that Spitzer has been invited to speak at Harvard University by HLS professor Lawrence Lessig. The ABA Journal reports on the focus of the talk:

Spitzer’s lecture apparently will focus on law and policy: It is titled “From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg—How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should Be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?” according to a Harvard website listing for the free public talk.

Fair enough, but Professor Lessig is the director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. And it’s the Center for Ethics that will be hosting the event.

Ethics + Eliot = Ewww.

You know things are off when a pimp is writing to a Harvard Law School professor to complain. That is precisely what is happening here, according to the Daily News. Details after the jump.

English couple Caroline and Steve Cartwright have a healthy sex life. But it doesn’t sound healthy. According to BBC News, their love-making sounds to neighbors like “murder” and has been described as “unnatural.” So prudish, those Brits.

Neighbors complained the noise kept them up all night, making them oversleep in the morning and arrive late to work.

Apparently Caroline Cartwright is the noisy one in the couple. She was convicted of “breaching a noise abatement notice.” She appealed the conviction:

She argued she had a right to “respect for her private and family life” under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

So do the British courts respect a woman’s right to be vocal about her pleasure?

A little while ago, we asked our readers to tell us if their jobs are making them sick. Over 51% of our respondents reported feeling some kind of depression.

I guess that means we have some fantastic attorneys reading Above the Law. A new study from Australia says that general unhappiness has a positive correlation with many of the the skills great lawyers posses:

The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.

So the happy idiot is actually a very smart person cursed with a pleasant disposition?

I always thought that being a miserable bastard was a symptom of Biglaw success, not the cause of it:

“Our research suggests that sadness … promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations.”

More from bizarro world after the jump.

* Special report: What a first-year law student looks like to an outsider. “It might surprise some students to learn that talking to a real-life law student is not actually all that scary,” writes the reporter. [Oregon Daily Emerald]

* The paralyzed still have the right to bear arms. [Associated Press]

* The ex-communications director for California AG Jerry Brown has been recording all of his phone calls with reporters without notifying them, a violation of the two-party consent requirements in California. Now all those transcripts have been turned over to news agencies thanks to FOIA. [Los Angeles Times]

* Kentucky attorney sues “supercalifragilistic.” [Lexington Herald-Leader]

* South Carolina doesn’t believe. [The Week]

* Will judges have to face civil suits from those they misjudge? [Wall Street Journal (subscription)]

* No touchdowns for NFL lawyers. [ESPN]

Last month, we reported that bankrupt law firm Heller Ehrman would be selling some of its art to raise money for its creditors. Heller hopes to raise $1 million (or more) through a series of sales, in New York and California.

The first of several Heller art auctions took place yesterday at Bonhams & Butterfields, at 580 Madison Avenue in New York. We attended, both to cover the proceedings and in the hope of making a purchase or two. (The most important works from the Heller collection will be sold next year, but those pieces -- by artists like Diebenkorn, Lichtenstein, and Serra -- are a bit beyond our price range.)

Upon arrival at Bonhams, we checked in with a receptionist. We were asked to provide our driver's license and credit card for photocopying, which we did. Buyers can pay for purchases with either a credit card or a check, but the auction house still copies your credit card for its records.

(There is a slight discount for using a check or cash over a credit card. The buyer's premium, a commission paid by the winning bidder to the auction house, is 22 percent of the purchase price for credit cards, but 20 percent for cash or check.)

After supplying the requested documentation and filling out a short form, we were given a paddle for bidding. We were hoping for something wooden; the word "paddle" conjures up images of spanking -- fun! Instead, we received a laminated card of gray and white plastic, printed with the number "238" (our bidder number).

Did we make any purchases? How well did the Heller Ehrman art sell? Find out, plus check out pictures of the art, after the jump.

Williams Mullen is a prominent Richmond-based law firm that is “100 years strong,” according to its website. For 18 of those years, Vietnam native Hanh Nguyen Allgood, 53, was a case manager for the firm. She left in March 2007.

Apparently, the departure was not “all good” with her. She has filed a $950,000 lawsuit against the firm, alleging discrimination and sexual harassment, according to Style Weekly.

Litigation partner Robert Eicher bears the brunt of Allgood’s sexual harassment allegations. According to her complaint [PDF], he asked when he first met her whether “her vagina was vertical or horizontal,” a reference to “a horrible racial slur bandied about by some American soldiers during the Viet Nam War contending that Vietnamese women had vertical vaginas.”

And then there was the cucumber incident….

UPDATE: A statement from the firm has been added after the jump.

* Happy Veteran’s Day. Thanks to all who serve. [Army JAG; Navy JAG]

* If you think law school looks like a terrible financial investment, you are correct. [Tax Prof Blog]

* Punching women isn’t the best way to make a point about racial injustice. [The Legal Satyricon]

* A pro-wrestler fell down, but not by design. Predictably, he decided to sue. [Chicago Now]

* What’s wrong with cutting off the hands of those who steal (online content) again? [Simple Justice]

* What’s the difference between journalism and blogging? Some thoughts from Lat. [Yale Daily News]

* Josh Blackman created a Supreme Court fantasy league. You get points for predicting the outcome of the case and which justices will be in the majority and minority. [FantasySCOTUS]

After Cleary announced its 2009 associate bonus, we asked you if the market had been set at the Cravath level. In response to the question “is it over,” 83% of you said “yes.”

Not so fast my friends. There was an all associates meeting at the D.C. office of Sidley Austin. Tipsters report that the Sidley bonus could be larger than it was last year.

Details from our tipsters after the jump.

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. The first chapter appears here; please read it first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

Tyler headed down to the firm lobby to meet Mark and the 2L summer associates: Katarina from Harvard and Alex from University of Chicago. He knew Mark would want to go to Solstice, the trendy new restaurant in the basement of their building. Mark was efficient like that. Experience Points: about 2700/yr, very respectable.

Tyler hated Solstice. Overpriced, overpresented, and underflavored. But the name, he thought, was fitting. Every day in this building was the longest day of the year.

The elevator reached its destination with a bit of a thud. Mark, Katarina, and Alex were already waiting for him. Mark waved him over. “We were just thinking of going to Solstice,” he said. “Sure,” said Tyler, suppressing an eye roll.

He had met Alex before. Class: Summer Associate. Level: 1. High Intelligence, moderate Charisma. Experience Points: perhaps 50? Alignment: Lawful good. He had quickly developed a reputation as an incredibly nice guy.

And then there was Katarina. Class: Sorceress! Level: 1. Clad in the standard 2L-clone-just-bought-lightweight-wool-dark-suit uniform. But summer associates were well advised to stand out for their work quality rather than their appearance, so her choice probably indicated decent judgment. Something about her, however, exuded a certain geekiness.

“This is Tyler. He also went to Harvard, and then he clerked for Judge Pyrrha on the Fifteenth Circuit.” Mark broke in helpfully.

“Oh, I heard her speak at Harvard last year on the original understanding of the Ninth Amendment. She was amazing,” Katarina replied.

Alignment: Libertarian.

The American Bar Association has a plan to help out unemployed lawyers with their student loans. Seriously. An actual plan. The National Law Journal reports:

The ABA wants the government to let unemployed graduates convert private loans into federal ones. The change could allow them to defer repaying those loans for as long as three years.

The plan is so simple and helpful that I’m almost positive Congress will find a way to horribly mess it up. The ABA wants to let people borrow money from the government to pay off their private loans. Then unemployed lawyers can put their new federal loans into deferment for up to three years if they need to.

The effort is in its early stages — executives of the largest provider of private law school loans, Access Group Inc., weren’t even aware of it, according to spokeswoman Linda Smith.

“This is really intended to give them some breathing room,” said ABA President Carolyn Lamm.

The plan was proposed by the ABA’s recently formed Commission on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Profession and Legal Needs, which is examining how lawyers can confront the recession.

Of course, nobody knows precisely how the plan is going to work.

The Associated Press reports that John J. O’Connor III died today at 79 of complications arising from Alzheimer’s disease.

John and Sandra Day O’Connor met as law students at Stanford.

The O’Connors were married in 1952 and became a leading couple on Washington’s social scene when they moved from Arizona in 1981 following her confirmation as the first woman on the Supreme Court.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stepped down from the Supreme Court in 2005 in order to care for her husband as his Alzheimer’s disease worsened.

Husband of retired Justice O’Connor dies [Associated Press]
Justice O’Connor’s Husband Dead at 79 [BLT]
Sandra Day O’Connor’s Husband Dies [Washington Post]

We’ve mentioned Corri Fetman before, mainly because she’s a lawyer who has posed for Playboy. But today she’s making news that doesn’t have anything to do with her boobs. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Chicago divorce lawyer who stirred up controversy with a racy billboard for her law firm and later bared it all for Playboy is now being sued by the magazine.

Playboy alleges in a suit filed Monday that Corri Fetman is trying to steal the phrase “Lawyer of Love” that it coined for an advice column Fetman briefly wrote for the magazine’s Web site.

Alright, today’s Corri Fetman’s news is tangentially related to her boobs.

Fetman isn’t one to receive service from Playboy lying down. In fact she fired the first shot at Playboy.

Details after the jump.

In today’s Morning Docket, we mentioned the recent benchslap administered to Sidley Austin by Judge Diane Cannon (pictured), an Illinois state court judge. Lynne Marek of the NLJ reports:

A court hearing on Tuesday in Chicago at which former Northwestern University journalism students planned to fight a subpoena for their records and grades turned into a judicial lambasting of their Sidley Austin lawyers.

It started when Judge Diane Gordon Cannon of the Cook County Circuit Court called the lawyers, partner Richard O’Brien and associate Linda Friedlieb, to the bench before prosecutors from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had even arrived. She asked who had written the brief she was holding. O’Brien and Friedlieb responded that they had submitted the reply supporting the motion to quash the subpoena.

Judge Cannon was, suffice it to say, not happy about the Sidley Austin brief.

Her Honor’s complaints — plus discussion of whether they were justified, and a reader poll — after the jump.

Ed. note: Welcome to “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here.

You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email, follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook. You can also read more about her at www.notesfromthebreadline.net.

Dear Readers,

I hope this message finds you rested, relaxed, gainfully employed, or nursing your recession hangover with a fabulously expensive steak affixed to your forehead (or some combination thereof).

As you know, I have enjoyed your company here in the breadline for many (many) months. We have shared laughter, tears, the thrill of victory (assuming, arguendo, that ‘victory’ is defined as ‘avoiding non-flip-flop footwear’), and the agony of defeat, in its many and varied forms. Now, however, the time has come for an Interregnum from the Breadline. After today, Notes from the Breadline will be on hiatus, at least for a little while.

As a preliminary matter, I will address your (unposed) questions seriatim. No: I did not find a job. No: I did not get “laid off” from Above the Law. No: I am not taking a break so that “I can spend more time with my family” (or my cats), and no: there is no damning sex tape involving Partner Emeritus, Douche Patrol, Frat Stud, Fraternity Lothario, Glass Cock, Jack Bauer, Guest, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sometimes, dear readers, a hiatus is just a hiatus.

A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law:

• Assara Laser

• The Atlantic

• Harvard Business School

• Kinney Recruiting

• Lateral Link

• LexisNexis

• The Tikvah Center at NYU School of Law

• The Red Cross

• University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Isenberg School of Management

If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!

You know how much we love rankings around these parts. But apparently there is a list of law firm rankings out there that actually matters. The National Law Journal reports:

An Association of Corporate Counsel law firm rating system unveiled last month has triggered a lot of interest from the association’s in-house lawyer members, who have submitted 1,500 firm reviews. Lawyers at firms are less enthused. …

Since the ACC initiated its “value index” last month, its members have shared their opinions about the performances of 500 law firms. The ACC has used the mainly anonymous input to rank firms on a five-point scale.

Unfortunately, there is one humongous catch:

The evaluations and ratings are viewable only by ACC members.

Why, Association of Corporate Counsel? Why? Why produce a new juicy list of clients actually rating the quality of legal services they receive, and then keep it private? We all want to know what you think.

Sorry. “All” is probably a little bit strong. Law firm managers don’t seem to like this list very much. Details after the jump.

* Judge Diane Cannon — no relation to actress Dyan Cannon (who played a judge on Ally McBeal) — benchslaps Sidley Austin for its brief in the high-profile case involving Northwestern University journalism students fighting a subpoena for their records and grades. [National Law Journal]

* Speaking of journalistic freedom, was prior restraint applied to a high school newspaper — by Justice Kennedy? [New York Times]

* Meet John Galligan, the lawyer who will be representing the accused Fort Hood shooter. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Another prominent notorious gunman — John Allen Muhammad, aka the “DC sniper” — has been executed. [Washington Post]

* Professor John Yoo appeals a ruling allowing a suit against him to proceed to the Ninth Circuit (which might not be the friendliest court for Yoo, but we’ll see). [How Appealing]

* “L is for Lawyers… And That’s Good Enough for Them”: Zach Lowe interviews two of the lawyers behind the success of Sesame Street. [Am Law Daily]

* Judge Charles Sifton (E.D.N.Y.), RIP. [New York Times]

I have criticized U.S. News for caring about the number of books available in a law school library. I’ve criticized the Thomas Cooley law school rankings for caring about the size of a law school library.

Clearly, I don’t know what a law school library should be used for. But students at UC Davis do.

* Looking for Christmas gift items already? How about Supreme Court justice baseball cards? [National Law Journal]

* Or hedge-fund billionaire playing cards? [Dealbreaker]

* Professor Michael Risch on yesterday’s Bilski argument in the Supreme Court. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Professor Ann Althouse on L’Affaire Prejean. [Althouse]

* Deloitte helps keep lawyers in business. [Going Concern]

Congratulations to Williams & Connolly and Hughes Hubbard & Reed, the firms that represented Ralph Cioffi, and Brune & Richard, the litigation boutique that represented Matthew Tannin.

Ed. note: This post has been corrected; an earlier version switched the defendants around. Thanks for pointing out the mistake, commenters.

Not Guilty! [Dealbreaker]
Breaking News: Bear Defendants Found Not Guilty on All Charges [WSJ Law Blog]
BREAKING: Bear Stearns Hedge Fund Managers Not Guilty [Am Law Daily]
Bear Stearns Hedge Fund Managers NOT Guilty On All Counts [Business Insider]

With most associates just trying to avoid joining the growing ranks of unemployed attorneys, partnership prospects might seem like part of a distant and unfathomable future.  But in what might be a surprise to associates who have been laid off or suffered salary cuts, many law firms are making a healthy number of new partners. The National Law Journal reports that the overall number of partners nationwide in 2009 is actually higher than in 2008. 

Visit the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link, for more on which firm has a five-year non-equity partner track, which firm does not require capital contributions from new partners, and which firm went from promoting 34 attorneys to partner in 2008 to promoting 0 in 2009. 

If you are a mid-level associate in Los Angeles and you really want the inside scoop on how to grab that brass ring, come to the Career Center Professional Development panel on November 17, hosted by Lateral Link and Proskauer Rose, for a discussion on long-term career planning, partnership prospects and in-house careers. Panelists include Morgan Chu of Irell & Manella, Mike Woronoff of Proskauer, and Vivian Yang, GC at Citysearch. Attendees will receive 1.25 CLE credit hours.  Click here to learn more or to register.

Oh no. Is it really time to crank up the salary freeze watch again? I thought that the big question this winter would be whether firms that froze salaries last year would be unfreezing pay for 2010. And whether or not the raises were a “true up” raise that put people up to where they would have been absent last year’s freeze.

Instead, could we be looking at a winter where firms that did not freeze last year decide to freeze this year? A tipster reports on some disturbing news coming out of Covington & Burling:

Covington just announced salary freeze for all offices but NY; NY TBD. All-associates meeting.

Above the Law reached out to spokespeople at Covington. Read the firm’s statement after the jump.

We have another episode in the saga of Deidre Dare, one of our favorite laid-off lawyers. She was an attorney in Allen & Overy’s Russia office until she penned typed a salacious online novel about her expat adventures, which featured lots of drinking, sex, drugs, donkeys, and dwarves. After the firm let her go, she sued.

Dare’s still in Moscow, where she writes an often controversial column for the Moscow News called sExpat. The latest reveals that Deidre likes it rough:

Anyone who has spent even five minutes in bed with me knows that I have a strong proclivity for S&M. My experience in the area ranges from the mild (spanking) to the extreme (ball gags, golden showers and the like), according to how much experience my partner has and what he or she likes.

The column goes on to praise Russia’s abusive men. Dare writes: “If you’re hanging out with real men and you’re a little slutty, you’re going to get hit. Period.” Roll On Friday photoshops A&O’s chairman into being a “real man” here.

Ed. note: We at Above The Law do not condone physical violence against women. We do, however, condone violence against the commenter ShaFeef.

In a previous column, Dare said money was tight and suggested that prostitution might be a way out of her money woes. That might have led to more hitting than even Deidre likes. Luckily, she’s come up with a different way to make money. She’s written another book. Its title, fittingly, is SLUT.

Katten Muchin is using every tool in the box when it comes to figuring out what to do with its incoming associates. If there is a plan for dealing with soon-to-be first years that has been discussed on Above the Law, Katten is using it.

A tipster reports that Katten has broken up its first year class into three groups:

Katten Muchin Rosenman rescinded several offers to 2008 summer associates today. From what I’ve heard about 1/3 were rescinded, 1/3 were re-deferred to October, and 1/3 will start in February as scheduled.

Essentially, Katten just turned itself into Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross: “As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”

Let’s talk some more about the third prize after the jump.

Baker Botts will be throwing itself into the killing lockstep camp sometime in 2010. A tipster reports:

So, Baker Botts - Houston (should be firmwide, though I don’t have have all the details) is adopting a form of the Reed Smith pay structure. …

My understanding may be imperfect, but the notion is that it’s something like a three part system of junior associates, mid level associates, and senior associates, with pay discrepancies laid out among the three. No more lockstep. Unclear what the bonus structure is beyond the nebulous “merit” nonsense.

The Reed Smith structure has received a lot of attention. Last month, we mentioned that Reed Smith will categorize associates as junior, mid-level, or senior associates. But those classifications won’t necessarily be tied to how long an associate has been out of law school. So you could see a fourth-year classified as a senior associate making significantly more than a sixth-year classified as a midlevel associate.

Today, the Legal Intelligencer reports that the Reed Smith plan will also include a cut in associate salaries and billing rates:

Reed Smith has cut starting salaries by about 20 percent for the 51 first-year associates set to start in January and, in turn, is cutting their billing rates by the same margin.

You can read the full Reed Smith memo about its salary and billing rate reductions after the jump.

Will the Reed Smith system become the template for associate compensation at other firms? Let’s take a look at what Baker Botts is planning.

Poor Carl Levine. His wife has allegedly been having an affair with her psychiatrist since about 2000. And the psychiatrist allegedly had herpes. And allegedly gave Levine’s wife herpes. And now Levine has herpes.

We’ve heard of some off-the-wall psychiatric treatments but this one sounds quite unhealthy.

Now Levine is suing Dr. Robert Werboff for hiding his disease, for knowingly infecting Levine’s wife, for thus knowingly exposing Levine to herpes, and for just being a really bad doctor. According to Levine’s complaint [PDF], he has suffered “severe and permanent physical, emotional and mental distress” and “anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, fright, shock, pain, discomfort, and anxiety and has suffered permanent injuries and damages.”

We’re suffering similar emotions after having done a Google image search for “herpes.” Ick.

Back in September, we mentioned that interviewees for the DOJ Honors Program were learning of their good fortune. Now the process has proceeded one step further — for some lucky individuals, to completion.

We heard from one offer recipient from the Civil Division, but we suspect this person is not alone. According to the Key Dates section of the Honors Program website, job offers are being extended from November 6 through mid-December 2009. In mid-December, candidates not selected as finalists will be notified.

More info about the process, plus the chance to comment, after the jump.

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

ATL -

Cravath Class of 2008 here. Just got my cool $7,500. What should I do with it? WOOT.

Daddy Warbucks

Dear Daddy Warbucks,

First off, congratulations on your $7,500* bonus. A bonus, however insultingly small, is still a bonus. You will be tempted to blow your megamillions on something frivolous like December rent or student loan payments; resist this urge. Do what I do with my monthly ATL paycheck: invest the principal and live off the interest. It’s the secret to a models and bottles lifestyle.

If you want to pamper yourself, get veneers on three teeth of your choosing or upgrade wives. If you’re feeling altruistic, throw some cheese at Art Cutillo because he’s probably not getting a bonus this year, or contribute to the World Wildlife Federation so the ice caps can stop melting and they can stop playing that commercial with the polar bears swimming to Sarah McLachlan music that make everyone very upset for the rest of the day. Or you can be prudent: save half and pay yourself a bonus next year just in case there is none.

Your friend,

Marin

*$3,850 after taxes

* SCOTUS will decide whether juveniles can get life sentences for non-homicide crimes. [New York Times]

* Another law professor is heading to court. Columbia’s Philip Bobbitt sued the law firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss this week for allegedly messing up a class action suit. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Blind gamer sues Sony because its video games discriminate against the visually impaired. Perhaps just stick to Rock Band? [True/Slant]

* Ex-SEC lawyer pleads guilty to helping Marc Dreier scam hedge funds. [Bloomberg]

* Kamee B. Verdrager is taking her wrongful termination suit against Mintz Levin to Suffolk County Court. Verdrager alleges she was fired for becoming preggers. Longtime readers may remember this as the “I suppose we have your honeymoon to blame for this” case. [Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (subscription)]

* J-Lo would like to keep her sex tape on the downlow. [True/Slant]

* Scott Rothstein’s assets seized. If you know a lawyer who has eight houses worth $18 million, several luxury cars, a yacht, and two other boats, you might know a lawyer running a Ponzi scheme. [Associated Press]

Last year, moving away from letter grades was all the rage. Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School both dumped letter grading.

But now grade reform has spread to schools that are tinkering with their curves. USC Law decided to give students an extra .1 — you know, ‘cause it looks better. NYU Law also made things a little easier for their students, academic rigor be damned.

Last week, we received word that Loyola - Los Angeles is also contemplating changing its curve to make things a little easier for students trying to get jobs. A Loyola tipster reports:

LLS is trying to push a grade change referendum to change the median grade from a 2.7 (B-) to a 3.3 (B+). … [P]erhaps if you post something, … [it will result] in a lively discussion on the issue, and our school will see how it’s such a bad idea to do this since it punishes the small number of us that actually did well at this mediocre school by making grades meaningless and giving distinction to those who don’t deserve it.

Loyola Law Dean Victor Gold told Above that Law that any change in the curve is at the preliminary stage:

Our students have asked for changes to the median grade because other local schools have already increased their medians. Some students have suggested a change as great as moving from B- to B+. I have asked the faculty grading committee to look at the issue, but it has not yet made any proposal. If the committee makes a proposal, it will come to the entire faculty for a vote. Any change will have to carefully balance several factors. We want to give our students the strongest possible position in a difficult job market while at the same time maintaining a grading system that is both fair and honest.

Do better grades lead to better jobs, even if those grades are inflated? Perhaps. But students at Florida International University College of Law hope that is not the case.

Details and a reader poll after the jump.

* Wait, so bounty hunters can use bear mace? (No, not really — but Cartman can “do what he wants.”) [Legal Lad]

* Can lawyers change the legal ethics rules so they can make Goldman-style money? [Ideoblog]

* Carrie Prejean’s mom was in the room with Carrie when Miss California lawyers showed the tape of Carrie rubbing one out. [TMZ]

* Time served for Girls Gone Wild Founder. [Tax Prof Blog]

* You should probably buy these books. [Courtoons]

* Blawg Review is all about freedom. [The Property Law Blog via Blawg Review]

We are not fans of Crocs here at Above the Law. We stand by this position, even though First Lady Michelle Obama — aka She Who Can Do No Wrong — has been spotted in them.

Apparently we are not alone in our opposition to Crocs. It seems that the people at Porsche — yes, the luxury sports car maker — have sued the footwear folks. In Germany.

Seriously? Yup. The lawsuit was mentioned in the Crocs (CROX) third quarter 10-Q, which is how it came to the attention of our sister site, Going Concern (via Footnoted).

So what is Porsche suing Crocs over? Find out at the links below.

Deadline Watch: Porsche Suing Crocs For ‘Cayman’ Use [Going Concern]
Porsche vs. Crocs… [Footnoted.org]

Earlier: Crocs: Ugly and Dangerous

We have done a number of open threads on the bar exam as results in various states have been released. Congratulations to all those who passed.

But what about the few, the unhappy few, who did not pass? We know that the pressure was greater than ever this year to pass the bar on the first try. The fear is that people who did not pass the July bar would be summarily shown the door by their law firms. That fear only increases for incoming first-year associates who have been deferred until January and haven’t actually started working yet.

Has the worst-case scenario happened? So far, we have not heard of a firm that decided to fire everybody who didn’t pass the July bar. Do people who failed the bar expect to get one more chance in February? Have the firms communicated at all with those that failed this past bar exam?

It was hard enough for incoming associates to get a job in the first place. Hopefully nobody ruined their employment chances by not passing the bar on their first attempt.

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of state bar exams

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique firm, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

Tyler got onto the elevator and pressed the button marked 13. As the doors closed, he looked down at the golden manacles that signified his position as an associate. He must survive the tower another day, he thought. Only 657 more days until he paid off his student loans — that is, if he stuck to his budget. Until then, Tyler must serve out his apprenticeship as a squire to the knights of the realm, ensuring that the knights had the proper weapons for jousting with opposing counsel.

He reached his sparsely furnished cell in the law offices of MakoProphet, a D.C. appellate boutique, and turned on his +6 vorpal laptop. Tyler had a tendency to let his imagination wander. He scored high on Intelligence and Dexterity, but less so on Strength and Charisma. Tyler had spent — or rather misspent — the better portion of his youth immersed in fantasy fiction, various strategy games, SimWhatever, or some combination of the above. He tended to view the world in game terms. It helped him break down the complexities of real-life interactions into understandable bits to compensate for his obvious lack of social skills.

Tyler’s voicemail light was blinking. It was a message from his secretary, Jill. The firm’s travel office wanted him to fly from D.C. to New York through Cleveland in order to use some preferred airline. He imagined Jill talking to Patty and Selma from The Simpsons. Class: Bureaucrat. Level: Five. Hit Points: About a million. Bureaucrats were generally impossible to kill and not worth the effort. Better to work around them. He had his secretary research alternatives.

Frankly, this is the kind of scheme that Detective Jimmy McNulty would have come up with. The Legal Intelligencer reports:

In a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last week that state troopers committed “outrageous government conduct” when investigating alleged prostitution at a massage parlor in the Lehigh Valley by giving money to an undercover informant to have sex four times with two different women at the parlor.

You read that correctly. Pennsylvania state troopers pimped out an undercover informant to have sex with prostitutes:

[T]he police investigation started when a patron of the massage parlor complained to state police that he had been offered “‘manual sexual stimulation’” after being given a massage. The patron did not accept the offer because he could not afford it, the opinion said.

The patron then agreed to become an informant for the police, the opinion said. He wore a wire and was provided money with which he purchased sexual acts with two different women at the massage parlor on four occasions, the opinion said.

Does the work of the undercover informant count as a “shovel ready” stimulus job, or are the two prostitutes counted as jobs the Obama administration has created or saved?

You have to love the informant. Who hits up their local police officer for hooker cash? Real sense of moral integrity by that guy.

Not surprisingly, the court was outraged by the actions of the police officers. Details after the jump.

We previously reported on Ropes & Gray hoarding Tamiflu for its employees. Reaction was mixed. Some people applauded Ropes looking out for the health of their employees and their families; others feared that Ropes was unwittingly contributing to a drug-resistant strain of the H1N1 virus.

But there are many ways to prevent an outbreak of piggy pestilence at a law firm near you. One of the most, dare I say rational, measures is to make sure that people who are sick aren’t coming into work.

That’s what they are doing at Akerman Senterfitt. The Washington Post reports (gavel bang: ABA Journal) that the firm is allowing people with the sickness to take time off of work, without counting it against their allotted leave time:

When Great Falls resident Carolyn Cuppernull’s 10-year-old daughter came down with swine flu, she didn’t have to take time off work to stay home with her.

Cuppernull is senior marketing manager of the Washington office of the law firm Akerman Senterfitt. Under the group’s former policy, she would have had to use paid leave to stay home if she or a relative got sick. But the firm recently updated its rules to allow employees to stay home with full pay — without using leave time — for H1N1-related absences.

Now that’s a way to make sure your office doesn’t suffer a swine flu outbreak without potentially contributing to the mutation of a global super virus.

Of course, there is a downside.

It’s time again for ATL readers’ creative juices to flow. We have a new legal-themed photo for a caption contest. As usual, we’ll provide the back story at the end of the contest so as not to influence or restrict your caption creativity.

Here’s the photo:

Same rules as always: Submit possible captions in the comments. We’ll choose our favorites — with preference given to those with a legal bent — and then let you vote for the best one.

(As an aside, the pile up reminded us of a photo from AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. See The Pile On.)

Please submit your entry BY MIDNIGHT ON TUESDAY. Thanks!

On Sunday, the Boston Globe released its list of the Top 100 Place to Work in Massachusetts. Goodwin Procter placed #74. That’s interesting because last Thursday Goodwin laid off 55 people.

Nice timing on the Globe report. In a companion article titled “They look past the paycheck” the Globe highlights Goodwin:

Under the traditional apprenticeship system at law firms, new lawyers learn from partners who handpick associates they want for particular cases. …

A new approach matches the associate’s professional development goals with a partner’s needs, leaving associates less at the whim of partners and partners more assured of a good fit. Goodwin Procter has a site online where associates enter their availability and their interests, but it takes more than a grand schedule to make the program work. Staffing managers who are lawyers themselves make the match.

Wrong day for that story. Wrong day.

Goodwin wasn’t the only law firm on the list. Other firms after the jump.