It’s difficult trying to figure out what to write about when you’ve been away for a week and return to hundreds of unread emails. But, luckily for me, UVA’s Lile Moot Court Board has a way of making itself really, really obvious.
I trust you all remember the Lile Moot Court Board. Back in September, the board threatened to call prospective employers of students who withdrew from Moot Court competition. Because, you know, threatening scared 2Ls is one way to feel powerful and accomplished.
Over the weekend, news broke of more shenanigans from the Lile Moot Court Board. But at least this weekend’s obnoxiousness was limited to actual Moot Court issues — as opposed to employment matters that are none of the board’s business. Thank God for small favors.
The Lile Moot Court Board versus two 3Ls, after the jump.
The MTV reality series Jersey Shore revolved around drinking, hook-ups, muscles, and physical altercations. The antics of Snooki (pictured), J-Woww, Pauly D, and the rest of the crew captured the nation’s imagination. The series DVD collection, to be released soon, will likely sell well.
But one of the victims of a Ronnie beatdown hopes to prevent that. From the Asbury Park Press:
The attorney for a Berkeley man, beaten during an episode of MTV’s controversial reality show “Jersey Shore,” will be in Superior Court today, trying to block the planned release on Tuesday of the DVD set of the show’s first season.
Eatontown attorney Eugene M. LaVergne will appear before Superior Court Judge Joseph Foster seeking an order banning distribution of the DVD set and barring MTV from continuing to air two episodes, one in which his client was beaten, and the other in which Ronnie Ortiz, a cast member of the reality show, brags about the beating,
* The DOJ decision to reject sanctions against John Yoo and Jay Bybee set off a legal debate this weekend… [Washington Post]
* … along the lines of “Justice Department Will Not Punish Yoo and Bybee Because Most Lawyers Are Scum Anyway.” [Balkinization]
* The woes of law grads in Philadelphia. [Philadelphia Business Journal]
* The FBI and a Philadelphia prosecutor are now investigating the Pennsylvania school spycam case. The school district has retained Ballard Spahr to defend it. The student who originally filed the class action lawsuit for invasion of privacy, Blake Robbins, was accused of drug dealing, though he says he was just eating Mike & Ike candies. [ABC News]
* Prominent Wilson Sonsini biotech lawyer Albert Halluin and his 60-year-old fiancee died in a small plane crash on Friday night. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Alexander Haig, former Secretary of State and adviser to lawyer-presidents Nixon and Ford, passed away this weekend. [New York Times]
We have tragic news from Jenner & Block this weekend. Grant Folland, 29, a litigation associate in the firm’s Chicago office, was killed in a snowmobile accident on Saturday. According to the Associated Press, which first reported on the accident, he “lost control of his snowmobile and struck a tree next to the trail.”
Jenner & Block managing partner Susan Levy sent out a statement about his death last night:
It is with profound sadness that I tell you that our colleague, Grant Folland, passed away today from a snow mobile accident in Wisconsin. He was with several of our colleagues at the time. We do not yet know any of the details of the arrangements the family will be making, but will of course pass those on when we learn more. Words cannot begin to describe this tragedy, but our hearts go out to his family, and our many fond memories of Grant will live on.
The accident happened in Lake Tomahawk, Wisconsin. Folland was traveling with four other snowmobiles when he crashed. He died at the scene of the accident at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. According to the AP report, the accident was due to inexperience; alcohol was not “a factor in the crash.”
The devastating news has circulated today among firm attorneys and among Folland’s University of Chicago law classmates.
– Amy Bishop, the biology professor accused of shooting six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama, to a woman she punched in the head at the International House of Pancakes.
(The woman had tried to take a booster seat that Bishop wanted for one of her children. Bishop was charged with assault in the 2002 incident and sentenced to probation. She now faces murder and attempted murder charges in connection with the University of Alabama shootings.)
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.
Here we are, a year after enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and still facing unemployment in the 10% range. That anniversary has brought to the fore once again debate over whether the stimulus bill has worked. President Obama is in the difficult position of trying to prove that things would have been worse had they not acted.
Those who have studied logic will recognize that as the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam – i.e., the plan must have worked simply because no one has proven that the economy would be worse otherwise.
Those who watch late-night television will just call it "truthiness" and move on. Some of just know with our hearts.
The Washington Post puts the results somewhere in the middle:
Nevertheless, at its core, the president’s argument is correct. Over the past year, the act has provided $119 billion in tax relief to households and firms; $147 billion in aid to states, unemployment benefits, food stamps and the like; and $31 billion for roads, energy efficiency and other projects. You cannot inject $300 billion — an amount equal to about 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product — into the economy without stimulating some short-run economic activity that would not have occurred otherwise.
Trying to show how many jobs were "saved or created" is a waste of time, they say; some must have been, contrary to Republican claims that "not one net job" has been created.
On the other hand, there’s plenty of room for criticizing the efficiency of the government’s actions.
And that’s what we’ve been saying about law firms’ behavior for a long time now. Their most-recent fiscal behavior, after the jump.
Ed. note: ATL has teamed up with the 10th Justice to predict how the Supreme Court may decide upcoming cases. CNN has called FantasySCOTUS the “hottest new fantasy-league game.”
Is the Supreme Court partisan? Although many perceive the Justices as mere political aids, do the numbers support this assertion? In this installment of 10th Justice, we will be exploring the perception that the Supreme Court Justices make their decisions based on partisan identity. For this purpose, we will be using a standardized majority ratio technique and confidence intervals to analyze Union Pacific Railroad, Salazar, Christian Legal Society, and McDonald.
Attorneys and law students across the country have been on the receiving end of emails from a rabid activist named Leslie Brodie this month. Brodie is waging a crusade to “end racism/sexism in U.S. law firms” by starting a petition.
In a mass email about the petition, she directed her attack specifically at one firm, the small San Francisco-based Kerr & Wagstaffe. Brodie mentions founding partner James Wagstaffe, who is also an adjunct professor at UC Hastings Law, and points out “that out of 10 lawyers, all but one are white; out of seven partners, all but one are males; and all the associates are young and attractive white females.”
Virginia attorney Ken Lammers of Crim Law Blog was one of the many to receive the email. He checked out Kerr & Wagstaffe’s website and offered a measured and convincing defense of the firm, in part arguing that the female attorneys aren’t actually that hot. He also discovered the reason for Brodie’s attack on Wagstaffe:
As I write this, the petition has 13 whole “signatures”, 4 of which call out the author and 1 of which is the author threatening a disagreeing signatory with sanction by the law school. It’s the exchange between these two which clarified what’s actually going on here. I had thought that this was a non-hire who was striking back at the firm, but apparently it’s even more petty than that. This is about a bad grade which the author got from James Wagstaffe in a CivPro class. A BAD GRADE. A law firm, which by all appearances is filled with bright, capable people, is dragged through the mud over a grade. YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
A Berkeley law student responded to the mass email by requesting removal from the mailing list, citing the CAN-SPAM Act — a perfectly reasonable request. But when you’re dealing with unhinged, anti-racist spammers, reason doesn’t often serve you well…
* System for bail = EPIC FAIL. [Beacon Broadside]
* A review of the new blog: The Life of a Law School Wife. Enjoy the blog now. When it becomes The Life of a Biglaw Wife, it will be more depressing. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Do not mess with old white dudes — and we’re not just talking about Biglaw partners. [The Legal Satyricon]
* New White House counsel Bob Bauer made less than one million last year as a partner at Perkins Coie, though more than the average partner at the firm. [BLT]
* In Boxing vs. Mintz Levin member Jonathan Ballan and his son’s bar mitzvah, Yankee Stadium rules in favor of boxing. [Deadspin]
* Glenn Reynolds likes pirates. [Instapundit]
* Tiger Woods apologizes for being entitled and addicted to sex… [CNN]
* … Meanwhile, we apologize for the tech problems this week. We hope it’s not too late.
How many manifestos-cum-suicide-notes contain citations to the Internal Revenue Code?
As it turns out, Joseph Stack — the man who allegedly crashed a plane into an Austin building housing the IRS — had some issues with the Code. And he expressed them in his rambling manifesto, replete with statutory citations (although not in Bluebook form).
For anyone who might be interested — perhaps the tax lawyers among you? — we’ve collected some links, after the jump.
In-house hiring is picking up. In December, Lateral Link placed an attorney in-house in Las Vegas (read the case study), and this week’s Job of the Week is for another in-house position in the Silver State. If you’ve got a green streak (or a gambling streak), this job may be for you. Additionally, if you are interested in hearing tips and suggestions for landing in-house positions, please check out this webinar presented last week by Lateral Link Principal T.J. Duane at Harvard Law School. Position: Corporate Counsel for Renewable Energy Company Location: Nevada Description: Growing renewable energy company seeks an attorney with general transactional experience to review and negotiate contracts and respond to a wide variety of requests from business team. The ideal candidate will have at least 4 years of related corporate law experience, including drafting and negotiating contracts, and corporate governance compliance.
If you are a Lateral Link member, please see Position #5910 on the Lateral Link site. If you are not a Lateral Link member, you can sign up for free at www.laterallink.com. You may also contact Jordan Abshire at jabshire@laterallink.com for more details on the position. Earlier: Prior Jobs of the Week
Yesterday, we reported on the lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania high schooler Blake Robbins against his school for invasion of privacy. Robbins was one of 1,800 students given a laptop for home use by the Lower Merion School District. When Robbins was punished by a vice principal at Harriton High School for “improper behavior at home,” the evidence was allegedly a webcam photo that the vice principal had taken of Robbins at home by activating a webcam remotely.
Robbins filed a class action lawsuit for invasion of privacy, which garnered widespread media attention. Last night, the school’s superintendent, Dr. Christopher McGinley, responded by announcing that the spying feature was being turned off — but that the school had never spied as alleged. Here’s an excerpt from Dr. McGinley’s letter to parents (available in full after the jump):
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. District laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. The security feature, which was disabled today, was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature would be activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
Many alumni of the school district are discussing the case. One reached out to us to offer scuttlebutt about the “improper behavior” that Robbins got in trouble for. The alumnus also suggests that the story is more complicated than it has been presented by Blake Robbins in his complaint.
Justice Barack Hussein Obama? No, that’s not a joke. Professor Jeffrey Rosen makes a serious case for President Obama to become Justice Obama, in the Washington Post:
Though Obama has struggled to find his footing in the White House, his education, temperament and experience make him ideally suited to lead the liberal wing of the court, especially at a time when a narrow conservative majority seems increasingly intent on challenging progressive economic reforms for the first time since the New Deal. Obama is clearly eager to take on the four truly conservative justices — Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — as his State of the Union smackdown suggests. But as president, he’s constrained by that pesky separation of powers. So what better way to engage the fight than to join the bench?
History offers examples of other executives who have moved over to the judicial branch. E.g., William Howard Taft, who served as chief justice after serving as president; Earl Warren, who served as chief justice after serving as California governor.
But in Obama’s case, how exactly would this happen?
If you’re a terrible driver, you’re in the right profession. According to Insurance.com, “Judge / Attorney” is the most dangerous driver by profession. From the Columbus Dispatch:
Legal eagles — both attorneys and judges — top the list of the most dangerous drivers, according to a study by Insurance.com, an online independent insurance agency in the Cleveland suburb of Solon.
Legal professionals who shopped for a car-insurance quote on the company’s Web site reported the highest percentage of previous accidents among occupation categories, at 44 percent.
We’ve written before about the tragic murder of Robert Wone, a promising young Asian-American attorney in Washington. At the time of his death, Wone, 32, was the general counsel of Radio Free Asia; prior to that, he was an associate at Covington & Burling.
We would have written more about the Wone murder, but one problem is that there hasn’t been much to write about. Years after the August 2006 murder, the case remains unsolved.
But now, with trial looming — a trial on charges of conspiracy, obstruction, and tampering, but not murder — there are some new developments to report. And some of them are deeply disturbing.
Adrielle Churchill is not just “law school hot.” The third-year student at the University of Arkansas School of Law was recently crowned Miss Arkansas USA.
It’s a good thing she’s a 3L and that exams don’t matter, since she’ll be competing for the national title this May in Las Vegas. There’s some synergy in practicing law and winning beauty pageants, according to Churchill:
“The law school community has been incredibly supportive of pageants,” says Churchill, who is also the current president of the Student Bar Association. “The public speaking skills you learn in pageants are immeasurable, even though we ‘pageant girls’ are always the first to try wearing four-inch heels to a trial,” she laughs.
* The lawyer for University of Alabama – Huntsville professor Amy Bishop says his client is insane and can’t remember Friday’s shootings. [Associated Press]
* Judge Denny Chin says he does have an open mind and will need some time to review the Google Books settlement. [New York Times]
* John Edwards might get the National Enquirer a Pulitzer. [Media Decoder/New York Times]
* Texas lawyer Melissa Morgan gains a pound and loses the chance to be The Biggest Loser. [ABA Journal]
* Formerly confidential papers filed in the SEC vs. Bank of America case lay bare Wachtell’s advice in the Merrill Lynch merger. [AmLaw Daily]
* When to go in-house (and how to stay motivated once you get there). [Legal Week via SusanEJacobsen]
* Lat is speaking at the first Annual Midwestern Asian Pacific American Law Students Association conference at Case Western Law tomorrow. In a pre-conference interview, he confesses that Nino shattered his world. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]
So let’s get inside the not-so-secret world of Jeff Toobin and Casey Greenfield — daughter of television personality Jeff Greenfield and an associate at Gibson Dunn (so there’s a Biglaw connection here too). From the New York Daily News:
One of the media elite’s most whispered-about scandals went public Wednesday when married CNN correspondent Jeffrey Toobin squared off with a woman who says he’s the father of her baby.
Yale-educated lawyer Casey Greenfield — the daughter of eminent CBS News analyst Jeff Greenfield — had a chilly faceoff with Toobin in Manhattan Family Court.
Watch out, Jeff: Casey practices in litigation at Gibson Dunn, recently named by the American Lawyer as Litigation Department of the Year. And if this litigatrix loses, she might take it to a higher court — perhaps aided by GDC’s stellar appellate practice. (Thanks to Ted Olson’s involvement in the Proposition 8 case, Gibson lawyers are acquiring expertise in family and matrimonial law.)
More discussion — plus a better photo of Casey Greenfield, who’s quite attractive — after the jump.
* ‘You’re admitted. Whoops. No. You’re not.’ [Washington Post via Tax Prog Blog]
* The story behind the Austin, Texas plane crash. [Going Concern]
* The woman at the heart of the Duke Lacrosse case finds her way back into the news. [New York Times]
* Volunteering can interfere with your welfare benefits. [Fox]
* Virginia loves guns and Red Lobster. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]
* Hasta la vista, Latham. [Deadline Hollywood]
* Want to spend quality time with Lat and Elie? Attend their HLS event this coming Tuesday, “The Future of Biglaw: A Debate on Lockstep.” [Harvard Law School (second event)]
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.
The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
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 five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
Happy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
It’s difficult trying to figure out what to write about when you’ve been away for a week and return to hundreds of unread emails. But, luckily for me, UVA’s Lile Moot Court Board has a way of making itself really, really obvious.
Continue reading “Lile Moot Court Board Embarrasses UVA Law, Again”
One blogger teed up a story about celebrated legal and political journalist Jeffrey Toobin being sued for paternity with this quip: 
