The language police are out in force. The ABA Journal reports that a lawyer’s bad language, used in public, has triggered an ethics inquiry:
A township lawyer in New Jersey is facing the wrath of an animal rights group after he used the C-word to describe one of its demonstrators.
Lawyer Richard Shackleton now faces an ethics grievance and a privately filed criminal complaint as a result of the Feb. 20 dustup outside the Philadelphia Gun Club where the group was protesting, the New Jersey Law Journal reports. Shackleton had taken part in a live pigeon shoot, and as he left, he yelled at a protester, who also happened to be a lawyer. “Go f— yourself, you rotten c—,” he screamed.
Now, I’m not going to defend the language. The “c-word” isn’t part of my functional vocabulary. I don’t even use it in private. I think the c-word is a “fighting word,” so even if I wanted to use it, my general desire to avoid getting punched in the face would prevent me from saying it.
But an ethics inquiry? Really? Despite the fact that I’m a person who is regularly subjected to epithets of all kinds, I still don’t want to live in a society where public insults turn into ethics grievances and criminal complaints.
Perhaps things have gone this far because Shackleton wouldn’t apologize for his potty mouth…
Some of our readers enjoy engaging in meta-commentary about the commentary we offer here at Above the Law. Other readers do not care for such “coverage of the coverage,” finding it to be nothing more than navel-gazing.
If you fall into the former group — or if you’ve been unhappy with our Elena Kagan coverage, and want us to explain ourselves — then this post might interest you.
On Sex and the City, Samantha was never seen scrolling through comments on news blogs to make sure her clients’ reputations weren’t being maligned. Instead, she attended fancy New York parties and talked up her roster of good-looking clients.
But SATC is dated. The work of public relations professionals has been made harder (and less glamorous) by the explosion of online news sources. We know that law firm PR folks spend a healthy amount of time monitoring the legal blogosphere to do damage control for their firms. Another place they need to watch is Wikipedia.
The crowd-source encyclopedia has become the go-to reference site for most Internetters. Society’s sages often warn people not to take everything they find in Wikipedia at face value — since the information does not necessarily come from experts and is not systematically vetted — but that advice often goes unheeded.
Because Wikipedia is such an important source of information, and so easily edited, some try to manipulate entries to give them a positive or negative spin. Lawyers at certain firms have been found guilty of this before (e.g., Wachtell). Sometimes dueling manipulation of an entry reaches the level of what Wikipedia calls an edit war — when two or more editors are continually overriding one another’s changes.
The Wikipedia gods ordered an end to the war on the page of Latham & Watkins. BLY1 noticed that the page was put on lockdown. A note from the Wikipedia war god says:
NOTE: IF YOU HAVE COME HERE TO EDIT ABOUT LAYOFFS, THINK TWICE. EDITS MUST BE FACTUALLY VERIFIABLE, AND NEUTRAL. IF YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THIS COMPANY IN ANY WAY WE ADVISE YOU *NOT* TO TOUCH IT.
Someone kept inserting references to Latham’s layoffs and how hard hit first-year associates were. That info has now been scrubbed from the page.
We decided to take a stroll though the revision history of other law firm pages to see who needs to do clean up, and who has done clean up. Cravath, for example, had a very interesting description for a short time…
With all the students just dying to get into Cornell Law School, I figured I’d give you guys a taste of what exams will be like for the few of you lucky enough to get in. A contracts exam there turned into something so complicated that you need to be an expert in statutory interpretation just to understand the rules for the exam.
In law school, you’re supposed to learn to be careful with words. Really careful. Now, I didn’t really take that lesson to heart, and apparently neither did professor Chantal Thomas. She gave out some pretty mixed messages regarding the word limit for her contracts exam.
Tipsters report that in class, Professor Thomas said that there would be a word limit. But even that in-class directive was vague:
She said, “well, maybe 1000 words.” This in itself is ambiguous. 1000 words per question? 1000 words for the whole exam?
Perhaps you think that the exam itself would make clear this most basic exam parameter? Think again…
Ed. note: This post is written by Will Meyerhofer, a Biglaw attorney turned psychotherapist, whom we profiled. A former Sullivan & Cromwell associate, he holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work. He blogs at The People’s Therapist.
It’s frustrating, trying to teach lawyers the fundamentals of doing business. Several of them arrive in my office each month, wanting advice on changing careers. But they haven’t got a clue.
That’s because they still think success is making your parents happy. Lawyers start out as the kids who do everything right. They behave. They obey. They get good grades. Typically they aren’t especially talented at anything – just good at everything. The formal education system is designed to reward that sort of bland “goodness.” It isn’t about getting an A in any one subject – it’s about getting “all A’s.”
That doesn’t make any sense in the real world. You don’t need “all A’s,” you need to discover the work that you love to do….
There’s been an Eliot Spitzer outbreak; time to break out the topical cream.
If you follow cable news, you already know that there was a major prime-time shakeup yesterday. Campbell Brown, the CNN anchor for the 8:00 p.m. time slot, is out. Her resignation letter is one of the most candid things you’ll read from a media professional:
I’m pretty sure the last time any anchor could honestly ignore ratings was well before I was born. Of course I pay attention to ratings. And simply put, the ratings for my program are not where I would like them to be. It is largely for this reason that I am stepping down as anchor of CNN’s “Campbell Brown”…
The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else.
The Washington Examiner is pushing the rumor that CNN’s “something else” will be Eliot Spitzer.
The former Sheriff of Wall Street, who went after big banks during his time as New York Attorney General, denies that he is up for the CNN job. But that man is up to something…
* Sen. Arlen Specter — a Yale Law School grad and former Philadelphia district attorney, by the way — loses the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania; ophthalmologist Rand Paul, son of Rep. Ron Paul, wins the Republican primary in Kentucky. [Washington Post]
* BP hires Kirkland & Ellis for the oil spill litigation — a sign that BP intends to fight. [Chicago Tribune via ABA Journal]
* McDermott Will & Emery gets hit with an age discrimination lawsuit. [Am Law Daily]
* Lawyers at Weitz & Luxenberg, the prominent personal injury firm — perhaps you’ve heard their radio ads? — have donated heavily to the New York attorney general campaign of Kathleen Rice. [New York Times]
* Obama’s aunt will not be deported to Kenya. [CNN]
* Elena Kagan has submitted answers to the Senate questionnaire for her Supreme Court nomination (in a record five days). Her net worth is almost $1.8 million, a sizable increase from the last reported figure (apparently thanks to the sale of her Cambridge house). [Washington Post]
* A portrait of Lady Kaga as a young graduate student: in her Oxford thesis, she wrote that it was “not necessarily wrong or invalid” for judges to “try to mold and steer the law” to achieve social ends. [New York Times]
Disclosure: I am not a fan of the burka, a garment that I find vaguely ridiculous, oppressive towards women, and worst of all, horribly unfashionable. The burqa’s highest and best use is in comedy. Remember the great Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in which Larry dry cleans a Muslim woman’s burqa and gives it to Cheryl as a Halloween costume?
So, given where I’m coming from, I was pleased not deeply troubled by this recent incident in France, reported in the London Telegraph:
A 60-year-old lawyer ripped a Muslim woman’s Islamic veil off in a row in a clothing shop in what police say is France’s first case of “burka rage.”
The astonishing scene unfolded during a weekend shopping trip after the woman lawyer took offence at the attire of a fellow shopper resulting in argument during which the pair came to blows before being arrested.
It’s May. Soon it will be June. The class of 2010 is about to graduate. And sure, everything will suck for them, but let’s give them their due:
Ahh, that’s the good stuff.
But sometime after that song is played, and before the students become acquainted with the nutritional properties of mayonnaise sandwiches, somebody will try to stand up and put their aborted legal careers in some sort of context.
Who will be doing the commencement address at your law school this year? More importantly, are any of the speakers hiring?
As some readers know, I’ve had a dispute with the paper of record before. But this time, the Grey Lady has gone after a different Kashmir: the restaurant formerly known as the Kashmir buffet. According to Midtown Lunch, the eatery across from the NYT headquarters recently changed its name to the “Times Restaurant”:
Perhaps because journalists are trained to notice details, the NYT company took note of the familiar font in the restaurant’s sign. The NYT’s lawyers sent a message to the buffet and it wasn’t about their tasty samosas…
As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the lawsuits are coming for Arizona’s new immigration law. First up, the ACLU. Bloomberg reports:
The American Civil Liberties Union is leading a court challenge to Arizona’s new law targeting illegal immigration, claiming the measure would allow unconstitutional racial profiling by police.
A group of civil rights organizations led by the ACLU also alleges that the law interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters in violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a complaint filed today in federal court in Phoenix. The group claims in addition that the statute infringes the free-speech rights of day laborers in the state.
It’s not surprising that the ACLU is taking the first shot at this. The Department of Justice might not be far behind….
Now that the sex lives of Supreme Court justices have become grist for commentators, we are finally free to discuss a question formerly only whispered about in the shadows: Why does Justice Antonin Scalia, by common consent the leading intellectual force on the Court, have nine children? Is this normal? Or should I say ‘normal,’ as some people choose to define it? Can he represent the views of ordinary Americans when he practices such a minority lifestyle? After all, having nine children is far more unusual in this country than, say, being a lesbian.
When it comes to deferring incoming associates, what is the new normal? A couple of months ago, we reported that Mintz Levin was deferring its class of 2010 associates to 2012. At the time, Mintz Levin didn’t reveal any information about its deferral stipend.
Today, tipsters are telling us about the Mintz Levin stipend. Let’s just say that 2010 graduates waiting for a job at Mintz Levin should strongly consider driving a cab or something. They’ll need an extra source of income to make ends meet…
Elena Kagan has the face that launched a thousand comparisons. TMZ thought she looked like Kevin James. The man wooing her via Craigslist thinks she’s a cross between Carrie Fisher, Laura Linney, and Bette Midler.
We polled you, and the results are in. Who is the winner of the Elena Kagan Look-Alike Contest?
I recently had a birthday. I’m 32-years-old, but my liver has to be at least 60. It’s pretty close to mandatory retirement age. But I’m just getting back from Vegas (full report on twitter) and I can tell you that my liver will not go quietly into the good night.
And so I have a little appreciation for the partners that recently departed Mendes & Mount. A couple of partners there bumped up against the firm’s mandatory retirement age. After a failed negotiation with firm management, the older partners decided to take most of the damn practice group with them and start a new firm. The New York Law Journal reports:
Seven partners at Mendes & Mount have departed to launch a boutique after at least one of the partners failed to persuade the firm to amend its mandatory retirement policy.
The new firm, Fitzpatrick & Hunt, Tucker, Collier, Pagano, Aubert, consists of the bulk of Mendes & Mounts’ aviation practice and will have offices in New York and Los Angeles, said partner Ralph V. Pagano. The firm will be made up of 24 lawyers from Mendes & Mount, including the partners, one of whom joins as special counsel. Mendes & Mount will be left with about 109 lawyers.
“It’s a pretty big break-off,” Pagano said.
How’s that for flexing some muscle? Push me out — I’ll take 24 lawyers and your aviation practice group with me! Screw you guys, I’m going home.
Hey, the older partners gave Mendes an opportunity to reconsider…
Angela Reinholz: Apparently getting pregnant didn't screw her enough.
It takes balls to file this kind of lawsuit.
A man working for the British firm Eversheds filed a sexual discrimination lawsuit after being fired from the firm. He claimed that the firm should have fired a woman out on maternity leave — but Eversheds didn’t because it was worried that the woman would file a sexual discrimination lawsuit.
Catch-22 for Eversheds? Maybe. The English Employment Tribunal ruled in favor of the laid off man. The Daily Mail (gavel bang: ABA Journal) reports:
John de Belin won £123,000 in damages after one of Britain’s biggest law firms ‘deprived him of his livelihood’.
Mr de Belin, 45, was one of two associates facing redundancy from Eversheds’ property division in Leeds. The other was Angela Reinholz, 40.
To decide who would be sacked, the firm undertook an assessment of both Mr de Belin’s and Mrs Reinholz’s abilities, including financial performance, discipline history and absence records.
Mr de Belin was fired in February 2009 after losing by just half a point, scoring 27 out of 39 in the exercise against Mrs Reinholz’s 27.5.
The problem was that Reinholz’s score was “inflated” while she was out on maternity leave…
Given how desperate legal job seekers are getting, one law firm is doing away with interview niceties.
The job market is like a vast desert. Those crawling through it are desperate for a little drink of employment. In order to get a sip from this firm, though, applicants have to go through some serious hoops.
A tipster says:
Ever heard of an open house interview before? For lawyers, at that?
An immigration firm based in Manhattan’s financial district sent out an interview invitation to applicants last weekend. Here’s the intro:
Date: Sat, May 15, 2010 at 2:02 PM
Subject: Open House Interview
We have received your resume and CV and would like to invite you in for an Open House Interview today from 3-6 PM. During the week it is very busy so this is the main reason. The payscale is $25 per hour or $50,000 per annum, depending on experience, with 30 billable hours required per week on your assigned cases. If selected you will be expected to commence employment on Monday at 9 AM. Our law office is located at the address below.
Please note the time sent; the time of the interview; and the fact that the pay is $50K, “depending on experience.” The relative good news is that if they like you on Saturday, you start two days later. Though you may have to be stripped and searched for lice and a criminal record before entering the building Monday morning.
* Civil rights groups file a class-action lawsuit against Arizona over its new immigration law. [Los Angeles Times]
* “Hold up! That’s valuable…” Princeton issues a take-down notice on Elena Kagan’s college thesis. [TechDirt]
* Here’s one way to get into the Ivy League: Harvard undergraduate charged with faking his way into the university. When he knew the ruse was up, he allegedly put in transfer applications (full of untruths) to Yale and Brown. [Boston Herald]
* Is it cruel and unusual punishment to have this lawyer assigned to defend you in a murder trial? [New York Times]
* It depends on what the meaning of the word “in” is. Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal’s talk of serving “in” Vietnam was misleading. [New York Times via Gawker]
* Gay couples should steer clear of Malawi (and 37 other countries in Africa). [Associated Press]
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.
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Given how desperate legal job seekers are getting, one law firm is doing away with interview niceties.
