Welcome back from lunch. We will now begin the afternoon session of day 2 of Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Your Above the Law editors are taking turns at liveblogging. Elie has handed the controls over to Lat…
Continue reading “Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Day 2 (Afternoon)”
Well, I don’t mean you should go make fun of the managing partner’s hair line. But you should ask searching questions.
– Peter Kalis, global managing partner of K&L Gates, explaining his comment that he’s looking to hire “sassy” and “edgy” lawyers.
Submit possible captions for this photo 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.
Please submit your entries by WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, at 11:59 PM. Thanks!
P.S. Consistent with our caption contest practice, we’re not providing you with any information about the provenance of this photo, so as not to limit your creativity. But we recognize that many of you will figure it out (and that’s okay).
“How is this guy working and not me?”
As the economy was tanking at the end of 2008, I, like many contract attorneys, found myself scrambling for work. One night, while frustratedly clicking around the internet for leads, I happened to come across this post from the blog Anonymous Contract Lawyer:
I almost forgot I was working at a law firm for the past 4 months. No pressure, no expectations, come and go as we please as long as we make the Monday status meeting and clock 8 hours a day. Economic downturn? Like lightning, it hit around our protective contract bubble.
“How is this guy working and not me?” was the only thought running through my mind. What I was to find out was that this “guy” was actually a woman, who was reviewing docs across the country in San Francisco.
After scanning through a few entries of her blog, I was hooked. I now follow her blog pretty regularly. It could be a manual on “things no one ever tells you about document review.” The format is simple, smart, informative and funny. Also, she’s a huge fan of Above The Law (except for the contributions of Hope Winters).
So why does this attorney want to remain anonymous? I mean, I know the need to conceal one’s identity is mostly a foreign concept to the readers of this blog, especially those who comment.
Well, first, she is a contract lawyer, and considering Elie’s post the other day, I guess that’s enough said right there.
But there are other reasons for sure. I recently had the chance to speak with the Anonymous Contract Lawyer (ACL) herself. You won’t find photos of her on her ACL blog, but you will find them on an adult website dedicated to “force-feminizing” men. Caveat: There are some raunchy details awaiting, after the jump.
Continue reading “Professor, Pin-Up Girl, Porn, Projects? The Life of an Anonymous Contract Lawyer”
Earlier this month, we mentioned the possibility of a merger between Mayer Brown and the U.K.-headquartered firm of Simmons & Simmons. Today we learn that the merger won’t be happening. Legal Week reports:
Simmons & Simmons and Mayer Brown have called off merger talks, the two firms have confirmed in a joint press statement sent today (29 June). The statement confirmed that the two firms have held preliminary talks about a potential merger but have jointly decided not to go through with a combination.
So what are the reasons behind termination of the talks?
Continue reading “Mayer Brown and Simmons Call Off Their Courtship”
Welcome to the next in our series on the results of the 2010 ATL/Career Center Associate Satisfaction survey. We’ve used the survey results to revamp the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link, with completely updated profiles and each week, we are highlighting insider information that Members shared about their firms in the eight key areas of associate satisfaction covered by the Career Center. Today, what’s in it for you – Benefits.
More fun perks — perhaps your firm should adopt them? — after the jump.
Welcome to day 2 of the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan, currently the U.S. Solicitor General, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Your Above the Law editors will be taking turns at liveblogging the proceedings…
Continue reading “Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Day 2 (Morning)”
* Yesterday was a big day at the Supreme Court. Who were the Biglaw winners and losers at One First Street? [Am Law Daily]
* Of the four opinions from yesterday, McDonald v. Chicago, aka “the guns case,” seems to have generated the most headlines. [How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* And Solicitor General Elena Kagan wants to get in on all the fun. Dana Milbank summarizes yesterday’s confirmation hearings in five words: “talking about Elena is boring.” [Washington Post]
* Federal prosecutors have accused 11 people of being part of a Russian spy ring — including couples living apparently normal lives in places like Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Montclair, New Jersey. [New York Times]
* BP gets hit with a RICO suit. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Some people can’t get a break. Law professor Peter Erlinder, back in St. Paul after his release from a prison in Rwanda, got mugged at gunpoint. [ABA Journal]
As I noted in my liveblogging of Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings, Solicitor General Kagan decided to wear the same outfit that then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor wore to day one of her confirmation hearings: an electric blue blazer over a black blouse.
A reader who was also struck by this sartorial similarity sent us a photographic comparison. Check it out, and vote in our reader poll….
Continue reading “Elena Kagan v. Sonia Sotomayor: Who Wore It Better?”
MTV has sunk low. Really low. Its newest program, Downtown Girls — a reality TV show about a group of hot girls living in TriBeCa — is using the New York bar exam as a dramatic narrative hook.
We wrote before about the law grad on the show in our post: Why Unemployed Lawyers Shouldn’t Go On Reality TV Shows — Exhibit A: Victoria, of MTV’s Downtown Girls. Her bio on the MTV site described her as an aspiring attorney who is “a source of rattlebrained comic relief” and “currently awaiting the results of her second attempt at the bar exam.”
We’ve since learned from tipsters that Victoria is a Brooklyn Law School grad. Her results came in on episode 4 of the show. The show’s lead Carrie Bradshaw-inspired character real person is Shallon, who narrates at the beginning of the episode: “Victoria is about to find out the results of her bar exam and that could totally shift the course of her whole life.”
Consider life shifted. The second time was not the charm for Victoria. So what do you do if you find out that you failed the bar exam on national television?
Continue reading “Reality TV Star Victoria, of Downtown Girls, Fails the Bar Exam”
What does it mean to be “newly admitted?” To us, it means endless possibilities!
We recognize that you already possess the ability and intelligence to succeed in a variety of legal professions. Our job is to expose you to various practice areas in a way that ensures those very attributes are successfully applied. Our seasoned and successful faculty present unique programs that provide an approachable and practical understanding of the avenues of achievement available as you launch a fruitful, enjoyable and promising career.
Our Live Bridge the Gap weekends satisfy the entire year of New York Newly-Admitted CLE Credits in only two days!
After physically attending a full weekend, you will receive:
• 3.0 Ethics CLE credits,
• 6.0 Skills CLE credits, and
• 7.0 Professional Practice and/or Law Practice Management CLE credits
Date: Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9, 2013
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 4:35 p.m. (EST)
Location:
55 Exchange Place
5th Floor
New York, NY 10006
We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
Keep reading »
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