August 2010

Ed. note: Adrian Dayton is a lawyer and writer who advises law firms about business development through social media. He will be writing a series of guest posts for Above the Law about social media. The opening sequence of Enemy at the Gates begins with a volunteer Russian soldier named Vassili being forced into the […]

We apologize again for yesterday’s technical difficulties, but if you thought we weren’t going to weigh in on the Hooters anti-fatty policy you haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention. Yesterday, a Michigan judge ruled that a weight discrimination case brought against Hooters restaurants could go forward. When the suit was filed, back in […]

Ed. note: This post was compiled by one of our seven Morning Docket finalists. The finalists will be handling MD all week. As always, we welcome your thoughts in the comments. * At Walmart you can save money and live better, except if you’re a woman. [New York Times] * Zenovia Evans is fighting for […]

Back in June, we wrote about the fabulous Chelsea apartment snapped up by prominent Republican lawyer Ken Mehlman. Although his résumé is strewn with achievements — he’s a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School (just like President Obama), a former partner at Akin Gump, and a current executive vice-president at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (ka-ching!) — […]

Ed. note: Apologies for the technical difficulties today. Our tech team is investigating. * This Venn diagram reveals all you need to know about what lawyers put in their bios. [the [non]billable hour] * Is Judge Royce Lamberth (D.D.C.), the judge behind the injunction on stem-cell research funding, about to get benchslapped by the D.C. […]

If there was any real spirit of conscientious agitation for liberty left in America, people would be dressing up with Native American war-paint, heading down to New York Harbor, and tossing bags of bagels in the drink. The New York Post reports: Only Albany could find a way to tax a cut. The cash-strapped state […]

Thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law: BarMax Kinney Recruiting Lateral Link Lexis Nexis – CaseMap Lexis Nexis – Discovery Solutions Lexis Nexis – Law Firm Marketing Products Lexis Nexis – Martindale Lexis Nexis – RLS Specialized Law Lexis Nexis – Search Advantage & Hosted Litigation MasterCard MarketPlace Mercedes-Benz Rocket Matter Sunshine Suites […]

So the debate over the Park51 project, which would place a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero, is purely about sensitivity — right? No bigotry here? Well, somebody please tell that to Muslim cab drivers in New York City. One of them was stabbed, apparently for the crime of being a Muslim. New York […]

Have you been eying that pretty blonde you see on the train every morning on your way to work? Have you ever waited for the subway for over an hour on a Saturday night, drunk, really wishing you had an extra five bucks in your wallet so you could hop into a cab? Or simply, […]

He bakes the most wonderful pies I have ever tasted in my life. — McLean resident Joan Bretz, discussing her neighbor Joshua Gessler, the Arnold & Porter associate and George Mason adjunct law professor accused of producing child pornography.

This one is going to get really weird, really quickly. See if you can spot the civil rights violation. Issue 1: City council of Alexandria, Virginia, approves a permit for a new barbecue restaurant. Issue 2: The restaurant will have an open-air, gas grille. Did you see the potential violation? No? Well, you’re just not […]

Ed. note: This post was compiled by one of our seven Morning Docket finalists. The finalists will be handling MD all week. As always, we welcome your thoughts in the comments. * I’ll take the rapist for 200, Alex. The attorney for two women who accused the WikiLeaks Grand Poobah of sex crimes denies any […]

It’s been a while since we’ve had a true contestant for the title of most depressing job offered to a law student. Sure, there have been a lot of jobs that offer $10 an hour, or even $0 an hour, for legal work. But at least those jobs were offering the opportunity to put long […]

* What’s the matter with Kansas Georgia? First the judges, and now the cops (who have been accused of racial profiling in a new lawsuit). [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] * In other Georgia legal news, a federal judge has issued a 172-page opinion finding that convicted cop killer Troy Davis is not actually innocent. [SCOTUSblog via Sentencing […]

Yesterday, after whining about law schools on NPR, I motored over to the Fox headquarters on Sixth Avenue. They wanted me on to to talk about a post I did a couple of weeks ago, encouraging oil-spill victims to take their BP money from the $20 billion fund being administered by Ken Feinberg, instead of […]

While expressing a commitment to maintain its new, incredibly transparent, merit-based salary structure, Orrick is moving its base salary back to reaffirming its commitment to $160,000 for first-year associates working in major markets. That’s right, the time for $145K in big offices is almost at an end. UPDATE: Initially spokespeople from Orrick termed the move […]

We’ve completely updated the Summer Associate Program sections in each of the Firm Snapshots with the 2010 summer associate survey results and the latest news.  With on-campus interviewing already underway at most schools, law students won’t want to miss getting the inside scoop on the highlights – and lowlights – of each firm’s summer program. […]

UMass School of Law (fka Southern New England School of Law) is open for business. Orientation happened last week, and students started classes yesterday, at Massachusetts’s first public law school. As has been well-documented in these pages, I’m unimpressed. Put simply: there isn’t enough of a demand for new lawyers right now to justify a […]

Yesterday we covered the divorce of golf sensation Tiger Woods and his stunningly beautiful wife, former model Elin Nordegren. We noted that Nordegren was represented by McGuireWoods. Although McGuireWoods is a top firm, especially in its home state of Virginia, it’s “not known for its matrimonial practice,” as Nathan Koppel of the WSJ Law Blog […]

Today brings bad news for Arnold & Porter — or maybe make that Arnold & Porno. If the allegations are true, the venerable Washington-based law firm has been employing a lawyer who made child pornography, starring a 15-year-old girl. A 41-year-old associate in the Tysons Corner office of A&P, Joshua Gessler, has been charged with […]