Earlier this week, we did an update on the Law School Transparency project. At the time, no law schools had agreed to the data request made by the two Vanderbilt Law students who started the process.
Well, now they’ve got one. Ave Maria School of Law has signed up with Law School Transparency. Click here for coverage from the ABA Journal, and here for the thoughts of Shilling Me Softly. Here’s the email Ave Maria sent to the LST people:
“This email will confirm that Ave Maria School of Law has agreed to participate in the Transparency Project. We look forward to receiving more information from you on the reporting guidelines in November.”
Obviously, the LST people have to view this as a victory. But is it?
Continue reading “Ave Maria Becomes First Law School to Agree to Transparency Project: Is That a Good Thing?”
* Today is Constitution Day, so why not celebrate it the First Amendment way? Tea partiers get to mark the occasion with their very own rally. [FOX News]
* This judge’s footlong is going to be worth way more than five dollars. [WSJ Law Blog]
* The Church of Body Modification is a real religion. Real enough to get around your school’s dress code. Well, at least the ACLU thinks so. [Washington Post]
* The LAX police lawsuit alleges reverse racism. You say tomato, I say karma. [Los Angeles Times]
* Sending messages about scat to the law clerk assigned to your own divorce case is a good way to get suspended from practice. [New York Law Journal]
* It’s mo’ money, mo’ legal problems for execs over at Morgan Stanley. What a cruddy way to spend your birthday. [Bloomberg]
* Natalee Holloway’s mom sneaked into a Peruvian prison just to hear this jailbird sing about what happened in Aruba, Jamaica — no, just Aruba. [MSNBC]
We’ve already titillated you with an interview of one of the Apprentice contestants, former Clifford Chance associate James Weir. Now we’ll get our first look at the rest of the contestants on tonight’s premiere of The Apprentice, which this season is built around a recession theme (and stocked with a number of layoff victims, including laid-off lawyers).
Click on the liveblog below to experience the glory and majesty of Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s hair, and the recession-aided desperation of strangers.
Continue reading “The Apprentice Premiere: The Liveblog”
Hello, loyal readers and tipsters of Above the Law. Here at ATL, which recently celebrated its fourth birthday, things continue to thrive in terms of readership, revenue, and other metrics. As always, we have you to thank — for your thoughts, ideas, and criticisms, as we continue to grow and get better.
One of the keys to the success of the Above the Law community has always been the interaction between the editors and the readers. We want to write about what you want to talk about. The best way for us to do that is for you to tell us what you want to read about — and what you know about. Obviously we can’t write about something if we don’t know about it (and you can’t always rely on someone else to let us know).
Today we’ve set up a new way for our readers to get in touch with us. ATL now has a Google Voice account: 646-820-TIPS (or 646-820-8477). Now, whether you are at home or at work, you can send Above the Law text messages from the privacy of your own phone.
While reports of firms tracking associate communications have been ridiculously exaggerated — honestly, guys, they have better things to do — we understand that lawyers are a risk-averse bunch. And the layoffs, for any reason or no reason at all, have certainly put everyone on edge. Hopefully, the Google Voice account will add just another layer of anonymity between your private thoughts or concerns and the prying eyes of others.
Since we have a lot of new readers these days, let’s go through all the different ways you can contact Above the Law….
Continue reading “A Whole New Way to Contact Above the Law — Without Your Employer Ever Knowing”
Ed. note: Don’t forget to check back here at 9 p.m. Eastern time, when Marin will be liveblogging the season premiere of The Apprentice, featuring former Clifford Chance attorney James Weir (whom Marin interviewed here).
* To our many pre-law readers, some of whom we met on Tuesday night: here’s a fun new way to prepare for the LSAT. [Most Strongly Supported]
* Isn’t it odd that two of the Big Four accounting firms wound up on the just-released U.S. News rankings of law firms? [Going Concern]
* Given the giant federal budget deficit and high unemployment, now is the perfect time to give a tax break to trial lawyers. [Institute for Legal Reform]
* Thinking of following in these folks’ footsteps, by starting your own firm? Here is some information to consider. [Above the Law (sponsored content)]
* South Carolina Supreme Court: you’re doing it wrong, counselor; you’re supposed to screw the client. [ABA Journal]
* Speaking of lawyers having sex with their clients’ spouses, the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board is also not a fan of the practice. [Legal Profession Blog]
Everyone thinks of Midwesterners as so wholesome. Perhaps this perception is unfounded.
For example, why are Wisconsin lawyers so darn horny? First there were the Biglaw Bad Boys, accused of sexual assault. Now we’re hearing about a government lawyer — an elected district attorney, in fact — who apparently let his libido get the best of him.
Here’s the story: Calumet County District Attorney Kenneth Kratz sent a flurry of text messages to a woman, 30 texts over three days, in an effort to start up an affair with her. The woman, who described Kratz’s harassing texts as putting her through “three days of hell,” was a victim of domestic abuse. Kratz met the woman in course of prosecuting her ex-boyfriend for the violence against her.
OMG. Legal ethics FAIL.
And some of Kratz’s texts are simply 2M2H. Read on, and prepare for the LULZ….
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Day: The Sexting District Attorney – ‘You may be hot… but I am the prize!’“
We’ve decided to tweak the format of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch a bit. Beginning today, we’ll be bringing you all the lawyer weddings featured in the New York Times.
This, admittedly, is the kind of everyone’s-a-winner feel-goodism that we normally abhor. Alas, to be frank, we’re sick of the constant death threats from couples who don’t make our column. Don’t worry — we’ll keep the focus on our brilliant featured couples, as always. But starting with today’s installment, you’ll also be able to check out the honorable mentions (and others) at the end of each post.
Also, congratulations to Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado, who edged out Caroline Lopez and Nicholas Miranda in our last reader poll for Couple of the Week.
This week’s featured couples are:
1. Meredith Osborn and Christiaan Highsmith
2. Claire McCusker and Michael Murray
3. Emily Keifer and Jordan Barry
More about these couples — and a list of all the NYT’s recent legal eagle matings — after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Spreading the Love”
Snoopy works from home instead of going to the MetLife Building.
This morning we reported on bedbugs at Winston & Strawn’s New York office. Alas, the problem might be much larger than we initially anticipated.
That’s because Winston & Strawn is located in the iconic MetLife building, at 200 Park Avenue in Manhattan. After this morning’s post went up, a spokesperson from Winston told us that all inquires about the bed bugs were being referred to the building’s landlord, real estate giant Tishman Speyer.
Are bedbugs crawling around the whole MetLife building? We don’t know yet; Tishman Speyer hasn’t returned our phone calls.
But if bed bugs are a threat to all the tenants of the MetLife building, there are three other law firms that could be getting very itchy…
Continue reading “MetLife Building Under Attack From Bedbugs: Four Law Firms Potentially Affected”
Unfortunately, I have a terrible secret that is making it difficult for me to get close to women: I have $190,000 in student loan debt.
– a correspondent calling himself “Debt Leper,” who wrote in to advice columnist Dear Wendy (via Instapundit). Reading the full question on The Frisky, this guy sure sounds like a lawyer.
Last week, I made the decision to jump right into the substantive portion of this column. Based on the queries and comments hitting my inbox, though, I thought I would take another shot at explaning my intentions behind this column, before returning to your regularly scheduled programming.
The following email came in earlier this week from a reader who practices at a small law firm:
Can you clarify what “small law” means? Do you mean law in a smaller city/town? Or smaller-sized firms in larger places? Or are we talking about law firms that deal with clients who have less wealth (i.e., I do divorces vs. I did Madonna’s divorce)?
Lawyers love definitional questions. So let’s get into it….
Continue reading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Small Law Firms”
Here in New York, we’re not worried about hurricanes, we’re not worried about terrorists, we’re not worried about whether or not Derek Jeter “cheated” to get on base. We are worried about one thing: bedbugs.
Bed bugs are everywhere. Lat has this theory that we’ve reached bedbug epidemic stage and that everybody eventually will have them at same point. I’m retraining my Lhasa Apso to be a bed bug sniffing dog in hopes of making a little extra money. The threat of coming into contact with somebody who has been in contact with somebody who knows somebody who had bed bugs is real.
So you can imagine the horror felt by associates in the New York office of Winston & Strawn, when they received an early morning, pre-recorded phone message from the firm…
Continue reading “Bedbugs Invade Winston & Strawn”
The world of legal technology was quite busy this week. After culling through countless articles, press releases, and blog posts, I selected the stellar few, the finest gems, and most importantly, the ones I like, to share with the Above The Law faithful. I do it so you don’t have to.
With that said, here is this week’s rundown…
Continue reading “The Rundown: The Week in Legal Technology – 9.16.10″
In a classic Seinfield episode, Jerry gets the phone number of a girl he is interested in from off of a list of people donating money for the AIDS Walk. Jerry does his best to keep this a secret from the girl, but eventually he lets it slip to George, who lets it slip to Susan, who tells her friend, who spills it it to the girl. The girl ends things with Jerry, offended that he would use a charity list to pick her up.
Why did she care? Because the way people get our information and how they use it matter to us. People hold on to their contact info as if it were solid gold. You give up your phone number and email address too easily, and you will be forever harassed by spam.
People do give up their email addresses, though, especially in exchange for information that they really want, or to people they like. This allows for something called permission marketing, an extremely powerful tool for building a prospect list for your practice. List building is an essential aspect of business development that is far too often overlooked. Often lost in the debate over the viability of social media is an improper or ineffective utilization of existing contact lists….
Continue reading “Email Marketing and the Power of Permission”
Elizabeth the Great
* Don’t bother taking out student loans to pay for law school. Just pay tuition with your mommy’s embezzlement money. [New York Post]
* Hack-a-Shaq used to be just a basketball defensive move. Now it’s a full-blown lawsuit. [NBC Miami]
* The breakfast table is under siege. With eggs and milk both facing class action lawsuits, what are we supposed to eat… poptarts? [Bloomberg; Reuters]
* In a new lawsuit, Pennsylvania homeowners tell Southwestern Energy to go frack itself. [New York Times Green Blog]
* The King of Pop’s mom wanna be startin’ somethin’ with AEG Live over the death of her son. [Associated Press]
* Obama decides that the best way to avoid a confirmation battle in the Senate is to cut out the middleman. Say hello to the new consumer protection “czar” advisor, Elizabeth Warren. [Washington Post]
The fantastically successful firm of Goldman Sachs isn’t just “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” It also discriminates against women, according to the allegations in a lawsuit filed earlier today.
Three female ex-employees of Goldman Sachs accuse the venerable bank of maintaining an “outdated corporate culture” that discriminates against women in terms of pay and promotions. The Goldman Girls — not to be confused with Betty White et al. — seek class-action certification for a class consisting of all female managing directors, vice presidents and associates in the last six years.
The lawsuit alleges that women are underrepresented in GS management, making up just 14 percent of partners, 17 percent of managing directors, and 29 percent of vice presidents. Given what it means to be a partner at Goldman — the New York Times recently described it as “the equivalent of winning the lottery,” in an interesting article about some GS partners being stripped of partnership (law firms aren’t the only ones who can play that game) — the stakes are high.
That’s the straightforward stuff. Other claims in the lawsuit, as noted by Nathan Koppel of the Wall Street Journal, are “a bit more salacious”….
Continue reading “Goldman Sachs Accused of Sex Discrimination”
* Professor Bainbridge questions how any law firm could ever be one of the “best” places to work in America. [Professor Bainbridge]
* How many times do I have to say this: do not “talk” to the cops. Answer whatever questions they have of you using as few words as possible. [Infamy or Praise]
* How many young associate jobs could have been saved with the money that Latham spent developing this iPhone App? [ABA Journal]
* In a battle between IHOP and organized religion, I think we all know where I stand… or sit, if you prefer. [Legal Blog Watch]
* I guess Karl Rove likes to masturbate. [NPR]
* When banjos attack. [Lowering the Bar]
From Flickr by Sonja Shield
“New York is a great city to live in if you can afford to get out of it,” wrote American author William Rossa Cole.
The same thing works the other way around too. The wealthier you are, access to the city becomes easier.
Manhattan (the city’s richest and whitest borough) is abundantly better connected to trains and buses than any of the other boroughs. In fact, when the Metropolitan Transit Association cut its buses and train lines, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens felt it the hardest.
That’s when this becomes a civil rights issue. Minorities and other low income groups, who overwhelmingly live in the outer boroughs, are far more affected by transit cuts and increasing highway spending than their largely white counterparts who live in wealthier neighborhoods.
Title III of the Civil Rights Act prohibits state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, religion, gender, or ethnicity, where as Title VI, prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funding. If an agency is found in violation of Title VI, that agency can lose its federal funding.
While the cuts were not made to be discriminatory, in practice they violate both the above titles.
Bet you never thought infrastructure could be racist. Read more on Alt Transport…
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You can’t get two clicks into the legal blogosphere today without seeing a repackaged press release from Sidley Austin. Here’s one of the headlines we received today, which blares louder than a New York City fire engine stuck in mid-tier midtown traffic:
Sidley Austin LLP has received 20 first-tier national rankings in the inaugural U.S.News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” survey, the most of any U.S. law firm.
Okay Sidley, we hear you; congratulations. Maybe you and Lady Gaga should confer and figure out how to get U.S. News to rank music video award shows.
Meanwhile, if you’ve spent any time clicking around the U.S. News law firm rankings since they went live last night (no, I haven’t really slept), you’ll notice that Sidley doesn’t seem to show up in the bottom right corner of the page under the heading “Featured Firm.” Instead of Sidley (or any of the other firms that garnered many first-tier practice area mentions), if you keep clicking refresh — I’ve done that about 100 times in the last hour, via multiple Firefox tabs — you see a bunch of firms that are outside the Am Law 100. And Squire Sanders.
Why aren’t the most well-respected firms the “featured” ones? The answer is obvious: the featured firms bought ads with U.S. News. Which begs the question: just how is U.S. News making money off of this exhaustive gambit into the law firm rankings market?
Continue reading “The U.S. News Best Firm Rankings: So Who Is Making Money From This?”
Law Schools Now Require Applicants To Honestly State Whether They Want To Go To Law School.
– headline for an article in The Onion
