The new season of The Apprentice: Recession Edition premieres tomorrow night on NBC, and if you weren’t planning on watching it because it’s the 87th season and nobody cares, you just might want to reverse course. No fewer than five unemployed lawyers — cupcake-wielding Brandy, ex-beauty queen Nicole, fashion-obsessed Mahsa, old person Clint, and Prince Harry-lookalike James — are competing to be Donald Trump’s main minion this season. Above the Law scored an advance interview with one of them.
James Weir, 31, was a second-year litigator in Clifford Chance’s New York office before getting laid off because of the economy back in October 2008. Unable to find work, this Duke undergrad and ’06 Georgetown Law grad became a “couch surfer” (according to his Apprentice bio), brazenly unafraid of bedbugs (I asked), who spent his time applying for jobs, watching a lot of Netflix Instantly Viewable, and learning to stain furniture (presumably on purpose).
In our brief interview, James reveals ATL’s role in his casting (!!), shares the two things he wishes he said on air, and tells us what his mom really thinks about all of this…
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Interview with The Apprentice’s James Weir, Laid Off Clifford Chance Attorney”
U Can't Touch This (dog).
Earlier this week, we reported on the Yale Law School library apparently allowing students to “check out” a stress-relieving dog named Monty, for 30-minute periods. This precious pet perk was not offered during my time at YLS (but we barely had a library for two years, due to extensive construction).
Alas, the commenter who noted that “Monty has been withdrawn” appears to be correct. The link to Monty’s catalog entry is dead.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Booktryst blog explains why….
Continue reading “Who Let the Dog Out? Not the Yale Law Library”
An engineer at Google may have abused his unfettered access to users’ account information. Gawker reports that David Barksdale, 27, a former Site Reliability Engineer with Google, allegedly tapped into the accounts of four teenagers, using information from their Gmail, Google Voice, and GTalk chat accounts in order to harass them.
Gawker doesn’t provide much in the way of sources, so I have to assume that this story was relayed to the blog by the teenagers themselves, who are not identified. One example of Barksdale’s alleged harassment is unblocking himself on a teen’s chat list and looking up the name and phone number of one of the teen’s girlfriends and threatening to call her. Given all the damage that could be done raiding someone’s email account, this seems rather unimpressive. More Mean Girls than Enemy of the State-inspired.
The Daniel Faraday lookalike is probably wishing he could use a time travel machine to prevent himself from ever getting involved with the teens. What kind of trouble is he going to get into beyond the humiliation of gracing Gawker’s pages?
Continue reading “Check You Gmail: Google Engineer Accused of Being a Little Evil”
Gone baby gone.
Protip: Don’t look up the Wikipedia entry for foreskin. Don’t do it even if you have to write a post about a baby who was given a circumcision against his parents’ wishes. Vera Delgado, the baby’s mother, had left the hospital to shower and get a change of clothes. Just long enough for Nurse Ratched and the gang to do the do. Delgado’s lawyer, Spencer Aronfeld, summed up the understandable reaction:
“It was horrific, quite frankly,” said Aronfeld. “The parents were very explicit they did not want him circumcised, and [the hospital] had asked the parents repeatedly.”
Since announcing Delgado would sue, Aronfeld said he has received countless supportive e-mail messages and seen social network postings from so-called “intactivists” who oppose circumcision.
“People who are passionate about not circumcising their children are sending me Facebook messages, like, “I love you. You are my hero!”
So the mother is suing the hospital. Of course (not of course), we all remember from law school (from Google) that Benjamin Cardozo wrote the seminal opinion in which an unwanted surgical procedure was legally classified as battery. And that’s exactly what the mother is suing the hospital for. All fine and well. Somebody messed up, and “Oops!” isn’t going to cut it.
But it’s not the dollar amount of $1 million that jumps out from the story….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: You Mad? Circumcised Baby Edition”
Ed. note: The following piece was authored by The Legal Tease, of Sweet Hot Justice fame. Check out her other musings from Sweet Hot Justice here.
Hey, you. Yes, YOU there, the one with the boobs. You’re a lawyer, right? Or some sort of Big Law type, at least? I figured. I could tell by the bewildered look on your face. I know, sweetie, I know: It’s confusing being a woman in and around Big Law these days. First, unless you have a time machine and a magic wand, it looks like you’re not making partner any time soon. Sorry. Then, of course, there’s the finding-a-long-term-sex-partner-who-doesn’t-require-batteries problem. And then, there’s the latest slap: Laminated scraps of “advice” from Citibank your employer about the stupid things that you do to sabotage your career, you (apparently) soft-spoken, smile-happy, invisible moron cow.
And the advice doesn’t stop there. You can’t even find a good glass ceiling to smack your head up against anymore without tripping over a stack of advice for women lawyers on everything from how to dress for success (Avoid nudity!), to how to toughen up (Sass those boys right back when they act rapey at the office!), to how not to look like a drowned clown corpse at work (Forget it, lost cause!).
At this point, I’m so bored with the heaps of so-called advice from other lawyers and professional counsel-givers that I had to turn to the one person I could think of whose advice never fails. The one person who knows what it’s like to carve out a niche for yourself in an often cruel, mystifying profession overrun by over-educated lunatics: My friend, Alanna.
I think you could learn a lot from her. Why? Because she’s never wrong.
And she’s a hooker…
Continue reading “Working Girls”
* France finally grows a pair, but maybe on the wrong issue in light of the Eiffel Tower bomb scare. [Washington Post]
* K-Rod needs to learn how to be a better stalker if he’s risking jail time to text. 56 texts over 4 weeks? I text more than that in a day. [New York Times]
* Memo to George Michael: Toke it up, before you go-go! Don’t drop the soap in jail, that’s a no-no. [CNN International]
* The Senate’s small business lending bill is supposed to create thousands of jobs. Can I have one? [Los Angeles Times]
* Feds hope that with the help of a judge, Jonathan Lee Riches, the “Patrick Ewing of Suing,” will be stopped from ever gettin’ lucky in Kentucky. [Associated Press]
* More about the new U.S. News law firm rankings, which we wrote about overnight. V16 Sidley Austin is claiming it is ranking “first” nationally, according to U.S. News. Vault’s #1, Wachtell, lags far, far behind. Good thing these new rankings are just “junk science.” [National Law Journal]
We told you this day would come. Way back in July 2009, we reported that the rankings behemoth, U.S. News & World Report, would soon be ranking law firms. In February 2010, we reported that the American Bar Association — so toothless in the face of U.S. News’s law school rankings — was worried about how this new U.S. News product would affect the profession.
Well, for better or for worse, the day has finally arrived. As of midnight (give or take a few minutes), U.S. News went live with rankings of 8,782 firms across 81 different practice areas. From their press release:
These inaugural rankings, which are presented in tiers both nationally and by metropolitan area or by state, showcase 8,782 different law firms ranked in one or more of 81 major practice areas. Full data is available online for the law firms that received rankings, from the largest firms in the country to hundreds of one-person and two-person law firms, providing a comprehensive view of the U.S. legal profession that is unprecedented both in the range of firms represented and in the range of qualitative and quantitative data used to develop the rankings.
It’s like Christmas morning — if only Santa were a jolly red prestige whore. Let’s get to it…
Continue reading “U.S. News Launches First Official Law Firm Rankings”
* Professors Richard Epstein and John Yoo have some thoughts on the recent “don’t ask, don’t tell” decision. [Ricochet]
* The rest of today’s links revolve around a common theme: advice. Here are some tips for associates negotiating job offers. [Law.com]
* Here are some tips for young litigators. [Young Lawyers Blog]
* Here are some tips for job-searching 3Ls on how to manage your online reputation. [Lawyerist]
* Thinking about going to law school? Yours truly is participating in a panel discussion on the subject, here in NYC. [Ivy Link]
We’re surprised that more people in the legal profession don’t know about Kasowitz Benson. The firm is relatively young by Biglaw standards — founded in 1993, as a spin-off from Mayer Brown — but very successful. Much of this success is traceable to the leadership of Marc Kasowitz, who continues to run the firm with an iron hand (even though it’s twenty times larger today than at its founding; it started with 18 lawyers and is now up to 350).
Earlier this week, Nate Raymond of the New York Law Journal took a detailed look at the Kasowitz firm. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights….
Continue reading “Kasowitz Benson’s Benovelent Dictatorship”
Clare Lenore Stoudt, a 35-year-old mother of five, was found dead in her home over the weekend. Stoudt was a tax associate at Pillsbury Winthrop. According to the ABA Journal, authorities believe that Stoudt may have been the victim of a murder-suicide:
The father of her three youngest children, Reginald Van Graves, 49, also was found apparently shot to death in the Howard County home, and a gun was in the vicinity, authorities say. A custody case over the three children, aged 2, 5 and 7, had begun less than a week earlier in Howard County Circuit Court.
The Howard County Times reports that police say the deaths may have been a murder-suicide. Autopsies have not yet been completed, however, and the investigation has not concluded.
Christine Kearns, managing partner for Pillsbury’s D.C. office, released the following statement for the firm….
Continue reading “Pillsbury Winthrop Associate Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide”
In July, we profiled the efforts of a group of Vanderbilt law students who are trying to bring more accuracy and transparency to the employment statistics provided by law schools. Their group, Law School Transparency, has requested all ABA-accredited schools to provide useful information to prospective law students — information that neither the ABA nor U.S. News currently collects.
Without the regulatory hammer of ABA (which the organization inexplicably refuses to wield), or the public shaming of U.S News (a for-profit magazine, not an industry watchdog), LST is up against some long odds. They’re trying their best, but their interim report indicates that thus far, 188 law schools have completely ignored their efforts to report simple facts on the employment prospects of law school graduates.
In fact, to this point no school (not even Vanderbilt Law) has agreed to provide the information LST is requesting. Poor Zenovia Evans would have starved to death by now.
But 11 schools did find the time to send out a courtesy letter citing the reasons these schools cooked up to justify keeping people in the dark about employment prospects for law school graduates…
Continue reading “Most Schools Would Like Law School Transparency to Just Go Away”
It’s hard out here for an immigrant. Arizona has immigrants in the crosshairs, as we all know. Immigrants might also be unable to clerk for federal judges (or at least get paid for it).
And when they commit crimes and get sentenced, immigrants are sometimes subjected to snide remarks by judges. The Seventh Circuit recently vacated a sentence and remanded for resentencing by a different judge, after trial judge Rudolph Randa (E.D. Wis.) made some unfortunate comments in sentencing defendant Jose Figueroa. From the Seventh Circuit opinion, by the fabulous Judge Diane Wood:
During the hearing, the district court digressed to discuss Figueroa’s native Mexico, the immigration status of Figueroa and his sisters, and the conditions and laws in half a dozen other countries—not to mention unnecessary references to Hugo Chávez, Iranian terrorists, and Adolf Hitler’s dog.
Chávez, Iranian terrorists, and Hitler’s dog. Those are all § 3553(a) factors, right?
So how exactly did Judge Randa achieve the impressive feat of working all of these topics into a routine sentencing?
Continue reading “Judge of the Day: Rudolph Randa”
Working Mother just released its annual list of the top 100 companies to work for. As we are (hopefully) coming out of the recession, it is possible that people might actually start caring again about family issues and work/life balance issues.
This year, four law firms made the list. Before we get to the “winners,” let’s take a look at the process required to be up for consideration. To be on the list, first you have to fill out an application with 600 questions.
What is the magazine looking for? Here’s the explanation from their methodology section:
Eight areas are scored: workforce profile; benefits; women’s issues and advancement; child care; flexible work; paid time off and leaves; company culture; and work-life programs. An essay regarding best practices to support working mothers is also evaluated…
Working Mother considers not only the programs, benefits and opportunities offered by companies but also recently settled, decided or still-pending gender discrimination lawsuits.
An essay, do you say? Well, so much for rigid objectivity in list making.
Still, the four law firm winners should be proud. Let’s highlight them from out of the other top 100 companies…
Continue reading “Four Law Firms Make List of Best Companies to Work For
(But Do Law Firms Still Discriminate When It Comes to Pay?)”
Want to know where the happy summer associates work? More importantly, want to know if the happy summer associates eventually turn into happy full-time associates? Click on the Career Center links below to find out.
- Bragging rights go to this Wall Street firm’s summer associates, who say they do substantive and high-profile work, but have reasonable hours, get 100% offers, and have no start date deferrals.
- Summer associates at this firm reaped the benefits of an 80% decrease in summer class size, reporting that they were “impressed” by how often the assigning attorneys took time to go over their assignments and offer suggestions.
- Praises abound for this firm’s summer program, which summer associates say offers “excellent hours,” “easy access to a broad range of real, substantive assignments,” and “the positive sense you get…that people actually enjoy their jobs.
For information on summer programs and associate life at all the top firms, visit the Career Center.
In yesterday’s discussion of federal law clerk hiring, a process that is currently in full swing, we flagged an interesting issue regarding clerks who are not U.S. citizens. A recent change in the law appears to bar paying federal government salaries to non-U.S. citizens (subject to some narrow exceptions, such as holders of refugee or asylum status). This legal change would appear to create problems for (1) non-citizens already hired for clerkships that have not yet started and (2) non-citizens applying for clerkships at the current time.
When asked about this issue earlier this month, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined comment to the Blog of the Legal Times. But we now have an idea of what the Administrative Office thinks about this subject, based on a guidance memorandum that James Duff, the director of the AO, issued to federal judges last month.
So what does the AO have to say about this issue?
Continue reading “Clerkship Application Season: Clarifications About Non-Citizen Clerks”
A Lego sculpture by former Winston & Strawn lawyer Nathan Sawaya.
* Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Underwear Bomber, tells his lawyers to eat his shorts. [ABC News]
* Lego loses its trademark protection across the European Union. What blockheads! [Bloomberg]
* Lynn Branham has lost her tenure lawsuit against the 12th best law school in the country, but the real question is why anyone would want to retain tenure at Cooley. [National Law Journal]
* Attorneys general from around the country are getting ready to rip the band-aid off of Obamacare in Florida today. [Los Angeles Times]
* After this ruling, the phrase “Google me, b*tch” will take on a whole new meaning in New Jersey’s courtrooms. [WSJ Law Blog]
* And speaking of New Jersey, a new lawsuit alleges that the Ground Zero mosque’s imam is a full-time slumlord. I guess he’s only a spiritual leader on the weekend. [New Jersey Star-Ledger]
* It took $800K in legal fees for Richard Bove to learn that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all. [New York Times DealBook]
Craigslist might have had to close down its adult section, but its Missed Connections area is still alive and kicking.
And that’s a good thing, at least for one UC Hastings law student who had one stimulating lecture with an adjunct law professor teaching intellectual property. The lady was quite taken by the guest lecturer, as the title to her Missed Connections post implies:
You: Adjunct law professor unjustly enriching my imagination – w4m – 25
That’s just the headline. The body of the note is much more steamy.
Maybe not New York Jets talking to Ines Sainz sexy-talk, but pretty damn explicit for an IP law class, taking place on a lazy day out in California…
Continue reading “Ode to an Adjunct Professor”
* Biglaw girls just want to have fun, but a good man is hard to find. Some follow-up thoughts on Sweet Hot Justice’s question, “Does This Law Degree Make My Ass Look Fat?” [Technolawyer]
* This is what happens when Sabermetrics genius Bill James turns his attention to crime and punishment. [Slate]
* Major business employers are shifting their recruiting efforts away from the Ivies and towards state schools; should Biglaw firms do the same? [Law and More]
* A very well-done (albeit depressing) Blawg Review, by Keith Lee of An Associate’s Mind. [An Associate's Mind via Blawg Review]
* LeBron isn’t the only star performer who’s in demand. Did you know that Justice Ginsburg just signed with the U.S. District Court for Nebraska? [Laws for Attorneys]
* Professor Dave Hoffman on “the quickly unraveling clerkship market.” [Concurring Opinions]
* Is being called out by former attorney general Alberto Gonzales “a badge of honor”? Quite possibly, according to Professor Tung Yin. [The Yin Blog]
Cab driver: “Where does your daughter work?”
Dad: “She just moved here to look for a job.”
Cab driver: “Oh, she must be a lawyer.”
– an exchange between a D.C. cab driver and the father of Elizabeth Killingsworth, an unemployed lawyer and Huffington Post blogger.
