This is a urinal. And It seems far too many of you don't know how or when to use it.
Welcome to Above the Law’s remedial skills class for current and aspiring attorneys. Here, we will trying to help people who were so busy studying in law school or servicing clients that they missed some crucial life lessons along the way.
Today we’ve got a special lesson for all of you who were raised in a barn or otherwise don’t understand how to use a bathroom.
We have two case studies, one from the Bronx and the other from the University of Arizona Law School. The cases show us lawyers who either don’t know how to recognize or how to utilize a public bathroom. It’s a dirty business teaching lawyers how to pee properly, but somebody has to step in when the parents (and common sense) fail.
Our first case comes from Bronx, New York, home to countless attorneys — including some who apparently don’t know what a bathroom looks like…
Continue reading “Bathroom Etiquette for Lawyers”
As soon as a young attorney gets a job offer and begins working, networking typically takes a backseat until a new job search begins. This fact is not surprising. Junior associates must maintain high billable hours, participate in countless training and CLE events, and still attend various non-billable firm events. While networking and the daily tasks of a junior associate are not mutually exclusive, networking still deserves some individual and active attention from time to time.
In order to succeed and be truly satisfied with your Biglaw career, you will need to do more than to simply be a great attorney. There are thousands of talented and hardworking attorneys out there who leave the world of Biglaw jaded, unhappy, and unfulfilled. Yes, Biglaw may not be the be-all and end-all for everyone, but there are many attorneys who play the Biglaw game and play it well. By utilizing networking skills and tactics while working at a Biglaw firm, a young associate can increase his or her chances of succeeding AND being satisfied.
There are two basic goals that are common for associates in large law firms: making partner and getting better assignments. In today’s Career Center "Expert Insights" article, we will cover networking with the goal of making partner. In next week’s article, we will cover how to network to get better assignments. We will post the complete article next week on the Associate Resources section of the Career Center (where you can find many career improvement articles).
So if your goal is to make partner, what steps should you take?
Continue reading “Career Center: Tips on Networking Within Your Firm to Advance Your Career (Part 1)”
This week, while taking a break from my favorite pastime — hanging out with strippers and snorting coke with federal judges — I attended the Masters Conference in Washington, DC. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this conference, it has carved out a significant niche for itself in the e-discovery universe. The Masters Conference is a gathering of legal technology thought leaders from all over the world, who come together every year at this time to talk about all things e-discovery. The yearly meeting was the brainchild of entrepreneur extraordinaire Robert Childress, president of Wave Software.
After attending last year’s Masters Conference, I thought I knew what to expect again this year: a small meeting (certainly not on the level of a LegalTech or an ILTA Annual Meeting), with the usual suspects, and similar — if not the same — topics of discussion.
Well, what a difference a year makes! The Masters Conference may only be in its fifth year of existence, but it seems to have just had its coming-out party. I’ll give you my three takeaways, after the jump…
Continue reading “Highlights From the Masters Conference”
Over the next year, LexisNexis is rolling out a completely redesigned research platform, and guess who they’re starting with? From the press release that came out Tuesday:
LexisNexis… today announced the launch of Lexis® Advance for Solos – the first in a series of releases of new Lexis® Advance online legal research tools. Created through close collaboration with solo practice lawyers to meet their unique requirements, Lexis Advance for Solos is the first online legal research solution built specifically for solo attorneys…
That’s right. They’re starting with solos. Maybe we don’t need to worry so much about advancing the small firm agenda after all? Perhaps, but I suspect that the real answer is that solos represent the market where Lexis has the most to gain.
But, let’s not quibble over why it’s here. It’s here, and I got a sneak preview of the new product Monday morning. Said “peek” was actually a LexisNexis-led tour via Microsoft’s Live Meeting, so read this with the caveat that I didn’t have a chance to truly kick the tires.
Dubbed Lexis® Advance for Solos, the product went live for purchase on Monday, October 4, and is available only for one and two lawyer outfits. Future segments of the new Lexis Advance platform, including those specifically for Biglaw and even for paralegals, will roll out over the course of the next year, but who cares? Solos have the floor!
My thoughts on the new product, sample screen shots, and pricing, after the break…
Continue reading “LexisNexis Launches New Platform for Solos”
Man, have things changed in Mississippi. Mississippi used to be a hotbed for rebellion against the Union, and now it’s putting lawyers in jail for refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag. That’s progress, baby! (Sorry, I just wanted to see what it would look like to write a paragraph portraying Mississippi as progressive about anything.)
Mississippi lawyer Danny Lampley was found in contempt of court and jailed for refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance in open court. According to multiple reports, Lampley stood for the pledge and was “respectful,” but did not recite the words. Chancellor Talmadge Littlejohn (what a name!) then specifically asked Lampley to recite the pledge, and when he refused, he was held in contempt.
An Oxford, Mississippi lawyer who once hired Lampley covered the story on his blog…
Continue reading “Mississippi Lawyer Jailed — For Not Reciting Pledge of Allegiance”
* The Phelps clan brought their classy roadshow to the Supreme Court yesterday. [Washington Post]
* What would I do with a million dollars? Two chicks at the same time, man. Then I’d hire Jonathan Turley. [TMZ]
* Alright, stop. Collaborate and listen. ICE is stealing all the illegals out the kitchen. [Los Angeles Times]
* Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has barred a key witness from testifying against an alleged terrorist because the identity of the witness was discovered after a vigorous torturing. C’mon, torture? Bros in the comments section call that Thursday night. [Associated Press]
* In Florida, it’s fun to do bad things, do hood rat stuff with your friends, smoke cigarettes…and successfully sue tobacco companies. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Chris Armstrong went on Anderson Cooper’s show last night to tell other gay kids that it gets better. Then some laughably weird assistant AG obsesses over you. Well, that took a turn for the worse, didn’t it? [CNN]
In December 2008, then-Chief Judge Jack Camp (N.D. Ga.) gave an interesting interview to the Fulton County Daily Report. In explaining his decision to enter the semiretired state available to certain federal judges known as senior status, Judge Camp said that senior status would allow him to do some things “I really want to do, but never had a chance to do.”
Things like cocaine, marijuana, oxycodone, and a prostitute named Sherry Ann Ramos — if law enforcement allegations are to be believed, that is. (Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, especially the exalted legal deities known as Article III judges, and Judge Camp’s attorney has stated that His Honor plans to plead not guilty.)
Let’s behold the hottie who may have been been the Georgia jurist’s downfall — and hear from some folks who have interacted with Judge Camp….
Continue reading “Notes on Camp: More on the Federal Judge Accused of Drug (and Whore) Use”
Is that a Burberry check or are you just happy to see me?
* Burberry sues Body Glove over an iPhone cover that makes your phone look like the inside of a Burberry trench coat. If Body Glove ever makes a condom packet that looks like the inside of a Burberry trench coat, married men will be interested in the proceedings. [Fashionista]
* The new biography of Justice Brennan, by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel, sounds like it was worth the decade-long wait. [New York Times]
* UCI Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has a new book out too. Progressives should have some nice reading material when they take their long international vacations after the November elections. [Los Angeles Times]
* If you’re at the point where you need a career counselor to remind you to shower, you probably need us to remind you to put your clothes back on, after your shower, before you go to your interview. [The Careerist]
* Unemployment can ruin a bunny’s birthday. [Tortbunnies]
* If you think about it, Jesus was actually a crap motivator. Seriously, he rallied what, a dozen out-of-work fishermen and a prostitute? Bill Belichick motivates more people to risk their lives for him every Sunday. Federal employees should think about that next time they organize a speaker series. [Out of the Storm News]
* This slideshow of terrible self-promoters includes a couple of lawyers. [Huffington Post]
* Congratulations to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who will be honored by the ABA next week for her work promoting the rule of law. [American Bar Association]
* Are you a current law student interested in juvenile justice policy and legal research? Help a sister out. [Dissertation Study Post]
If you spend any time around criminal defense lawyers, progressive lawyers, or people in a black barber shop, you’ll hear the claim that African-American criminal defendants receive harsher sentences than their white counterparts. People have done studies about this, people have written reports about this, people have held conferences about this institutional expression of discrimination.
Rarely do we see anybody trying to do anything about it. There are many reasons this fundamental unfairness persists, but only one of those reasons makes any sense: at the end of the day, nobody wants to be more lenient on a convicted criminal just because that criminal is black. And nobody wants to be more harsh towards a white criminal just because he’s white. So while we have these wide variations in sentencing outcomes, judges can’t re-balance the system from the bench. They have to sentence the criminal in front of them.
But that doesn’t mean judges are blind to the racial injustice of the system. And it doesn’t mean that judges can’t do what they have to in order to make sure that a particular punishment fits the crime.
I’m sure that Judge Joseph Williams of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, will be making all of those arguments shortly. Because he just threw out a plea on the grounds that the prosecutor had been too lenient on the young criminal, just because the criminal is white.
And to be clear, this wasn’t a passing or offhand remark from Judge Williams. Instead, he really laid into the prosecutor in this case…
Continue reading “Judge Rejects Plea Deal as Something ‘That Only Goes to White Boys’”
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Home to the Lord of all law reviews, Gannett House on the HLS campus.
All law reviews are not created equal. We all know this.
But the prestige of your law review isn’t directly correlated to the prestige of your law school. One obvious case of that is the fact that the Harvard Law Review is widely considered to be the most prestigious law review, even though Yale has a better law school (according to U.S. News… and people who don’t like crowds).
Unfortunately, U.S. News does not rank law reviews — at least not yet. One day, U.S. News will rank everything from high school debate programs to cremation operations; for now, we are left with only our general assumptions about who has the best law review.
But not anymore. The good people at Concurring Opinions have found a website that puts together a fairly competent rating of the nation’s best law reviews. Finally, students who edit the best law reviews, and professors who publish in them, can point to a list when they are trying to use their prestige to pull digits at a bar.
And this list passes the smell test, which is to say it pretty much tells us what we already think we know…
Continue reading “Ranking the Law Reviews”
First, a couple of notable non-legal nuptials: Kelly McGillis (of Top Gun and Witness) married her long-time girlfriend. Short ceremony, long write-up.
There’s also perhaps the most painfully stylish wedding we’ve ever come across. The bride is the daughter of modernist architect Richard Meier, who keeps his homes “very relaxed and casual but everything has to be perfect” — “[e]ven the Snapple bottles are lined up perfectly in the pantry.” (Oh . . . so not really relaxed and casual at all.) Watch the slideshow of the uber-posh wedding, and take note of those origami flowers; you’ll be seeing poorly executed versions in weddings near you for the next few years.
Now, our legal eagle couples. Here are the finalists:
1. Nicole Moen and Michael Skoglund
2. Jennifer Ain and Russell Lippman
3. Anne Green and Leonard Braman
Marvel at these couples’ résumés, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Green Day”
Edith Massey
Ed. note: This post is written by Will Meyerhofer, a Biglaw attorney turned psychotherapist. A former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney, he holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work. He blogs at The People’s Therapist.
There’s a scene in John Waters’ classic film, Female Trouble, in which Edith Massey, playing Aunt Ida, begs her nephew, Gator, to give the gay lifestyle a chance.
Gator, poor thing, refuses, which sends Ida into pleading desperation. Here’s the dialogue:
Gator: Ain’t no way; I’m straight. I like a lot of queers, but I don’t dig their equipment, you know? I like women!
Ida: But you could change! Queers are just better. I’d be so happy if you was a fag, and had a nice beautician boyfriend… I’d never have to worry.
Gator: There ain’t nothing to worry about.
Ida: I worry that you’ll work in an office! Have children! Celebrate wedding anniversaries! The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life!
Sometimes I feel this way about the world of law….
Continue reading “A Sick and Boring Life”
The American Lawyer just released its annual summer associate job survey. Back in the day, law students paid a lot of attention to how summers before them enjoyed their summer associate experience. Of course, back in the day the summer associate experience used to be a 12-week-long recruiting event.
Now, it’s a 12 (or 10, or 8) week job interview. And the stress of that showed up in the summer associate surveys.
But despite a difficult job market, some summers still found time to bitch about the lack of lavish recruiting lunches. And Am Law looked at all the surveys and came up with a ranking of the top summer program.
Let’s take a look at the best (and the whiniest) summer programs…
Continue reading “Summer Associate Job Survey: The Kids Are Still Stressed”
[T]hat’s how law clerks are hired. That’s how baristas at Starbucks are hired. You have to ask these open-ended questions because as an employer, you don’t really know… where the pressure points or danger spots in an individual application are.
– Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, comparing hiring law clerks to hiring Starbucks baristas, during oral argument in NASA v. Nelson.
Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber.
* There isn’t a defense attorney on earth who could spare Steven Hayes from the death penalty. [CBS News]
* The Times Square “bomber” warned against more failures like him at his sentencing. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. [Associated Press]
* For homeowners living near wind turbines, the future’s so loud, they gotta wear earplugs. [New York Times]
* For homeowners on the brink of foreclosure, help may be on the way. Unless, of course, they really can’t pay the bills. In which case, Pelosi’s call to arms is just delaying the hobo lifestyle. [Washington Post]
* In oral arguments for a case challenging government background checks, Justice Alito asked if “the government could ask people to fill out forms revealing what they ate, what they read or whether they smoked cigarettes and to describe their sex lives.” They didn’t ask me, but I’ll answer anyway: Hamburger Helper, The Notebook, yes, and weird. Real weird. [WSJ Law Blog]
* For the Underwear Bride, there were pics, it did happen, and yet… she still ain’t getting squat. [New York Post]
* Lawsuits are pouring in over Obamacare — The Cooch is coming, y’all. [USA Today]
* A new caste system is emerging in law firms, according to this article. That means a contract attorney like me is an untouchable. [Legal Intelligencer]
Stud lawyers in Texas could have a more difficult time mating with their own clients.
Today many people made time to talk about Texas legal ethics — specifically, a proposal in front of the Texas bar that would prohibit lawyers from having sex with their clients. It’s a rule most jurisdictions have in one form or another. It’s not obvious that getting this rule enacted in Texas would be a huge problem.
But to paraphrase Louis Gossett Jr., “only two things come from Texas, steers and [a horribly anachronistic term that rhymes with 'steers'].”
Let’s deal with the steers first. It seems that the people against the new Texas Bar proposal are afraid that clients might just make up tales of affairs, and Texas lawyers — you know, people specially trained in methods of recognizing and producing evidence — will have no way to defend themselves…
Continue reading “Texas Tries to C**kblock Lawyers from Getting Their Freak on With Clients”
PC Guy has a lot to gloat about right now.
* An interesting way of thinking about your law firm experience, from Yolanda Young (of Young v. Covington & Burling fame). [On Being A Black Lawyer]
* Some advice for lawyers: be sure to give your secretary a really nice holiday gift. [Young Lawyers Blog]
* Do you prefer a Jewish lawyer? You’re in good company. [Tablet]
* Apple could end up paying $625.5 million in a patent case. Proposes a WSJ commenter: “They need to settle. Apple should offer an I-Phone and spotty coverage for life.” [WSJ Law Blog]
* If you talk trash about for-profit schools by suggesting that they dispense worthless degrees (which many of them do), could you get sued? [Full Disclosure / Forbes]
* We have no comment on the possible sale of our sister site Dealbreaker to the New York Observer — but our ex-colleague, former Dealbreaker editor John Carney, does. [CNBC]
* If FindLaw has helped you out with a legal issue, tell your story — and possibly win a cash prize ($1,000 or $5,000). [FindLaw]
A year ago (almost to the day), we learned that Belmont University in Nashville was planning to start a new law school. At the time, I asked: “[H]ow colossally dumb are the people who sign up for a Belmont law degree next year?”
Well, there’s an article in the Tennessean today suggesting that the new dean of Belmont College of Law, Jeff Kinsler, is hoping his new students are so incapable of doing basic research than they’ll be easily distracted by anything that even smells of “math” or “statistics.”
And apparently his faith has been rewarded. With 1,200 inquiries from prospective students, it seems that Belmont is well on its way to handing out potentially useless degrees.
But what’s going on at Belmont is so ridiculous that it has even attracted the attention of the American Bar Association. You read that right. Even the ABA is saying “wait a minute” to students eager to sign up for whatever Belmont is offering….
Continue reading “Someone at the ABA Is Aware That New Law Schools Make No Sense”
Cosmo's Most Eligible Bachelors
Objectifying men is hot right now. The Duke F**k List, recent Duke grad Karen Owen’s candid appraisal of the various men she slept with, is burning up the internet. Here at Above the Law, we’re getting a ton of traffic to a silly little post about some hot male ass in Chicago.
This seems like good timing, then, for the arrival of Cosmopolitan magazine’s Bachelor of the Year contest. We learned about the competition, in which readers vote for their favorite from 51 bachelors (50 states + D.C.), via Going Concern (our sister site, until recently).
Caleb Newquist of Going Concern highlighted Carl Koenemann, an aspiring accountant who looks great with his shirt off. But the bachelors up for bids also include three legal eagles: two law students, and one practicing lawyer.
Perhaps you’ve met one or more of these hunks. Let’s get to know them a little better (and check out some shirtless pics), shall we?
Continue reading “Cosmo’s Bachelor of the Year Contest — With Hot Law Students and Lawyers”
