A tale of two Yalies: former president Bill Clinton and aspiring senator Joe Miller.
According to the all-powerful ranking gods of U.S. News, Yale Law School is the nation’s #1 law school. In fact, Yale has been the top law school ever since the magazine started ranking law schools.
Recently, however, controversy has arisen over possible damage to the school’s reputation. As first reported in today’s New York Daily News, former President Bill Clinton and Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller are pointing fingers at each other for “diminish[ing] the university’s reputation as an elite institution.”
Let’s explore the spat — and review and vote on the seven contenders for Yale Law School’s most disgraceful graduate….
Continue reading “Who Is Yale Law School’s Most Disgraceful Graduate?
A gallery of seven rogues and a poll.“
Obamacare
* A federal judge allows state challenges to Obamacare go forward. Whatever, wake me up in 15 years when we have to have the single-payer debate again. [Wall Street Journal]
* The purpose of teaching lawyers how to act isn’t to help them become better liars. [End Scene, Exit Right]. [Underdog]
* “It’s okay in Italy” is not a viable defense to sexual harassment. [Courthouse News Service via @kashhill]
* British billionaire Alki David will pay Obama streaker’s rent for a year, and his sister’s hospital bills, but not the full $1 million. [ABC News]
* CVS is getting smacked so hard, you’d think it was a supporting character on Breaking Bad. [CNN Money]
* A bunch of big name law professors, including several members of the Volokh Conspiracy, signed a letter endorsing the legalization of pot in California. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Musical chairs: congrats to Lat’s former Wachtell colleague, Scott Black, who has left the SEC and joined Hudson Bay Capital Management as general counsel and chief compliance officer. [Dow Jones]
It doesn't help that Rich Whitney kind of looks like a Rich Whitey.
Sometimes, typos matter — a lot. We’ve seen typos get law firms into all kinds of trouble. And now a typo might ruin the already slim gubernatorial chances of a Green Party candidate.
Running on the Green Party line, Rich Whitney wasn’t likely to become the next Governor of Illinois anyway. But an error at the Chicago Board of Elections will cause Whitney’s name to be misspelled as “Whitey” on some touch screen ballots this November. Of the 23 wards affected by this typo, half of them are in largely African-American districts. And the error cannot not be fixed in time for Election Day.
So yeah, black people in Chicago will be able to vote for “Rich Whitey” this fall.
You remember that scene in Die Hard With a Vengeance where Bruce Willis has to stand in the middle of Harlem while wearing an offensive sandwich board? Things are going to turn out marginally better for Rich Whitney, but clearly Whitney would have been better off changing his last name to “not the whiteman’s bitch.” Or even “Kill Whitey,” as Juggalo Law suggests…
Continue reading “Election Snafu Hurts ‘Whitey’”
The Google Car has been heralded as the future of automobiles: an autonomous, driver-less car that combines our love of technology with our endless desire for mobility.
The so-called “Google Car” is a Toyota Prius outfitted with data-recording cameras that has already traveled more than 140,000 miles, in a variety of real-world conditions without an accident. Well, there was that one.
A driver rear ended a Google Car while it was stopped at a red light, according to The New York Times piece that broke the story. While a technician sits behind the wheel, it’s the car’s programming that does most of the driving, with only occasional human adjustments, as needed.
There are many potential benefits from cars that drive themselves, such as tuning the engine to coast as efficiently possible, increasing the capacity of existing roads, and the unassailable fact that machines don’t get tired, they don’t get drunk, and they don’t get distracted. But they’re still machines. Even a reliability rate of 99.99 percent means that an accident is bound to happen at some point. And this means that somebody’s gonna get sued.
Read and comment about who should be held liable, over on our sister site, Alt Transport…
This past week, bestselling author Seth Godin pointed out that most bloggers and users of social media are failing miserably:
There are millions of songs on iTunes that have sold zero copies. Millions of blog posts that get zero visitors each day.
The long tail is real… given the ability, people create more variety. Given the choice, people seek out what’s just right for them to consume. But, and there’s a big but, there’s no guarantee that the ends of the long tail start producing revenue or traffic. And a million times zero is still zero.
So what are attorneys with little or no traffic to their blogs doing wrong? Let’s discuss….
Continue reading “The Key to a Good Law Blog? Try Listening.”
Court approved sippy-cup for lawyers appearing before Judge Gene Gasiorkiewicz.
If you’re a fan of state officials wasting valuable time, resources, and mental energy over issues of decorum and etiquette, you’re going to love Wisconsin Judge Gene Gasiorkiewicz. The Journal Times (gavel bang: ABA Journal) reports that this new Racine County Circuit Court judge has hit the bench with all sorts of decorum rules for lawyers appearing in his courtroom.
Many of the new rules are of the dress-code nature that we’ve come to expect from judges more concerned with style than substance. Judge Gasiorkiewicz requires Reagan-esque “coat and tie” attire in his courtroom. And, of course, ladies must have a mastectomy show absolutely no cleavage. We can’t have judges being distracted by barrel-chested men wearing mock turtlenecks or women with plunging necklines.
But while everybody is aware that judges have the attention span of goldfish and can be easily distracted by attorney attire, nobody expected Judge Gasiorkiewicz to take his Orwellian need for conformity all the way down to the level of beverage holders. But that’s because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Lawyers appearing before Judge Gasiorkiewicz now must use court-issued mugs.
And Wisconsin lawyers don’t seem to be pitching a fit over it. Either these attorneys are as docile as dairy cows, or they’ve decided to “let the baby have his bottle”….
Continue reading “Judge of the Day: Wisconsin Jurist Manages to Get a Stick All the Way Up His Butt”
Yonni Barrios and his mistress Susan Valenzuela. It's going to be awesome when Angelina Jolie plays her in the movie.
I don’t normally follow the news, because that’s how I roll. But stories that involve “miracles,” “tests of courage” and the “triumph of the human spirit” have my name written all over them. Such was the case with yesterday’s rescue of the Chilean miners.
The premise of 33 sweaty, sex-starved men entombed 20,000 leagues under the earth’s surface is itself an automatic made-for-tv-movie starring Mario Lopez and Tony Danza. Throw in some of the rich details that have come out of this underground vacation from hell, and you have surefire Oscar gold.
There’s the preposterous Lord of the Flies-esque ascribing of a persona to each of the miners (medic, scribe, ingénue, happy, sleepy, dopey, etc.); the amazing eBay crap that they sent down to the miners, which included dice, pocket bibles, signed Barcelona soccer shirts, game consoles, and a photo of Elvis; the hilarious subplot of avarice and entitlement (sending back a dessert of canned apples, requesting pillows); and, finally, the pièce de résistance, the priceless vignette of miner Yonni Barrios’s wife and secret mistress discovering each other at the makeshift vigil-city.
So, what should the movie be called?
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Chilean Miners Lawyer Up for Media Deals”
Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell may not be a witch, but she won’t be mistaken for a legal scholar either. In last night’s debate, when asked by moderator Nancy Karibjanian to name a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision with which she disagrees, O’Donnell came up empty. After Karibjanian noted the important responsibility that senators have to vote on appointments to the Supreme Court, this exchange ensued:
KARIBJANIAN: What opinions of late that have come from our high court do you most object to?
O’DONNELL: Oh, gosh, um…. Give me a specific one, I’m sorry.
KARIBJANIAN: Actually, I can’t, because I need you to tell me which ones you object to.
O’DONNELL: Um, I’m very sorry…. Right off the top of my head, I know that there are a lot. I’ll put it up on my website, I promise you.
Maybe this Mama Grizzly needs to crawl back to the den and curl up with some slip opinions?
But wait! We offer a defense of O’Donnell, who partially redeemed her initial flub, plus video — after the jump.
Continue reading “Christine O’Donnell Pulls a Palin and Flubs a SCOTUS Question”
This week we present part two of our series on using internal networking to advance your career within your law firm. Last week we discussed networking to make partner; this week’s focus is on how to get better assignments.
As we mentioned last week, 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.
So what can you do to get better assignments?
Continue reading “Career Center: Tips on Networking Within Your Firm to Advance Your Career (Part 2)”
Biglaw salaries are no secret. You can find numbers all over the internet, including places like oh, I don’t know, Above the Law (not just the home page, but also the Career Center).
But what about information for everyone else? You already know what I made during my time at a small firm, but that doesn’t really help unless you’re looking for a job at my old firm (surprise, they’re not hiring).
Those looking to smaller firm options need information — law students especially. The OCI music has stopped, and there are plenty of people left standing. The good news is that there are other places to sit down. The bad news is that nobody can tell whether sitting in those seats will earn them enough to keep their creditors at bay.
With that and a general interest in the dissemination of information in mind, please take this short survey, so I can begin compiling some hard numbers on small firm salaries. As always, survey responses are kept completely confidential. I’ll sort, analyze and package the results in some kind of eye-pleasing manner.
Please click HERE to take the SURVEY. And please pass the survey along to any of your friends at small firms; the more responses I get, the more accurate and reliable the findings will be.
If you’d like to offer any other salary-related information or clever commentary, or have tips or story suggestions, please email me at Little Richard at gmail dot com. Thanks!
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of small law firms
It's not like fat people fail cooking.
* Who needs a more experienced co-pilot to fly an airplane when you can just hire a rookie on the cheap? It’s not like tort lawsuits are expensive or anything. [Washington Post]
* A major FLSA lawsuit is cooking in Chef Mario Batali’s 4-star Del Posto kitchen. [Wall Street Journal]
* Washingtonian women have a constitutional right to ride the pole, but this puritanical city isn’t having it. [Seattle Times via Yakima Herald-Republic]
* Dude looks like a lady: the L.P.G.A. is facing a lawsuit for requiring its golfers to be female at birth. [New York Times]
* Kansas City to 180k? A local attorney gets disbarred after charging an outrageous $3,500 hourly fee. [National Law Journal]
* Blow jobs will be scarce in Coral Gables, FL if this new law is approved by the City Commission. [ABA Journal via Miami Herald]
* The forum for the Facebook ownership lawsuit hinges on Mark Zuckerberg’s domicile. Looks like Ceglia’s lawyer needs to go back to 1L CivPro class. [Bloomberg]
I doubt that I will be there in January.
– Justice Samuel Alito, making a humorous and self-deprecating reference to the last time he attended the State of the Union, in response to an audience question after he delivered this year’s Wriston Lecture at the Manhattan Institute.
Here’s seemingly every affirmative action conversation I’ve had since I started working at Above the Law:
PLEBES: Affirmative action is racist — reverse-racist. It lets an under-qualified minority get into a school I deserved to get into, just because of their skin color! And why? Because 100 years ago things were tough for blacks? Not fair! [Some quote from Justice Roberts I'll care about the minute I care about what an aging white man thinks about racial harmony in America.]
ELIE: Actually, affirmative action can be justified by simply pointing out that diversity of thought and experience is essential when it comes to educating people.
PLEBES: It should be about merit! [Quotes standardized test statistics as if the LSAT is both objective and a standard of merit.] If you get a higher score on a test, you should get in over someone who gets a lower score. That’s merit!
ELIE: But we know that universities look at all sorts of things when considering applicants. They look at whether you have any other talents like sports or music. They look at legacy status…
PLEBES: [Foaming at the mouth now] Legacies are an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THING. We’re talking about discrimination based on RACE. That’s ILLEGAL!
But maybe people shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss concerns about legacy admissions. According to Richard D. Kahlenberg, editor of a new book called Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions, legacy admissions are bad policy — and potentially unconstitutional…
Continue reading “Are Legacy Admissions Unconstitutional?”
A Westboro Baptist Church protester.
* Does this explain Boies Schiller’s great media coverage? Their PR person is in bed with the media. [Gawker and AllThingsD]
* Speaking of romantic entanglements, here are six rules for law firm dating, in case you don’t follow Rule #1: Don’t. [Sweet Hot Justice]
* McDermott isn’t the only law firm switching digs. The folks at Ropes always struck us as Prudential people. [Ropes & Gray]
* The defendants in the Robert Wone civil case have moved for a gag order — which isn’t surprising, since they have a thing for gags. [Who Murdered Robert Wone?]
* A nice round-up of reactions to Snyder v. Phelps, aka the Westboro Baptist Church case, and the Pincus Family Law firm’s controversial website. [Infamy or Praise]
* Do WestlawNext and Amazon use the same design firm? [Law Riot]
* Is America “drowning in law”? Covington partner Philip K. Howard, author of Life Without Lawyers, thinks so. [New York Daily News]
Animal abusers now must tell me and my dog where they are if they live in Suffolk County.
Suffolk County, my old ‘hood, just took a huge step forward in the cause for animal rights. The WSJ Law Blog reports:
New York’s Suffolk County legislature on Wednesday signed off on a measure that would publicly name anyone convicted of animal abuse by having them report to a registry for five years after their conviction.
“Most serial killers began as animal abusers,” Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Chief Roy Gross told the North Shore Sun. “It’s a known fact: people who hurt animals hurt people too.”
Good. Great. Parents don’t want their kids hanging out at the sex offender’s house next door, and they really shouldn’t want their kids hanging out with the neighbor who mistreats and harms defenseless animals as well. People who prey on weak animals will soon prey on weak people.
And here’s the follow up legislation, which should be a no-brainer….
Continue reading “Animal Abusers Are One Step Closer to Being Treated Like the Soon-To-Be Human Abusers They Really Are”
With a new Term underway, the Supreme Court geeks among you might want to check out, and sign up for, FantasySCOTUS. You can read about it here and register here. (There’s also an educational version for the kiddies.)
The SCOTUS geeks among you might also be interested in the continued action on the law clerk hiring front. In the wake of last week’s post, we received news of several more hires for October Term 2011. Thanks to everyone who contacted us with information; we can’t perform this clearinghouse function without your help.
Without further ado, let’s look at the latest hires for OT 2011….
Continue reading “Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Over Half of October Term 2011 Clerks Have Been Hired”
Should there be a siren on that car?
Tech-savvy people who love porn seem to know that one can avoid trouble by keeping the dirty stuff on an external hard drive (an effective tactic, except if you’re an SEC lawyer).
Non-tech-savvy people don’t think about this. And those same people are the types who take their laptops to the Geek Squad when they need computer help. Such a trip to Best Buy led to a 10-year prison sentence for Alabama resident Corey Beantee Melton.
In 2005, Melton sought the help of Best Buy’s Geek Squad because he was having trouble connecting to the Internet. Their initial assessment indicated the problem was originating from Melton’s DVD drive, so he left his laptop in their care and went on his merry way.
When the Geeks did their diagnostic scans of the computer, they found a pesky virus that appeared to be linked to specific files on Melton’s computer. Those particular files had names of a “very explicit nature,” says a judicial opinion in the case (hat tip: Eric Goldman for sending the opinion my way — see an old post of his for examples of filenames of an explicit nature).
The Geeks freaked — and called in the boys in blue, as they suspected they’d found child porn…
Continue reading “Child Porn Found by the Geek Squad Can and Will Be Used Against You in a Court of Law”
Let’s close the loop on the latest changes to the Harvard Law School grading system. Last month, we reported on stealth grade reform at HLS. The school decided to attach numerical values to all of its grades — and place students numerical GPAs on their transcripts.
That was a big deal because Harvard made a big show of moving away from letter grading just last year. What’s the point of having no letter grades if your GPA can still be easily reduced to a four point scale?
Well, there is no point. And the latest changes confirm that the school’s experiment with no letter grades was just a useless and annoying show. The most recent changes will remove the GPA calculation from the students’ transcripts — but most employers should still be able to figure it out, provided they understand basic math…
Continue reading “Harvard Law School Will Now Hide GPAs (Or At Least Force Employers to Buy a Calculator)”
Thanks to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law:
If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!
On Friday, we showed you what might very well be the best law firm website photo of all time. It came to us from the other side of the pond (where it had been noticed by RollOnFriday).
We solicited possible captions, with preference given to ones that would constitute alternative bios for the lawyer in question. You gave us a few good ones, so we decided to turn them into a caption contest….
Continue reading “Best Law Firm Website Photo: Caption Contest”
